Monday, October 31, 2011

The Fisherman by William Butler Yeats


The Fisherman

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
Although I can see him still—
The freckled man who goes
To a gray place on a hill
In gray Connemara clothes
At dawn to cast his flies—
It's long since I began
To call up to the eyes
This wise and simple man.   
All day I'd looked in the face   
What I had hoped it would be   
To write for my own race   
And the reality:   
The living men that I hate,   
The dead man that I loved,   
The craven man in his seat,   
The insolent unreproved—
And no knave brought to book   
Who has won a drunken cheer—
The witty man and his joke   
Aimed at the commonest ear,   
The clever man who cries   
The catch cries of the clown,   
The beating down of the wise   
And great Art beaten down.

Maybe a twelve-month since
Suddenly I began,
In scorn of this audience,
Imagining a man,
And his sun-freckled face
And gray Connemara cloth,
Climbing up to a place
Where stone is dark with froth,
And the down turn of his wrist
When the flies drop in the stream—
A man who does not exist,   
A man who is but a dream;   
And cried, “Before I am old   
I shall have written him one   
Poem maybe as cold   
And passionate as the dawn.”

Powerful poem, in the end it brought me to tears. A link to read more is here. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-butler-yeats

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Fragment 7: When Hope but made Tranquility be felt by Samuel Taylor Coleridge


Fragment 7: When Hope but made Tranquillity be felt

BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Samuel Taylor Coleridge


When Hope but made Tranquillity be felt—
A Flight of Hopes for ever on the wing
But made Tranquillity a conscious Thing—
And wheeling round and round in sportive coil
Fann'd the calm air upon the brow of Toil—

I like reading these fragments. A link to read more is here. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/samuel-taylor-coleridge

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

"I loved you first: but afterwards your love" By Christina Rossetti


"I loved you first: but afterwards your love"

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
I loved you first: but afterwards your love
    Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
    Which owes the other most? my love was long,
    And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be –
    Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’
    With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,
         For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’
         Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

Beautiful love poem. I want to remember this one. A link to read more is here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Rossetti

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Sigh No More by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

"Sigh No More"

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.
    Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
    To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
    And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
    Into hey nonny, nonny.

Sigh no more ditties, sing no more
    Of dumps so dull and heavy.
The fraud of men was ever so
    Since summer first was leafy.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
    And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
    Into hey, nonny, nonny.

Shakespeare is just great. Humor and insight. A link to read more is here.http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-shakespeare

Saturday, October 22, 2011

The Sorrow of True Love by Edward Thomas


The Sorrow of True Love 

BY EDWARD THOMAS
The sorrow of true love is a great sorrow
And true love parting blackens a bright morrow:
Yet almost they equal joys, since their despair
Is but hope blinded by its tears, and clear
Above the storm the heavens wait to be seen.
But greater sorrow from less love has been
That can mistake lack of despair for hope
And knows not tempest and the perfect scope
Of summer, but a frozen drizzle perpetual
Of drops that from remorse and pity fall
And cannot ever shine in the sun or thaw,
Removed eternally from the sun’s law.

Wonderful poetry, something to think about. A link to read more is here.http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/edward-thomas

Friday, October 21, 2011

Sea Fever by John Masefield



Sea Fever 

BY JOHN MASEFIELD
I must go down to the seas again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song
and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and
a grey dawn breaking,
 
I must down to the seas again,
for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call
that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day
with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
and the sea-gulls crying.
 
I must down to the seas again,
to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way
where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn
from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream
when the long trick’s over.


Simple sentiments and imagery. A link to read more is here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Masefield

Epilogue by Robert Lowell

Epilogue
by Robert Lowell




Those blessèd structures, plot and rhyme—
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?
I hear the noise of my own voice:
The painter's vision is not a lens,
it trembles to caress the light.
But sometimes everything I write
with the threadbare art of my eye
seems a snapshot,
lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,
heightened from life,
yet paralyzed by fact.
All's misalliance.
Yet why not say what happened?
Pray for the grace of accuracy
Vermeer gave to the sun's illumination
stealing like the tide across a map
to his girl solid with yearning.
We are poor passing facts,
warned by that to give
each figure in the photograph
his living name.





