Kindness (by Naomi Shihab Nye)

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

The Garden of Proserpine (by Algernon Charles Swinburne)

Here, where the world is quiet;

         Here, where all trouble seems

Dead winds' and spent waves' riot

         In doubtful dreams of dreams;

I watch the green field growing

For reaping folk and sowing,

For harvest-time and mowing,

         A sleepy world of streams.

I am tired of tears and laughter,

         And men that laugh and weep;

Of what may come hereafter

         For men that sow to reap:

I am weary of days and hours,

Blown buds of barren flowers,

Desires and dreams and powers

         And everything but sleep.

Here life has death for neighbour,

         And far from eye or ear

Wan waves and wet winds labour,

         Weak ships and spirits steer;

They drive adrift, and whither

They wot not who make thither;

But no such winds blow hither,

         And no such things grow here.

No growth of moor or coppice,

         No heather-flower or vine,

But bloomless buds of poppies,

         Green grapes of Proserpine,

Pale beds of blowing rushes

Where no leaf blooms or blushes

Save this whereout she crushes

         For dead men deadly wine.

Pale, without name or number,

         In fruitless fields of corn,

They bow themselves and slumber

         All night till light is born;

And like a soul belated,

In hell and heaven unmated,

By cloud and mist abated

         Comes out of darkness morn.

Though one were strong as seven,

         He too with death shall dwell,

Nor wake with wings in heaven,

         Nor weep for pains in hell;

Though one were fair as roses,

His beauty clouds and closes;

And well though love reposes,

         In the end it is not well.

Pale, beyond porch and portal,

         Crowned with calm leaves, she stands

Who gathers all things mortal

         With cold immortal hands;

Her languid lips are sweeter

Than love's who fears to greet her

To men that mix and meet her

         From many times and lands.

She waits for each and other,

         She waits for all men born;

Forgets the earth her mother,

            The life of fruits and corn;

And spring and seed and swallow

Take wing for her and follow

Where summer song rings hollow

         And flowers are put to scorn.

There go the loves that wither,

         The old loves with wearier wings;

And all dead years draw thither,

         And all disastrous things;

Dead dreams of days forsaken,

Blind buds that snows have shaken,

Wild leaves that winds have taken,

         Red strays of ruined springs.

We are not sure of sorrow,

         And joy was never sure;

To-day will die to-morrow;

         Time stoops to no man's lure;

And love, grown faint and fretful,

With lips but half regretful

Sighs, and with eyes forgetful

         Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living,

         From hope and fear set free,

We thank with brief thanksgiving

         Whatever gods may be

That no life lives for ever;

That dead men rise up never;

That even the weariest river

         Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Then star nor sun shall waken,

         Nor any change of light:

Nor sound of waters shaken,

         Nor any sound or sight:

Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,

Nor days nor things diurnal;

Only the sleep eternal

         In an eternal night.