"Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain - this Life flies
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once is blown forever dies."

[Rubaiyat.]

7 comments:

Chanad said...

This is great... whose is it? Omar Khayyam? Rumi?

SillyBahrainiGirl said...

Here's fuel to the fire.. something from Rumi:

Come, come, whoever you are.

Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn't matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vow a thousand times

Come, yet again, come, come.

SillyBahrainiGirl said...

You know what Aalman... I am in a sombre mood...

Here's DULCE ET DECORUM EST by Wilfred Owen...

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

- Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.*

*"It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country."

SillyBahrainiGirl said...

I was actually looking for something which cheers me up (Macavity rings a bell??) when I saw this:

D H Lawrence says:

To Women, As Far As I'm Concerned

The feelings I don't have I don't have.
The feelings I don't have, I won't say I have.
The feelings you say you have, you don't have.
The feelings you would like us both to have, we neither of us have.
The feelings people ought to have, they never have.
If people say they've got feelings, you may be pretty sure they haven't got them
So if you want either of us to feel anything at all
You'd better abandon all idea of feelings altogether.

Wow !

SillyBahrainiGirl said...

Chaucer said:

Who so shall telle a tale after a man,
He moste reherse, as neighe as ever he can,
Everich word, if it be in his charge,
All speke he never so rudely and so large;
Or elles he moste tellen his tale untrewe,
Or feinen thinges, or finden wordes newe.


Source: Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 733.

SillyBahrainiGirl said...

More than an eye for an eye.

Funny that u leave a translation for me...
You think I wouldn't have been to figure it out on my own. (sob...sob..sob)

SillyBahrainiGirl said...

Thanks Aalman,
These last ones are so cute....nice distraction from human rights reports, abuse, harrassment and all the other common denominators in our lives nowadays.

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