Nabokov

 

Casabianca" by Felicia Hemans (1793 - 1835)

 

Casabianca ^{1}

The boy stood on the burning deck
  Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
  Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
  As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
  A proud, though child-like form.

The flames rolled on–he would not go
  Without his Father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
  His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud–'say, Father, say
  If yet my task is done?'
He knew not that the chieftain lay
  Unconscious of his son.

'Speak, father!' once again he cried,
  'If I may yet be gone!'
And but the booming shots replied,
  And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
  And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death
  In still yet brave despair.

And shouted but once more aloud,
  'My father! must I stay?'
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
  The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
  They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,
  Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound–
   The boy–oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
  With fragments strewed the sea!–

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
  That well had borne their part–
But the noblest thing which perished there
  Was that young faithful heart.

Notes:

1. Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son of the admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the Battle of the Nile), after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.

The Alchemy of Love By Henry Knight Miller

 

34

The Alchemy of Love

By Henry Knight Miller

LOVE is the great cleanser, the divine factor in experience, the saviour of: life, a redemptive and transfiguring potency. It sweetens life, driving forth the hobgobblins of malice, envy, jealousy, hate. It is the essence Of civilization. It differentiates the cultivated man from the beast and beastman. Love turns the rough paths to rose-entwined bowers, warms the heart, obliterate every distinction of name, sect, country, creed. Thru love you come to approximate the likeness of God who is love.

Be a spendthrift of love. Some sin perchance thru uncontrolled misdirected love, but by far the more fatal fault is insufficient love. Pour forth floods of affection upon family, friends, enemies. Let this tender emotion obliterate every distinction of name, sect, country, creed.

We know God not thru musty books, barren creeds, spiritually bankrupt ecclesiastical organizations competing for membership, property and power, but thru unselfish and unstinted love.

Sometimes even the demi-mondaine is nearer God than the high dignitary of the church, for tho she err, she errs thru love, even tho it be prostituted and misdirected, while the latter, smug, complacent, self-satisfied, pharisaic may know neither the spirit nor essence of love and by his very lack of kindliness, mercy, sympathy, comradeship crucifies the very God he presumes to represent. Love is not only the fulfillment of the law— it is the law. Live the love-tinctured life and you will soar to sunkissed summits, bearing your fellows aloft, drawing men with irresistible compulsion. You will be for many as the shadow of a great oak at summer's noontide, as an oasis in desert places, a crystal fountain to thirsty lips.

34 of 63

Favorite

 

Share

 

Flag

texts

MARCHING TO BERLIN

 

We are now ready to tackle Dickens

 

We are now ready to tackle Dickens. We are now ready to embrace Dickens. We are now ready to bask in Dickens. In our dealings with Jane Austen we had to make a certain effort to join the ladies in the drawing room. In the case of Dickens we remain at table with our tawny port. With Dickens we expand. It seems to me that Jane Austen's fiction had been a charming re-arrangement of old-fashioned values. In the case of Dickens, the values are new. Modern authors still get drunk on his vintage. Here, there is no problem of approach as with Austen, no courtship, no dallying. We just surrender ourselves to Dickens' voice--that is all. If it were possible I would like to devote fifty minutes of every class meeting to mute meditation, concentration, and admiration of Dickens. However my job is to direct and rationalize those meditations, that admiration. All we have to do when reading Bleak House is to relax and let our spines take over. Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder-blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle. Let us be proud of being vertebrates, for we are vertebrates tipped at the head with a divine flame. The brain only continues the spine, the wick really runs through the whole length of the candle. If we are not capable of enjoying that shiver, if we cannot enjoy literature, then let us give up the whole thing and concentrate on our comics, our videos, our books-of-the-week. But I think Dickens will prove stronger.”

― Vladimir Nabokov

A Dream Within a Dream By Edgar Allan Poe

 Poems & Poets

Poetry magazine

December 2025Subscribe

Subscribe

A Dream Within a Dream

By Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow —

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone? 

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand —

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep — while I weep!

O God! Can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

Dada poem

You And no one is going to be an American citizen.

I want to be a good reason to get better than your parents!

The only thing that you wake up is is a critique of the rings of popcorn.

It was pretty much the same stuff as being anything.

you are familiar with your disagreement with potato chips

The only thing that you wake in space and is a critique for the book.

It depends on what you want to say.

| a_ higher world of reality from The Psalms Of Islam Sahifa As Sajadiyya