Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
domingo, 10 de marzo de 2013
It may not always be so; and I say
it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;
if this should be, I say if this should be--
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.
by e.e. cummings
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;
if this should be, I say if this should be--
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.
by e.e. cummings
sábado, 16 de febrero de 2013
fog
Fog
—after Pascoli's "Nebbia"Hide every distant thing,
you wan impalpable fog,
you smoke still tendrilling
into dawn
from the crumbled landslides of air
and night lightning.
Hide every distant thing
from me. Hide the dead.
That I might see only this hedge
in the garden
and the valerian as it springs
up through the garden wall.
Hide every distant thing;
they're all of them drunk on tears!
So I might see only the pear
and apple trees,
which yield a smooth, soothing honey
for my hard bread.
Hide every distant thing
that calls me to love and to leave.
So I might see only the white streak
of road, down which one day
I'll keep shared time
to the diminishing toll of the bell.
Hide every distant thing,
hide all of them, wing them
away from my heart. So I might see
only the cypress tree
here, in the garden, where near
to me, my dog drowses off.
martes, 29 de enero de 2013
martes, 22 de enero de 2013
miércoles, 28 de noviembre de 2012
The Conquest of Happiness
Notes from the conquest of happiness, the best help book I think I've read.
What I do maintain is that success can only be one ingredient in happiness, and is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it.
There are only two reasons for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
A child develops best when left undisturbed in the same soil.
What ever we wish to think, we are creatures of the Earth; our life is part of the life of Earth, and we draw our nourishment from it just as the plants and animals do.
A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.
Voluntarily or involuntarily, of choice or of necessity, most moderns lead a nerve-racking life and are continually too tied to be capable of enjoyment without the help of alcohol.
...worry could be prevented by a better philosophy of life and a little more mental discipline.
The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or if it is at night, about nothing at all.
It is amazing how much both happiness and efficiency can be increased by the cultivation of an orderly mind, which thinks about a matter adequately at the right time rather than inadequately at all times.
The man who can center his thoughts and hopes upon something transceding self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life which is impossible to the pure egoist.
The nervous breakdown which appears to be produced by the work is, in fact, in every case tht I have ever known personally, produced by some emotional trouble from which the patient attempts to escape by means of his work.
Worry is a form of fear and all fear is a form of fatigue.
on envy
The habit of thinking in terms of comparison is a fatal one.
You can get away from envy by enjoying the pleasures that come your way, by doing the work that you have to do, and by avoiding comparisons with those whom you imagine, perhaps quite falsely, to be more fortunate than yourself.
All bad things are interconnected, and any one of them is liable to be the cause of any other.
conscience - the fear of being found out.
It is in the moments when the mind is most active and the fewest things are fogotten that the most intense joys are experienced. The happiness that requires intoxication of no matter what sort is a spurious and unsatisfying kind. The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and the fullest realization of the world in which we live.
on persecution mania
remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself.
don't overestimate your own merits
don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself.
don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any desure to persecute you.
Whatever is to be done, can only be done adequately by the help of a certain zest, and zest is difficult without some self regarding motive.
No person should be expected to distort the main lines of his life for the sake of another individual.
very few people can be happy unless on the whole their way of life and their outlook on the world is approved by those with whom they have social relations, and more especially by those whom with they live.
Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, larely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.
The best way to increase toleration is ti multiply the number of individuals who enjoy real happiness and do not therefore find their chief pleasure in the infliction of pain upon their fellow men.
On Happiness
there are two sources, of the heart and of the head.
The man who underestimates himself is perpetually being surprised by success whereas the man who overestimates himself is pleasant, the latter is unpleasant.
Fundamental happiness depends more than anything else upon what may be called a friendly interest in person and things.
The person whose attitude towards others is genuinely of this kind will be a source of happiness and a recipient of reciprocal kindness.
If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more that it has to give. And to demand too much is the surest way of getting even less than possible.
The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, ad let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
zest is the secret of happiness and well-being.
The only sex relations that have real value are those in which there is no reticence and in which the whole personality of both becomes merged in a new collective personality. Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps most fatal to true happiness.
On family
I have the happiness of parenthood greater than any other I have experienced.
To be happy in this world, epecially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life flowing on from one gem to the remote and unknown future.
To the man or woman who has children and grandchilden and loves with a natural affection, the future is important, at any rate to the limit of their lives, not only through morality or through an effort of imagination, but naturally and instinctively.
parental affection is a special kind of feeling which the normal human being experiences towards his or her children, but not towards any other human being.
