Mahmoud Darwish's "Your Night is of Lilac"

Your Night is of Lilac

The night sits wherever you are. Your night

is of lilac. Every now and then a gesture escapes

from the beam of your dimples, breaks the wineglass

and lights up the starlight. And your night is your shadow—

a fairy-tale piece of land to make our dreams

equal. I am not a traveler or a dweller

in your lilac night, I am he who was one day

me. Whenever night grew in you I guessed

the heart’s rank between two grades: neither

the self accepts, nor the soul accepts. But in our bodies

a heaven and an earth embrace. And all of you

is your night ... radiant night like planet ink. Night

is the covenant of night, crawling in my body

anesthetized like a fox’s sleepiness. Night diffusing a mystery

that illuminates my language, whenever it is clearer

I become more fearful of a tomorrow in the fist. Night

staring at itself safe and assured in its

endlessness, nothing celebrates it except its mirror

and the ancient shepherd songs in a summer of emperors

who get sick on love. Night that flourished in its Jahili poetry

on the whims of Imru’ el-Qyss and others,

and widened for the dreamers the milk path to a hungry

moon in the remoteness of speech ...

G.M. Hopkins' "Heaven-Haven" & Philip Larkin's "Ugly Sister"

Heaven-Haven

A nun takes the veil

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

Ugly Sister 

I will climb thirty steps to my room,
Lie on my bed;
Let the music, the violin, cornet and drum
Drowse from my head.
Since I was not bewitched in adolescence
And brought to love,
I will attend to the trees and their gracious silence,
To winds that move.

John Donne's "The Good-Morrow"

 The Good-Morrow

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Philip Larkin's "Water"

Water

If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.

Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;

My litany would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,

And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.

Richard Wilbur's "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World"

Love Calls Us to the Things of This World

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,

And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul   

Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple   

As false dawn.

                     Outside the open window   

The morning air is all awash with angels.

    Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,   

Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.   

Now they are rising together in calm swells   

Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear   

With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

    Now they are flying in place, conveying

The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving   

And staying like white water; and now of a sudden   

They swoon down into so rapt a quiet

That nobody seems to be there.

                                             The soul shrinks

    From all that it is about to remember,

From the punctual rape of every blessèd day,

And cries,

               “Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,   

Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam

And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.”

    Yet, as the sun acknowledges

With a warm look the world’s hunks and colors,   

The soul descends once more in bitter love   

To accept the waking body, saying now

In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,   

    “Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;

Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;   

Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,   

And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating   

Of dark habits,

                      keeping their difficult balance.”

Emily Dickinson's "Life -- is what we make of it --"

Life — is what we make of it –
Death — we do not know –
Christ’s acquaintance with Him
Justify Him — though –
He — would trust no stranger –
Other — could betray –
Just His own endorsement –
That — sufficeth Me –
All the other Distance
He hath traversed first –
No New Mile remaineth –
Far as Paradise –
His sure foot preceding –
Tender Pioneer –
Base must be the Coward
Dare not venture — now –

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī's "Ghazal 636" (3 translations)

Ghazal 636

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone
suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

 Ghazal 636

Go and die, go and die,
in this love, go and die.
Once you've died in this love,
you shall become a holy spirit.

Go and die, go and die,
don't  fear death, go and die.
Go and leave this dusty earth,
go fly high towards the sky.

Go and die, go and die,
go cut loose from your ego.
Your selfish ego is the shackles
holding you captive forever.

Go pick up a hammer,
go dig a huge hole into the prison of your own being.
Once you've torn down your prison,
you shall become a prince or king.

Go and die, go and die,
go die in front of your Beautiful King.
Once you've died for your Beautiful King,
you shall become  a royalty or celebrity.

Go and die, go and die,
go rise up high above your own darkest clouds.
Once you've risen above those clouds,
you shall become a brightly shining  moon.

Be silent, be silent,
Because silence is the very breath of death.
But silence is also the breath of life,
so don't moan or complain about silence.

Ghazal 636

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself in this love.
When you lose yourself in this love,
you will find everything.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Do not fear this loss,
For you will rise from the earth
and embrace the endless heavens.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Escape from this earthly form,
For this body is a chain
and you are its prisoner.
Smash through the prison wall
and walk outside with the kings and princes.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself at the foot of the glorious King.
When you lose yourself
before the King
you will become the King.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Escape from the black cloud
that surrounds you.
Then you will see your own light
as radiant as the full moon.

Now enter that silence.
This is the surest way
to lose yourself....

What is your life about, anyway? -
Nothing but a struggle to be someone,
Nothing but a running from your own silence.