This is an anthology of well known poets from various countries.To find out more about these poets click on their names and follow the wikipedia link.
1)
This night too
1)
A Remote Beginning
by
(March 1980)
will collapse
under its own weight
like all the others
which went before it.
After the demolition squad
will come
a featureless crowd of mourners
premature archaeologists
and daylight’s petty thieves
Where will I find
my inheritance-----
in the mad calligraphy of trees
or a clear plunge
into the pool of many betrayals?
Dreams blossom
only in wakefulness
and all our shadows
come circling back
to a remote beginning.
2)
Only death can cure
Only death can cure
3)
6)
7)
2)
by
(Ghalib translated by Daud Kamal)
Only death can cure
The fret and fever of life.
The candle will writhe and burn
In a multiple variety of colours
Till the crack of dawn.
Snow
by
Mao Tse Tung (Zedong)
-to the tune of Chin Yuan Chun
(February 1936)
by
Mao Tse Tung (Zedong)
-to the tune of Chin Yuan Chun
(February 1936)
North country scene:
A hundred leagues locked in ice,
A thousand leagues of whirling snow.
Both sides of the Great Wall
One single white immensity.
The Yellow River's swift curant
Is stilled from end to end.
The mountains dance like silver snakes
And the highlands* charge like wax hued elephants,
Vying with heaven in stature.
On a fine day, the land,
Clad in white adorned in red,
Grows more enchanting.
This land so rich in beauty
Has made contless heroes bow in homage.
But alas! Chin Shih-huang and Han Wu-ti
Were lacking in literary grace,
And Tang Tai-tsung and Sung Tai-tsu
Had little poetry in there souls;
And Genghis Khan,
Proud son of Heaven for a day,
Knew only shooting eagles, bow overstreched.
All are past and gone!
For truly great men
Loook to this age alone.
*Author's Note: The highlands are those of Shensi and Shansi
4)
This Lifeby
(Ghalib translated by Daud Kamal)
This Life is but a migratory bird,
A shaft of quivering sunbeams,
An elusive phantasy …
And those who imagine
That they are awake
Are prisoners of hallucinations,
Dream-entangled.
5)
Speak
by
(Faiz Ahmad Faiz translated by Daud Kamal)
Speak – your lips are free.
Speak – your tongue is still yours.
This magnificent body
Is still yours.
Speak – your life is still yours.
Look inside the smithy –
Leaping flames, red-hot iron.
Padlocks open their jaws.
Chains disintegrate.
Speak – there is little time
But it is enough.
Time enough
Before the body perishes –
Before the tongue atrophies.
Speak – truth still lives.
Say what you have to say.
Captivity
by
(Faiz Ahmad Faiz translated by Daud Kamal)
What does it matter
If pen and paper
Have been snatched
From my hands?
I have
Dipped
My fingers in the blood
Of my heart.
What does it matter
If
My lips have been sealed?
I have put a tongue
In every link
Of my chain.
SONNET 18
by
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest,
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
8)
The Daffodils
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out did the sparkling waves in glee:
poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
9)
All That is Gold Does Not Glitter
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
8)
