Li Po, from"Three—With the Moon and His Shadow"

With a jar of wine I sit by the flowering trees.
I drink alone, and where are my friends?
Ah, the moon above looks down on me;
I call and lift my cup to his brightness.
And see, there goes my shadow before me.

Li Po, from"Three—With the Moon and His Shadow"

Paul Valery -- "Les pas"

Personne pure, ombre divine,
Qu'ils sont doux, tes pas retenus !
Dieux !... tous les dons que je devine
Viennent à moi sur ces pieds nus !

Paul Valery, "Les pas"

Pure one, divine shadow,
How gentle, your cautious steps are!
Gods! ...all the gifts that I can guess
Come to me on those naked feet!

Paul Valery, "Les pas"

William Carlos Williams, from "The Shadow"

The damp through its pores—
Spring closes me in
With her blossomy hair;
Brings dark to my eyes.

William Carlos Williams, from "The Shadow"

Emily Dickinson -- "Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn"

Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
Indicative that suns go down;
The notice to the startled grass
That darkness is about to pass.

Emily Dickinson -- "Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn"

Langston Hughes, from "As I Grew Older"

But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun--
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky--
The wall.
Shadow.

Langston Hughes, from "As I Grew Older"

Walt Whitman -- "That Shadow, My Likeness"

THAT shadow, my likeness, that goes to and fro, seeking a livelihood,
chattering, chaffering;
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits;
How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;
--But in these, and among my lovers, and caroling my songs,
O I never doubt whether that is really me.


Walt Whitman -- "That Shadow, My Likeness"

T.S. Eliot - from "Burnt Norton"

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.

T.S. Eliot, from "Burnt Norton"

T.S. Eliot, from "The Hollow Men"

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow


T.S. Eliot, from "The Hollow Men"

Hart Crane -- from "To Brooklyn Bridge"

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.

Hart Crane -- from "To Brooklyn Bridge"

Carl Sandburg -- Excerpt from "From the Shore"

A LONE gray bird,
Dim-dipping, far-flying,
Alone in the shadows and grandeurs and tumults
Of night and the sea
And the stars and storms.

Carl Sandburg -- Excerpt from "From the Shore," Chicago Poems

Allen Ginsberg -- Excerpt from "Refrain"

Every shadow has a name;
When I think of mine I moan,
I hear rumors of such fame.
Not for pride, but only shame,
Shadow changes into bone.

Allen Ginsberg -- Excerpt from "Refrain"

Amy Lowell -- Extract from "The Promise of the Morning Star"

For I was but a shadow with a name,
Perhaps by now the very name's forgot;
So strange is Fate that it has been my lot
To learn through thee the presence of that aim

Amy Lowell -- Extract from "The Promise of the Morning Star" in A Dome of Many-coloured Glass

Percy Bysshe Shelley -- ROSALIND AND HELEN. A MODERN ECLOGUE.

Gloom, and the trance of Nature now:
The snake is in his cave asleep;
The birds are on the branches dreaming:
Only the shadows creep:
Only the glow-worm is gleaming: _135
Only the owls and the nightingales
Wake in this dell when daylight fails,
And gray shades gather in the woods:
And the owls have all fled far away
In a merrier glen to hoot and play, _140
For the moon is veiled and sleeping now.


Percy Bysshe Shelley -- ROSALIND AND HELEN. A MODERN ECLOGUE.

Walt Whitman -- BOOK XXXII.FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT, Leaves of Grass

Nor only launch thy subtle dazzle and thy strength for these,
Prepare the later afternoon of me myself--prepare my lengthening shadows,
Prepare my starry nights.

Walt Whitman -- BOOK XXXII.FROM NOON TO STARRY NIGHT, Leaves of Grass

JACQUES TAHUREAU -- MOONLIGHT

Then came my lady to that lonely place,
And, from her palfrey stooping, did embrace
And hang upon my neck, and kissed me over;
Wherefore the day is far less dear than night,
And sweeter is the shadow than the light,
Since night has made me such a happy lover.

: Poems of Jacques Tahureau

XC

Quand j’aperceu ma nymphette descendre
De son cheval, pour à mon col se pendre,
Me caressant d’un baiser savoureux.
Devant le jour la nuit me soit premiere,
Plus chere aussi l’ombre que la lumiere,
Puisqu’el’ m’a fait si content amoureux !

JACQUES TAHUREAU -- XC

Federico García Lorca -- GACELA DE LA MUERTE OSCURA (extracto)

Quiero dormir un rato,
un rato, un minuto, un siglo;
pero que todos sepan que no he muerto;
que haya un establo de oro en mis labios;
que soy un pequeño amigo del viento Oeste;
que soy la sombra inmensa de mis lágrimas.

Federico García Lorca: GACELA DE LA MUERTE OSCURA

I want to sleep awhile,
awhile, a minute, a century;
but all must know that I have not died;
that there is a stable of gold in my lips;
that I am the small friend of the West wind;
that I am the intense shadow of my tears.

Gacela of the Dark Death by Federico García Lorca

Denise Levertov -- Excerpt from "Looking, Walking, Being"

The eyes
dig and burrow into the world.
They touch
fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor.
World and the past of it,
not only
visible present, solid and shadow
that looks at one looking.

Looking, Walking, Being by Denise Levertov

Lucie Brock-Broido -- Excerpt from "After the Grand Perhaps"

After what is boundless: wind chimes,
fertile patches of the land,
the ochre symmetry of fields in fall,
the end of breath, the beginning
of shadow, the shadow of heat as it moves
the way the night heads west,
I take this road to arrive at its end
where the toll taker passes the night, reading.


