William Shakespeare 

from: MACBETH, ACT IV, SCENE 1

FIRST WITCH ACT IV, SCENE 1

FIRST WITCH

Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd

SECOND WITCH

Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined

THIRD WITCH

Harpier cries 'tis time 'tis time.

FIRST WITCH

Round about the cauldron go: 

In the poison'd entrails throw. 

Toad that under cold stone 

Days and nights has thirty one 

Swelter'd venom sleeping got, 

Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble; 

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

SECOND WITCH

Fillet of a fenny snake 

In the cauldron boil and bake; 

Eye of newt and toe of frog, 

Wool of bat and tongue of dog, 

Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, 

Lizard's leg and howlet's wing, 

For a charm of powerful trouble, 

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble; 

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

THIRD WITCH

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf 

Witches' mummy, maw and gulf 

Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark. 

Root of hemlock digg's i' the dark, 

Liver of the blaspheming Jew, 

Gall of goat and slips of yew 

Silver'd in the moon's eclipse, 

Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips, 

Finger of birth-strangled babe 

Ditch deliver'd by a drab, 

Make the gruel thick, and slab: 

Add thereto a tiger's chaudron, 

For the ingredients of our cauldron

ALL

Double, double toil and trouble; 

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

Second Witch

Cool it with a baboon's blood, 

Then the charm is firm and good.

 

William Shakespeare

from: A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM 

Act V, Scene 1

PUCK 

Now the hungry lion roars, 

And the wolf behowls the moon; 
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores, 
All with weary task foredone. 
Now the wasted brands do glow, 
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud, 
Puts the wretch that lies in woe 
In remembrance of a shroud. 
Now it is the time of night, 
That the graves, all gaping wide, 
Every one lets forth his sprite, 
In the church-way paths to glide: 
And we fairies, that do run, 
By the triple Hecate's team, 
From the presence of the sun 
Following darkness like a dream, 
Now are frolic: not a mouse 

Shall disturb this hallow'd house: 

I am sent with broom before, 

To sweep the dust behind the door.

William Shakespeare

 

The Haunted Palace 
by Edgar Allen Poe

In the greenest of our valleys 

By good angels fair tenanted, 
Once a fair and stately place--- 
Radiant palace---reared its head. 
In the monarch Thought's dominion 
It stood there! 
Never seraph spread a pinion 
Over fabric half so fair!
Banners yellow, glorious golden, 
On its roof did float and flow 
(This---all this--- was in the olden 
time long ago), 
And every gentle air that dallied, 
In that sweet day, 
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 
A winged odor went away.
Wanderers in the happy valley 
Through two luminous windows, saw 
Spirits moving musically, 
To a lute's well-tuned law, 
Round about a throne where, sitting, 
Porphyrogene! 
In state his glory well befitting, 
The ruler of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing 
Was the fair palace door, 
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, 
And sparkling evermore, 
A troop of echoes, whose sweet duty 
Was but to sing 
In voices of surpassing beauty, 
The wit and wisdom of their king.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow, 
Assailed the monarch's high estate. 
(Ah let us mourn!---for never morrow 
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!) 
And round about his home the glory 
That blushed and bloomed, 
Is but a dim-remembered story 
Of the old time entombed
And travellers, now, within that valley, 
Through the red-litten windows see 
Vast forms that move fantastically 
To a discordant melody, 
While, like a ghastly rapid river, 
Through the pale door 
A hideous throng rush out forever, 
And laugh, but smile no more
Edgar Allen Poe 

 

from: Scenes from the Faust of Goethe

SCENE II

FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES AND IGNIS-FATUSUS
in alternate Chorus.

The limits of the sphere of dream
The bounds of true and false, are past,
Lead us on, thou wandering Gleam,
Lead us onward, far and fast,
To the wide, the desert waste

But see, how swift advance and shift
Trees behind trees, row by row,---
How, clift by clift, rocks bend and lift
Their frowning foreheads as we go.
The giant crags, ho! ho!
How they snort, and how they blow!

