A poem a day

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Autumn Song
by Katherine Mansfield
Now's the time when children's noses
All become as red as roses
And the colour of their faces
Makes me think of orchard places
Where the juicy apples grow,
And tomatoes in a row.

And to-day the hardened sinner
Never could be late for dinner,
But will jump up to the table
Just as soon as he is able,
Ask for three times hot roast mutton--
Oh! the shocking little glutton.

Come then, find your ball and racket,
Pop into your winter jacket,
With the lovely bear-skin lining.
While the sun is brightly shining,
Let us run and play together
And just love the autumn weather.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Deaths And Entrances
---------------by Dylan Thomas
On almost the incendiary eve
Of several near deaths,
When one at the great least of your best loved
And always known must leave
Lions and fires of his flying breath,
Of your immortal friends
Who'd raise the organs of the counted dust
To shoot and sing your praise,
One who called deepest down shall hold his peace
That cannot sink or cease
Endlessly to his wound
In many married London's estranging grief.

On almost the incendiary eve
When at your lips and keys,
Locking, unlocking, the murdered strangers weave,
One who is most unknown,
Your polestar neighbour, sun of another street,
Will dive up to his tears.
He'll bathe his raining blood in the male sea
Who strode for your own dead
And wind his globe out of your water thread
And load the throats of shells
with every cry since light
Flashed first across his thunderclapping eyes.

On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances,
When near and strange wounded on London's waves
Have sought your single grave,
One enemy, of many, who knows well
Your heart is luminous
In the watched dark, quivering through locks and caves,
Will pull the thunderbolts
To shut the sun, plunge, mount your darkened keys
And sear just riders back,
Until that one loved least
Looms the last Samson of your zodiac

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I Taught Myself To Live Simply
------------by Anna Akhmatova
I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life's decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear'.

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I love the simplicity and great depth inherent in this poem.
Closing verse speaks to tuning mankind out , when God, Nature and simple life/loves are so tuned in...--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Mother
------by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Here I lean over you, small son, sleeping
Warm in my arms,
And I con to my heart all your dew-fresh charms,
As you lie close, close in my hungry hold . . .
Your hair like a miser's dream of gold,
And the white rose of your face far fairer,
Finer, and rarer
Than all the flowers in the young year's keeping;
Over lips half parted your low breath creeping
Is sweeter than violets in April grasses;
Though your eyes are fast shut I can see their blue,
Splendid and soft as star-shine in heaven,
With all the joyance and wisdom given
From the many souls who have staunchly striven
Through the dead years to be strong and true.

Those fine little feet in my worn hands holden . . .
Where will they tread ?
Valleys of shadow or heights dawn-red?
And those silken fingers, O, wee, white son,
What valorous deeds shall by them be done
In the future that yet so distant is seeming
To my fond dreaming?
What words all so musical and golden
With starry truth and poesy olden

Shall those lips speak in the years on-coming?
O, child of mine, with waxen brow,
Surely your words of that dim to-morrow
Rapture and power and grace must borrow
From the poignant love and holy sorrow
Of the heart that shrines and cradles you now!

Some bitter day you will love another,
To her will bear
Love-gifts and woo her . . . then must I share
You and your tenderness! Now you are mine
From your feet to your hair so golden and fine,
And your crumpled finger-tips . . . mine completely,
Wholly and sweetly;
Mine with kisses deep to smother,
No one so near to you now as your mother!
Others may hear your words of beauty,
But your precious silence is mine alone;
Here in my arms I have enrolled you,
Away from the grasping world I fold you,
Flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Tears
----by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

THANK God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More grief than ye can weep for. That is well--
That is light grieving ! lighter, none befell
Since Adam forfeited the primal lot.
Tears ! what are tears ? The babe weeps in its cot,
The mother singing, at her marriage-bell
The bride weeps, and before the oracle
Of high-faned hills the poet has forgot
Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for grace,
Ye who weep only ! If, as some have done,
Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place

And touch but tombs,--look up I those tears will run
Soon in long rivers down the lifted face,
And leave the vision clear for stars and sun
--------------------------------------------
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A Man's Requirements
----- by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I

Love me Sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.

II

Love me with thine open youth
In its frank surrender;
With the vowing of thy mouth,
With its silence tender.

III

Love me with thine azure eyes,
Made for earnest grantings;
Taking colour from the skies,
Can Heaven's truth be wanting?

IV

Love me with their lids, that fall
Snow-like at first meeting;
Love me with thine heart, that all
Neighbours then see beating.

V

Love me with thine hand stretched out
Freely -- open-minded:
Love me with thy loitering foot, --
Hearing one behind it.

VI

Love me with thy voice, that turns
Sudden faint above me;
Love me with thy blush that burns
When I murmur 'Love me!'

VII

Love me with thy thinking soul,
Break it to love-sighing;
Love me with thy thoughts that roll
On through living -- dying.

VIII

Love me in thy gorgeous airs,
When the world has crowned thee;
Love me, kneeling at thy prayers,
With the angels round thee.

IX

Love me pure, as muses do,
Up the woodlands shady:
Love me gaily, fast and true,
As a winsome lady.

X

Through all hopes that keep us brave,
Farther off or nigher,
Love me for the house and grave,
And for something higher.

XI

Thus, if thou wilt prove me, Dear,
Woman's love no fable,
I will love thee -- half a year --
As a man is able.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

La Passion Vaincue
------by Anne Kingsmill Finch
On the Banks of the Severn a desperate Maid
(Whom some Shepherd, neglecting his Vows, had betray'd,)
Stood resolving to banish all Sense of the Pain,
And pursue, thro' her Death, a Revenge on the Swain.
Since the Gods, and my Passion, at once he defies;
Since his Vanity lives, whilst my Character dies;
No more (did she say) will I trifle with Fate,
But commit to the Waves both my Love and my Hate.
And now to comply with that furious Desire,
Just ready to plunge, and alone to expire,
Some Reflection on Death, and its Terrors untry'd,
Some Scorn for the Shepherd, some Flashings of Pride
At length pull'd her back, and she cry'd, Why this Strife,
Since the Swains are so Many, and I've but One Life?

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I've always loved the ending to this fine poem..-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Rose-Morals
---by Sidney Lanier

I. -- Red.

Would that my songs might be
What roses make by day and night --
Distillments of my clod of misery
Into delight.

Soul, could'st thou bare thy breast
As yon red rose, and dare the day,
All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest?
Say yea -- say yea!

Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye;
The wind is up; so; drift away.
That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly,
I strive, I pray.


II. -- White.

Soul, get thee to the heart
Of yonder tuberose: hide thee there --
There breathe the meditations of thine art
Suffused with prayer.

Of spirit grave yet light,
How fervent fragrances uprise
Pure-born from these most rich and yet most white
Virginities!

Mulched with unsavory death,
Grow, Soul! unto such white estate,
That virginal-prayerful art shall be thy breath,
Thy work, thy fate.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Army of Occupation
- Poem by Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt

The summer blew its little drifts of sound—
Tangled with wet leaf-shadows and the light
Small breath of scattered morning buds—around
The yellow path through which our footsteps wound.
Below, the Capitol rose glittering white.

There stretched a sleeping army. One by one,
They took their places until thousands met;
No leader's stars flashed on before, and none
Leaned on his sword or stagger'd with his gun—
I wonder if their feet have rested yet!

They saw the dust, they joined the moving mass,
They answer'd the fierce music's cry for blood,
Then straggled here and lay down in the grass:—
Wear flowers for such, shores whence their feet did pass;
Sing tenderly; O river's haunted flood!

They had been sick, and worn, and weary, when
They stopp'd on this calm hill beneath the trees:
Yet if, in some red-clouded dawn, again
The country should be calling to her men,
Shall the r[e]veill[e] not remember these?

Around them underneath the mid-day skies
The dreadful phantoms of the living walk,
And by low moons and darkness with their cries—
The mothers, sisters, wives with faded eyes,
Who call still names amid their broken talk.

And there is one who comes alone and stands
At his dim fireless hearth—chill'd and oppress'd
By Something he had summon'd to his lands,
While the weird pallor of its many hands
Points to his rusted sword in his own breast!

Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

What Being in Rank-Old Nature
--------------- by Gerard Manley Hopkins
What being in rank-old nature should earlier have that breath been
That hйre pйrsonal tells off these heart-song powerful peals?—
A bush-browed, beetle-brуwed bнllow is it?
With a soъth-wйsterly wнnd blъstering, with a tide rolls reels
Of crumbling, fore-foundering, thundering all-surfy seas in; seen
Ъnderneath, their glassy barrel, of a fairy green.
. . . . . . . .
Or a jaunting vaunting vaulting assaulting trumpet telling

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Looking For a Sunset Bird in Winter
------------- by Robert Frost
The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight.

In summer when I passed the place
I had to stop and lift my face;
A bird with an angelic gift
Was singing in it sweet and swift.

No bird was singing in it now.
A single leaf was on a bough,
And that was all there was to see
In going twice around the tree.

From my advantage on a hill
I judged that such a crystal chill
Was only adding frost to snow
As gilt to gold that wouldn't show.

A brush had left a crooked stroke
Of what was either cloud or smoke
From north to south across the blue;
A piercing little star was through.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The House Of Dust: Part 01: 05: The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain

----------------- by Conrad Aiken
The snow floats down upon us, mingled with rain . . .
It eddies around pale lilac lamps, and falls
Down golden-windowed walls.
We were all born of flesh, in a flare of pain,
We do not remember the red roots whence we rose,
But we know that we rose and walked, that after a while
We shall lie down again.

The snow floats down upon us, we turn, we turn,
Through gorges filled with light we sound and flow . . .
One is struck down and hurt, we crowd about him,
We bear him away, gaze after his listless body;
But whether he lives or dies we do not know.

One of us sings in the street, and we listen to him;
The words ring over us like vague bells of sorrow.
He sings of a house he lived in long ago.
It is strange; this house of dust was the house I lived in;
The house you lived in, the house that all of us know.
And coiling slowly about him, and laughing at him,
And throwing him pennies, we bear away
A mournful echo of other times and places,
And follow a dream . . . a dream that will not stay.

Down long broad flights of lamplit stairs we flow;
Noisy, in scattered waves, crowding and shouting;
In broken slow cascades.
The gardens extend before us . . . We spread out swiftly;
Trees are above us, and darkness. The canyon fades . . .

And we recall, with a gleaming stab of sadness,
Vaguely and incoherently, some dream
Of a world we came from, a world of sun-blue hills . . .
A black wood whispers around us, green eyes gleam;
Someone cries in the forest, and someone kills.

We flow to the east, to the white-lined shivering sea;
We reach to the west, where the whirling sun went down;
We close our eyes to music in bright cafees.
We diverge from clamorous streets to streets that are silent.
We loaf where the wind-spilled fountain plays.

And, growing tired, we turn aside at last,
Remember our secret selves, seek out our towers,
Lay weary hands on the banisters, and climb;
Climbing, each, to his little four-square dream
Of love or lust or beauty or death or crime.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

To One Hated
-----------by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Had it been when I came to the valley where the paths parted asunder,
Chance had led my feet to the way of love, not hate,
I might have cherished you well, have been to you fond and faithful,
Great as my hatred is, so might my love have been great.

Each cold word of mine might have been a kiss impassioned,
Warm with the throb of my heart, thrilled with my pulse's leap,
And every glance of scorn, lashing, pursuing, and stinging,
As a look of tenderness would have been wondrous and deep.

Bitter our hatred is, old and strong and unchanging,
Twined with the fibres of life, blend with body and soul,
But as its bitterness, so might have been our love's sweetness
Had it not missed the way* strange missing and sad!* to its goal.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Bound for your distant home
--------- by Alexander Pushkin
Bound for your distant home
you were leaving alien lands.
In an hour as sad as I’ve known
I wept over your hands.
My hands were numb and cold,
still trying to restrain
you, whom my hurt told
never to end this pain.

But you snatched your lips away
from our bitterest kiss.
You invoked another place
than the dismal exile of this.
You said, ‘When we meet again,
in the shadow of olive-trees,
we shall kiss, in a love without pain,
under cloudless infinities.’

