A koestler on the human brain

Related poetry:

1. Sonnet XLIX: Thou Leaden Brain Thou leaden brain, which censur’st what I write, And say’st my lines be dull and do not move, I marvel not thou feel’st not my delight, Which never felt’st my fiery touch of love. But thou, whose pen hath like a pack-horse serv’d, Whose stomach unto gall hath turn’d thy food, Whose senses, like poor […]...
2. The Human Face I. Soon Of all the springtimes of the world This one is the ugliest Of all of my ways of being To be trusting is the best Grass pushes up snow Like the stone of a tomb But I sleep within the storm And awaken eyes bright Slowness, brief time ends Where all streets must […]...
3. Mr. Brain Mr Brain was a hermit dwarf who liked to eat shellfish off The moon. He liked to go into a tree then because there is a Little height to see a little further, which may reveal now the Stone, a pebble it is a twig, it is nothing under the moon that You can make […]...
4. How Doth the Little Crocodile How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in, With gently smiling jaws!...
5. The Little Turtle A Recitation for Martha Wakefield, Three Years Old There was a little turtle. He lived in a box. He swam in a puddle. He climbed on the rocks. He snapped at a mosquito. He snapped at a flea. He snapped at a minnow. And he snapped at me. He caught the mosquito. He caught the […]...
6. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
7. The Brain, within its Groove The Brain, within its Groove Runs evenly and true But let a Splinter swerve ‘Twere easier for You To put a Current back When Floods have slit the Hills And scooped a Turnpike for Themselves And trodden out the Mills...
8. The Brain is wider than the Sky The Brain is wider than the Sky For put them side by side The one the other will contain With ease and You beside The Brain is deeper than the sea For hold them Blue to Blue The one the other will absorb As Sponges Buckets do The Brain is just the weight of God […]...
9. This is a Blossom of the Brain This is a Blossom of the Brain A small italic Seed Lodged by Design or Happening The Spirit fructified Shy as the Wind of his Chambers Swift as a Freshet’s Tongue So of the Flower of the Soul Its process is unknown. When it is found, a few rejoice The Wise convey it Home Carefully […]...
10. Sonnet 108: What's in the brain that ink may character What’s in the brain that ink may character Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit? What’s new to speak, what now to register, That may express my love, or thy dear merit? Nothing, sweet boy, but yet, like prayers divine, I must each day say o’er the very same, Counting no old thing […]...
11. I felt a Funeral, in my Brain I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading treading till it seemed That Sense was breaking through And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum Kept beating beating till I thought My Mind was going numb And then I heard them lift a Box And creak […]...
12. I've dropped my Brain My Soul is numb I’ve dropped my Brain My Soul is numb The Veins that used to run Stop palsied ’tis Paralysis Done perfecter on stone Vitality is Carved and cool. My nerve in Marble lies A Breathing Woman Yesterday Endowed with Paradise. Not dumb I had a sort that moved A Sense that smote and stirred Instincts for […]...
13. Sonnet 122: Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain Full charactered with lasting memory, Which shall above that idle rank remain Beyond all date even to eternity- Or at the least, so long as brain and heart Have faculty by nature to subsist; Till each to razed oblivion yield his part Of thee, thy record never […]...
14. Human Life If dead, we cease to be ; if total gloom Swallow up life’s brief flash for aye, we fare As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But are their whole of being! If the breath Be Life itself, and not its task and tent, If even a soul […]...
15. The Human Tree Many have Earth’s lovers been, Tried in seas and wars, I ween; Yet the mightiest have I seen: Yea, the best saw I. One that in a field alone Stood up stiller than a stone Lest a moth should fly. Birds had nested in his hair, On his shoon were mosses rare, Insect empires flourished […]...
16. The Human Seasons Four Seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously Spring’s honied cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming high Is […]...
17. On Being Human Angelic minds, they say, by simple intelligence Behold the Forms of nature. They discern Unerringly the Archtypes, all the verities Which mortals lack or indirectly learn. Transparent in primordial truth, unvarying, Pure Earthness and right Stonehood from their clear, High eminence are seen; unveiled, the seminal Huge Principles appear. The Tree-ness of the tree they […]...
18. HUMAN FEELINGS AH, ye gods! ye great immortals In the spacious heavens above us! Would ye on this earth but give us Steadfast minds and dauntless courage We, oh kindly ones, would leave you All your spacious heavens above us! 1815.*...
19. Human Knowledge Since thou readest in her what thou thyself hast there written, And, to gladden the eye, placest her wonders in groups; Since o’er her boundless expanses thy cords to extend thou art able, Thou dost think that thy mind wonderful Nature can grasp. Thus the astronomer draws his figures over the heavens, So that he […]...
20. The Human Abstract Pity would be no more, If we did not make somebody Poor; And Mercy no more could be. If all were as happy as we; And mutual fear brings peace; Till the selfish loves increase. Then Cruelty knits a snare, And spreads his baits with care. He sits down with holy fears. And waters the […]...
