My poetry. Mostly Collects
(Found Poem in Michel de Montainge’s “Of Solitude” translated by George B. Ives)
There are some temperaments better adapted than others to these precepts of withdrawal from the world. It seems to me that it is wise, when one talks of withdrawing from the world, to look away from it. It should no longer be your concern to make the world speak of you, but how you should speak to yourself. Withdraw into yourself, but first prepare to receive yourself.
(Found Poem in Michel de Montainge’s “Of Solitude” translated by George B. Ives)
Our sickness is of the soul; now the soul can not escape from itself. We have a soul that can be turned to itself; it can be its own company; it has the means of attack and of defence, of giving and of receiving. Let us not fear the becoming dull in this solitude from wearisome inactivity; in lonely places be to yourself a multitude. The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
(Found Poem in Michel de Montainge’s “Of Solitude” translated by George B. Ives)
Let us answer on behalf of ambition who gives us a taste for solitude. It is not that the wise man can not live content everywhere, aye, and alone, in the throng of a palace. But we do not always intelligently seek the pathway to this end. (Often we think that we have abandoned affairs when we have only changed them.) Consequently, because we are quit of the court and the marketplace, we are not quit of the chief torments of our life. Ambition, avarice, irresolution, fear, and all greedy desires, do not desert us when we change our abiding-place. (Socrates was told that a certain person had not changed for the better in his travels. "I must believe it," said he, "for he carried himself with him.") We carry our fetters with us; it is not complete liberty; we still turn our eyes toward what we have left; our thoughts are full of it.
(Found Poem in Michel de Montainge’s “Of Solitude” translated by George B. Ives)
Let us leave on one side this tedious comparison between a solitary life and an active life. Let us boldly refer ourselves to those who are in the whirl. The evil methods by which men push themselves forward clearly indicate that the end is worth no more than the means. Everywhere it is possible to do good and ill; none the less, the worst men are the greater number. For good men are rare, that in a thousand there is not one good. There is great danger of contagion in a crowd. We can not help imitating the vicious or else hating them. There is danger, because they are numerous, of resembling them; and because they are unlike us, danger of hating them much. And the merchants who travel by sea are wise to look to it that those who sail on the same ship are neither dissolute nor blasphemers nor wicked men, esteeming such company unlucky.
A car passes by. The driver, leans up, under my mirrored, still face.
(Found Poem in Michel de Montainge’s “Of Cruelty” translated by George B. Ives)
For my part, even in matters of justice, any thing that is beyond mere death seems to me pure cruelty. We should practice these inhuman barbarities on what is insensible, not on the living flesh. We find nothing in the ancient histories more excessive than what we experience every day. Nature has herself implanted in man some instinct of inhumanity. Considering that one master has placed us in this palace for his service. For that is the extreme limit that cruelty can attain. That a man should kill a man solely as spectacle!
(Found Poem in Michel de Montainge’s “Of Cruelty” translated by George B. Ives)
Can it be true that, to be really good, we must needs be so by an occult, natural and universal disposition, without law, without reason, without example? What there is in me of good I owe to the chance of my birth. I derive it neither from law, nor from precept, nor from any other teaching. I very tenderly compassionate the afflictions of another. There is nothing that draws forth my tears, save tears.
(Found Poem in Michel de Montainge’s “Of Cruelty” translated by George B. Ives)
Virtue is a different and a nobler thing. Virtue presupposes difficulty and contention and can be practiced without an adversary. To have our resolutions and our reasonings superior to all the force of fortune; opportunities must be sought for putting them to the proof. True virtue requires a tough and thorny road. Lack of apprehension and stupidity thus sometimes counterfeit virtuous conditions. My virtue is a virtue, casual and fortuitous. I owe virtue more to my fortune than to my sense.
Left-handed God, Right-handed God, Many-handed Gods, we have to hand it to you; handing to us what is at hand and then we hand that power, in hope of being chosen, back to you. Place faith in our hands in our hands. Amen.
Grape-maker, Grape-grower, whose vines trellis the world, the grape-drinkers thirst for fine vintages that dance on the tongue and gambol the heart. Amen.
A Thread You Follow 