I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 

I wandered lonely as a cloud 

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 

When all at once I saw a crowd, 

A host, of golden daffodils; 

Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 

Continuous as the stars that shine 

And twinkle on the milky way, 

They stretched in never-ending line 

Along the margin of a bay: 

Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced; but they 

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: 

A poet could not but be gay, 

In such a jocund company: 

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought 

What wealth the show to me had brought: 

For oft, when on my couch I lie 

In vacant or in pensive mood, 

They flash upon that inward eye 

Which is the bliss of solitude; 

And then my heart with pleasure fills, 

And dances with the daffodils.

DON'T GO FAR OFF BY PABLO NERUDA

DON'T GO FAR OFF BY PABLO NERUDA 

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because -- 

because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long 

and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station 

when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep. 

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because 

then the little drops of anguish will all run together, 

the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift 

into me, choking my lost heart. 

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach; 

may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance. 

Don't leave me for a second, my dearest, 

because in that moment you'll have gone so far 

I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking, 

Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY 

“Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.” – Dostoevsky 

In Crime and Punishment, unlike other crime fictions, the mystery of who commits crime has been unbridled in the very beginning of the novel. So, the entire focus is placed on why the crime has been committed? Or what is the Motive of Raskolnikov for committing a crime? This question occurs again and again in the novel that Raskolnikov himself is not able to answer certainly. Dostoevsky presents multifarious reasons for Raskolnikov’s criminal act. Raskolnikov is propelled by multiple motives. That can be seen in his conversation with Sonia and Dounia after his confession. Dostoevsky seeks moral regeneration of the society from highly individualistic philosophy yielding to higher justice.

THE PANTHER BY RAINER MARIA RILKE

THE PANTHER BY RAINER MARIA RILKE 

His vision, from the constantly passing bars, 

has grown so weary that it cannot hold 

anything else. It seems to him there are 

a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world. 

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, 

the movement of his powerful soft strides 

is like a ritual dance around a centre 

in which a mighty will stands paralysed. 

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils 

lifts, quietly. An image enters in, 

rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles, 

plunges into the heart and is gone.

ANIMALS BY WALT WHITMAN

ANIMALS BY WALT WHITMAN

The poet tells us that he feels more at home with animals than humans, whom he finds complicated and false.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are

so placid and self-contain’d,

I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with

the mania of owning things,

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that

lived thousands of years ago,

Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

So they show their relations to me and I accept them,

They bring me tokens of myself, they evince

them plainly in their possession

I wonder where they get those tokens,

Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?