I. Winged Words

As darting sparrows skim across a pool
Whose tranquil depths reflect a tranquil sky.
So o’er the depths of silence, dark and cool,
Our winged words dart playfully
And seldom break the quiet [surface] of the lake
As they flit by.

II. A Moment

The clouds had made a crimson crown
…Above the mountains high.
The stormy sun was going down
… In a stormy sky.

Why did you let your eyes so rest on me,
… And hold your breath between?
In all the ages this can never be
… As if it had not been.

-Mary Coleridge

III. Iron Clouds

Still as she looked the iron clouds
Would part and sunlight shown between
But drearily strange and pale and cold

-Emily Brontë

IV. Meditation

Be still, my Sorrow; hold to your tranquility,
You pled for Evening; darkness falls, the evening’s here:
A somber air pervades the city, quietly
Bestowing peace on some; to others bringing care.

While all those loathsome multitudes of mortals loll
Beneath the whip of Lust the executioner,
Or scrabble for remorse in craven festival,
My Sorrow, take my hand and come away, come far

From all of them. Behold the dead Years leaning down
From balconies of heaven, dressed in faded gown;
Up from the water’s depths, Regret has risen, smiling;

The dying Sun has sunk asleep beneath its arch,
And, like a winding cloth that from the East comes trailing,
We hear, dear one, we hear the tender Night’s approach.

-Charles Baudelaire
translated by William H. Crosby