But there, alas, where the sky
shines with blue radiance,
where olive-tree shadows lie
on the waters glittering dance,
your beauty, your suffering,
are lost in eternity.
But the sweet kiss of our meeting ...
I wait for it: you owe it me ...

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It's Settled
---- by Sergei Yesenin

Yes! It's settled! Now and for ever
I have left my dear old plain.
And the winged leaves of poplars will never
ring and rustle above me again.

Our house will sag in my absence,
and my dog died a long time ago.
Me, I'm fated to die with compassions
in the crooked streets of Moscow, I know.

I admire this city of elm-trees
with decrepit buildings and homes.
Golden somnolent Asian entities
are reposing on temple domes.

When the moonlight at night, dissipated,
shines... Like hell in the dark sky of blue!
I walk down the alley, dejected,
to the pub for a drink, maybe, two.

It's a sinister den, harsh and roaring,
but in spite of it, all through the night
I read poems for girls that go whoring
and carouse with thieves with delight.

Now I speak but my words are quite pointless,
and the beat of my heart is fast:
'Just like you, I am totally worthless,
and I cannot re-enter the past'.

Our house will sag in my absence.
And my dog died a long time ago.
Me, I'm fated to die with compassions
in the crooked streets of Moscow, I know.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Prayer in the Prospect of Death
--------------by Robert Burns
O THOU unknown, Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear!
In whose dread presence, ere an hour,
Perhaps I must appear!


If I have wander’d in those paths
Of life I ought to shun,
As something, loudly, in my breast,
Remonstrates I have done;


Thou know’st that Thou hast formed me
With passions wild and strong;
And list’ning to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.


Where human weakness has come short,
Or frailty stept aside,
Do Thou, All-Good-for such Thou art—
In shades of darkness hide.


Where with intention I have err’d,
No other plea I have,
But, Thou art good; and Goodness still
Delighteth to forgive.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blue Bridge
-------by Geraldine Connolly
Praise the good-tempered summer
and the red cardinal
that jumps
like a hot coal off the track.
Praise the heavy leaves,
heroines of green, frosted
with silver. Praise the litter
of torn paper, mulch
and sticks, the spiny holly,
its scarlet land mines.

Praise the black snake that whips
and shudders its way across my path
and the lane where grandmother
and grandfather walked, arms
around each other's waists
next to such a river, below
a blue bridge about to be
crossed by a train.

In the last gasp
of August, they erase the time
it might be now, whispering
into the darkness that passed,
blue plumes of smoke and cicada,
eager and doomed.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

My Holiday
-------------------by Robert William Service
I love the cheery bustle
Of children round the house,
The tidy maids a-hustle,
The chatter of my spouse;
The laughter and the singing,
The joy on every face:
With frequent laughter ringing,
O, Home's a happy place!

Aye, Home's a bit of heaven;
I love it every day;
My line-up of eleven
Combine to make it gay;
Yet when in June they're leaving
For Sandport by the sea,
By rights I should be grieving,
But gosh! I just fell free.

I'm left with parting kisses,
The guardian of the house;
The romp, it's true, one misses,
I'm quiet as a mouse.
In carpet slippers stealing
From room to room alone
I get the strangest feeling
The place is all my own.

It seems to nestle near me,
It whispers in my ear;
My books and pictures cheer me,
Hearth never was so dear.
In peace profound I lap me,
I take no stock of time,
And from the dreams that hap me,
I make (like this) a rhyme.

Oh, I'm ashamed of saying
(And think it's mean of me),
That when the kids are staying
At Sandspot on the sea,
And I evoke them clearly
Disporting in the spray,
I love them still more dearly
Because . . . they're far away.
---------------------------------------------
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I have always liked this wonderful poem!-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Holidays
---- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart,
When the full river of feeling overflows;--
The happy days unclouded to their close;
The sudden joys that out of darkness start
As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart
Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!
White as the gleam of a receding sail,
White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,
White as the whitest lily on a stream,
These tender memories are;--a fairy tale
Of some enchanted land we know not where,
But lovely as a landscape in a dream.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Growth of Love
---------- by Robert Seymour Bridges

1
They that in play can do the thing they would,
Having an instinct throned in reason's place,
--And every perfect action hath the grace
Of indolence or thoughtless hardihood--
These are the best: yet be there workmen good
Who lose in earnestness control of face,
Or reckon means, and rapt in effort base
Reach to their end by steps well understood.
Me whom thou sawest of late strive with the pains
Of one who spends his strength to rule his nerve,
--Even as a painter breathlessly who stains
His scarcely moving hand lest it should swerve--
Behold me, now that I have cast my chains,
Master of the art which for thy sake I serve.


2
For thou art mine: and now I am ashamed
To have uséd means to win so pure acquist,
And of my trembling fear that might have misst
Thro' very care the gold at which I aim'd;
And am as happy but to hear thee named,
As are those gentle souls by angels kisst
In pictures seen leaving their marble cist
To go before the throne of grace unblamed.
Nor surer am I water hath the skill
To quench my thirst, or that my strength is freed
In delicate ordination as I will,
Than that to be myself is all I need
For thee to be most mine: so I stand still,
And save to taste my joy no more take heed.

3
The whole world now is but the minister
Of thee to me: I see no other scheme
But universal love, from timeless dream
Waking to thee his joy's interpreter.
I walk around and in the fields confer
Of love at large with tree and flower and stream,
And list the lark descant upon my theme,
Heaven's musical accepted worshipper.
Thy smile outfaceth ill: and that old feud
'Twixt things and me is quash'd in our new truce;
And nature now dearly with thee endued
No more in shame ponders her old excuse,
But quite forgets her frowns and antics rude,
So kindly hath she grown to her new use.

4
The very names of things belov'd are dear,
And sounds will gather beauty from their sense,
As many a face thro' love's long residence
Groweth to fair instead of plain and sere:
But when I say thy name it hath no peer,
And I suppose fortune determined thence
Her dower, that such beauty's excellence
Should have a perfect title for the ear.
Thus may I think the adopting Muses chose
Their sons by name, knowing none would be heard
Or writ so oft in all the world as those,--
Dan Chaucer, mighty Shakespeare, then for third
The classic Milton, and to us arose
Shelley with liquid music in the world.

5
The poets were good teachers, for they taught
Earth had this joy; but that 'twould ever be
That fortune should be perfected in me,
My heart of hope dared not engage the thought.
So I stood low, and now but to be caught
By any self-styled lords of the age with thee
Vexes my modesty, lest they should see
I hold them owls and peacocks, things of nought.
And when we sit alone, and as I please
I taste thy love's full smile, and can enstate
The pleasure of my kingly heart at ease,
My thought swims like a ship, that with the weight
Of her rich burden sleeps on the infinite seas
Becalm'd, and cannot stir her golden freight.

6
While yet we wait for spring, and from the dry
And blackening east that so embitters March,
Well-housed must watch grey fields and meadows parch,
And driven dust and withering snowflake fly;
Already in glimpses of the tarnish'd sky
The sun is warm and beckons to the larch,
And where the covert hazels interarch
Their tassell'd twigs, fair beds of primrose lie.
Beneath the crisp and wintry carpet hid
A million buds but stay their blossoming;
And trustful birds have built their nests amid
The shuddering boughs, and only wait to sing
Till one soft shower from the south shall bid,
And hither tempt the pilgrim steps of spring.

7
In thee my spring of life hath bid the while
A rose unfold beyond the summer's best,
The mystery of joy made manifest
In love's self-answering and awakening smile;
Whereby the lips in wonder reconcile
Passion with peace, and show desire at rest,--
A grace of silence by the Greek unguesst,
That bloom'd to immortalize the Tuscan style
When first the angel-song that faith hath ken'd
Fancy pourtray'd, above recorded oath
Of Israel's God, or light of poem pen'd;
The very countenance of plighted troth
'Twixt heaven and earth, where in one moment blend
The hope of one and happiness of both.

8
For beauty being the best of all we know
Sums up the unsearchable and secret aims
Of nature, and on joys whose earthly names
Were never told can form and sense bestow;
And man hath sped his instinct to outgo
The step of science; and against her shames
Imagination stakes out heavenly claims,
Building a tower above the head of woe.
Nor is there fairer work for beauty found
Than that she win in nature her release
From all the woes that in the world abound:
Nay with his sorrow may his love increase,
If from man's greater need beauty redound,
And claim his tears for homage of his peace.

9
Thus to thy beauty doth my fond heart look,
That late dismay'd her faithless faith forbore;
And wins again her love lost in the lore
Of schools and script of many a learned book:
For thou what ruthless death untimely took
Shalt now in better brotherhood restore,
And save my batter'd ship that far from shore
High on the dismal deep in tempest shook.

So in despite of sorrow lately learn'd
I still hold true to truth since thou art true,
Nor wail the woe which thou to joy hast turn'd
Nor come the heavenly sun and bathing blue
To my life's need more splendid and unearn'd
Than hath thy gift outmatch'd desire and due.

10
Winter was not unkind because uncouth;
His prison'd time made me a closer guest,
And gave thy graciousness a warmer zest,
Biting all else with keen and angry tooth
And bravelier the triumphant blood of youth
Mantling thy cheek its happy home possest,
And sterner sport by day put strength to test,
And custom's feast at night gave tongue to truth
Or say hath flaunting summer a device
To match our midnight revelry, that rang
With steel and flame along the snow-girt ice?
Or when we hark't to nightingales that sang
On dewy eves in spring, did they entice
To gentler love than winter's icy fang?

11
There's many a would-be poet at this hour,
Rhymes of a love that he hath never woo'd,
And o'er his lamplit desk in solitude
Deems that he sitteth in the Muses' bower:
And some the flames of earthly love devour,
Who have taken no kiss of Nature, nor renew'd
In the world's wilderness with heavenly food
The sickly body of their perishing power.

So none of all our company, I boast,
But now would mock my penning, could they see
How down the right it maps a jagged coast;
Seeing they hold the manlier praise to be
Strong hand and will, and the heart best when most
'Tis sober, simple, true, and fancy-free.

12
How could I quarrel or blame you, most dear,
Who all thy virtues gavest and kept back none;
Kindness and gentleness, truth without peer,
And beauty that my fancy fed upon?
Now not my life's contrition for my fault
Can blot that day, nor work me recompence,
Tho' I might worthily thy worth exalt,
Making thee long amends for short offence.
For surely nowhere, love, if not in thee
Are grace and truth and beauty to be found;
And all my praise of these can only be
A praise of thee, howe'er by thee disown'd:
While still thou must be mine tho' far removed,
And I for one offence no more beloved.

13
Now since to me altho' by thee refused
The world is left, I shall find pleasure still;
The art that most I have loved but little used
Will yield a world of fancies at my will:
And tho' where'er thou goest it is from me,
I where I go thee in my heart must bear;
And what thou wert that wilt thou ever be,
My choice, my best, my loved, and only fair.
Farewell, yet think not such farewell a change
From tenderness, tho' once to meet or part
But on short absence so could sense derange
That tears have graced the greeting of my heart;
They were proud drops and had my leave to fall,
Not on thy pity for my pain to call.

14
When sometimes in an ancient house where state
From noble ancestry is handed on,
We see but desolation thro' the gate,
And richest heirlooms all to ruin gone;
Because maybe some fancied shame or fear,
Bred of disease or melancholy fate,
Hath driven the owner from his rightful sphere
To wander nameless save to pity or hate:
What is the wreck of all he hath in fief
When he that hath is wrecking? nought is fine
Unto the sick, nor doth it burden grief
That the house perish when the soul doth pine.
Thus I my state despise, slain by a sting
So slight 'twould not have hurt a meaner thing.

15
Who builds a ship must first lay down the keel
Of health, whereto the ribs of mirth are wed:
And knit, with beams and knees of strength, a bed
For decks of purity, her floor and ceil.
Upon her masts, Adventure, Pride, and Zeal,
To fortune's wind the sails of purpose spread:
And at the prow make figured maidenhead
O'erride the seas and answer to the wheel.
And let him deep in memory's hold have stor'd
Water of Helicon: and let him fit
The needle that doth true with heaven accord:
Then bid her crew, love, diligence and wit
With justice, courage, temperance come aboard,
And at her helm the master reason sit.