. . . . . . . . . . .

To-whoo! to-whoo! near, nearer now
The sound of song, the rushing throng!
Are the screech, the lapwing, and the jay,

All awake as if 'twere day?
See, with long legs and belly wide,
A salamander in the brake!
Every root is like a snake,
And along the loose hillside,
With strange contortortions through the night,
Curls to seize or to affright;
And, animated, strong, and many,
They dart forth polypus-antennae,
To blister with their poison spume
The wanderer. Through the dazzling gloom
The many-colored mice, that thread
The dewy turf beneath our tread,
In troops each other's motions cross,
Through the heath and through the moss;
And, in legions intertangled,
The fire-flies flit, and warm, and throng,
Till all the mountain depths are spangled.

Tell me, shall we go or stay?
Shall we onward? Come along!
Everything around is swept
Forward, onward, far away!
Trees and masses intercept
The sight, and wisps on every side
Are puffed up and multiplied

. . . . . . . . .

MEPHISTOPHELES

Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag
Beware! for if with them thou warrest
In their fierce flight towards the wilderness
Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag
Thy body to a grave in the abyss.
A cloud thickens the night.
Hark! how the tempest crashes through the
forest!
The owls fly out in strange affright;
The columns of the evergreen palaces
Are split and shattered;
The roots creak, and stretch, and groan;
And ruinously overthrown,
The trunks are crushed and shattered
By the fierce blast's unconquerable stress.
Over each other crack and crash they all
In terrible and intertangled fall;
And through the ruins of the shaken mountain
The airs hiss and howl!---
It is not the voice of the fountain,
Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.
Dost thou not hear?
Strange accents are ringing
Aloft, afar, anear?
The witches are singing!
The torrent of a raging wizard song
Streams the whole mountain along.

. . . . . . . . . . . 

Translated by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Stanzas Composed During A Thunderstorm
Lord Byron

Chill and mirk is the nightly blast,
    Where Pindus' mountains rise,
And angry clouds are pouring fast
    The vengeance of the skies.

Our guides are gone, our hope is lost,
    And lightnings, as they play,
But show where rocks our path have crost,
    Or gild the torrent's spray.

Is yon a cot I saw, though low?
    When lightning broke the gloom---
How welcome were its shade!---ah, no!
    'Tis but a Turkish tomb.

Through sounds of foaming waterfalls,
    I hear a voice exclaim---
My way-worn countryman, who calls
    On distant England's name.

A shot is fired---by foe or friend?
    Another---'tis to tell
The mountain-peasants to descend,
    And lead us where they dwell.

Oh! who in such a night will dare
    To tempt the wilderness?
And who 'mid thunder-peals can hear
    Our signal of distress?

And who that heard our shouts would rise
    To try the dubious road?
Nor rather deem from nightly cries
    That outlaws were abroad.

Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful hour!
    More fiercely pours the storm!
Yet here one thought has still the power
    To keep my bosom warm.

While wandering through each broken path,
    O'er brake and craggy brow;
While elements exhaust their wrath,
    Sweet Florence, where art thou?

Not on the sea, not on the sea---
    Thy bark hath long been gone:
Oh, may the storm that pours on me,
    Bow down my head alone!

Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc,
    When last I pressed thy lip;
And long ere now, with foaming shock,
    Impelled thy gallant ship.

Now thou art safe; nay, long ere now
    Hast trod the shore of Spain;
'Twere hard if aught so fair as thou
    Should linger on the main.

And since I now remember thee
    In darkness and in dread,
As in those hours of revelry
    Which Mirth and Music sped;

Do thou, amid the fair white walls,
    If Cadiz yet be free,
At times from out her latticed halls
    Look o'er the dark blue sea;

Then think upon Calypso's isles,
    Endeared by days gone by;
To others give a thousand smiles,
    To me a single sigh.

And when the admiring circle mark
    The paleness of thy face,
A half-formed tear, a transient spark
    Of melancholy grace,

Again thou'lt smile, and blushing shun
    Some coxcomb's raillery;
Nor own for once thou thought'st on one,
    Who ever thinks on thee.

