POSSESSION
When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit,
What life, what glorious eagerness it is,
Then mark how full Possession falls from this,
How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit,—
I am perplext, and often stricken mute.
Wondering which attained the higher bliss,
The winged insect, or the chrysalis
It thrust aside with unreluctant foot.
La propriété exclusive est un vol dans la nature.
Exclusive property is a theft against nature.
Quand on n'a pas ce que l'on aime,
Il faut aimer ce que l'on a.
When we have not what we love, we must love what we have.
I die,—but first I have possess'd,
And come what may, I have been bless'd.
Britannia needs no bulwarks, no towers along the steep:
Her march is o'er the mountain waves; her home is on the deep.
Providence has given to the French the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, to the Germans that of—the air!
This is the truth as I see it, my dear,
Out in the wind and the rain:
They who have nothing have little to fear,
Nothing to lose or to gain.
Male parta, male dilabuntur.
What is dishonorably got, is dishonorably squandered.
As having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
Ah, yet, e'er I descend to th' grave,
May I a small House and a large Garden have.
And a few Friends, and many Books both true,
Both wise, and both delightful too.
And since Love ne'er will from me flee,
A Mistress moderately fair,
And good as Guardian angels are,
Only belov'd and loving me.
Of a rich man who was mean and niggardly, he said, "That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him."
Property has its duties as well as its rights.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
It maybe said of them [the Hollanders], as of the Spaniards, that the sun never sets upon their Dominions.
Denn was man schwarz auf weiss besitzt
Kann man getrost nach Hause tragen.
For what one has in black and white,
One can carry home in comfort.
Altera figlia
Di quel monarca a cui
Ne anco, quando annotta, il Sol tramonta.
The proud daughter, of that monarch to whom when it grows dark [elsewhere] the sun never sets.
Wouldst thou both eat thy cake and have it?
Possession means to sit astride the world
Instead of having it astride of you.
Un tiens vaut, ce dit-on, mieux que deux tu l'auras. L'un est sur, l'autre ne l'est pas.
It is said, that the thing you possess is worth more than two you may have in the future. The one is sure and the other is not.
Les Anglais, nation trop fiere,
S'arrngent l'empire des mers;
Les Français, nation légère,
S'emparent de celui des airs.
The English, a spirited nation, claim the empire of the sea; the French, a calmer nation, claim that of the air.