16
This world is unto God a work of art,
Of which the unaccomplish'd heavenly plan
Is hid in life within the creature's heart,
And for perfection looketh unto man.
Ah me! those thousand ages: with what slow
Pains and persistence were his idols made,
Destroy'd and made, ere ever he could know
The mighty mother must be so obey'd.
For lack of knowledge and thro' little skill
His childish mimicry outwent his aim;
His effort shaped the genius of his will;
Till thro' distinction and revolt he came,
True to his simple terms of good and ill,
Seeking the face of Beauty without blame.

17
Say who be these light-bearded, sunburnt faces
In negligent and travel-stain'd array,
That in the city of Dante come to-day,
Haughtily visiting her holy places?
O these be noble men that hide their graces,
True England's blood, her ancient glory's stay,
By tales of fame diverted on their way
Home from the rule of oriental races.
Life-trifling lions these, of gentle eyes
And motion delicate, but swift to fire
For honour, passionate where duty lies,
Most loved and loving: and they quickly tire
Of Florence, that she one day more denies
The embrace of wife and son, of sister or sire.

18
Where San Miniato's convent from the sun
At forenoon overlooks the city of flowers
I sat, and gazing on her domes and towers
Call'd up her famous children one by one:
And three who all the rest had far outdone,
Mild Giotto first, who stole the morning hours,
I saw, and god-like Buonarroti's powers,
And Dante, gravest poet, her much-wrong'd son.

Is all this glory, I said, another's praise?
Are these heroic triumphs things of old,
And do I dead upon the living gaze?
Or rather doth the mind, that can behold
The wondrous beauty of the works and days,
Create the image that her thoughts enfold?

19
Rejoice, ye dead, where'er your spirits dwell,
Rejoice that yet on earth your fame is bright;
And that your names, remember'd day and night,
Live on the lips of those that love you well.
'Tis ye that conquer'd have the powers of hell,
Each with the special grace of your delight:
Ye are the world's creators, and thro' might
Of everlasting love ye did excel.
Now ye are starry names, above the storm
And war of Time and nature's endless wrong
Ye flit, in pictured truth and peaceful form,
Wing'd with bright music and melodious song,--
The flaming flowers of heaven, making May-dance
In dear Imagination's rich pleasance.

20
The world still goeth about to shew and hide,
Befool'd of all opinion, fond of fame:
But he that can do well taketh no pride,
And see'th his error, undisturb'd by shame:
So poor's the best that longest life can do,
The most so little, diligently done;
So mighty is the beauty that doth woo,
So vast the joy that love from love hath won.
God's love to win is easy, for He loveth
Desire's fair attitude, nor strictly weighs
The broken thing, but all alike approveth
Which love hath aim'd at Him: that is heaven's praise:
And if we look for any praise on earth,
'Tis in man's love: all else is nothing worth.

21
O flesh and blood, comrade to tragic pain
And clownish merriment whose sense could wake
Sermons in stones, and count death but an ache,
All things as vanity, yet nothing vain:
The world, set in thy heart, thy passionate strain
Reveal'd anew; but thou for man didst make
Nature twice natural, only to shake
Her kingdom with the creatures of thy brain.
Lo, Shakespeare, since thy time nature is loth
To yield to art her fair supremacy;
In conquering one thou hast so enrichèd both.
What shall I say? for God--whose wise decree
Confirmeth all He did by all He doth--
Doubled His whole creation making thee.

22
I would be a bird, and straight on wings I arise,
And carry purpose up to the ends of the air
In calm and storm my sails I feather, and where
By freezing cliffs the unransom'd wreckage lies:
Or, strutting on hot meridian banks, surprise
The silence: over plains in the moonlight bare
I chase my shadow, and perch where no bird dare
In treetops torn by fiercest winds of the skies.
Poor simple birds, foolish birds! then I cry,
Ye pretty pictures of delight, unstir'd
By the only joy of knowing that ye fly;
Ye are not what ye are, but rather, sum'd in a word,
The alphabet of a god's idea, and I
Who master it, I am the only bird.

23
O weary pilgrims, chanting of your woe,
That turn your eyes to all the peaks that shine,
Hailing in each the citadel divine
The which ye thought to have enter'd long ago;
Until at length your feeble steps and slow
Falter upon the threshold of the shrine,
And your hearts overhurden'd doubt in fine
Whether it be Jerusalem or no:
Dishearten'd pilgrims, I am one of you;
For, having worshipp'd many a barren face,
I scarce now greet the goal I journey'd to:
I stand a pagan in the holy place;
Beneath the lamp of truth I am found untrue,
And question with the God that I embrace.

24
Spring hath her own bright days of calm and peace;
Her melting air, at every breath we draw,
Floods heart with love to praise God's gracious law:
But suddenly--so short is pleasure's lease--
The cold returns, the buds from growing cease,
And nature's conquer'd face is full of awe;
As now the trait'rous north with icy flaw
Freezes the dew upon the sick lamb's fleece,
And 'neath the mock sun searching everywhere
Rattles the crispèd leaves with shivering din:
So that the birds are silent with despair
Within the thickets; nor their armour thin
Will gaudy flies adventure in the air,
Nor any lizard sun his spotted skin.

25
Nothing is joy without thee: I can find
No rapture in the first relays of spring,
In songs of birds, in young buds opening,
Nothing inspiriting and nothing kind;
For lack of thee, who once wert throned behind
All beauty, like a strength where graces cling,--
The jewel and heart of light, which everything
Wrestled in rivalry to hold enshrined.
Ah! since thou'rt fled, and I in each fair sight
The sweet occasion of my joy deplore,
Where shall I seek thee best, or whom invite
Within thy sacred temples and adore?
Who shall fill thought and truth with old delight,
And lead my soul in life as heretofore?

26
The work is done, and from the fingers fall
The bloodwarm tools that brought the labour thro':
The tasking eye that overrunneth all
Rests, and affirms there is no more to do.
Now the third joy of making, the sweet flower
Of blessed work, bloometh in godlike spirit;
Which whoso plucketh holdeth for an hour
The shrivelling vanity of mortal merit.
And thou, my perfect work, thou'rt of to-day;
To-morrow a poor and alien thing wilt be,
True only should the swift life stand at stay:
Therefore farewell, nor look to bide with me.
Go find thy friends, if there be one to love thee:
Casting thee forth, my child, I rise above thee.

27
The fabled sea-snake, old Leviathan,
Or else what grisly beast of scaly chine
That champ'd the ocean-wrack and swash'd the brine,
Before the new and milder days of man,
Had never rib nor bray nor swindging fan
Like his iron swimmer of the Clyde or Tyne,
Late-born of golden seed to breed a line
Of offspring swifter and more huge of plan.
Straight is her going, for upon the sun
When once she hath look'd, her path and place are plain;
With tireless speed she smiteth one by one
The shuddering seas and foams along the main;
And her eased breath, when her wild race is run,
Roars thro' her nostrils like a hurricane.

28
A thousand times hath in my heart's behoof
My tongue been set his passion to impart;
A thousand times hath my too coward heart
My mouth reclosed and fix'd it to the roof;
Then with such cunning hath it held aloof,
A thousand times kept silence with such art
That words could do no more: yet on thy part
Hath silence given a thousand times reproof.
I should be bolder, seeing I commend
Love, that my dilatory purpose primes,
But fear lest with my fears my hope should end:
Nay, I would truth deny and burn my rhymes,
Renew my sorrows rather than offend,
A thousand times, and yet a thousand times.

29
I travel to thee with the sun's first rays,
That lift the dark west and unwrap the night;
I dwell beside thee when he walks the height,
And fondly toward thee at his setting gaze.
I wait upon thy coming, but always--
Dancing to meet my thoughts if they invite--
Thou hast outrun their longing with delight,
And in my solitude dost mock my praise.
Now doth my drop of time transcend the whole:
I see no fame in Khufu's pyramid,
No history where loveless Nile doth roll.
--This is eternal life, which doth forbid
Mortal detraction to the exalted soul,
And from her inward eye all fate hath hid.

30
My lady pleases me and I please her;
This know we both, and I besides know well
Wherefore I love her, and I love to tell
My love, as all my loving songs aver.
But what on her part could the passion stir,
Tho' 'tis more difficult for love to spell,
Yet can I dare divine how this befel,
Nor will her lips deny it if I err.
She loves me first because I love her, then
Loves me for knowing why she should be loved,
And that I love to praise her, loves again.
So from her beauty both our loves are moved,
And by her beauty are sustain'd; nor when
The earth falls from the sun is this disproved.

31
In all things beautiful, I cannot see
Her sit or stand, but love is stir'd anew:
'Tis joy to watch the folds fall as they do,
And all that comes is past expectancy.
If she be silent, silence let it be;
He who would bid her speak might sit and sue
The deep-brow'd Phidian Jove to be untrue
To his two thousand years' solemnity.
Ah, but her launchèd passion, when she sings,
Wins on the hearing like a shapen prow
Borne by the mastery of its urgent wings:
Or if she deign her wisdom, she doth show
She hath the intelligence of heavenly things,
Unsullied by man's mortal overthrow.

32
Thus to be humbled: 'tis that ranging pride
No refuge hath; that in his castle strong
Brave reason sits beleaguer'd, who so long
Kept field, but now must starve where he doth hide;
That industry, who once the foe defied,
Lies slaughter'd in the trenches; that the throng
Of idle fancies pipe their foolish song,
Where late the puissant captains fought and died.
Thus to be humbled: 'tis to be undone;
A forest fell'd; a city razed to ground;
A cloak unsewn, unwoven and unspun
Till not a thread remains that can be wound.
And yet, O lover, thee, the ruin'd one,
Love who hath humbled thus hath also crown'd.

33
I care not if I live, tho' life and breath
Have never been to me so dear and sweet.
I care not if I die, for I could meet--
Being so happy--happily my death.
I care not if I love; to-day she saith
She loveth, and love's history is complete.
Nor care I if she love me; at her feet
My spirit bows entranced and worshippeth.
I have no care for what was most my care,
But all around me see fresh beauty born,
And common sights grown lovelier than they were:
I dream of love, and in the light of morn
Tremble, beholding all things very fair
And strong with strength that puts my strength to scorn.

34
O my goddess divine sometimes I say
Now let this word for ever and all suffice;
Thou art insatiable, and yet not twice
Can even thy lover give his soul away:
And for my acts, that at thy feet I lay;
For never any other, by device
Of wisdom, love or beauty, could entice
My homage to the measure of this day.
I have no more to give thee: lo, I have sold
My life, have emptied out my heart, and spent
Whate'er I had; till like a beggar, bold
With nought to lose, I laugh and am content.
A beggar kisses thee; nay, love, behold,
I fear not: thou too art in beggarment.

35
All earthly beauty hath one cause and proof,
To lead the pilgrim soul to beauty above:
Yet lieth the greater bliss so far aloof,
That few there be are wean'd from earthly love.
Joy's ladder it is, reaching from home to home,
The best of all the work that all was good;
Whereof 'twas writ the angels aye upclomb,
Down sped, and at the top the Lord God stood.
But I my time abuse, my eyes by day
Center'd on thee, by night my heart on fire--
Letting my number'd moments run away--
Nor e'en 'twixt night and day to heaven aspire:
So true it is that what the eye seeth not
But slow is loved, and loved is soon forgot.

36
O my life's mischief, once my love's delight,
That drew'st a mortgage on my heart's estate,
Whose baneful clause is never out of date,
Nor can avenging time restore my right:
Whom first to lose sounded that note of spite,
Whereto my doleful days were tuned by fate:
That art the well-loved cause of all my hate,
The sun whose wandering makes my hopeless night:
Thou being in all my lacking all I lack,
It is thy goodness turns my grace to crime,
Thy fleetness from my goal which holds me back;
Wherefore my feet go out of step with time,
My very grasp of life is old and slack,
And even my passion falters in my rhyme.

