"The Ass and the Charger" by Aesop (in English)

An ass congratulated a Horse on being so ungrudgingly and carefully provided for, while he himself had scarcely enough to eat and not even that without hard work. But when war broke out, a heavily armed soldier mounted the Horse, and riding him to the charge, rushed into the very midst of the enemy. The Horse was wounded and fell dead on the battlefield. Then the Ass, seeing all these things, changed his mind, and commiserated the Horse.

“4º Motivo da Rosa” by Cecília Meireles (in Portuguese)

Não te aflijas com a pétala que voa:

também é ser, deixar de ser assim.

Rosas verá, só de cinzas franzida,

mortas, intactas pelo teu jardim.

Eu deixo aroma até nos meus espinhos

ao longe, o vento vai falando de mim.

E por perder-me é que vão me lembrando,

por desfolhar-me é que não tenho fim.

“Recompense” by Robert E. Howard (in English)

I have not heard lutes beckon me, nor the brazen bugles call,

But once in the dim of a haunted lea I heard the silence fall.

I have not heard the regal drum, nor seen the flags unfurled,

But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world.

I have not seen the horsemen fall before the hurtling host,

But I have paced a silent hall where each step waked a ghost.

I have not kissed the tiger-feet of a strange-eyed golden god,

But I have walked a city's street where no man else had trod.

I have not raised the canopies that shelter revelling kings,

But I have fled from crimson eyes and black unearthly wings.

I have not knelt outside the door to kiss a pallid queen,

But I have seen a ghostly shore that no man else has seen.

           

I have not seen the standards sweep from keep and castle wall,

But I have seen a woman leap from a dragon's crimson stall,

And I have heard strange surges boom that no man heard before,

And seen a strange black city loom on a mystic night-black shore.

And I have felt the sudden blow of a nameless wind's cold breath,

And watched the grisly pilgrims go that walk the roads of Death,

And I have seen black valleys gape, abysses in the gloom,

And I have fought the deathless Ape that guards the Doors of Doom.

I have not seen the face of Pan, nor mocked the Dryad's haste,

But I have trailed a dark-eyed Man across a windy waste.

I have not died as men may die, nor sin as men have sinned,

But I have reached a misty sky upon a granite wind.

"Ballad of Reading Gaol" - Version I, Part II by Oscar Wilde (in English)

II.

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,

In a suit of shabby grey:

His cricket cap was on his head,

And his step seemed light and gay,

But I never saw a man who looked

So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked

With such a wistful eye

Upon that little tent of blue

Which prisoners call the sky,

And at every wandering cloud that trailed

Its raveled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do

Those witless men who dare

To try to rear the changeling Hope

In the cave of black Despair:

He only looked upon the sun,

And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,

Nor did he peek or pine,

But he drank the air as though it held

Some healthful anodyne;

With open mouth he drank the sun

As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,

Who tramped the other ring,

Forgot if we ourselves had done

A great or little thing,

And watched with gaze of dull amaze

The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass

With a step so light and gay,

And strange it was to see him look

So wistfully at the day,

And strange it was to think that he

Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves

That in the spring-time shoot:

But grim to see is the gallows-tree,

With its adder-bitten root,

And, green or dry, a man must die

Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of grace

For which all worldlings try:

But who would stand in hempen band

Upon a scaffold high,

And through a murderer's collar take

His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins

When Love and Life are fair:

To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes

Is delicate and rare:

But it is not sweet with nimble feet

To dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmise

We watched him day by day,

And wondered if each one of us

Would end the self-same way,

For none can tell to what red Hell

His sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no more

Amongst the Trial Men,

And I knew that he was standing up

In the black dock's dreadful pen,

And that never would I see his face

In God's sweet world again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm

We had crossed each other's way:

But we made no sign, we said no word,

We had no word to say;

For we did not meet in the holy night,

But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,

Two outcast men were we:

The world had thrust us from its heart,

And God from out His care:

And the iron gin that waits for Sin

Had caught us in its snare.