Lines 6 and 7 are just brilliant. Thought full poem. A link to learn more is here. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-lowell

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Sonnet 1 by Sir Philip Sidney


Sonnet 1 

BY SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,—
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay:
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.”

The ending made me smile. A link to read more is here. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/philip-sidney

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The Garden of Love by William Blake


The Garden of Love

BY WILLIAM BLAKE




I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
That so many sweet flowers bore,

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.


Fantastic, timeless poem. Just brilliant. A link to read more is here.http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-blake

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Throw Yourself Like a Seed by Miguel de Unamuno

Throw Yourself Like a Seed
by Miguel de Unamuno


Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit;
Sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate
That brushes your heel as it turns going by,
The man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant.

Now you are only giving food to that final pain

Which is slowly winding you in the nets of death,
But to live is to work, and the only thing which lasts
Is the work; start there, turn to the work.

Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field,
Don’t turn your face for that would be to turn it to death,
And do not let the past weigh down your motion.

Leave what’s alive in the furrow, what’s dead in yourself,
For life does not move in the same way as a group of clouds;
From your work you will be able one day to gather yourself.



I like this poem on so many levels. A link to read more is here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Unamuno

It's all I have to bring today (26) by Emily Dickenson

Emily DickinsonIt's all I have to bring today (26)
by Emily Dickinson




It's all I have to bring today –
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.





Sweet, lovely words. A link to read more is here.http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/155

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Change by Kathleen Raine

Kathleen Jessie RaineChange 
by Kathleen Raine


Change
Said the sun to the moon,
You cannot stay.

Change
Says the moon to the waters,
All is flowing.

Change
Says the fields to the grass,
Seed-time and harvest,
Chaff and grain.

You must change said,
Said the worm to the bud,
Though not to a rose,

Petals fade
That wings may rise
Borne on the wind.

You are changing
said death to the maiden, your wan face
To memory, to beauty.

Are you ready to change?
Says the thought to the heart, to let her pass
All your life long

For the unknown, the unborn
In the alchemy
Of the world's dream?

You will change,
says the stars to the sun,
Says the night to the stars.





Wonderful poem of change and aging. The circle of life, I've come to appreciate. A link to read more is here. http://allpoetry.com/Kathleen_Raine

Friday, October 14, 2011

Don't worry if you job is small by anonymous


Don't Worry if Your Job Is Small

BY ANONYMOUS
Don't worry if your job is small,
And your rewards are few.
Remember that the mighty oak,
Was once a nut like you.

I love these anonymous poems, sometimes they are pure jems. I like this one, reminds me to not take myself too serious. The world needs a lot of different types of people. 

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Tall Ambrosia By Henry David Thoreau


Tall Ambrosia

BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU



Among the signs of autumn I perceive
The Roman wormwood (called by learned men
Ambrosia elatior, food for gods,—
For to impartial science the humblest weed
Is as immortal once as the proudest flower—)
Sprinkles its yellow dust over my shoes
As I cross the now neglected garden.
—We trample under foot the food of gods
And spill their nectar in each drop of dew—
My honest shoes, fast friends that never stray
Far from my couch, thus powdered, countryfied,
Bearing many a mile the marks of their adventure,
At the post-house disgrace the Gallic gloss
Of those well dressed ones who no morning dew
Nor Roman wormwood ever have been through,
Who never walk but are transported rather—
For what old crime of theirs I do not gather.
I enjoy reading this. Simple but more. A link to read more is here. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/henry-david-thoreau

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Where the mind is without fear by Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear
by Rabindranath Tagore


Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.



What's so interesting reading this poem is that it is still current. A link to read more is here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore

Saturday, October 8, 2011

After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost


After Apple-Picking 
by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.


I read this and he brings the sights and sounds alive. Magnificent. A link to read more is here. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/frost.htm