37
At times with hurried hoofs and scattering dust
I race by field or highway, and my horse
Spare not, but urge direct in headlong course
Unto some fair far hill that gain I must:
But near arrived the vision soon mistrust,
Rein in, and stand as one who sees the source
Of strong illusion, shaming thought to force
From off his mind the soil of passion's gust.

My brow I bare then, and with slacken'd speed
Can view the country pleasant on all sides,
And to kind salutation give good heed:
I ride as one who for his pleasure rides,
And stroke the neck of my delighted steed,
And seek what cheer the village inn provides.

38
An idle June day on the sunny Thames,
Floating or rowing as our fancy led,
Now in the high beams basking as we sped,
Now in green shade gliding by mirror'd stems;
By lock and weir and isle, and many a spot
Of memoried pleasure, glad with strength and skill,
Friendship, good wine, and mirth, that serve not ill
The heavenly Muse, tho' she requite them not:
I would have life--thou saidst--all as this day,
Simple enjoyment calm in its excess,
With not a grief to cloud, and not a ray
Of passion overhot my peace to oppress;
With no ambition to reproach delay,
Nor rapture to disturb its happiness.

39
A man that sees by chance his picture, made
As once a child he was, handling some toy,
Will gaze to find his spirit within the boy,
Yet hath no secret with the soul pourtray'd:
He cannot think the simple thought which play'd
Upon those features then so frank and coy;
'Tis his, yet oh! not his: and o'er the joy
His fatherly pity bends in tears dismay'd.
Proud of his prime maybe he stand at best,
And lightly wear his strength, or aim it high,
In knowledge, skill and courage self-possest:--
Yet in the pictured face a charm doth lie,
The one thing lost more worth than all the rest,
Which seeing, he fears to say This child was I.

40
Tears of love, tears of joy and tears of care,
Comforting tears that fell uncomforted,
Tears o'er the new-born, tears beside the dead,
Tears of hope, pride and pity, trust and prayer,
Tears of contrition; all tears whatsoe'er
Of tenderness or kindness had she shed
Who here is pictured, ere upon her head
The fine gold might be turn'd to silver there.
The smile that charm'd the father hath given place
Unto the furrow'd care wrought by the son;
But virtue hath transform'd all change to grace:
So that I praise the artist, who hath done
A portrait, for my worship, of the face
Won by the heart my father's heart that won.

41
If I could but forget and not recall
So well my time of pleasure and of play,
When ancient nature was all new and gay,
Light as the fashion that doth last enthrall,--
Ah mighty nature, when my heart was small,
Nor dream'd what fearful searchings underlay
The flowers and leafy ecstasy of May,
The breathing summer sloth, the scented fall:
Could I forget, then were the fight not hard,
Press'd in the mêlée of accursed things,
Having such help in love and such reward:
But that 'tis I who once--'tis this that stings--
Once dwelt within the gate that angels guard,
Where yet I'd be had I but heavenly wings.

42
When I see childhood on the threshold seize
The prize of life from age and likelihood,
I mourn time's change that will not be withstood,
Thinking how Christ said Be like one of these.
For in the forest among many trees
Scarce one in all is found that hath made good
The virgin pattern of its slender wood,
That courtesied in joy to every breeze;
But scath'd, but knotted trunks that raise on high
Their arms in stiff contortion, strain'd and bare
Whose patriarchal crowns in sorrow sigh.
So, little children, ye--nay nay, ye ne'er
From me shall learn how sure the change and nigh,
When ye shall share our strength and mourn to share.

43
When parch'd with thirst, astray on sultry sand
The traveller faints, upon his closing ear
Steals a fantastic music: he may hear
The babbling fountain of his native land.
Before his eyes the vision seems to stand,
Where at its terraced brink the maids appear,
Who fill their deep urns at its waters clear,
And not refuse the help of lover's hand.
O cruel jest--he cries, as some one flings
The sparkling drops in sport or shew of ire--
O shameless, O contempt of holy things.
But never of their wanton play they tire,
As not athirst they sit beside the springs,
While he must quench in death his lost desire.

44
The image of thy love, rising on dark
And desperate days over my sullen sea,
Wakens again fresh hope and peace in me,
Gleaming above upon my groaning bark.
Whate'er my sorrow be, I then may hark
A loving voice: whate'er my terror be,
This heavenly comfort still I win from thee,
To shine my lodestar that wert once my mark.
Prodigal nature makes us but to taste
One perfect joy, which given she niggard grows;
And lest her precious gift should run to waste,
Adds to its loss a thousand lesser woes:
So to the memory of the gift that graced
Her hand, her graceless hand more grace bestows.

45
In this neglected, ruin'd edifice
Of works unperfected and broken schemes,
Where is the promise of my early dreams,
The smile of beauty and the pearl of price?
No charm is left now that could once entice
Wind-wavering fortune from her golden streams,
And full in flight decrepit purpose seems,
Trailing the banner of his old device.
Within the house a frore and numbing air
Has chill'd endeavour: sickly memories reign
In every room, and ghosts are on the stair:
And hope behind the dusty window-pane
Watches the days go by, and bow'd with care
Forecasts her last reproach and mortal stain.

46
Once I would say, before thy vision came,
My joy, my life, my love, and with some kind
Of knowledge speak, and think I knew my mind
Of heaven and hope, and each word hit its aim.
Whate'er their sounds be, now all mean the same,
Denoting each the fair that none can find;
Or if I say them, 'tis as one long blind
Forgets the sights that he was used to name.
Now if men speak of love, 'tis not my love;
Nor are their hopes nor joys mine, nor their life
Of praise the life that I think honour of:
Nay tho' they turn from house and child and wife
And self, and in the thought of heaven above
Hold, as do I, all mortal things at strife.

47
Since then 'tis only pity looking back,
Fear looking forward, and the busy mind
Will in one woeful moment more upwind
Than lifelong years unroll of bitter or black;
What is man's privilege, his hoarding knack
Of memory with foreboding so combined,
Whereby he comes to dream he hath of kind
The perpetuity which all things lack?

Which but to hope is doubtful joy, to have
Being a continuance of what, alas,
We mourn, and scarcely hear with to the grave;
Or something so unknown that it o'erpass
The thought of comfort, and the sense that gave
Cannot consider it thro' any glass.

48
Come gentle sleep, I woo thee: come and take
Not now the child into thine arms, from fright
Composed by drowsy tune and shaded light,
Whom ignorant of thee thou didst nurse and make;
Nor now the boy, who scorn'd thee for the sake
Of growing knowledge or mysterious night,
Tho' with fatigue thou didst his limbs invite,
And heavily weigh the eyes that would not wake;
No, nor the man severe, who from his best
Failing, alert fled to thee, that his breath,
Blood, force and fire should come at morn redrest;
But me; from whom thy comfort tarrieth,
For all my wakeful prayer sent without rest
To thee, O shew and shadow of my death.

49
The spirit's eager sense for sad or gay
Filleth with what he will our vessel full:
Be joy his bent, he waiteth not joy's day
But like a child at any toy will pull:
If sorrow, he will weep for fancy's sake,
And spoil heaven's plenty with forbidden care.
What fortune most denies we slave to take;
Nor can fate load us more than we can bear.
Since pleasure with the having disappeareth,
He who hath least in hand hath most at heart,
While he keep hope: as he who alway feareth
A grief that never comes hath yet the smart;
And heavier far is our self-wrought distress,
For when God sendeth sorrow, it doth bless.

50
The world comes not to an end: her city-hives
Swarm with the tokens of a changeless trade,
With rolling wheel, driver and flagging jade,
Rich men and beggars, children, priests and wives.
New homes on old are set, as lives on lives;
Invention with invention overlaid:
But still or tool or toy or book or blade
Shaped for the hand, that holds and toils and strives.
The men to-day toil as their fathers taught,
With little better'd means; for works depend
On works and overlap, and thought on thought:
And thro' all change the smiles of hope amend
The weariest face, the same love changed in nought:
In this thing too the world comes not to an end.

51
O my uncared-for songs, what are ye worth,
That in my secret book with so much care
I write you, this one here and that one there,
Marking the time and order of your birth?
How, with a fancy so unkind to mirth,
A sense so hard, a style so worn and bare,
Look ye for any welcome anywhere
From any shelf or heart-home on the earth?
Should others ask you this, say then I yearn'd
To write you such as once, when I was young,
Finding I should have loved and thereto turn'd.
'Twere something yet to live again among
The gentle youth beloved, and where I learn'd
My art, be there remember'd for my song.

52
Who takes the census of the living dead,
Ere the day come when memory shall o'ercrowd
The kingdom of their fame, and for that proud
And airy people find no room nor stead?
Ere hoarding Time, that ever thrusteth back
The fairest treasures of his ancient store,
Better with best confound, so he may pack
His greedy gatherings closer, more and more?
Let the true Muse rewrite her sullied page,
And purge her story of the men of hate,
That they go dirgeless down to Satan's rage
With all else foul, deform'd and miscreate:
She hath full toil to keep the names of love
Honour'd on earth, as they are bright above.

53
I heard great Hector sounding war's alarms,
Where thro' the listless ghosts chiding he strode,
As tho' the Greeks besieged his last abode,
And he his Troy's hope still, her king-at-arms.
But on those gentle meads, which Lethe charms
With weary oblivion, his passion glow'd
Like the cold night-worm's candle, and only show'd
Such mimic flame as neither heats nor harms.
'Twas plain to read, even by those shadows quaint,
How rude catastrophe had dim'd his day,
And blighted all his cheer with stern complaint:
To arms! to arms! what more the voice would say
Was swallow'd in the valleys, and grew faint
Upon the thin air, as he pass'd away.

54
Since not the enamour'd sun with glance more fond
Kisses the foliage of his sacred tree,
Than doth my waking thought arise on thee,
Loving none near thee, like thee nor beyond;
Nay, since I am sworn thy slave, and in the bond
Is writ my promise of eternity
Since to such high hope thou'st encouraged me,
That if thou look but from me I despond;
Since thou'rt my all in all, O think of this:
Think of the dedication of my youth:
Think of my loyalty, my joy, my bliss:
Think of my sorrow, my despair and ruth,
My sheer annihilation if I miss:
Think--if thou shouldst be false--think of thy truth.

55
These meagre rhymes, which a returning mood
Sometimes o'errateth, I as oft despise;
And knowing them illnatured, stiff and rude,
See them as others with contemptuous eyes.
Nay, and I wonder less at God's respect
For man, a minim jot in time and space,
Than at the soaring faith of His elect,
That gift of gifts, the comfort of His grace.
O truth unsearchable, O heavenly love,
Most infinitely tender, so to touch
The work that we can meanly reckon of:
Surely--I say--we are favour'd overmuch.
But of this wonder, what doth most amaze
Is that we know our love is held for praise.

56
Beauty sat with me all the summer day,
Awaiting the sure triumph of her eye;
Nor mark'd I till we parted, how, hard by,
Love in her train stood ready for his prey.
She, as too proud to join herself the fray,
Trusting too much to her divine ally,
When she saw victory tarry, chid him--"Why
Dost thou not at one stroke this rebel slay?"
Then generous Love, who holds my heart in fee,
Told of our ancient truce: so from the fight
We straight withdrew our forces, all the three.
Baffled but not dishearten'd she took flight
Scheming new tactics: Love came home with me,
And prompts my measured verses as I write.

57
In autumn moonlight, when the white air wan
Is fragrant in the wake of summer hence,
'Tis sweet to sit entranced, and muse thereon
In melancholy and godlike indolence:
When the proud spirit, lull'd by mortal prime
To fond pretence of immortality,
Vieweth all moments from the birth of time,
All things whate'er have been or yet shall be.
And like the garden, where the year is spent,
The ruin of old life is full of yearning,
Mingling poetic rapture of lament
With flowers and sunshine of spring's sure returning;
Only in visions of the white air wan
By godlike fancy seized and dwelt upon.

58
When first I saw thee, dearest, if I say
The spells that conjure back the hour and place,
And evermore I look upon thy face,
As in the spring of years long pass'd away;
No fading of thy beauty's rich array,
No detriment of age on thee I trace,
But time's defeat written in spoils of grace,
From rivals robb'd, whom thou didst pity and slay.
So hath thy growth been, thus thy faith is true,
Unchanged in change, still to my growing sense,
To life's desire the same, and nothing new:
But as thou wert in dream and prescience
At love's arising, now thou stand'st to view
In the broad noon of his magnificence.