Though smile and sigh alike are vain,
    When severed hearts repine
My spirit flies o'er Mount and Main
    And mourns in search of thine. 

 

I Sing the Body Electric 
Whitman, Walt. 1900. Leaves of Grass. 

1 

I SING the Body electric; 

The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them; 

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, 

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the 

Soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal 

themselves; 

And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the 

dead? 

And if the body does not do as much as the Soul? 

And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul? 

2 

The love of the Body of man or woman balks account--the body itself 

balks account; 

That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect. 10

The expression of the face balks account; 

But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face; 

It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of 

his hips and wrists; 

It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist 

and knees--dress does not hide him; 

The strong, sweet, supple quality he has, strikes through the cotton 

and flannel; 

To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more; 

You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder- 

side.

The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the 

folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the 

contour of their shape downwards, 

The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the 

transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up, and rolls 

silently to and fro in the heave of the water, 

The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats--the horseman 

in his saddle, 20 

Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances, 

The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner- 

kettles, and their wives waiting, 

The female soothing a child--the farmer's daughter in the garden or 

cow-yard, 

The young fellow hoeing corn--the sleigh-driver guiding his six 

horses through the crowd, 

The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, 

good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown, 

after work, 

The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance, 

The upper-hold and the under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding 

the eyes; 

The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine 

muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps, 

The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes 

suddenly again, and the listening on the alert, 

The natural, perfect, varied attitudes--the bent head, the curv'd 

neck, and the counting; 30 

Such-like I love--I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother's 

breast with the little child, 

Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with 

the firemen, and pause, listen, and count. 

3 

I know a man, a common farmer--the father of five sons; 

And in them were the fathers of sons--and in them were the fathers of 

sons.

This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person; 

The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and 

beard, and the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes--the 

richness and breadth of his manners, 

These I used to go and visit him to see--he was wise also; 

He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old--his sons were 

massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome; 

They and his daughters loved him--all who saw him loved him; 

They did not love him by allowance--they loved him with personal 

love; 40 

He drank water only--the blood show'd like scarlet through the clear- 

brown skin of his face; 

He was a frequent gunner and fisher--he sail'd his boat himself--he 

had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner--he had 

fowling-pieces, presented to him by men that loved him; 

When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, 

you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of 

the gang.

You would wish long and long to be with him--you would wish to sit by 

him in the boat, that you and he might touch each other.

4 

I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough, 

To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough, 

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is 

enough, 

To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly 

round his or her neck for a moment--what is this, then? 

I do not ask any more delight--I swim in it, as in a sea.

There is something in staying close to men and women, and looking on 

them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the 

soul well; 50 

All things please the soul--but these please the soul well.

5 

This is the female form; 

A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot; 

It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction! 

I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor-- 

all falls aside but myself and it; 

Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, the 

atmosphere and the clouds, and what was expected of heaven or 

fear'd of hell, are now consumed; 

Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it--the response 

likewise ungovernable; 

Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands, all 

diffused--mine too diffused; 

Ebb stung by the flow, and flow stung by the ebb--love-flesh swelling 

and deliciously aching; 

Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of 

love, white-blow and delirious juice; 60 

Bridegroom night of love, working surely and softly into the 

prostrate dawn; 

Undulating into the willing and yielding day, 

Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.

This is the nucleus--after the child is born of woman, the man is 

born of woman; 

This is the bath of birth--this is the merge of small and large, and 

the outlet again.

Be not ashamed, women--your privilege encloses the rest, and is the 

exit of the rest; 

You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities, and tempers them--she is in her 

place, and moves with perfect balance; 

She is all things duly veil'd--she is both passive and active; 

She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as 

daughters. 70

As I see my soul reflected in nature; 

As I see through a mist, one with inexpressible completeness and 

beauty, 

See the bent head, and arms folded over the breast--the female I see.

