The Blackbird by Ted Hughes

You were the jailer of your murderer --
Which imprisoned you.
And since I was your nurse and your protector
Your sentence was mine too.

You played at feeling safe. As I fed you
You ate and drank and swallowed
Sliding me sleepy looks, like a suckling babe,
From under your eyelids.

You fed your prisoner's rage, in the dungeon,
Through the keyhole --
Then, in a single, stung bound, came back up
The coiled, unlit stairwell.

Giant poppy faces flamed and charred
At the window. 'Look!'
You pointed and a blackbird was lugging
A worm from its bottleneck.

The lawn lay like the pristine waiting page
Of a prison report.
Who would write what upon it
I never gave a thought.

A dumb creature, looping at the furnace door
On its demon's prong,
Was a pen already writing
Wrong is right, right wrong.

Asleep in the Valley by Arthur Rimbaud

A small green valley where a slow stream flows
And leaves long strands of silver on the bright
Grass; from the mountaintop stream the Sun's
Rays; they fill the hollow full of light.

A soldier, very young, lies open-mouthed,
A pillow made of fern beneath his head,
Asleep; stretched in the heavy undergrowth,
Pale in his warm, green, sun-soaked bed.

His feet among the flowers, he sleeps. His smile
Is like an infant's - gentle, without guile.
Ah, Nature, keep him warm; he may catch cold.

The humming insects don't disturb his rest;
He sleeps in sunlight, one hand on his breast;
At peace. In his side there are two red holes.