59
'Twas on the very day winter took leave
Of those fair fields I love, when to the skies
The fragrant Earth was smiling in surprise
At that her heaven-descended, quick reprieve,
I wander'd forth my sorrow to relieve
Yet walk'd amid sweet pleasure in such wise
As Adam went alone in Paradise,
Before God of His pity fashion'd Eve.
And out of tune with all the joy around
I laid me down beneath a flowering tree,
And o'er my senses crept a sleep profound;
In which it seem'd that thou wert given to me,
Rending my body, where with hurried sound
I feel my heart beat, when I think of thee.

60
Love that I know, love I am wise in, love,
My strength, my pride, my grace, my skill untaught,
My faith here upon earth, my hope above,
My contemplation and perpetual thought:
The pleasure of my fancy, my heart's fire,
My joy, my peace, my praise, my happy theme,
The aim of all my doing, my desire
Of being, my life by day, by night my dream:
Love, my sweet melancholy, my distress,
My pain, my doubt, my trouble, my despair,
My only folly and unhappiness,
And in my careless moments still my care:
O love, sweet love, earthly love, love difvine,
Say'st thou to-day, O love, that thou art mine?

61
The dark and serious angel, who so long
Vex'd his immortal strength in charge of me,
Hath smiled for joy and fled in liberty
To take his pastime with the peerless throng.
Oft had I done his noble keeping wrong,
Wounding his heart to wonder what might be
God's purpose in a soul of such degree;
And there he had left me but for mandate strong.
But seeing thee with me now, his task at close
He knoweth, and wherefore he was bid to stay,
And work confusion of so many foes:
The thanks that he doth look for, here I pay,
Yet fear some heavenly envy, as he goes
Unto what great reward I cannot say.

62
I will be what God made me, nor protest
Against the bent of genius in my time,
That science of my friends robs all the best,
While I love beauty, and was born to rhyme.
Be they our mighty men, and let me dwell
In shadow among the mighty shades of old,
With love's forsaken palace for my cell;
Whence I look forth and all the world behold,
And say, These better days, in best things worse,
This bastardy of time's magnificence,
Will mend in fashion and throw off the curse,
To crown new love with higher excellence.
Curs'd tho' I be to live my life alone,
My toil is for man's joy, his joy my own.

63
I live on hope and that I think do all
Who come into this world, and since I see
Myself in swim with such good company,
I take my comfort whatsoe'er befall.
I abide and abide, as if more stout and tall
My spirit would grow by waiting like a tree
And, clear of others' toil, it pleaseth me
In dreams their quick ambition to forestall
And if thro' careless eagerness I slide
To some accomplishment, I give my voice
Still to desire, and in desire abide.
I have no stake abroad; if I rejoice
In what is done or doing, I confide
Neither to friend nor foe my secret choice.

64
Ye blessed saints, that now in heaven enjoy
The purchase of those tears, the world's disdain,
Doth Love still with his war your peace annoy,
Or hath Death freed you from his ancient pain?
Have ye no springtide, and no burst of May
In flowers and leafy trees, when solemn night
Pants with love-music, and the holy day
Breaks on the ear with songs of heavenly light?
What make ye and what strive for? keep ye thought
Of us, or in new excellence divine
Is old forgot? or do ye count for nought
What the Greek did and what the Florentine?
We keep your memories well : O in your store
Live not our best joys treasured evermore?

65
Ah heavenly joy But who hath ever heard,
Who hath seen joy, or who shall ever find
Joy's language? There is neither speech nor word
Nought but itself to teach it to mankind.
Scarce in our twenty thousand painful days
We may touch something: but there lives--beyond
The best of art, or nature's kindest phase--
The hope whereof our spirit is fain and fond:
The cause of beauty given to man's desires
Writ in the expectancy of starry skies,
The faith which gloweth in our fleeting fires,
The aim of all the good that here we prize;
Which but to love, pursue and pray for well
Maketh earth heaven, and to forget it, hell.

66
My wearied heart, whenever, after all,
Its loves and yearnings shall be told complete,
When gentle death shall bid it cease to beat,
And from all dear illusions disenthrall:
However then thou shalt appear to call
My fearful heart, since down at others' feet
It bade me kneel so oft, I'll not retreat
From thee, nor fear before thy feet to fall.
And I shall say, "Receive this loving heart
Which err'd in sorrow only; and in sin
Took no delight; but being forced apart
From thee, without thee hoping thee to win,
Most prized what most thou madest as thou art
On earth, till heaven were open to enter in."

67
Dreary was winter, wet with changeful sting
Of clinging snowfall and fast-flying frost;
And bitterer northwinds then withheld the spring,
That dallied with her promise till 'twas lost.
A sunless and half-hearted summer drown'd
The flowers in needful and unwelcom'd rain;
And Autumn with a sad smile fled uncrown'd
From fruitless orchards and unripen'd grain.
But could the skies of this most desolate year
In its last month learn with our love to glow,
Men yet should rank its cloudless atmosphere
Above the sunsets of five years ago:
Of my great praise too part should be its own,
Now reckon'd peerless for thy love alone

68
Away now, lovely Muse, roam and be free:
Our commerce ends for aye, thy task is done:
Tho' to win thee I left all else unwon,
Thou, whom I most have won, art not for me.
My first desire, thou too forgone must be,
Thou too, O much lamented now, tho' none
Will turn to pity thy forsaken son,
Nor thy divine sisters will weep for thee.
None will weep for thee : thou return, O Muse,
To thy Sicilian fields I once have been
On thy loved hills, and where thou first didst use
Thy sweetly balanced rhyme, O thankless queen,
Have pluck'd and wreath'd thy flowers; but do thou choose
Some happier brow to wear thy garlands green.

69
Eternal Father, who didst all create,
In whom we live, and to whose bosom move,
To all men be Thy name known, which is Love,
Till its loud praises sound at heaven's high gate.
Perfect Thy kingdom in our passing state,
That here on earth Thou may'st as well approve
Our service, as Thou ownest theirs above,
Whose joy we echo and in pain await.

Grant body and soul each day their daily bread
And should in spite of grace fresh woe begin,
Even as our anger soon is past and dead
Be Thy remembrance mortal of our sin:
By Thee in paths of peace Thy sheep be led,
And in the vale of terror comforted.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Time of Roses
by Thomas Hood
It was not in the Winter
Our loving lot was cast;
It was the time of roses—
We pluck'd them as we pass'd!

That churlish season never frown'd
On early lovers yet:
O no—the world was newly crown'd
With flowers when first we met!

'Twas twilight, and I bade you go,
But still you held me fast;
It was the time of roses—
We pluck'd them as we pass'd!

--------------------------------------

The Reply to Time
by Mary Darby Robinson
O TIME, forgive the mournful song
That on thy pinions stole along,
When the rude hand of pain severe
Chas'd down my cheek the burning tear;
When sorrow chill'd each warm desire
That kindles FANCY'S lambent fire;
When HOPE, by fost'ring FRIENDSHIP rear'd,
A phantom of the brain appear'd;
Forgive the song, devoid of art,
That stole spontaneous from my heart;
For when that heart shall throb no more,
And all its keen regrets be o'er;
Should kind remembrance shed one tear
To sacred FRIENDSHIP o'er my bier;
When the dark precincts of the tomb,
Shall hide me in its deepest gloom;
O! should'st thou on thy wafting wing
The sigh of gentle sorrow bring;
Or fondly deign to bear the name
Of one, alas! unknown to fame;
Then, shall my weak untutor'd rhyme,
Exulting boast the gifts of TIME.

But while I feel youth's vivid fire
Fann'd by the breath of care expire;
While no blest ray of HOPE divine,
O'er my chill'd bosom deigns to shine:
While doom'd to mark the vapid day
In tasteless languor waste away:
Still, still, my sad and plaintive rhyme
Must blame the ruthless pow'r of TIME.

Each infant flow'r of rainbow hue,
That bathes its head in morning dew,
At twilight droops; the mountain PINE,
Whose high and waving brows incline
O'er the white cataract's foamy way,
Shall at THY withering touch decay!
The craggy cliffs that proudly rise
In awful splendour 'midst the skies,
Shall to the vale in fragments roll,
Obedient to thy fell controul!
The loftiest fabric rear'd to fame;
The sculptur'd BUST, the POET'S name;
The softest tint of TITIAN die;
The boast of magic MINSTRELSY;
The vows to holy FRIENDSHIP dear;
The sainted smile of LOVE sincere,
The flame that warms th' empassion'd heart;
All that fine feeling can impart;
The wonders of exterior grace;
The spells that bind the fairest face;
Fade in oblivion's torpid hour
The victims of thy TYRANT POW'R!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/alexander_pushkin/poems

Bound for your distant home
------------by Alexander Pushkin
Bound for your distant home
you were leaving alien lands.
In an hour as sad as I’ve known
I wept over your hands.
My hands were numb and cold,
still trying to restrain
you, whom my hurt told
never to end this pain.

But you snatched your lips away
from our bitterest kiss.
You invoked another place
than the dismal exile of this.
You said, ‘When we meet again,
in the shadow of olive-trees,
we shall kiss, in a love without pain,
under cloudless infinities.’

But there, alas, where the sky
shines with blue radiance,
where olive-tree shadows lie
on the waters glittering dance,
your beauty, your suffering,
are lost in eternity.
But the sweet kiss of our meeting ...
I wait for it: you owe it me ...
----------------------------------------

Morpheus
-----------by Alexander Pushkin
Oh, Morpheus, give me joy till morning
For my forever painful love:
Just blow out candles' burning
And let my dreams in blessing move.
Let from my soul disappear
The separation's sharp rebuke!
And let me see that dear look,
And let me hear voice that dear.
And when will vanish dark of night
And you will free my eyes at leaving,
Oh, if my heart would have a right
To lose its love till dark of evening!
----------------------------------

The Water-Nymph
----------by Alexander Pushkin
In lakeside leafy groves, a friar
Escaped all worries; there he passed
His summer days in constant prayer,
Deep studies and eternal fast.
Already with a humble shovel
The elder dug himself a grave -
As, calling saints to bless his hovel,
Death - nothing other - did he crave.

So once, upon a falling night, he
Was bowing by his wilted shack
With meekest prayer to the Almighty.
The grove was turning slowly black;
Above the lake a mist was lifting;
Through milky clouds across the sky
The ruddy moon was softly drifting,
When water drew the friar's eye...

He's looking puzzled, full of trouble,
Of fear he cannot quite explain,
He sees the waves begin to bubble
And suddenly grow calm again.
Then -- white as first snow in the highlands,
Light-footed as nocturnal shade,
There comes ashore, and sits in silence
Upon the bank, a naked maid.

She eyes the monk and brushes gently
Her hair, and water off her arms.
He shakes with fear and looks intently
At her, and at her lovely charms.
With eager hand she waves and beckons,
Nods quickly, smiles as from afar
And shoots, within two flashing seconds,
Into still water like a star.

The glum old man slept not an instant;
All day, not even once he prayed:
Before his eyes still hung and glistened
The wondrous, the relentless shade...
The grove puts on its gown of nightfall;
The moon walks on the cloudy floor;
And there's the maiden - pale, delightful,
Reclining on the spellbound shore.

She looks at him, her hair she brushes,
Blows airy kisses, gestures wild,
Plays with the waves - caresses, splashes -
Now laughs, now whimpers like a child,
Moans tenderly, calls louder, louder...
"Come, monk, come, monk! To me, to me!.."
Then - disappears in limpid water,
And all is silent instantly...

On the third day the zealous hermit
Was sitting by the shore, in love,
Awaiting the delightful mermaid,
As shade was covering the grove...
Dark ceded to the sun's emergence;
Our monk had wholly disappeared -
Before a crowd of local urchins,
While fishing, found his hoary beard.

Translated by: Genia Gurarie, summer of 1995
Copyright retained by Genia Gurarie.
email: egurarie@princeton.edu
http://www.princeton.edu/~egurarie/
For permission to reproduce, write personally to the translator.