Lucie Brock-Broido -- Excerpt from "After the Grand Perhaps"

Pablo Neruda -- LA CANCIÓN DESESPERADA. Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (1924) (extracto)

Es la hora de partir, la dura y fría hora
que la noche sujeta a todo horario.

El cinturón ruidoso del mar ciñe la costa.
Surgen frías estrellas, emigran negros pájaros.

Abandonado como los muelles en el alba.
Sólo la sombra trémula se retuerce en mis manos.

Ah más allá de todo. Ah más allá de todo.

Es la hora de partir. Oh abandonado!

LA CANCIÓN DESESPERADA. Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada (1924)

It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.

The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
Only the tremulous shadow twists in my hands.

Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.

It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one.

from Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, by Pablo Neruda, translated by W.S. Merwin

James Joyce -- from Ulysses: Episode 3 - Proteus

His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness shining in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there with his augur's rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid sea, unbeheld, in violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth stars. I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back. Endless, would it be mine, form of my form? Who watches me here? Who ever anywhere will read these written words?

Ulysses by James Joyce: Episode 3 - Proteus

James Joyce -- from Finnegans Wake

One time you’d stand fornenst me, fairly laughing, in your bark and tan billows of I branches for to fan me coolly. And I’d lie as quiet as a moss. And one time you’d rush upon me, darkly roaring, like a great black | shadow with a sheeny stare to perce me rawly. And I’d frozen up and pray for thawe.

Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce (episode17)

Francis Ledwidge -- Excerpt from "The Shadow People"

And the sunny hands to me
Beckon ever, beckon ever.
Oh! I would be wild and free,
And with the shadow people be.


The Shadow People by Francis Ledwidge

Alain Chartier -- Ballade de l'arbre d'amour

J’ai un arbre de la plante d’amours
Enraciné en mon cœur proprement,
Qui ne porte fruits, sinon de doulours,
Feuilles d’ennui et fleurs d’encombrement,
Mais, puisqu’il fut planté premièrement,
Il est creü, de racine et de branche,
Que son ombre, qui me porte nuisance,
Fait au dessous toute joie sécher,
Et si ne puis, pour toute ma puissance,
Autre y planter, ni celui arracher.

Alain Chartier Chartier : Ballade de l'arbre d'amour

Since the poem was previously attributed to François Villon, the English translation references Villon as the author.

I have a tree, a graft of Love,
That in my heart has taken root;
Sad are the buds and blooms thereof,
And bitter sorrow is its fruit;
Yet, since it was a tender shoot,
So greatly hath its shadow spread,
That underneath all joy is dead,
And all my pleasant days are flown,
Nor can I slay it, nor instead
Plant any tree, save this alone.

François Villon - ARBOR AMORIS

John Clare -- Excerpt from "The Flood"

Waves trough - rebound - and fury boil again
Like plunging monsters rising underneath
Who at the top curl up a shaggy main
A moment catching at a surer breath
Then plunging headlong down and down - and on
Each following boil the shadow of the last
And other monsters rise when those are gone
Crest their fringed waves - plunge onward and are past
- The chill air comes around me ocean blea
From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread
Strange birds like snow spots o'er the huzzing sea
Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled
On roars the flood - all restless to be free
Like trouble wandering to eternity

John Clare, from "The Flood"

Henry Van Dyke -- Excerpt from "God of the Open Air"

These are the gifts I ask
Of thee, Spirit serene:
Strength for the daily task,
Courage to face the road,
Good cheer to help me bear the traveller's load,
And, for the hours of rest that come between,
An inward joy in all things heard and seen.
These are the sins I fain
Would have thee take away:
Malice, and cold disdain,
Hot anger, sullen hate,
Scorn of the lowly, envy of the great,
And discontent that casts a shadow gray
On all the brightness of the common day.

Henry Van Dyke -- Excerpt from "God of the Open Air"

Maya Angelou -- Excerpt from "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

Maya Angelou -- Excerpt from "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"

Pablo Neruda -- La noche en Isla Negra (Extracto)

así nace en la costa,
de la furiosa sombra, el alba dura,
mordida por la sal en movimiento,
barrida por el peso de la noche,
ensangrentada en su cráter marino.

Pablo Neruda -- La noche en Isla Negra

So on the coast comes to light,
out of seething shadow, the harsh dawn,
gnawed at by the moving salt,
swept clean by the mass of night,
bloodstained in its sea-washed crater.

Pablo Neruda -- Excerpt from "The Night in Isla Negra"

PabloNeruda -- Poesia (Extracto)

vaga sin cuerpo, pura
tontería,
pura sabiduría,
del que no sabe nada,
y vi de pronto
el cielo
desgranado
y abierto,
planetas,
plantaciones palpitantes,
la sombra perforada,
acribillada
por flechas, fuego y flores,
la noche arrolladora, el universo.


Pablo Neruda -- Poesia

faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating planations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.


Pablo Neruda -- POETRY

Samuel Taylor Coleridge -- Excerpt from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!
And on the bay, the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the Moon.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge -- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Lord George Gordon Byron -- Excerpt from "The Dark, Blue Sea"

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.


"The Dark, Blue Sea" by Lord George Gordon Byron

Sara Teasdale - Excerpt from "Flame and Shadow"

The ice-covered branches of the hemlocks sparkle
Bending low and tinkling in the sharp thin breeze,
And iridescent crystals fall and crackle on the snow-crust
With the winter sun drawing cold blue shadows from the trees.

Sara Teasdale - Flame and Shadow