21. Dream Song 58: Industrious, affable, having brain on fire Industrious, affable, having brain on fire, Henry perplexed himself; others gave up; Good girls gave in; Geography was hard on friendship, Sire; Marriages lashed & languished, anguished; dearth of group And what else had been; The splendour & the lose grew all the same, Sire. His heart stiffened, and he failed to smile, Catching (enfit) […]...
22. A Man Young And Old: II. Human Dignity Like the moon her kindness is, If kindness I may call What has no comprehension in’t, But is the same for all As though my sorrow were a scene Upon a painted wall. So like a bit of stone I lie Under a broken tree. I could recover if I shrieked My heart’s agony To […]...
23. Human Life's Mystery We sow the glebe, we reap the corn, We build the house where we may rest, And then, at moments, suddenly, We look up to the great wide sky, Inquiring wherefore we were born… For earnest or for jest? The senses folding thick and dark About the stifled soul within, We guess diviner things beyond, […]...
24. How Human Nature dotes How Human Nature dotes On what it can’t detect. The moment that a Plot is plumbed Prospective is extinct Prospective is the friend Reserved for us to know When Constancy is clarified Of Curiosity Of subjects that resist Redoubtablest is this Where go we Go we anywhere Creation after this?...
25. The Vanity of Human Wishes (excerpts) 1 Let observation with extensive view, 2 Survey mankind, from China to Peru; 3 Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife, 4 And watch the busy scenes of crowded life; 5 Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate, 6 O’erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate, 7 Where wav’ring man, betray’d by […]...
26. Thoughts On The Shape Of The Human Body How can we find? how can we rest? how can We, being gods, win joy, or peace, being man? We, the gaunt zanies of a witless Fate, Who love the unloving and lover hate, Forget the moment ere the moment slips, Kiss with blind lips that seek beyond the lips, Who want, and know not […]...
27. Roscoe Purkapile She loved me. Oh! how she loved me! I never had a chance to escape From the day she first saw me. But then after we were married I thought She might prove her mortality and let me out, Or she might divorce me. But few die, none resign. Then I ran away and was […]...
28. Milton: But in the Wine-presses the Human Grapes Sing not nor Dance But in the Wine-presses the human grapes sing not nor dance: They howl and writhe in shoals of torment, in fierce flames consuming, In chains of iron and in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires, In pits and dens and shades of death, in shapes of torment and woe: The plates and screws and racks and […]...
29. The Masked Face I found me in a great surging space, At either end a door, And I said: “What is this giddying place, With no firm-fixéd floor, That I knew not of before?” “It is Life,” said a mask-clad face. I asked: “But how do I come here, Who never wished to come; Can the light and […]...
30. Girl (three) and the black horse i want to hold the horse’s string Cried the girl (three) stamping her foot Told by adults she was much too young The black horse stood staring at the wall It worries us you may get hurt The adults whispered – meaning to offer Comfort to the little madam (not convinced) The black horse stood […]...
31. Some Like Poetry Write it. Write. In ordinary ink On ordinary paper: they were given no food, They all died of hunger. “All. How many? It’s a big meadow. How much grass For each one?” Write: I don’t know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, As though the one had […]...
32. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
33. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
34. The Ivy-Wife I LONGED to love a full-boughed beech And be as high as he: I stretched an arm within his reach, And signalled unity. But with his drip he forced a breach, And tried to poison me. I gave the grasp of partnership To one of other race A plane: he barked him strip by strip […]...
35. Love and Black Magic To the woods, to the woods is the wizard gone; In his grotto the maiden sits alone. She gazes up with a weary smile At the rafter-hanging crocodile, The slowly swinging crocodile. Scorn has she of her master’s gear, Cauldron, alembic, crystal sphere, Phial, philtre-“Fiddlededee For all such trumpery trash!” quo’ she. “A soldier is […]...
36. Jaws SEVEN nations stood with their hands on the jaws of death. It was the first week in August, Nineteen Hundred Fourteen. I was listening, you were listening, the whole world was Listening, And all of us heard a Voice murmuring: “I am the way and the light, He that believeth on me Shall not perish […]...
37. Boot And Saddle Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! Rescue my Castle, before the hot day Brightens the blue from its silvery grey, (Chorus) “Boot, saddle, to horse, and away!” Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you’d say; Many’s the friend there, will listen and pray “God’s luck to gallants that strike up the lay, (Chorus) “Boot, saddle, […]...
38. Cavalier Tunes: Boot and Saddle Boot, saddle, to horse and away! Rescue my Castle, before the hot day Brightens to blue from its silvery gray, (Chorus) Boot, saddle, to horse, and away! Ride past the suburbs, asleep as you’d say; Many’s the friend there, will listen and pray “God’s luck to gallants that strike up the lay (Chorus) Boot, saddle, […]...
39. A Cruel Mistress We read of kings and gods that kindly took A pitcher fill’d with water from the brook ; But I have daily tender’d without thanks Rivers of tears that overflow their banks. A slaughter’d bull will appease angry Jove, A horse the Sun, a lamb the god of love, But she disdains the spotless sacrifice […]...
40. The Red Blaze is the Morning The Red Blaze is the Morning The Violet is Noon The Yellow Day is falling And after that is none But Miles of Sparks at Evening Reveal the Width that burned The Territory Argent that Never yet consumed...