Liberian Literary Magazine
SARA TEASDALE
Advice To A Girl
No one worth possessing Can be quite possessed ; Lay that on your heart , My young angry dear ; This truth , this hard and precious stone , Lay it on your hot cheek , Let it hide your tear . Hold it like a crystal When you are alone And gaze in the depths of the icy stone . Long , look long and you will be blessed : No one worth possessing Can be quite possessed .
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Thoreau ' s Flute
We sighing said , " Our Pan is dead ; His pipe hangs mute beside the river Around it wistful sunbeams quiver , But Music ' s airy voice is fled . Spring mourns as for untimely frost ; The bluebird chants a requiem ; The willow-blossom waits for him ; The Genius of the wood is lost ."
Then from the flute , untouched by hands , There came a low , harmonious breath : " For such as he there is no death ; His life the eternal life commands ; Above man ' s aims his nature rose . The wisdom of a just content Made one small spot a continent And turned to poetry life ' s prose .
" Haunting the hills , the stream , the wild , Swallow and aster , lake and pine , To him grew human or divine , Fit mates for this large-hearted child . Such homage Nature ne ' er forgets , And yearly on the coverlid ' Neath which her darling lieth hid Will write his name in violets .
" To him no vain regrets belong Whose soul , that finer instrument , Gave to the world no poor lament , But wood-notes ever sweet and strong . O lonely friend ! he still will be A potent presence , though unseen , Steadfast , sagacious , and serene ; Seek not for him -- he is with thee ."
Promoting Liberian literature , Arts and Culture
WALT WHITMAN
A Noiseless Patient Spider
A noiseless , patient spider , I mark ’ d , where , on a little promontory , it stood , isolated ; Mark ’ d how , to explore the vacant , vast surrounding , It launch ’ d forth filament , filament , filament , out of itself ; Ever unreeling them — ever tirelessly speeding them .
And you , O my Soul , where you stand , Surrounded , surrounded , in measureless oceans of space , Ceaselessly musing , venturing , throwing ,— seeking the spheres , to connect them ; Till the bridge you will need , be form ’ d — till the ductile anchor hold ; Till the gossamer thread you fling , catch somewhere , O my Soul ..
THOMAS HARDY
Drummer Hodge
They throw in Drummer Hodge , to rest Uncoffined -- just as found : His landmark is a kopje-crest That breaks the veldt around : And foreign constellations west Each night above his mound .
Young Hodge the drummer never knew -- Fresh from his Wessex home -- The meaning of the broad Karoo , The Bush , the dusty loam , And why uprose to nightly view Strange stars amid the gloam .
Yet portion of that unknown plain Will Hodge for ever be ; His homely Northern breast and brain Grow to some Southern tree , And strange-eyed constellations reign His stars eternally .
59