Our parents love us because we are their children and this is an unalterable fact, so that we feel more safe with them than with any one else. In times of success this may seem unimportant, but in times of failure it affords a consolation and a security not to be found elsewhere.
The parent that genuinely desires the child's welfare more than his or herpower over the child will, if sufficiently intelligent, not need textbooks on psyoanalysis to say what should and what should not be done, but will be guided aright by impulse.
For important as parenthood is as an element of life, it is not satisfying if it is treated as the whole of life, and the unsatisfied parent is likely to be an emotionally grasping parent. It is important, therefore, quite as much in the interests of the children as in those of the mother, that motherhood should not cut her off from all other interests and pursuits.
What I do maintain is that success can only be one ingredient in happiness, and is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it.
There are only two reasons for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
A child develops best when left undisturbed in the same soil.
What ever we wish to think, we are creatures of the Earth; our life is part of the life of Earth, and we draw our nourishment from it just as the plants and animals do.
A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.
Voluntarily or involuntarily, of choice or of necessity, most moderns lead a nerve-racking life and are continually too tied to be capable of enjoyment without the help of alcohol.
...worry could be prevented by a better philosophy of life and a little more mental discipline.
The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or if it is at night, about nothing at all.
It is amazing how much both happiness and efficiency can be increased by the cultivation of an orderly mind, which thinks about a matter adequately at the right time rather than inadequately at all times.
The man who can center his thoughts and hopes upon something transceding self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life which is impossible to the pure egoist.
The nervous breakdown which appears to be produced by the work is, in fact, in every case tht I have ever known personally, produced by some emotional trouble from which the patient attempts to escape by means of his work.
Worry is a form of fear and all fear is a form of fatigue.
on envy
The habit of thinking in terms of comparison is a fatal one.
You can get away from envy by enjoying the pleasures that come your way, by doing the work that you have to do, and by avoiding comparisons with those whom you imagine, perhaps quite falsely, to be more fortunate than yourself.
All bad things are interconnected, and any one of them is liable to be the cause of any other.
conscience - the fear of being found out.
It is in the moments when the mind is most active and the fewest things are fogotten that the most intense joys are experienced. The happiness that requires intoxication of no matter what sort is a spurious and unsatisfying kind. The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and the fullest realization of the world in which we live.
on persecution mania
remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself.
don't overestimate your own merits
don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself.
don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any desure to persecute you.
Whatever is to be done, can only be done adequately by the help of a certain zest, and zest is difficult without some self regarding motive.
No person should be expected to distort the main lines of his life for the sake of another individual.
very few people can be happy unless on the whole their way of life and their outlook on the world is approved by those with whom they have social relations, and more especially by those whom with they live.
Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, larely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.
The best way to increase toleration is ti multiply the number of individuals who enjoy real happiness and do not therefore find their chief pleasure in the infliction of pain upon their fellow men.
On Happiness
there are two sources, of the heart and of the head.
The man who underestimates himself is perpetually being surprised by success whereas the man who overestimates himself is pleasant, the latter is unpleasant.
Fundamental happiness depends more than anything else upon what may be called a friendly interest in person and things.
The person whose attitude towards others is genuinely of this kind will be a source of happiness and a recipient of reciprocal kindness.
If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more that it has to give. And to demand too much is the surest way of getting even less than possible.
The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, ad let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
zest is the secret of happiness and well-being.
The only sex relations that have real value are those in which there is no reticence and in which the whole personality of both becomes merged in a new collective personality. Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps most fatal to true happiness.
On family
I have the happiness of parenthood greater than any other I have experienced.
To be happy in this world, epecially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life flowing on from one gem to the remote and unknown future.
To the man or woman who has children and grandchilden and loves with a natural affection, the future is important, at any rate to the limit of their lives, not only through morality or through an effort of imagination, but naturally and instinctively.
parental affection is a special kind of feeling which the normal human being experiences towards his or her children, but not towards any other human being.
Our parents love us because we are their children and this is an unalterable fact, so that we feel more safe with them than with any one else. In times of success this may seem unimportant, but in times of failure it affords a consolation and a security not to be found elsewhere.
The parent that genuinely desires the child's welfare more than his or herpower over the child will, if sufficiently intelligent, not need textbooks on psyoanalysis to say what should and what should not be done, but will be guided aright by impulse.
For important as parenthood is as an element of life, it is not satisfying if it is treated as the whole of life, and the unsatisfied parent is likely to be an emotionally grasping parent. It is important, therefore, quite as much in the interests of the children as in those of the mother, that motherhood should not cut her off from all other interests and pursuits.
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