There's something I saw in the mountain mist,
That too I perceived in the thundering wave,
But then when I felt it, when we first kissed,
I knew it was something I had to save.
Nature's noble rapture, changing seasons,
Beauty owns the blossoms and falling leaves,
But man walks alone in owning reasons,
Reflected in all is what he believes.
I passed it last night, riding the warm wind,
I was out late, rebelling against time,
Against the wind I had set out to find,
Words to anchor eternity in rhyme.
O' Captain my Captain, hark, it's in me,
This thundering soul, creating to be free.
--Becket Knottingham
Moonlight
Moonlight shines on the lotus pond;
Lotus fragrance pervades my clothes.
There's wine in the golden jug
And a beauty playing by the lute.
Captivated by the mood
I sing a sad refrain.
Pine and bamboo sway to my song;
Cranes dance in the garden.
Thus, happy with relatives,
Glad with friends, I'll live
The span alloted me by Heaven.
Kim Sujang (c. 1680 - 1730)
Miracles - Walt Whitman
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge
of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with anyone I love, or sleep in the bed
at night with anyone I love,
Or sit at the table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honeybees busy around the hive
of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining
so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon
in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread
with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim-the rocks-the motion of the waves
-the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
Anniversary on the Island
The long waves glide in through the afternoon
while we watch from the island
from the cool shadow under the trees where the
long ridge
a fold in the skirt of the mountain
runs down to the end of the headland
day after day we wake to the island
the light rises through the drops on the leaves
night after night we touch the dark island
that once we set out for
and lie still at last with the island in our arms
hearing the leaves and the breathing shore
there are no years any more
only the mountain
and on all sides the sea that brought us
W. S. Merwin, 1927