Half of August. Half world of vacation and the other half lazy also in his daily routine. Heat, laziness, calm, nature, the sea, the sun, the mountains, the long evenings, the sunrises ... An environment conducive to a little bit of poetry. Of the good, of the good. Just to feel that bug and look for more. Well why not resort to two of the greatest poets of the XNUMXth century. An Englishman and a Frenchman. Lord Alfred Tennyson and Paul Verlaine. Let's read a bit and remember some of his phrases and fragments of his poems.

Alfred Tennyson

This Somersby-born English poet in 1809 is considered one of the greatest in literature and was undoubtedly the most important of the victorian era.

His father, who was a descendant of King Edward III of England, raised him in the strictest and most classical way. I study in the Trinity College, from Cambridge, where he joined the literary group known as The apostles. That was the beginning of his literary career. He wrote his first poems in 1830, but it was later that his most praised works as The Lady of Shalott, Arthur's death y Ulises. And above all there are his elegy In Memoriam (1850), dedicated to his best friend, Arthur Hallam, and his famous The Charge of the Light Brigade (1855). He died in 1892.

• Though much is taken, much remains; and although we are not now that force that in the old days moved earth and sky, what we are, we are. An even temper of heroic hearts, weakened by time and destiny, but strong in will, to strive, seek, find and not give in.
• It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved.
• Dreams are true while they last, but what is living but dreaming?
• It will never be too late to look for a better and newer world, if we put courage and hope into the effort
• The lie that is almost true is worse than all lies.
• Happiness does not consist in realizing our ideals, but in idealizing what we do.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

"Forward, Light Brigade!"
"Charge on the guns!" He said.
In the valley of death
the six hundred rode.

"Forward, Light Brigade!"
Some fainted man?
No, even if the soldiers knew
that was nonsense.
They were not there to reply.
They weren't there to reason.
They were only there to win or die.
In the valley of death
the six hundred rode.

The Lady of Shalott

On the banks of the river, sleeping,
large fields of barley and rye
they dress hills and find the sky;
Through the field, the path marches
towards the thousand towers of Camelot;
And up and down, people come
looking where the lilies bloom,
on the island that appears downstream:
It is the island of Shalott.

The poplar trembles, the willow grows pale,
gray breezes shake the air
and the wave, that forever fills the channel,
by the river and from the distant island
flowing flowing, up to Camelot.
Four gray walls: its gray towers
they dominate a space between the flowers,
and in the silence of the island he hides
the lady of Shalott.

Paul Verlaine

He was born in Metz in 1844 and studied at the Lycée Bonaparte in Paris. Inspired by Baudelaire, became known with his first books of poems, Saturnian poems, from 1866, Gallant parties, from 1869 and The good song, 1870. But a dissipated life, his problems with the alcohol and its very stormy relationship loving with him also a poet Arthur Rimbaud they took him to prison. Once released, he published Wisdom, a collection of religious poems. In 1894 he was elected in Paris as Prince of poets. He died there in 1896.

• Music first, always music!
• And so deep is my faith and you are so much for me, that in everything I believe I only live for you.
• Tears fall on the heart like the rain in the village.
• Cry for no reason in this heart that is disheartened What! No betrayal? This duel is without reason.
• Open your soul and your ear to the sound of my mandolin: for you I have made, for you, this cruel and flattering song.
• The deepest sobs of the autumn violin are like a wound in the soul of strange anguish without end.

Lassitude

My lovely one, be sweet, sweet ...
calm a little, oh fiery, your passionate fever;
the lover, sometimes, must have a pure hour
and love each other with a gentle brotherly affection.

Be languid, caress with your loving hand;
I prefer the spasm of the violent hour
the sigh and the naive luminous gaze
and a mouth that knows how to kiss me even if it lies to me. (…)

I dreamed of you tonight

I dreamed of you tonight
You fainted in a thousand ways
And you murmured so many things ...

And I, just as you taste a fruit
I kissed you with all my mouth
A little everywhere, mountain, valley, plain.

It was of an elasticity,
From a truly admirable spring:
God ... what breath and what waist! (…)