This is just one of my favorite things

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Laughter

I Laugh at Life: its antics make for me a giddy games,
Where only foolish fellows take themselves with solemn aim.
I laugh at pomp and vanity, at riches, rank and pride;
At social inanity, at swager, swank and side.
At poets, pastry-cooks and kings, at folk sublime and small,
Who fuss about a thousand things that matter not at all;
At those who dream of name and fame, at those who scheme for pelf. . . .
But best of all the laughing game—is laughing at myself.

Some poet chap had labelled man the noblest work of God:
I see myself a charlatan, a humbug and a fraud.
Yea, ’spite of show and shallow wit, an sentimental drool,
I know myself a hypocrite, a coward and a fool.
And though I kick myself with glee profoundly on the pants,
I’m little worse, it seems to me, than other human ants.
For if you probe your private mind, impervious to shame,
Oh, Gentle Reader, you may find you’re much about the same.

Then let us mock with ancient mirth this comic, cosmic plan;
The stars are laughing at the earth; God’s greatest joke is man.
For laughter is a buckler bright, and scorn a shining spear;
So let us laugh with all our might at folly, fraud and fear.
Yet on our sorry selves be spent our most sardonic glee.
Oh don’t pay life a compliment to take is seriously.
For he who can himself despise, be surgeon to the bone,
May win to worth in others’ eyes, to wisdom in his own.

Robert Service

Soneto


Arda de raiva contra mim a intriga,
Morra de dor a inveja insaciável;
Destile seu veneno detestável
A vil calúnia, pérfida inimiga.
Una-se todo, em traiçoeira liga,
Contra mim só, o mundo miserável.
Alimente por mim ódio entranhável
O coração da terra que me abriga.

Sei rir-me da vaidade dos humanos;
Sei desprezar um nome não preciso;
Sei insultar uns cálculos insanos.

Durmo feliz sobre o suave riso
De uns lábios de mulher gentis, ufanos;
E o mais que os homens são, desprezo e piso.

Junqueira Freire

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Olivier follmi
Unidentified author