Animals in poetry

Eugenio Montale

Si sloggia

Anche senza volerlo mi disloco.
Invidio la cicogna che se va
Sa dove va e dove tornerà.

Il cigno

Pure il cigno sospeso tra cielo e onda,
virtuoso della neve,
immerge il becco capriccioso e sonda
l'armonia che non vede.

Garrule acque! Inutile rovello
Per un mùsico accento!
I becchi senza presa accoglie il vento
Che scherza col fuscello.

Vuole poi con la voce il disinvolto
Sviluppare la sua curva.
Ah l'incauto  apprendista  che ha risolto
Solitudine in turba!

Forse…cedono i bianchi! Già il fanale
Dell'accordo si strema.
Tutto il piumaggio disegna un sistema
Di silenzio fatale.

Ed il cigno fedele di tra il lume
Della corrente immota
Guarda l'anima sua muta e remota:
divinità del fiume.

Charles Baudelaire

Le chat

Viens,mon beau chat,sur mon coeur amoreux

Retiens le griffes de ta patte,
et laisse-moi plonger dans tes beaux yeux,
melès de mètal et d'agate.

Lorsque mes doigts caressent à loisir
Ta tete et ton dos elastique,
et que ma main s'enivre du plaisir
de palper ton corps èlectrique,

je vois ma femme en esprit;son regard,
comme le tien,aimable bete,
profond et froid,coupe et fend comme un dard,

et,des pieds jusques à la tete,
un air subtil,un dangereux parfum,
nagent autour de son corps brun.

Eleanor Farjeon

Cats

Cats sleep

Anywhere,
any table,
any chair,
top of piano,
window-ledge,
in the middle,
on the edge,
open drawer,
empty shoe,
anybody's
lap will do,
fitted in a
cardboard box,
in the cupboard
with your frocks-
anywhere!
They don't care!
Cats sleep
Anywhere.

W.B. Yeats

The cat and the moon

The cat went here and there

And the moon spun round like a top
And the nearest kin of the moon,
the creeping cat,looked up.
Black minnaloushe stared at the moon,
for,wander and wail as he would,
the pure cold light in the sky
troubled his animal blood.
Minnaloushe runs in the grass
Lifting his delicate feet.
Do you dance,Minnaloushe,do you dance?
When two close kindred meet,
what better than call a dance?
Maybe the moon may learn,
tired of that courtly fashion
a new dance turn.
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
From moonlit place to place,
the sacred moon overhead
has taken a new phase.
Does minnaloushe know that his pupils
Will pass from change to change,
and that from round to crescent,
from crescent to round they range?
Minnaloushe creeps through the grass
Alone,important and wise,
and lifts in the changing moon
his changing eyes.

William Wordsworth

The kitten and the falling leaves

….but the kitten,how she starts,
crouches,stretches,paws,and datrs!
First at one,and the its fellow
Just as light and just as yellow;
there are many now-now one-
now they stop and there are none.
What intensness of desire
In her upward eye of fire!
With a tiger-heap half way
Now shw meets the coming pray,
lets it go as fast,and then
has it in her power again:
now she works with three or four
,like an indian conjurer,
quick as he in feats of art,
far beyond in joy of heart…


Native Indian poetry