************************************************** *********


http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/alexander_pushkin/biography

Alexander Pushkin Biography

Alexander Pushkin

Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin was born in Moscow on May 26, 1799 (Old Style). In 1811 he was selected to be among the thirty students in the first class at the Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo . He attended the Lyceum from 1811 to 1817 and received the best education available in Russia at the time. He soon not only became the unofficial laureate of the Lyceum, but found a wider audience and recognition. He was first published in the journal The Messenger of Europe in 1814. In 1815 his poem "Recollections in Tsarskoe Selo" met the approval of Derzhavin, a great eighteenth-century poet, at a public examination in the Lyceum.

After graduating from the Lyceum, he was given a sinecure in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs in Petersburg. The next three years he spent mainly in carefree, light-hearted pursiut of pleasure. He was warmly received in literary circles; in circles of Guard-style lovers of wine, women, and song; and in groups where political liberals debated reforms and constitutions. Between 1817 and 1820 he reflected liberal views in "revolutionary" poems, his ode "Freedom," "The Village," and a number of poems on Aleksandr I and his minister Arakcheev. At the same time he was working on his first large-scale work, Ruslan and Liudmila.

In April 1820, his political poems led to an interrogation by the Petersburg governor-general and then to exile to South Russia, under the guise of an administrative transfer in the service. Pushkin left Petersburg for Ekaterinoslave on May 6, 1820. Soon after his arrival there he traveled around the Caucasus and the Crimea with the family of General Raevsky. During almost three years in Kishinev, Pushkin wrote his first Byronic verse tales, "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" (1820-1821), "The Bandit Brothers (1821-1822), and "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray" (1821-1823). He also wrote "Gavriiliada" (1821), a light approach to the Annunciation, and he started his novel in verse, Eugene Onegin (1823-1831).

With the aid of influential friends, he was transferred in July 1823 to Odessa, where he engaged in theatre going, social outings, and love affairs with two married women. His literary creativeness also continued, as he completed "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray" and the first chapter of Eugene Onegin, and began "The Gypsies." After postal officials intercepted a letter in which he wrote a thinly-veiled support of atheism, Pushkin was exiled to his mother's estate of Mikhaylovskoe in north Russia.

The next two years, from August 1824 to August 1826 he spent at Mikhaylovskoe in exile and under surveillance. However unpleasant Pushkin my have found his virtual imprisonment in the village, he continued his literary productiveness there. During 1824 and 1825 at Mikhaylovskoe he finished "The Gypsies," wrote Boris Godunov , "Graf Nulin" and the second chapter of Eugene Onegin.

When the Decembrist Uprising took place in Petersburg on December 14, 1825, Pushkin, still in Makhaylovskoe, was not a participant. But he soon learned that he was implicated, for all the Decembrists had copies of his early political poems. He destroyed his papers that might be dangerous for himself or others. In late spring of 1826, he sent the Tsar a petition that he be released from exile. After an investigation that showed Pushkin had been behaving himself, he was summoned to leave immediately for an audience with Nicholas I. On September 8, still grimy from the road, he was taken in to see Nicholas. At the end of the interview, Pushkin was jubliant that he was now released from exile and that Nicholas I had undertaken to be the personal censor of his works.

Pushkin thought that he would be free to travel as he wished, that he could freely participate in the publication of journals, and that he would be totally free of censorship, except in cases which he himself might consider questionable and wish to refer to his royal censor. He soon found out otherwise. Count Benkendorf, Chief of Gendarmes, let Pushkin know that without advance permission he was not to make any trip, participate in any journal, or publish -- or even read in literary circles -- any work. He gradually discovered that he had to account for every word and action, like a naughty child or a parolee. Several times he was questioned by the police about poems he had written.

The youthful Pushkin had been a light-hearted scoffer at the state of matrimony, but freed from exile, he spent the years from 1826 to his marriage in 1831 largely in search of a wife and in preparing to settle down. He sought no less than the most beautiful woman in Russia for his bride. In 1829 he found her in Natalia Goncharova, and presented a formal proposal in April of that year. She finally agreed to marry him on the condition that his ambiguous situation with the government be clarified, which it was. As a kind of wedding present, Pushkin was given permission to publish Boris Godunov -- after four years of waiting for authorization -- under his "own responsibility." He was formally betrothed on May 6, 1830.

Financial arrangements in connection with his father's wedding gift to him of half the estate of Kistenevo necessitated a visit to the neightboring estate of Boldino, in east-central Russia. When Pushkin arrived there in September 1830, he expected to remain only a few days; however, for three whole months he was held in quarantine by an epidemic of Asiatic cholera. These three months in Boldino turned out to be literarily the most productive of his life. During the last months of his exile at Mikhaylovskoe, he had completed Chapters V and VI of Eugene Onegin, but in the four subsequent years he had written, of major works, only "Poltava"(1828), his unfinished novel The Blackamoor of Peter the Great (1827) and Chapter VII of Eugene Onegin (1827-1828). During the autumn at Boldino, Pushkin wrote the five short stories of The Tales of Belkin; the verse tale "The Little House in Kolomna;" his little tragedies, "The Avaricious Knight," "Mozart and Salieri;" "The Stone Guest;" and "Feast in the Time of the Plague;" "The Tale of the Priest and His Workman Balda," the first of his fairy tales in verse; the last chapter of Eugene Onegin; and "The Devils," among other lyrics.

Pushkin was married to Natalia Goncharova on February 18, 1831, in Moscow. In May, after a honeymoon made disagreeable by "Moscow aunties" and in-laws, the Pushkins moved to Tsarskoe Selo, in order to live near the capital, but inexpensively and in "inspirational solitude and in the circle of sweet recollections." These expectations were defeated when the cholera epidemic in Petersburg caused the Tsar and the court to take refuge in July in Tsarskoe Selo. In October 1831 the Pushkins moved to an apartment in Petersburg, where they lived for the remainder of his life. He and his wife became henceforth inextricably involved with favors from the Tsar and with court society. Mme. Pushkina's beauty immediately made a sensation in society, and her admirers included the Tsar himself. On December 30, 1833, Nicholas I made Pushkin a Kammerjunker, an intermediate court rank usually granted at the time to youths of high aristocratic families. Pushkin was deeply offended, all the more because he was convinced that it was conferred, not for any quality of his own, but only to make it proper for the beautiful Mme. Pushkina to attend court balls. Dancing at one of these balls was followed in March 1834 by her having a miscarriage. While she was convalescing in the provinces, Pushkin spoke openly in letters to her of his indignation and humiliation. The letters were intercepted and sent to the police and to the Tsar. When Pushkin discovered this, in fury he submitted his resignation from the service on June 25, 1834. However, he had reason to fear the worst from the Tsar's displeasure at this action, and he felt obliged to retract his resignation.

Pushkin could ill afford the expense of gowns for Mme. Pushkina for court balls or the time required for performing court duties. His woes further increased when her two unmarried sisters came in autumn 1834 to live henceforth with them. In addition, in the spring of 1834 he had taken over the management of his improvident father's estate and had undertaken to settle the debts of his heedless brother. The result was endless cares, annoyances, and even outlays from his own pocket. He came to be in such financial straits that he applied for a leave of absence to retire to the country for three or four years, or if that were refused, for a substatial sum as loan to cover his most pressing debts and for the permission to publish a journal. The leave of absence was brusquely refused, but a loan of thirty thousand rubles was, after some trouble, negotiated; permission to publish, beginning in 1836, a quarterly literary journal, The Contemporary, was finally granted as well. The journal was not a financial success, and it involved him in endless editoral and financial cares and in difficulties with the censors, for it gave importantly placed enemies among them the opportunity to pay him off. Short visits to the country in 1834 and 1835 resulted in the completion of only one major work, "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel"(1834), and during 1836 he only completed his novel on Pugachev, The Captain's Daughter, and a number of his finest lyrics.

Meanwhile, Mme. Pushkina loved the attention which her beauty attracted in the highest society; she was fond of "coquetting" and of being surrounded by admirers, who included the Tsar himself. In 1834 Mme. Pushkina met a young man who was not content with coquetry, a handsome French royalist emigre in Russian service, who was adopted by the Dutch ambassador, Heeckeren. Young d'Anthes-Heeckeren pursued Mme. Pushkina for two years, and finally so openly and unabashedly that by autumn 1836, it was becoming a scandal. On November 4, 1836 Pushkin received several copies of a "certificate" nominating him "Coadjutor of the International Order of Cuckolds." Pushkin immediately challenged d'Anthes; at the same time, he made desperate efforts to settle his indebtedness to the Treasury. Pushkin twice allowed postponements of the duel, and then retracted the challenge when he learned "from public rumour" that d'Anthes was "really" in love with Mme. Pushkina's sister, Ekaterina Goncharova. On January 10, 1837, the marriage took place, contrary to Pushkin's expectations. Pushkin refused to attend the wedding or to receive the couple in his home, but in society d'Anthes pursued Mme. Pushkina even more openly. Then d'Anthes arranged a meeting with her, by persuading her friend Idalia Poletika to invite Mme. Pushkina for a visit; Mme. Poletika left the two alone, but one of her children came in, and Mme. Pushkina managed to get away. Upon hearing of this meeting, Pushkin sent an insulting letter to old Heeckeren, accusing him of being the author of the "certificate" of November 4 and the "pander" of his "bastard." A duel with d'Anthes took place on January 27, 1837. D'Anthes fired first, and Pushkin was mortally wounded; after he fell, he summoned the strength to fire his shot and to wound, slightly, his adversary. Pushkin died two days later, on January 29.

As Pushkin lay dying, and after his death, except for a few friends, court society sympathized with d'Anthes, but thousands of people of all other social levels came to Pushkin's apartment to express sympathy and to mourn. The government obviously feared a political demonstration. To prevent public display, the funeral was shifted from St. Isaac's Cathedral to the small Royal Stables Church, with admission by ticket only to members of the court and diplomatic society. And then his body was sent away, in secret and at midnight. He was buried beside his mother at dawn on February 6, 1837 at Svyatye Gory Monastery, near Mikhaylovskoe.

I have long been a huge fan of Alexander Pushkin's poetry.
He is, in my estimation, one of the top one hundred best best poets in history..--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

As a Beam O'er the Face of the Waters May Glow
by Thomas Moore
As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow
While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below,
So the cheek may be tinged with a warm sunny smile,
Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while.

