The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

"Will you walk into my parlor?" said the spider to the fly;

"'Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you may spy.

The way into my parlor is up a winding stair,

And I have many curious things to show when you are there."

"Oh no, no," said the little fly; "to ask me is in vain,

For who goes up your winding stair can never come down again."



"I'm sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high.

Well you rest upon my little bed?" said the spider to the fly.

"There are pretty curtains drawn around; the sheets are fine and thin,

And if you like to rest a while, I'll snugly tuck you in!"

"Oh no, no," said the little fly, "for I've often heard it said,

They never, never wake again who sleep upon your bed!"



Said the cunning spider to the fly: "Dear friend, what can I do

To prove the warm affection I've always felt for you?

I have within my pantry good store of all that's nice;

I'm sure you're very welcome - will you please to take a slice?

"Oh no, no," said the little fly; "kind sir, that cannot be:

I've heard what's in your pantry, and I do not wish to see!"



"Sweet creature!" said the spider, "you're witty and you're wise;

How handsome are your gauzy wings; how brilliant are your eyes!

I have a little looking-glass upon my parlor shelf;

If you'd step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself."

"I thank you, gentle sir," she said, "for what you're pleased to say,

And, bidding you good morning now, I'll call another day."



The spider turned him round about, and went into his den,

For well he knew the silly fly would soon come back again:

So he wove a subtle web in a little corner sly,

And set his table ready to dine upon the fly;

Then came out to his door again and merrily did sing:

"Come hither, hither, pretty fly, with pearl and silver wing;

Your robes are green and purple; there's a crest upon your head;

Your eyes are like diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead!"



Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little fly,

Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;

With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer grew,

Thinking only of her brilliant eyes and green and purple hue,

Thinking only of her crested head. Poor, foolish thing! at last

Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held her fast;

He dragged her up his winding stair, into the dismal den -

Within his little parlor - but she ne'er came out again!



And now, dear little children, who may this story read,

To idle, silly flattering words I pray you never give heed;

Unto an evil counselor close heart and ear and eye,

And take a lesson from this tale of the spider and the fly..

Once upon a time

there was a lonely wolf

lonelier than the angels.



He happened to come to a villiage.

He fell in love with the first house he saw.



Already he loved its walls

the caresses of its bricklayers.

But the windows stopped him.



In the room sat people.

Apart from God nobody ever

found them so beautiful

as this child-like beast.



So at night he went into the house.

He stopped in the middle of the room

and never moved from there any more.



He stood all through the night, with wide eyes

and on into the morning when he was beaten to death.



-Janos Pilinszky, translated from the Hungarian by Ted Hughes-

And she, being old, fed from mashed plate

as an old mare might droop across a fence

to the dull pastures of its ignorance.

Her husband held her upright while he prayed



to God who is all-forgiving to send down

some angel somewhere who might land perhaps

in his foreign wings among the gradual crops.

She munched, half dead, blindly searching the spoon.



Outside, the grass was raging. There I sat

imprisoned in my pity and my shame

the men and women having suffered time

should sit in such a place, in such a state



and wished to be away, yes, to be far away

with athletes, heroes, Greeks or Roman men

who pushed their bitter spears into a vein

and would not spend an hour with such decay.



'Pray God,' he said, 'we ask you, God,' he said.

The bowed back was quiet. I saw the teeth

tighten their grip around a delicate death.

And nothing moved within the knotted head



but only a few poor veins as one might see

vague seaweed floating on a tide

of all the salty waters where had died

too many waves to mark two more or three.



-Iain Crichton Smith-

to the others



You once smiled a friendly smile,

Said we were kin to one another,

Thus with guile for a short while

Became to me a brother.

Then you swamped my way of gladness,

Took my children from my side,

Snapped shut the law book, oh my sadness

At Yirrkala's plea denied.

So, I remember Lake George hills,

The thin stick bones of people.

Sudden death, and greed that kills,

That gave you church and steeple.

I cry again for Worrarra men,

Gone from kith and kind,

And I wondered when i would find a pen

To probe your freckled mind.

I mourned again for the Murray tribe,

Gone too without a trace,

I thought of the soldiers' diatribe,

The smile on Governor's face.

You murdered me with rope, with gun,

The massacre my enclave,

You buried me deep on McLarty's run

Flung into a common grave.

You propped me up with Christ, red tape.

Tobacco, grog and fears.

Then disease and lordly rape

Through the brutish years.

Now you primly say you're justified,

And sing of nation's glory,

But i think of people crucified-

The real Australian story.



-Jack Davis-

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry i could not travel both

And be one traveller, long i stood

And looked down one as far as i could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;



Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, i kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if i should ever come back.



I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in yellow wood, and i-

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the differance.



-Robert Frost-

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

Like the ingredients of a witches' broth-

A snow drop spider, a flower like a froth,

And dead wings carried like a paper kite.



What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appall?-

If design govern in a thing so small.



-Robert Frost-