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

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

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

"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

Sigh No More by 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

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

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