kiwiguo的部落格

Some say love's a little boy, 
And some say it's a bird, 
Some say it makes the world go round,
Some say that's absurd, 
And when I asked the man next door, 
Who looked as if he knew, 
His wife got very cross indeed, 
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas, 
Or the ham in a temperance hotel? 
Does its odour remind one of llamas, 
Or has it a comforting smell? 
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is, 
Or soft as eiderdown fluff? 
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges? 
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it 
In cryptic little notes, 
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats; 
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides, 
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian, 
Or boom like a military band? 
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand? 
Is its singing at parties a riot? 
Does it only like Classical stuff? 
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet? 
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house; 
It wasn't even there; 
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead, 
And Brighton's bracing air. 
I don't know what the blackbird sang, 
Or what the tulip said; 
But it wasn't in the chicken-run, 
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces? 
Is it usually sick on a swing? 
Does it spend all its time at the races, 
or fiddling with pieces of string? 
Has it views of its own about money? 
Does it think Patriotism enough? 
Are its stories vulgar but funny? 
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose? 
Will it knock on my door in the morning, 
Or tread in the bus on my toes? 
Will it come like a change in the weather? 
Will its greeting be courteous or rough? 
Will it alter my life altogether? 
O tell me the truth about love. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3O2H3bV1eo

2. Funeral Blues (by W.H. Auden)

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

 

3. Dover Beach (by Matthew Arnold)

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

 

4. Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived(ex. Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus.

5. To His Coy Mistress (by Andrew Marvell)

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

       But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust;

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

       Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

 

6. The phrase nature and nurture relates to the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature" in the sense of nativism or innatism) as compared to an individual's personal experiences ("nurture" in the sense of empiricism or behaviorism) in causing individual differences, especially in behavioral traits. 

 

7. bibliography: a list of writings with time and place of publication (such as the writings of a single author or the works referred to in preparing a document etc.)

    e.g. The production of this bibliography is totally automated. 

 

8. mock: treat with contempt, imitate with mockery and derision

    e.g. I have a pet monkey which attempts to mock all my actions.

 

9. hyperbole: extravagant exaggeration

    e.g. The figurative use of a word or an expression,as metaphor or hyperbole.