Poems
 
 
 
 

COLLECTED AND ILLUSTRATED BY
 
 

Aron Porszasz
 
 

1999

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rudyard Kipling:
IF - -
 
If you can keep your head when all about you
   Are loosing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
   But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
   Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
   And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
   If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
   And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
   And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
.
.

 
 
 If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
 And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
 If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
 And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says then: "Hold on!"

 If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
 If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
 If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
 Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
    And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

 
 
 
Edgar Allan Poe:

              SPIRITS OF THE DEAD
I.

         Thy soul shall find itself alone
            'Mid dark thoughts of the gray tomb-stone - 
            Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
            Into thine hour of secrecy:

II.

            Be silent in that solitude,
                       Which is not loneliness - for then
            The spirits of the dead who stood 
                       In life before thee, are again 
            In death around thee - and their will
            Shall overshadow thee : be still.

 
 
III.

           The night - tho' clear - shall frown - 
           And the stars shall look not down,
           From their high thrones in the heaven,
           With light like Hope to mortals given - 
           But their red orbs, without beam,
           To thy weariness shall seem
           As a burning and a fever
           Which would cling to thee forever.

 
 
IV.

           Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish - 
           Now are visions ne'er to vanish - 
           From thy spirit shall they pass
           No more - like dew-drops from the grass.

V.

           The breeze - the breath of God - is still - 
           And the mist upon the hill
           Shadowy - shadowy - yet unbroken,
           Is a symbol and a token - 
           How it hangs upon the trees,
           A mystery of mysteries ! - 

 
 
Sándor Weöres:

                 SELF-PORTRAIT
       My friend, you who claim to know me,
       look round my room: nothing of  its decoration
       was my own choosing; open my wardrobe:
       it has nothing to show you that is specially me.

       My lover and my dog know how I caress them,
       but I remain unknown to them. My old instrument
       is well aware of my hand's contours;
       it too cannot sing about me.

       Yet I am not in hiding - simply, I do not exist.
       I act, I suffer, as all men do,
       but my essential core is non-existence itself.

       My friend, you must not regard me as having secrets.
       I am as transparent as glass - how then
       do you imagine you can really see me?

 
 
 
 
 
 
The poems were selected from the following books:

Rudyard Kipling's Verse
Definitive edition
Doubleday and Company, Inc.
Garden City, New York
1950

The complete works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume VII., Poems
Virginia edition
AMS Press Inc.
New York
1965

Sándor Weöres Eternal moment: Selected poems
Corvina Kiadó
1988
Translation of 'Self-portrait' by
Edwin Morgan

 
 
 

Due to technical limitations the book doesn't appear here as is in real life because of its large format, though I tried to keep the verses on the pages that they originally appear on.
Special thanks to my father János Pórszász for his help in printing the book and for his technical advice on editing the electronic version. Also thanks to my mother Katalin Molnár for 'If - -' and for the encouragement; to Péter Ôsapay for providing this webspace and help in finally putting this on the web.
Copyright © Áron Pórszász, 2000. All photographs made, printed, electronically processed and posted by Áron Pórszász.
Created between January and March 2000.
Any questions, comments, please write to: poorsaxon@hotmail.com