1
" Death's Diary: 1942 -
It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to just name a few. Forget the scythe, God damn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a holiday.
(...) They say that war is death's best friend, but I must offer you a different point of view on that one. To me, war is like the new boss who expects the impossible. He stands over your shoulder repeating one thing, incessantly. 'Get it done, get it done'. So you work harder. You get the job done. The boss however, does not thank you. He asks for more. "
― Markus Zusak , The Book Thief
3
" Glossa
Time goes by, time comes along,
All is old and all is new;
What is right and what is wrong,
You must think and ask of you;
Have no hope and have no fear,
Waves that rise can never hold;
If they urge or if they cheer,
You remain aloof and cold.
To our sight a lot will glisten,
Many sounds will reach our ear;
Who could take the time to listen
And remember all we hear?
Keep aside from all that patter,
Seek yourself, far from the throng
When with loud and idle clatter
Time goes by, time comes along.
Nor forget the tongue of reason
Or its even scales depress
When the moment, changing season,
Wears the mask of happiness -
It is born of reason's slumber
And may last a wink as true:
For the one who knows its number
All is old and all is new.
Be as to a play, spectator,
As the world unfolds before:
You will know the heart of matter
Should they act two parts or four;
When they cry or tear asunder
From your seat enjoy along
And you'll learn from art to wonder
What is right and what is wrong.
Past and future, ever blending,
Are the twin sides of same page:
New start will begin with ending
When you know to learn from age;
All that was or be tomorrow
We have in the present, too;
But what's vain and futile sorrow
You must think and ask of you;
For the living cannot sever
From the means we've always had:
Now, as years ago, and ever,
Men are happy or are sad:
Other masks, same play repeated;
Diff'rent tongues, same words to hear;
Of your dreams so often cheated,
Have no hope and have no fear.
Hope not when the villains cluster
By success and glory drawn:
Fools with perfect lack of luster
Will outshine Hyperion!
Fear it not, they'll push each other
To reach higher in the fold,
Do not side with them as brother,
Waves that rise can never hold.
Sounds of siren songs call steady
Toward golden nets, astray;
Life attracts you into eddies
To change actors in the play;
Steal aside from crowd and bustle,
Do not look, seem not to hear
From your path, away from hustle,
If they urge or if they cheer;
If they reach for you, go faster,
Hold your tongue when slanders yell;
Your advice they cannot master,
Don't you know their measure well?
Let them talk and let them chatter,
Let all go past, young and old;
Unattached to man or matter,
You remain aloof and cold.
You remain aloof and cold
If they urge or if they cheer;
Waves that rise can never hold,
Have no hope and have no fear;
You must think and ask of you
What is right and what is wrong;
All is old and all is new,
Time goes by, time comes along. "
― Mihai Eminescu , Poems
11
" To look back upon the past year, and see how little we have striven and to what small purpose: and how often we have been cowardly and hung back, or temerarious and rushed unwisely in; and how every day and all day long we have transgressed the law of kindness; -it may seem a paradox, but in the bitterness of these discoveries, a certain consolation resides. Life is not designed to minister to a man's vanity. He goes upon his long business most of the time with a hanging head, and all the time like a blind child. Full of rewards and pleasures as it is - so that to see the day break or the moon rise, or to meet a friend, or to hear the dinner-call when he is hungry, fills him with surprising joys - this world is yet for him no abiding city. Friendships fall through, health fails, weariness assails him; year after year, he must thumb the hardly varying record of his own weakness and folly. It is a friendly process of detachment. When the time comes that he should go, there need be few illusions left about himself. Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed much: -surely that may be his epitaph, of which he need not be ashamed. "
― Robert Louis Stevenson , A Christmas Sermon
13
" Fear envelops bones like new skin,
envelops blood with night’s skin,
the earth moves beneath the soles of the feet -
it is not your hair but the terror in your head,
like long hair made of vertical nails,
and what you see are not shattered streets,
but rather, within you, your own crushed walls,
your frustrated infinity, again the city comes
crashing down: in your silence, only water’s threat
is heard, and in the water
drowned horses gallop through your death. "
― Pablo Neruda , The Poetry of Pablo Neruda