browse:

classic: results 1–24 of 142

The Necklace  by GUY DE MAUPASSANT

She was one of those pretty and charming girls, born by a blunder of destiny in a family of employees. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, married by a man rich and distinguished; and she let them make a match for her with a little clerk in the Department of Education.

She was simple since she could not be adorned; but she was unhappy as though kept out of her own class; for women have no caste and no descent, their beauty, their grace, and their charm serving them instead of birth and fortune. Their native keenness, their instinctive elegance, their flexibility of mind, are their only hierarchy; and these make the daughters of the people the equals of the most lofty dames.

The Fly  by KATHERINE MANSFIELD

12 November 2010
Vol. 10, No. 4
fiction, short story

All the same, we cling to our last pleasures as the tree clings to its last leaves. So there sat old Woodifield, smoking a cigar and staring almost greedily at the boss, who rolled in his office chair, stout, rosy, five years older than he, and still going strong, still at the helm. It did one good to see him.

Wistfully, admiringly, the old voice added, "It's snug in here, upon my word!"

Prayer from Devotion XVII. Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.  by JOHN DONNE

15 October 2010
Vol. 10, No. 3
poetry, prose poem

As death is the wages of sin it is due to me; as death is the end of sickness it belongs to me; and though so disobedient a servant as I may be afraid to die, yet to so merciful a master as thou I cannot be afraid to come; and therefore into thy hands, O my God, I commend my spirit…

Expostulation from Devotion XVII. Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.  by JOHN DONNE

13 October 2010
Vol. 10, No. 3
poetry, prose poem

My God, my God, is this one of thy ways of drawing light out of darkness, to make him for whom this bell tolls, now in this dimness of his sight, to become a superintendent, an overseer, a bishop, to as many as hear his voice in this bell, and to give us a confirmation in this action?

Meditation from Devotion XVII. Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris.  by JOHN DONNE

11 October 2010
Vol. 10, No. 3
poetry, prose poem

Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.

Pangur Ban  by  ANONYMOUS

3 July 2010
Vol. 10, No. 1
poetry

I and Pangur Ban my cat,

Tis a like task we are at:

Hunting mice is his delight,

Hunting words I sit all night.

The Old Year  by JOHN CLARE

5 January 2010
Vol. 7, No. 4
poetry, rhyme

Old papers thrown away,

      Old garments cast aside,

The talk of yesterday,

      Are things identified;

But time once torn away

      No voices can recall:

The eve of New Year's Day

      Left the Old Year lost to all.

They Flee From Me  by SIR THOMAS WYATT

26 October 2009
Vol. 9, No. 3
poetry

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.

I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

That now are wild and do not remember

That sometime they put themself in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range,

Busily seeking with a continual change.

Lucks, My Fair Falcon  by SIR THOMAS WYATT

21 October 2009
Vol. 9, No. 3
poetry

Lucks, my fair falcon, and your fellows all,

   How well pleasant it were your liberty!

Ye not forsake me that fair might ye befall.

But they that sometime liked my company:

Like lice away from dead bodies they crawl.

For Better or Worse  by W. W. JACOBS

"I've had a shock, George," he said, regarding the other steadily. "I've heard news of my old woman."

"Didn't know you 'ad one," said Mr. Wotton calmly. "Wot's she done?"

"She left me," said Mr. Davis, solemnly—"she left me thirty-five years ago. I went off to sea one fine morning, and that was the last I ever see of 'er."

Song  by ROBERT BURNS

1 June 2009
Vol. 9, No. 1
poetry

The winter it is past, and the simmer comes at last,

And the small birds sing on ev'ry tree:

The hearts of these are glad, but mine is very sad,

For my love is parted from me.

Song on May Morning  by JOHN MILTON

1 May 2009
Vol. 9, No. 1
poetry, rhyme

Now the bright morning-star, Day's harbinger,

Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her

The flowery May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.

You who never arrived  by RAINER MARIA RILKE

15 February 2009
Vol. 8, No. 4
poetry, translation

You who never arrived

in my arms, Beloved, who were lost

from the start,

I don't even know what songs

would please you.

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love  by RAINER MARIA RILKE

14 February 2009
Vol. 8, No. 4
poetry, translation

again and again the two of us walk out together

under the ancient trees, lie down again and again

among the flowers…

What if I say I shall not wait!  by EMILY DICKINSON

13 February 2009
Vol. 8, No. 4
poetry

What if I say I shall not wait!

What if I burst the fleshly Gate—

And pass, escaped—to thee!

A Child's Dream of a Star  by CHARLES DICKENS

24 December 2008
Vol. 8, No. 4
fiction, short story

There was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child, too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God who made the lovely world.

They used to say to one another sometimes, Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hillsides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide-and-seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more.

A Red, Red Rose  by ROBERT BURNS

23 December 2008
Vol. 8, No. 4
poetry, rhyme

O my Luve's like a red, red rose

   That's newly sprung in June:

O my Luve's like the melodie

   That's sweetly play'd in tune!

The American Scholar  by RALPH WALDO EMERSON

26 November 2008
Vol. 8, No. 3
nonfiction, essay, speech

Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft, and the soul is subject to dollars. The priest becomes a form; the attorney, a statute-book; the mechanic, a machine; the sailor, a rope of a ship.

In this distribution of functions, the scholar is the delegated intellect. In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men's thinking.

The Idiots  by JOSEPH CONRAD

We were driving along the road from Treguier to Kervanda. We passed at a smart trot between the hedges topping an earth wall on each side of the road; then at the foot of the steep ascent before Ploumar the horse dropped into a walk, and the driver jumped down heavily from the box. He flicked his whip and climbed the incline, stepping clumsily uphill by the side of the carriage, one hand on the footboard, his eyes on the ground. After a while he lifted his head, pointed up the road with the end of the whip, and said—

"The idiot!"

To the Same  by JOHN MILTON

Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear,

   To outward view, of blemish or of spot,

   Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot;

   Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear

Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,

   Or man, or woman.

On the Same  by JOHN MILTON

I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs

   By the known rules of ancient liberty,

   When straight a barbarous noise environs me

   Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs …

Methought I saw my late espoused saint  by JOHN MILTON

12 June 2008
Vol. 8, No. 2
poetry, sonnet, rhyme

Mine, as whom washed from spot of childbed taint

  Purification in the Old Law did save,

  And such as yet once more I trust to have

Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,


Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.

When I consider how my light is spent,  by JOHN MILTON

11 June 2008
Vol. 8, No. 2
poetry, sonnet, rhyme

When I consider how my light is spent,

  Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

  And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent


To serve therewith my Maker, and present

  My true account, lest He returning chide;

The Adventure of the Mason  by WASHINGTON IRVING

There was once upon a time a poor mason, or brick-layer, in Granada, who kept all the saints' days and holidays, and yet, with all his devotion, he grew poorer and poorer, and could scarcely earn bread for his numerous family. One night he was roused from his first sleep by a knocking at his door. He opened it, and beheld before him a tall, meagre, cadaverous-looking person.

'Hark ye, honest friend!' said the stranger; 'I have observed that you are a good Christian, and one to be trusted; will you undertake a job this very night?'

 

page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 | next

42opus is an online magazine of the literary arts.

copyright © 2001-2011
XHTML // CSS // 508