The Wanderer (Author Unknown, Translation from hermitary.com)

The solitary looks for the favor of fortune,
For serene waters and a welcoming haven.
But his lot is to plough the wintry seas.
An exile's fate is decreed for him.

Each dawn stirs old sorrows.
The slaughter of lord, kin, village, and keep.
Best to swallow grief, to blot out memories.
Best to seal up the heart's wretchedness.

There is none with whom to speak,
No one alive who will understand.
Best to hide sorrow in one's chest.
The storms of fate suffice to busy me.

Years ago, I buried my master in the ground.
Grieving, I crossed winter seas seeking another:
A generous lord to share hall and treasure,
And I a friendless man seeking order anew.

But frostbite and hunger are my lot now.
My sleep is haunted by dreams of the past:
I kneel acknowledging my master's gift.
Gladly I accept a boon of gold in service.

Then the seabirds' shriek startles me.
I shiver in the dark dawn's frost and hail.
My heart recalls the image of my dream.
The pangs of sorrow and exile reawaken.

The present is overthrown by the past.
Rue rash youth's squandering of fortune.
All things dissipate like sea mist.
There is nothing to cling to but memories.

Is not the wise man's virtue patience?
Oaths and intemperance are follies.
The wise man guards his heart with caution.
The cheerful hall will be desolate in old age.

Everywhere the wind blows through empty ruins.
A few walls are left, covered with frost.
Unburied dead, once proud kin, lie wretched.
They are the sad prey of crows and wolves.

The lands were made desolate in a stroke.
Now the halls and remnants are silent.
Stonework empty, wealth dissipated:
Everywhere the same thing meets the eye.

Horse, rider, ring-giver, chalice,
High seats, hall-sounds -- where are they?
So asks my dark mind, full of grief.
Gone, as if never having been.

Storms blast the rocky cliffs.
Blizzards lash earth and sea.
Winter comes, darkness falls.
The world lies silent and empty.

No men or women to be found.
All in this life is suffering.
No good fortune to be expected.
No abode but a house of sorrow.

The wise man cloaks his heart:
Steadfastness and temperance.
He does well to dissemble his feelings.
Let his faith rest in that alone.

Christians and Others by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

All men go to God in their distress,
seek help and pray for bread and happiness,
deliverance from pain, guilt and death,
All men do, Christians and others

All men go to God in His distress
find Him poor, reviled, without shelter or bread,
watch Him tormented by sin, weakness and death.
Christians stand by God in His hour of grieving

God goes to all men in their distress,
satisfies body and soul with His bread,
dies, crucified for all, Christians and others,
and both alike forgiving.

Risk by Anaïs Nin

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.

Standing by My Bed by Sappho

Standing by my bed
in gold sandals
Dawn that very
moment awoke me

On Children by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

The Lonely Say by Avraham ben Yitshak

Day to day bequeathes a glimmering sun
and night laments for night
and summer after summer is gathered up in fallen leaves
and the world sings from its sorrow

and tomorrow we shall die speechless
and upon the day of our leaving, we shall stand before the gate at closing time
and when the heart rejoices that indeed God has brought us close to Him -
it will then repent from joy and will tremble in fear of treachery.

Day to day bears a burning sun
and night after night pours out stars;
upon the lips of the lonely, song comes to a halt:
into seven paths we part ways, and by one we return.

The Red Wheelbarrow by William C. Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Senryu by Odo Keta

thrusting and moaning
in the bedroom: the delivery men

The Blind Man's Song by Rainer Maria Rilke

I'm blind, all of you out there; that's a curse,
a repulsive something, a contradiction,
a daily heavy burden.
I lay my hand on the arm of a woman,
my grey hand on her greyest grey,
and she guides me through nothing but more emptiness.

You push and pull and imagine yourselves
to sound differently than just stone against stone,
but you are wrong: only I
live and suffer and complain.
In me is an endless scream,
and I can't say, is it my
heart that screams or my bowels.

Do you recognize the songs? You don't sing them,
not quite in this arrangement.
Each day for you brings new light,
warm through the open window.
And you have this sense of moving from face to face,
and that tempts one to be forgiving.

I Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair by Pablo Neruda

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

Pablo Neruda