Category: Ancient to Medieval Poetry (up to 1450 AD)

The Beauty of the Heart
"The beauty of the heart
is the lasting beauty:
its lips give to drink
of the water of life.
Truly it is the water,
that which pours,
and the one who drinks.
All three become one when your talisman is shattered.
That oneness you can't know
by reasoning".

Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi ( 1207-1273 )
The Beauty of the Heart

From the Book of the Dead
Hymn to Osiris ( 1240 BC )


http://interoz.com/egypt/bod1.htm

Ovid
Amores 1.4
Ovid ( 25-15 BC)


http://www.usask.ca/antharch/cnea/DeptTransls/Ovid.html#amores1.4



Amores 1.4 is a technical manual on how to commit adultery.

Anonymous Poetry - Ninth Century Ireland
From the New Oxford Book of Irish Verse translated by Thomas Kinsella.

An Insult

I hear
he won't give horses for poems.
He gives what his style allows:
cows.

The Lovely Etan

I don't know who it is
that Etan is going to sleep with.
But I know the lovely Etan
will not be sleeping alone.

(No Title)

Getting to Rome
is great labour, little use.
The King you look for here
you won't find unless you bring him.

(No Title)

The wind is wild tonight.
It tosses the seas white hair.
What harm.......It is calm seas
bring the sharp warriors from the North.

(No Title)

I bring you news:
the stag roaring.
winter flooding,
summer gone.

The peace that the sailor seeks in the storm
And the rest that's the warrior's aim
Can't be purchased with wealth in any form
Nor, Grosphus, with power or fame.
The pauper who wants only what he can afford
Sleeps soundly. But he who would fly
To new fortunes, although he hastens aboard
Speedy vessels, sees his trouble stand by.
Fools nourish dreams of perfect joy;
I'll take less, having witnessed a hero
Die young and watched rotting old age destroy
Tithonus, reduced to a gibbering zero.
It may be I have just those things you need
Amidst your horses, fine clothing, and cattle--
Subsidence, and joy from the poems I read,
And no jealous mob doing me battle.

....Horace (65-8 B.C.)

A favorite by the often lewd Roman poet/critic Martial


You ask what I grow
on my Sabine estate
a reliable answer is due

What I grow on that soil
far from urban turmoil

I grow very happy
at not seeing you.

"I hate and I love. Why do I do so? I do not know.
I feel it, and am crucified."
---Catullus