Parting

We embrace.
Rich cloth under my fingers
While yours touch poor fabric.
A quick embrace
You were invited for dinner
While the minions of law are after me.
We talk about the weather and our
Lasting friendship. Anything else
Would be too bitter.

Bertolt Brecht

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German playwright, poet, and theatre director of the 20th century. He established himself as a prominent literary figure by pioneering epic theatre, which aimed to provoke rational thought and social change in contrast to traditional forms of theatre. Brecht's notable works include "Mother Courage and Her Children" and "The Threepenny Opera."

Bertolt Brecht

Contemplating Hell

Bertolt Brecht, Simple Poetry

How Fortunate The Man With None

Bertolt Brecht, Simple Poetry

To Those Born After

Bertolt Brecht, Simple Poetry

A Worker Reads History

Bertolt Brecht, Simple Poetry

English

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To Those Born After

I

To the cities I came in a time of disorder
That was ruled by hunger.
I sheltered with the people in a time of uproar
And then I joined in their rebellion.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

I ate my dinners between the battles,
I lay down to sleep among the murderers,
I didn't care for much for love
And for nature's beauties I had little patience.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

The city streets all led to foul swamps in my time,
My speech betrayed me to the butchers.
I could do only little
But without me those that ruled could not sleep so easily:
That's what I hoped.
That's how I passed my time that was given to me on this Earth.

Our forces were slight and small,

Bertolt Brecht

Frohnleichnam

You have come your way, I have come my way;
You have stepped across your people, carelessly, hurting them all;
I have stepped across my people, and hurt them in spite of my care.

But steadily, surely, and notwithstanding
We have come our ways and met at last
Here in this upper room.

Here the balcony
Overhangs the street where the bullock-wagons slowly
Go by with their loads of green and silver birch- trees
For the feast of Corpus Christi.

Here from the balcony
We look over the growing wheat, where the jade- green river
Goes between the pine-woods,
Over and beyond to where the many mountains
Stand in their blueness, flashing with snow and the morning.

I have done; a quiver of exultation goes through me, like the first
Breeze of the morni...

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

To Posterity

1.

Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.

Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach of his friends
In trouble?

It is true: I earn my living
But, believe me, it is only an accident.
Nothing that I do entitles me to eat my fill.
By chance I was spared. (If my luck leaves me
I am lost.)

They tell me: eat and drink. Be glad you have it!
But how can I eat and drink
When my food is snatched from the hungry
And my glass of water belongs to the thirsty?
And yet I eat and...

Bertolt Brecht

Song.

The moment must come, when the hands that unite
    In the firm clasp of friendship, will sever;
When the eyes that have beamed o'er us brightly to-night,
    Will have ceased to shine o'er us, for ever.
        Yet wreathe again the goblet's brim
        With pleasure's roseate crown!
        What though the future hour be dim -
        The present is our own!

The moment is come, and again we are parting,
    To roam through the world, each our separate way;
In the bright eye of beauty the pearl-drop is starting,
    But hope, sunny hope, through the tear sheds its ray.
        Then wreathe again the goblet's brim
        With pleasure's roseate crown!
        What though the present hour be dim -
        The future's yet our own!

The moment is pa...

Frances Anne Kemble

Upon Parting.

Go hence away, and in thy parting know
'Tis not my voice but Heaven's that bids thee go;
Spring hence thy faith, nor think it ill desert
I find in thee that makes me thus to part.
But voice of fame, and voice of Heaven have thundered
We both were lost, if both of us not sundered.
Fold now thine arms, and in thy last look rear
One sigh of love, and cool it with a tear.
Since part we must, let's kiss; that done, retire
With as cold frost as erst we met with fire;
With such white vows as fate can ne'er dissever,
But truth knit fast; and so, farewell for ever.

Robert Herrick

The Inheritance

Since you did depart
Out of my reach, my darling,
Into the hidden,
I see each shadow start
With recognition, and I
Am wonder-ridden.

I am dazed with the farewell,
But I scarcely feel your loss.
You left me a gift
Of tongues, so the shadows tell
Me things, and silences toss
Me their drift.

You sent me a cloven fire
Out of death, and it burns in the draught
Of the breathing hosts,
Kindles the darkening pyre
For the sorrowful, till strange brands waft
Like candid ghosts.

Form after form, in the streets
Waves like a ghost along,
Kindled to me;
The star above the house-top greets
Me every eve with a long
Song fierily.

All day long, the town
Glimmers with subtle ghosts
Going up and down
I...

David Herbert Richards Lawrence