“Ode To Autumn” by Lord Alfred Douglas (in English)

Thou sombre lady of down-bended head,

And weary lashes drooping to the cheek,

With sweet sad fold of lips uncomforted,

And listless hands more tired with strife than meek ;

Turn here thy soft brown feet, and to my heart,

Unmatched to Summer's golden minstrelsy,

Or Spring's shrill pipe of joy, sing once again

Sad songs, and I to thee

Well tuned, will answer that according part

That jarred with those young seasons' gladder strain.

Give me thy empty branches for the biers

Of perished joys, thy winds to sigh my sighs,

Thy falling leaves to count my falling tears,

And all thy mists to dim my aching eyes.

There is no comfort in thy lips, and none

In thy cold arms, nor pity in thy breast,

But better 'tis in gray hours to have grief,

Than to affront the sun

With sunless woe, when every flower and leaf

Conspires to make the season merriest.

The drip of rain-drops on the sodden earth,

The trampled mud-stained grass, the shifting leaves,

The silent hurrying birds, the sickly birth

Of the red sun in misty skies, the sheaves

Of rotting ruined corn, the sudden gusts

Of angry winds, the clouds that fly all night

Before the stormy moon, thy desolate moans,

All thy decays and rusts,

Thy deaths and dirges, these are tuned aright

To my unquiet soul that sorrow owns.

But ah ! thy gentler mood, the honeyed kiss

Of thy faint watery sunshine, thy pale gold,

Thy dark red berries, and the ambergris

That paints the lingering leaves, while on the mould,

Their dead make bronze and sepia carpetings

That lightly rustle in thy quiet breath.

These are the shadows of departed smiles,

The ghosts of happy things ;

These break again the broken heart, the whiles

Thou goest onto winter, I to Death.

"O Sorriso do Tio Pavel Pleffel" (Chapter VIII) by José Thiesen (in Portuguese)

            Foi u’a manhã de sol, clara e limpa.

        Ele deixou-me só no quarto para que me vestisse. A casa estava estranhamente vazia e silenciosa. Não vi sinal de minha mãe, coisa estranhíssima, pois era suposto vê-la a limpar a casa enquanto ouvia algum programa na televisão.

            Encontrei o sr. Pavel na rua.

          Quando acheguei-me a ele, Pavel começou a esquadrinhar o céu, como à procura de alguma coisa. Então, derrepente, ele exclamou:

            - Táxi! Cá em baixo, por favor!

        Ele movia a cabeça, como a acompanhar alguma coisa descendo do céu e parando à nossa frente, mas na estrada, junto ao cordão da calçada. Eu não via coisa alguma, mas já preparando-me para coisas não ordinárias, como a minha casa vazia, a despeito de mamãe, e o laboratório do tio Clóvis, simplesmente o acompanhei, preparando-me para tudo.

           O sr. Pavel avançou, pois, desceu o cordão da calçada e ficou de lado para ele, como se tivesse entrado em algum veículo.

            - Venha, disse ele e simplesmente obedeci, ficando ao seu lado.

          Eu sentia-me um pouco ridículo, parado junto ao meio-fio ao lado daquele homem tão sério que então, falou como se se dirigisse a alguém à sua frente: O salão de festas, por favor.

          E então, uma... força, talvez, nos pegou por tras obrigando-nos a sentar no ar e ergueu-nos, rumo ao céu, acima das nuvens!

Foi das coisas mais excitantes que jamais experimentei! O chão ficando lá longe, as pessoas ficando tão pequeninas que desapareciam , as ruas tornando-se um emaranhado de linhas, de riscos até chegarmos às nuvens que nos esconderam todo o bulicio do mundo lá embaixo!

"The Sleepies" by Carl Barks (in English)

art by Carl Barks - Walt Disney's Donald Duck v1 #81 - Dell, 1961.