The Golden Calf. Translations. After Heine.

Double flutes and horns resound
As they dance the idol round;
Jacob's daughters, madly reeling,
    Whirl about the golden calf.
    Hear them laugh!
Kettledrums and laughter pealing.

Dresses tucked above their knees,
Maids of noblest families,
In the swift dance blindly wheeling,
    Circle in their wild career
    Round the steer, -
Kettledrums and laughter pealing.

Aaron's self, the guardian grey
Of the faith, at last gives way,
Madness all his senses stealing;
    Prances in his high priest's coat
    Like a goat, -
Kettledrums and laughter pealing.

John Hay

John Milton Hay was an American statesman and official whose government career stretched over almost half a century. He began as a private secretary to Abraham Lincoln, eventually becoming Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Aside from his political career, Hay was also a poet and writer, remembered for his influence on American literature and foreign policy.

John Hay

Too Late.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

Lese-Amour.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

Sinai And Calvary.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

L'Amour Du Mensonge. Translations. After Charles Baudelaire.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

To The Young. Translations. After Heine.

Let your feet not falter, your course not alter
    By golden apples, till victory's won!
The sword's sharp clangour, the dart's shrill anger,
    Swerve not the hero thundering on.

A bold beginning is half the winning,
    An Alexander makes worlds his fee.
No long debating!    The Queens are waiting
    In his pavilion on beaded knee.

Thus swift pursuing his wars and wooing,
    He mounts old Darius' bed and throne.
O glorious ruin!    O blithe undoing!
    O drunk death-triumph in Babylon!

John Hay

At The Pantomime

The house was crammed from roof to floor,
Heads piled on heads at every door;
Half dead with August's seething heat
I crowded on and found my seat,
My patience slightly out of joint,
My temper short of boiling-point,
Not quite at Hate mankind as such,
Nor yet at Love them overmuch.

Amidst the throng the pageant drew
Were gathered Hebrews not a few,
Black-bearded, swarthy, - at their side
Dark, jewelled women, orient-eyed:
If scarce a Christian hopes for grace
Who crowds one in his narrow place,
What will the savage victim do
Whose ribs are kneaded by a Jew?

Next on my left a breathing form
Wedged up against me, close and warm;
The beak that crowned the bistred face
Betrayed the mould of Abraham's race, -
That coal-...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Golden Hour

Gold-haired she stood among the golden-rod,
A girl, embodying all the Golden Age,
Who made that autumn day a glorious page
Out of a book of gold inspired of God
And made for Him by priests and worshippers
Of Truth and Beauty, putting their praise in gold.
The golden blossoms round her and, gold-rolled,
The fields before, were as a golden verse
Of which she was the bright initial: she!
My heart-song's gold beginning, from whom grew
Love's golden ritual, filled with aureate gleams
And music, which my soul read wonderingly
Within Love's book of gold, that mightily drew
Our souls together, binding them with dreams.

Madison Julius Cawein

Mahomet's Song.

See the rock-born stream!
Like the gleam
Of a star so bright
Kindly spirits
High above the clouds
Nourished him while youthful
In the copse between the cliffs.

Young and fresh.
From the clouds he danceth
Down upon the marble rocks;
Then tow'rd heaven
Leaps exulting.

Through the mountain-passes
Chaseth he the colour'd pebbles,
And, advancing like a chief,
Tears his brother streamlets with him
In his course.

In the valley down below
'Neath his footsteps spring the flowers,
And the meadow
In his breath finds life.

Yet no shady vale can stay him,
Nor can flowers,
Round his knees all-softly twining
With their loving eyes detain him;
To the plain his course he taketh,
Serpent-winding,

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Coptic Song.

Leave we the pedants to quarrel and strive,

Rigid and cautious the teachers to be!
All of the wisest men e'er seen alive

Smile, nod, and join in the chorus with me:
"Vain 'tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly!
Play then the fool with the fool, willy-nilly,

Children of wisdom, remember the word!"

Merlin the old, from his glittering grave,
When I, a stripling, once spoke to him, gave

Just the same answer as that I've preferr'd;
"Vain 'tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly!
Play then the fool with the fool, willy-nilly,

Children of wisdom, remember the word!"

And on the Indian breeze as it booms,
And in the depths of Egyptian tombs,

Only the same holy saying I've heard:
"Vain 'tis to wait till the dolt gr...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Rapture

If thou hast grief
And passion vex the spirit that is in thee--

There was a stony beach
Where the heat flickered and the little waves
Whispered each to each.
Dove-coloured was that stony beach,
And white birds hungering hovered over
The shining waves;
And men had kindled there
A great fierce heap of golden flame--
Spoiled grasses with dead buttercups and pale clover.
The agonising flame
Yearned in its vitals towards the quiet air
And died in a little smoke.
And on the coloured beach the black warm ash
Remained.

Then on that warm ash
Another heap of grasses was outpoured,
And instant came
Another knot of struggling yellow smoke
That burst into new agonies of flame,
Dying into a drift of smoke;
And on the coloured beach ...

John Frederick Freeman