W.H. Davies, b. 1871, poet. Interesting life.

Truly Great by W.H. Davies

MY walls outside must have some flowers,
My walls within must have some books;
A house that’s small; a garden large,
And in it leafy nooks.

A little gold that’s sure each week;
That comes not from my living kind,
But from a dead man in his grave,
Who cannot change his mind.

A lovely wife, and gentle too;
Contented that no eyes but mine
Can see her many charms, nor voice
To call her beauty fine.

Where she would in that stone cage live,
A self-made prisoner, with me;
While many a wild bird sang around,
On gate, on bush, on tree.

And she sometimes to answer them,
In her far sweeter voice than all;
Till birds, that loved to look on leaves,
Will doat on a stone wall.

With this small house, this garden large,
This little gold, this lovely mate,
With health in body, peace in heart–
Show me a man more great.

Franz Kafka, b.1883. Author of The Metamorphosis and other novels and short stories. Has anyone here actually read Kafka’s Metamorphosis, or is it just one of those stories that everyone knows about and hardly anyone has read? Kafka was Jewish, born in Prague in what is now the Czech Republic.

Tom Stoppard,b.1937, playwright and screenwriter. Stoppard was also born into a Jewish family in Czechoslovakia. He wrote the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and the screenplay for Shakespeare in Love. No, I’ve not seen either of those works either.