One fatal remembrance, one sorrow that throws
Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes,
To which life nothing darker or brighter can bring,
For which joy has no balm and affliction no sting --

Oh! this thought in the midst of enjoyment will stay,
Like a dead, leafless branch in the summer's bright ray;
The beams of the warm sun play round it in vain;
It may smile in his light, but it blooms not again.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Christabel
-----------by Samuel Coleridge
PART I
'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;
Tu-whit!- Tu-whoo!
And hark, again! the crowing cock,
How drowsily it crew.
Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath a toothless mastiff, which
From her kennel beneath the rock
Maketh answer to the clock,
Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour;
Ever and aye, by shine and shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over loud;
Some say, she sees my lady's shroud.
Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.
The moon is behind, and at the full;
And yet she looks both small and dull.
The night is chill, the cloud is gray:
'T is a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this way.
The lovely lady, Christabel,
Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate?
She had dreams all yesternight
Of her own betrothed knight;
And she in the midnight wood will pray
For the weal of her lover that's far away.
She stole along, she nothing spoke,
The sighs she heaved were soft and low,
And naught was green upon the oak,
But moss and rarest mistletoe:
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she.
The lady sprang up suddenly,
The lovely lady, Christabel!
It moaned as near, as near can be,
But what it is she cannot tell.-
On the other side it seems to be,
Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.
The night is chill; the forest bare;
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek-
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.
Hush, beating heart of Christabel!
Jesu, Maria, shield her well!
She folded her arms beneath her cloak,
And stole to the other side of the oak.
What sees she there?
There she sees a damsel bright,
Dressed in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone:
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck, and arms were bare;
Her blue-veined feet unsandaled were;
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
I guess, 't was frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she-
Beautiful exceedingly!
'Mary mother, save me now!'
Said Christabel, 'and who art thou?'
The lady strange made answer meet,
And her voice was faint and sweet:-
'Have pity on my sore distress,
I scarce can speak for weariness:
Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear!'
Said Christabel, 'How camest thou here?'
And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet,
Did thus pursue her answer meet:-
'My sire is of a noble line,
And my name is Geraldine:
Five warriors seized me yestermorn,
Me, even me, a maid forlorn:
They choked my cries with force and fright,
And tied me on a palfrey white.
The palfrey was as fleet as wind,
And they rode furiously behind.
They spurred amain, their steeds were white:
And once we crossed the shade of night.
As sure as Heaven shall rescue me,
I have no thought what men they be;
Nor do I know how long it is
(For I have lain entranced, I wis)
Since one, the tallest of the five,
Took me from the palfrey's back,
A weary woman, scarce alive.
Some muttered words his comrades spoke:
He placed me underneath this oak;
He swore they would return with haste;
Whither they went I cannot tell-
I thought I heard, some minutes past,
Sounds as of a castle bell.
Stretch forth thy hand,' thus ended she,
'And help a wretched maid to flee.'
Then Christabel stretched forth her hand,
And comforted fair Geraldine:
'O well, bright dame, may you command
The service of Sir Leoline;
And gladly our stout chivalry
Will he send forth, and friends withal,
To guide and guard you safe and free
Home to your noble father's hall.'
She rose: and forth with steps they passed
That strove to be, and were not, fast.
Her gracious stars the lady blest,
And thus spake on sweet Christabel:
'All our household are at rest,
The hall is silent as the cell;
Sir Leoline is weak in health,
And may not well awakened be,
But we will move as if in stealth;
And I beseech your courtesy,
This night, to share your couch with me.'
They crossed the moat, and Christabel
Took the key that fitted well;
A little door she opened straight,
All in the middle of the gate;
The gate that was ironed within and without,
Where an army in battle array had marched out.
The lady sank, belike through pain,
And Christabel with might and main
Lifted her up, a weary weight,
Over the threshold of the gate:
Then the lady rose again,
And moved, as she were not in pain.
So, free from danger, free from fear,
They crossed the court: right glad they were.
And Christabel devoutly cried
To the Lady by her side;
'Praise we the Virgin all divine,
Who hath rescued thee from thy distress!'
'Alas, alas!' said Geraldine,
'I cannot speak for weariness.'
So, free from danger, free from fear,
They crossed the court: right glad they were.
Outside her kennel the mastiff old
Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold.
The mastiff old did not awake,
Yet she an angry moan did make.
And what can ail the mastiff bitch?
Never till now she uttered yell
Beneath the eye of Christabel.
Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch:
For what can aid the mastiff bitch?
They passed the hall, that echoes still,
Pass as lightly as you will.
The brands were flat, the brands were dying,
Amid their own white ashes lying;
But when the lady passed, there came
A tongue of light, a fit of flame;
And Christabel saw the lady's eye,
And nothing else saw she thereby,
Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall,
Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall.
'O softly tread,' said Christabel,
'My father seldom sleepeth well.'
Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare,
And, jealous of the listening air,
They steal their way from stair to stair,
Now in glimmer, and now in gloom,
And now they pass the Baron's room,
As still as death, with stifled breath!
And now have reached her chamber door;
And now doth Geraldine press down
The rushes of the chamber floor.
The moon shines dim in the open air,
And not a moonbeam enters here.
But they without its light can see
The chamber carved so curiously,
Carved with figures strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver's brain,
For a lady's chamber meet:
The lamp with twofold silver chain
Is fastened to an angel's feet.
The silver lamp burns dead and dim;
But Christabel the lamp will trim.
She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright,
And left it swinging to and fro,
While Geraldine, in wretched plight,
Sank down upon the floor below.
'O weary lady, Geraldine,
I pray you, drink this cordial wine!
It is a wine of virtuous powers;
My mother made it of wild flowers.'
'And will your mother pity me,
Who am a maiden most forlorn?'
Christabel answered- 'Woe is me!
She died the hour that I was born.
I have heard the gray-haired friar tell,
How on her death-bed she did say,
That she should hear the castle-bell
Strike twelve upon my wedding-day.
O mother dear! that thou wert here!'
'I would,' said Geraldine, 'she were!'
But soon, with altered voice, said she-
'Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine!
I have power to bid thee flee.'
Alas! what ails poor Geraldine?
Why stares she with unsettled eye?
Can she the bodiless dead espy?
And why with hollow voice cries she,
'Off, woman, off! this hour is mine-
Though thou her guardian spirit be,
Off, woman. off! 't is given to me.'
Then Christabel knelt by the lady's side,
And raised to heaven her eyes so blue-
'Alas!' said she, 'this ghastly ride-
Dear lady! it hath wildered you!'
The lady wiped her moist cold brow,
And faintly said, ''T is over now!'
Again the wild-flower wine she drank:
Her fair large eyes 'gan glitter bright,
And from the floor, whereon she sank,
The lofty lady stood upright:
She was most beautiful to see,
Like a lady of a far countree.
And thus the lofty lady spake-
'All they, who live in the upper sky,
Do love you, holy Christabel!
And you love them, and for their sake,
And for the good which me befell,
Even I in my degree will try,
Fair maiden, to requite you well.
But now unrobe yourself; for I
Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.'
Quoth Christabel, 'So let it be!'
And as the lady bade, did she.
Her gentle limbs did she undress
And lay down in her loveliness.
But through her brain, of weal and woe,
So many thoughts moved to and fro,
That vain it were her lids to close;
So half-way from the bed she rose,
And on her elbow did recline.
To look at the lady Geraldine.
Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,
And slowly rolled her eyes around;
Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast:
Her silken robe, and inner vest,
Dropped to her feet, and full in view,
Behold! her bosom and half her side-
A sight to dream of, not to tell!
O shield her! shield sweet Christabel!
Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs:
Ah! what a stricken look was hers!
Deep from within she seems half-way
To lift some weight with sick assay,
And eyes the maid and seeks delay;
Then suddenly, as one defied,
Collects herself in scorn and pride,
And lay down by the maiden's side!-
And in her arms the maid she took,
Ah, well-a-day!
And with low voice and doleful look
These words did say:
'In the touch of this bosom there worketh a spell,
Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel!
Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow,
This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow;
But vainly thou warrest,
For this is alone in
Thy power to declare,
That in the dim forest
Thou heard'st a low moaning,
And found'st a bright lady, surpassingly fair:
And didst bring her home with thee, in love and in charity,
To shield her and shelter her from the damp air.'
It was a lovely sight to see
The lady Christabel, when she
Was praying at the old oak tree.
Amid the jagged shadows
Of mossy leafless boughs,
Kneeling in the moonlight,
To make her gentle vows;
Her slender palms together prest,
Heaving sometimes on her breast;
Her face resigned to bliss or bale-
Her face, oh, call it fair not pale,
And both blue eyes more bright than clear.
Each about to have a tear.
With open eyes (ah, woe is me!)
Asleep, and dreaming fearfully,
Fearfully dreaming, yet, I wis,
Dreaming that alone, which is-
O sorrow and shame! Can this be she,
The lady, who knelt at the old oak tree?
And lo! the worker of these harms,
That holds the maiden in her arms,
Seems to slumber still and mild,
As a mother with her child.
A star hath set, a star hath risen,
O Geraldine! since arms of thine
Have been the lovely lady's prison.
O Geraldine! one hour was thine-
Thou'st had thy will! By tarn and rill,
The night-birds all that hour were still.
But now they are jubilant anew,
From cliff and tower, tu-whoo! tu-whoo!
Tu-whoo! tu-whoo! from wood and fell!
And see! the lady Christabel
Gathers herself from out her trance;
Her limbs relax, her countenance
Grows sad and soft; the smooth thin lids
Close o'er her eyes; and tears she sheds-
Large tears that leave the lashes bright!
And oft the while she seems to smile
As infants at a sudden light!
Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep,
Like a youthful hermitess,
Beauteous in a wilderness,
Who, praying always, prays in sleep.
And, if she move unquietly,
Perchance, 't is but the blood so free
Comes back and tingles in her feet.
No doubt, she hath a vision sweet.
What if her guardian spirit 't were,
What if she knew her mother near?
But this she knows, in joys and woes,
That saints will aid if men will call:
For the blue sky bends over all.
PART II
Each matin bell, the Baron saith,
Knells us back to a world of death.
These words Sir Leoline first said,
When he rose and found his lady dead:
These words Sir Leoline will say
Many a morn to his dying day!
And hence the custom and law began
That still at dawn the sacristan,
Who duly pulls the heavy bell,
Five and forty beads must tell
Between each stroke- a warning knell,
Which not a soul can choose but hear
From Bratha Head to Wyndermere.
Saith Bracy the bard, 'So let it knell!
And let the drowsy sacristan
Still count as slowly as he can!'
There is no lack of such, I ween,
As well fill up the space between.
In Langdale Pike and Witch's Lair,
And Dungeon-ghyll so foully rent,
With ropes of rock and bells of air
Three sinful sextons' ghosts are pent,
Who all give back, one after t' other,
The death-note to their living brother;
And oft too, by the knell offended,
Just as their one! two! three! is ended,
The devil mocks the doleful tale
With a merry peal from Borrowdale.
The air is still! through mist and cloud
That merry peal comes ringing loud;
And Geraldine shakes off her dread,
And rises lightly from the bed;
Puts on her silken vestments white,
And tricks her hair in lovely plight,
And nothing doubting of her spell
Awakens the lady Christabel.
'Sleep you, sweet lady Christabel?
I trust that you have rested well.'
And Christabel awoke and spied
The same who lay down by her side-
O rather say, the same whom she
Raised up beneath the old oak tree!
Nay, fairer yet! and yet more fair!
For she belike hath drunken deep
Of all the blessedness of sleep!
And while she spake, her looks, her air,
Such gentle thankfulness declare,
That (so it seemed) her girded vests
Grew tight beneath her heaving breasts.
'Sure I have sinned!' said Christabel,
'Now heaven be praised if all be well!'
And in low faltering tones, yet sweet,
Did she the lofty lady greet
With such perplexity of mind
As dreams too lively leave behind.
So quickly she rose, and quickly arrayed
Her maiden limbs, and having prayed
That He, who on the cross did groan,
Might wash away her sins unknown,
She forthwith led fair Geraldine
To meet her sire, Sir Leoline.
The lovely maid and the lady tall
Are pacing both into the hall,
And pacing on through page and groom,
Enter the Baron's presence-room.
The Baron rose, and while he prest
His gentle daughter to his breast,
With cheerful wonder in his eyes
The lady Geraldine espies,
And gave such welcome to the same,
As might beseem so bright a dame!
But when he heard the lady's tale,
And when she told her father's name,
Why waxed Sir Leoline so pale,
Murmuring o'er the name again,
Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine?
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother:
They parted- ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining-
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between.
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.
Sir Leoline, a moment's space,
Stood gazing on the damsel's face:
And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine
Came back upon his heart again.
O then the Baron forgot his age,
His noble heart swelled high with rage;
He swore by the wounds in Jesu's side
He would proclaim it far and wide,
With trump and solemn heraldry,
That they, who thus had wronged the dame
Were base as spotted infamy!
'And if they dare deny the same,
My herald shall appoint a week,
And let the recreant traitors seek
My tourney court- that there and then
I may dislodge their reptile souls
From the bodies and forms of men!'
He spake: his eye in lightning rolls!
For the lady was ruthlessly seized; and he kenned
In the beautiful lady the child of his friend!
And now the tears were on his face,
And fondly in his arms he took
Fair Geraldine who met the embrace,
Prolonging it with joyous look.
Which when she viewed, a vision fell
Upon the soul of Christabel,
The vision of fear, the touch and pain!
She shrunk and shuddered, and saw again-
(Ah, woe is me! Was it for thee,
Thou gentle maid! such sights to see?)
Again she saw that bosom old,
Again she felt that bosom cold,
And drew in her breath with a hissing sound:
Whereat the Knight turned wildly round,
And nothing saw, but his own sweet maid
With eyes upraised, as one that prayed.
The touch, the sight, had passed away,
And in its stead that vision blest,
Which comforted her after-rest,
While in the lady's arms she lay,
Had put a rapture in her breast,
And on her lips and o'er her eyes
Spread smiles like light!
With new surprise,
'What ails then my beloved child?'
The Baron said- His daughter mild
Made answer, 'All will yet be well!'
I ween, she had no power to tell
Aught else: so mighty was the spell.
Yet he who saw this Geraldine,
Had deemed her sure a thing divine.
Such sorrow with such grace she blended,
As if she feared she had offended
Sweet Christabel, that gentle maid!
And with such lowly tones she prayed
She might be sent without delay
Home to her father's mansion.
'Nay!
Nay, by my soul!' said Leoline.
'Ho! Bracy the bard, the charge be thine!
Go thou, with music sweet and loud,
And take two steeds with trappings proud,
And take the youth whom thou lov'st best
To bear thy harp, and learn thy song,
And clothe you both in solemn vest,
And over the mountains haste along,
Lest wandering folk, that are abroad,
Detain you on the valley road.
'And when he has crossed the Irthing flood,
My merry bard! he hastes, he hastes
Up Knorren Moor, through Halegarth Wood,
And reaches soon that castle good
Which stands and threatens Scotland's wastes.
'Bard Bracy! bard Bracy! your horses are fleet,
Ye must ride up the hall, your music so sweet,
More loud than your horses' echoing feet!
And loud and loud to Lord Roland call,
Thy daughter is safe in Langdale hall!
Thy beautiful daughter is safe and free-
Sir Leoline greets thee thus through me.
He bids thee come without delay
With all thy numerous array;
And take thy lovely daughter home:
And he will meet thee on the way
With all his numerous array
White with their panting palfreys' foam:
And, by mine honor! I will say,
That I repent me of the day
When I spake words of fierce disdain
To Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine!-
- For since that evil hour hath flown,
Many a summer's sun hath shone;
Yet ne'er found I a friend again
Like Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine.'
The lady fell, and clasped his knees,
Her face upraised, her eyes o'erflowing;
And Bracy replied, with faltering voice,
His gracious hail on all bestowing;
'Thy words, thou sire of Christabel,
Are sweeter than my harp can tell;
Yet might I gain a boon of thee,
This day my journey should not be,
So strange a dream hath come to me;
That I had vowed with music loud
To clear yon wood from thing unblest,
Warned by a vision in my rest!
For in my sleep I saw that dove,
That gentle bird, whom thou dost love,
And call'st by thy own daughter's name-
Sir Leoline! I saw the same,
Fluttering, and uttering fearful moan,
Among the green herbs in the forest alone.
Which when I saw and when I heard,
I wondered what might ail the bird;
For nothing near it could I see,
Save the grass and herbs underneath the old tree.
And in my dream methought I went
To search out what might there be found;
And what the sweet bird's trouble meant,
That thus lay fluttering on the ground.
I went and peered, and could descry
No cause for her distressful cry;
But yet for her dear lady's sake
I stooped, methought, the dove to take,
When lo! I saw a bright green snake
Coiled around its wings and neck.
Green as the herbs on which it couched,
Close by the dove's its head it crouched;
And with the dove it heaves and stirs,
Swelling its neck as she swelled hers!
I woke; it was the midnight hour,
The clock was echoing in the tower;
But though my slumber was gone by,
This dream it would not pass away-
It seems to live upon my eye!
And thence I vowed this self-same day
With music strong and saintly song
To wander through the forest bare,
Lest aught unholy loiter there.'
Thus Bracy said: the Baron, the while,
Half-listening heard him with a smile;
Then turned to Lady Geraldine,
His eyes made up of wonder and love;
And said in courtly accents fine,
'Sweet maid, Lord Roland's beauteous dove,
With arms more strong than harp or song,
Thy sire and I will crush the snake!'
He kissed her forehead as he spake,
And Geraldine in maiden wise
Casting down her large bright eyes,
With blushing cheek and courtesy fine
She turned her from Sir Leoline;
Softly gathering up her train,
That o'er her right arm fell again;
And folded her arms across her chest,
And couched her head upon her breast,
And looked askance at Christabel-
Jesu, Maria, shield her well!
A snake's small eye blinks dull and shy,
And the lady's eyes they shrunk in her head,
Each shrunk up to a serpent's eye,
And with somewhat of malice, and more of dread,
At Christabel she looked askance!-
One moment- and the sight was fled!
But Christabel in dizzy trance
Stumbling on the unsteady ground
Shuddered aloud, with a hissing sound;
And Geraldine again turned round,
And like a thing that sought relief,
Full of wonder and full of grief,
She rolled her large bright eyes divine
Wildly on Sir Leoline.
The maid, alas! her thoughts are gone,
She nothing sees- no sight but one!
The maid, devoid of guile and sin,
I know not how, in fearful wise,
So deeply had she drunken in
That look, those shrunken serpent eyes,
That all her features were resigned
To this sole image in her mind:
And passively did imitate
That look of dull and treacherous hate!
And thus she stood, in dizzy trance,
Still picturing that look askance
With forced unconscious sympathy
Full before her father's view-
As far as such a look could be
In eyes so innocent and blue!
And when the trance was o'er, the maid
Paused awhile, and inly prayed:
Then falling at the Baron's feet,
'By my mother's soul do I entreat
That thou this woman send away!'
She said: and more she could not say;
For what she knew she could not tell,
O'er-mastered by the mighty spell.
Why is thy cheek so wan and wild,
Sir Leoline? Thy only child
Lies at thy feet, thy joy, thy pride.
So fair, so innocent, so mild;
The same, for whom thy lady died!
O by the pangs of her dear mother
Think thou no evil of thy child!
For her, and thee, and for no other,
She prayed the moment ere she died:
Prayed that the babe for whom she died,
Might prove her dear lord's joy and pride!
That prayer her deadly pangs beguiled,
Sir Leoline!
And wouldst thou wrong thy only child,
Her child and thine?
Within the Baron's heart and brain
If thoughts, like these, had any share,
They only swelled his rage and pain,
And did but work confusion there.
His heart was cleft with pain and rage,
His cheeks they quivered, his eyes were wild,
Dishonored thus in his old age;
Dishonored by his only child,
And all his hospitality
To the insulted daughter of his friend
By more than woman's jealousy
Brought thus to a disgraceful end-
He rolled his eye with stern regard
Upon the gentle ministrel bard,
And said in tones abrupt, austere-
'Why, Bracy! dost thou loiter here?
I bade thee hence!' The bard obeyed;
And turning from his own sweet maid,
The aged knight, Sir Leoline,
Led forth the lady Geraldine!
(Coleridge never finished the poem;
this conclusion is by James Gillman,
who cared for Coleridge during the
latter years. He wrote the following
based on what the poet would outline
for his friends.)
THE CONCLUSION TO PART II
A little child, a limber elf,
Singing, dancing to itself,
A fairy thing with red round cheeks,
That always finds, and never seeks,
Makes such a vision to the sight
As fills a father's eyes with light;
And pleasures flow in so thick and fast
Upon his heart, that he at last
Must needs express his love's excess
With words of unmeant bitterness.
Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together
Thoughts so all unlike each other;
To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no harm.
Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty
At each wild word to feel within
A sweet recoil of love and pity.
And what, if in a world of sin
(O sorrow and shame should this be true!)
Such giddiness of heart and brain
Comes seldom save from rage and pain,
So talks as it's most used to do.
THE END

