I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
and twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
in such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
what wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850), 1804/1815

from "American Gods", by Neil Gaiman (also available as a t-shirt, which makes me want one):

I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen–I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones who look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline of good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of The Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies too. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.

(Robert Frost)

Frost ist ein schöner Name für so ein Gedicht. NeonWilderness hat es in seinem Kommentar zu Herrman v. Gilm's "Die Nacht" verlinkt und ich bin gerade wieder darübergestolpert auf der Suche nach einem anderen englischsprachigen Gedicht. Es ist ein schönes Gedicht, ich wollte es hier haben. Danke NeonWilderness für's zeigen.

Welcher könnte wohl "darkest evening of the year" sein? Wintersonnwende? Walpurgisnacht?

Wohin ich geh' und schaue,
In Feld und Wald und Tal,
Vom Hügel hinauf die Aue;
Vom Berg aufwärts weit ins Blaue
Grüß ich dich tausendmal.

In meinem Garten find' ich
Viel' Blumen schön und fein,
Viel' Kränze wohl draus wind' ich
Und tausend Gedanken bind' ich
Und Grüße mit darein.

Dir darf ich keinen reichen,
Du bist zu hoch und schön,
Sie müssen zu bald verbleichen,
Die Liebe nur ohnegleichen
Bleibt ewig im Herzen stehn.

---
Josef Karl Benedikt von Eichendorff
Vertont von Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy op. 63 Nr. 3: Sechs zweistimmige Lieder mit Begleitung des Pianoforte - N° 3. Gruß

Happy Valentinstag!

 ^---^
( o , o )
 (vvvv)
 (vvvv)
   "   "

They bought a round for the sailor
And they heard his tale
Of a world that was so far away
And a song that we'd never heard
A song of a little bird
That fell in love with a whale

He said, 'You cannot live in the ocean'
And she said to him
'You never can live in the sky'
But the ocean is filled with tears
And the sea turns into a mirror
There's a whale in the moon when it's clear
And a bird on the tide

So please don't cry
Let me dry your eyes
And tell me that you will wait for me
Hold me in your arms
I promise we never will part
I'll never sail back to the time
But I'll always pretend you're mine
Though I know that we both must part
You can live in my heart

Oh, please don't cry
Let me dry your eyes
And tell me that you will wait for me
Hold me in your arms
I promise we never will part
I'll never sail back to the time
But I'll always pretend that you're mine
I know that we both must part
You can live in my heart

(Words & Music by Tom Waits, can be found on the album "Alice", here's a link to a live version on youtube, but sound isn't too good, I'm afraid. I also recently found out there was a perfect, perfect T-Shirt matching this song this song last year - and I missed it! And that makes me a little sad. Because it would've been PERFECT. Did I mention that already? =)

Aus dem Walde tritt die Nacht,
Aus den Bäumen schleicht sie leise,
Schaut sich um in weitem Kreise,
Nun gib acht.

Alle Lichter dieser Welt,
Alle Blumen, alle Farben
Löscht sie aus und stiehlt die Garben
Weg vom Feld.

Alles nimmt sie, was nur hold,
Nimmt das Silber weg des Stroms,
Nimmt vom Kupferdach des Doms
Weg das Gold.

Ausgeplündert steht der Strauch,
Rücke näher, Seel an Seele;
O die Nacht, mir bangt, sie stehle
Dich mir auch.

(Herrmann von Gilm, vertont von Richard Strauss)

There is this thing that's like touching, except you don't touch
Back in the day it just went without saying it all
All the world's history gradually dying of shock
There is this thing that's like talking, except you don't talk
You sing, you sing

Sing for the bartender, sing for the janitor, sing
Sing for the cameras, sing for the animals, sing
Sing for the children shooting the children, sing
Sing for the teachers who told you that you couldn't sing
Just sing

There is this thing keeping everyone's lungs and lips locked
It is called fear and it's seeing a great renaissance
After the show you cannot sing wherever you want
But for now let's just pretend we're all going to get bombed
So sing

Sing 'cause it's obvious, sing for the astronauts, sing
Sing for the president, sing for the terrorists, sing
Sing for the soccer team, sing for the ganja weed, sing
Sing for the kid with the phone who refuses to sing
Just sing

Life is no cabaret
We don't care what you say
We're inviting you anyway
You motherfuckers, you'll sing someday
You motherfuckers, you'll sing someday
You motherfuckers, you'll sing someday

(Amanda Palmer/The Dresden Dolls - see/hear it here.)