6 

The male is not less the soul, nor more--he too is in his place; 

He too is all qualities--he is action and power; 

The flush of the known universe is in him; 

Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well; 

The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is 

utmost, become him well--pride is for him; 

The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul; 

Knowledge becomes him--he likes it always--he brings everything to 

the test of himself; 80 

Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail, he strikes 

soundings at last only here; 

(Where else does he strike soundings, except here?) 

The man's body is sacred, and the woman's body is sacred; 

No matter who it is, it is sacred; 

Is it a slave? Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on 

the wharf? 

Each belongs here or anywhere, just as much as the well-off--just as 

much as you; 

Each has his or her place in the procession.

(All is a procession; 

The universe is a procession, with measured and beautiful motion.)

Do you know so much yourself, that you call the slave or the dull- 

face ignorant? 90 

Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no 

right to a sight? 

Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float--and 

the soil is on the surface, and water runs, and vegetation 

sprouts, 

For you only, and not for him and her?

7 

A man's Body at auction; 

I help the auctioneer--the sloven does not half know his business.

Gentlemen, look on this wonder! 

Whatever the bids of the bidders, they cannot be high enough for it; 

For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years, without one 

animal or plant; 

For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll'd. 

In this head the all-baffling brain; 100 

In it and below it, the makings of heroes.

Examine these limbs, red, black, or white--they are so cunning in 

tendon and nerve; 

They shall be stript, that you may see them.

Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition, 

Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant back-bone and neck, flesh not flabby, 

good-sized arms and legs, 

And wonders within there yet.

Within there runs blood, 

The same old blood! 

The same red-running blood! 

There swells and jets a heart--there all passions, desires, 

reachings, aspirations; 110 

Do you think they are not there because they are not express'd in 

parlors and lecture-rooms?

This is not only one man--this is the father of those who shall be 

fathers in their turns; 

In him the start of populous states and rich republics; 

Of him countless immortal lives, with countless embodiments and 

enjoyments.

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring 

through the centuries? 

Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace 

back through the centuries?

8 

A woman's Body at auction! 

She too is not only herself--she is the teeming mother of mothers; 

She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the 

mothers.

Have you ever loved the Body of a woman? 120 

Have you ever loved the Body of a man? 

Your father--where is your father? 

Your mother--is she living? have you been much with her? and has she 

been much with you? 

--Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all, in all 

nations and times, all over the earth?

If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred, 

And the glory and sweet of a man, is the token of manhood untainted; 

And in man or woman, a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is beautiful 

as the most beautiful face.

Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool 

that corrupted her own live body? 

For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

9 

O my Body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, 

nor the likes of the parts of you; 130 

I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the 

Soul, (and that they are the Soul;) 

I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems--and 

that they are poems, 

Man's, woman's, child's, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's, 

father's, young man's, young woman's poems; 

Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears, 

Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eye-brows, and the waking or 

sleeping of the lids, 

Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw- 

hinges, 

Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition, 

Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue, 

Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample 

side-round of the chest.

Upper-arm, arm-pit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, 

arm-bones, 140 

Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, fore-finger, 

finger-balls, finger-joints, finger-nails, 

Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast- 

side, 

Ribs, belly, back-bone, joints of the back-bone, 

Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, 

man-root, 

Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above, 

Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under leg, 

Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel; 

All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your 

body, or of any one's body, male or female, 

The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean, 

The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame, 150 

Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity, 

Womanhood, and all that is a woman--and the man that comes from 

woman, 

The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, 

love-looks, love-perturbations and risings, 

The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud, 

Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming, 

Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and 

tightening, 

The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes, 

The skin, the sun-burnt shade, freckles, hair, 

The curious sympathy one feels, when feeling with the hand the naked 

meat of the body, 

The circling rivers, the breath, and breathing it in and out, 160 

The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward 

toward the knees, 

The thin red jellies within you, or within me--the bones, and the 

marrow in the bones, 

The exquisite realization of health; 

O I say, these are not the parts and poems of the Body only, but of 

the Soul, 

O I say now these are the Soul!
 
 

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