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Resolution And Independence
------------------- by William Wordsworth


I

There was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;
The birds are singing in the distant woods;
Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods;
The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters;
And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

II

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;
The grass is bright with rain-drops;--on the moors
The hare is running races in her mirth;
And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,
Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

III

I was a Traveller then upon the moor,
I saw the hare that raced about with joy;
I heard the woods and distant waters roar;
Or heard them not, as happy as a boy:
The pleasant season did my heart employ:
My old remembrances went from me wholly;
And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.

IV

But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joy in minds that can no further go,
As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low;
To me that morning did it happen so;
And fears and fancies thick upon me came;
Dim sadness--and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name.

V

I heard the sky-lark warbling in the sky;
And I bethought me of the playful hare:
Even such a happy Child of earth am I;
Even as these blissful creatures do I fare;
Far from the world I walk, and from all care;
But there may come another day to me--
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.

VI

My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,
As if life's business were a summer mood;
As if all needful things would come unsought
To genial faith, still rich in genial good;
But how can He expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call
Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?

VII

I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,
The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride;
Of Him who walked in glory and in joy
Following his plough, along the mountain-side:
By our own spirits are we deified:
We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

VIII

Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,
A leading from above, a something given,
Yet it befell, that, in this lonely place,
When I with these untoward thoughts had striven,
Beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven
I saw a Man before me unawares:
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.

IX

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couched on the bald top of an eminence;
Wonder to all who do the same espy,
By what means it could thither come, and whence;
So that it seems a thing endued with sense:
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself;

X

Such seemed this Man, not all alive nor dead,
Nor all asleep--in his extreme old age:
His body was bent double, feet and head
Coming together in life's pilgrimage;
As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage
Of sickness felt by him in times long past,
A more than human weight upon his frame had cast.

XI

Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face,
Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood:
And, still as I drew near with gentle pace,
Upon the margin of that moorish flood
Motionless as a cloud the old Man stood,
That heareth not the loud winds when they call
And moveth all together, if it move at all.

XII

At length, himself unsettling, he the pond
Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look
Upon the muddy water, which he conned,
As if he had been reading in a book:
And now a stranger's privilege I took;
And, drawing to his side, to him did say,
"This morning gives us promise of a glorious day."

XIII

A gentle answer did the old Man make,
In courteous speech which forth he slowly drew:
And him with further words I thus bespake,
"What occupation do you there pursue?
This is a lonesome place for one like you."
Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise
Broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes,

XIV

His words came feebly, from a feeble chest,
But each in solemn order followed each,
With something of a lofty utterance drest--
Choice word and measured phrase, above the reach
Of ordinary men; a stately speech;
Such as grave Livers do in Scotland use,
Religious men, who give to God and man their dues.

XV

He told, that to these waters he had come
To gather leeches, being old and poor:
Employment hazardous and wearisome!
And he had many hardships to endure:
From pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor;
Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance,
And in this way he gained an honest maintenance.

XVI

The old Man still stood talking by my side;
But now his voice to me was like a stream
Scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide;
And the whole body of the Man did seem
Like one whom I had met with in a dream;
Or like a man from some far region sent,
To give me human strength, by apt admonishment.

XVII

My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills;
And hope that is unwilling to be fed;
Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills;
And mighty Poets in their misery dead.
--Perplexed, and longing to be comforted,
My question eagerly did I renew,
"How is it that you live, and what is it you do?"

XVIII

He with a smile did then his words repeat;
And said, that, gathering leeches, far and wide
He travelled; stirring thus about his feet
The waters of the pools where they abide.
"Once I could meet with them on every side;
But they have dwindled long by slow decay;
Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may."

XIX

While he was talking thus, the lonely place,
The old Man's shape, and speech--all troubled me:
In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace
About the weary moors continually,
Wandering about alone and silently.
While I these thoughts within myself pursued,
He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed.

XX

And soon with this he other matter blended,
Cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind,
But stately in the main; and when he ended,
I could have laughed myself to scorn to find
In that decrepit Man so firm a mind.
"God," said I, "be my help and stay secure;
I'll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!"

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

An Elegy on the Death of Montgomery Tappen
------------- by Major Henry Livingston, Jr.
An elegy on the death of MONTGOMERY TAPPEN who dies at Poughkeepsie on the 20th of Nov. 1784 in the ninth year of his age.


The sweetest, gentlest, of the youthful train,
Here lies his clay cold upon the sable bier!
He scarce had started on life's varied plain,
For dreary death arrested his career.

His cheek might vie with the expanded rose,
And Genius sparkled in his azure eyes!
A victim so unblemish'd Heaven chose,
And bore the beauteous lambkin to the skies.

Adieu thou loveliest child! Adieu adieu!
Our wishes fain would follow thee on high.
What more can friendship - what more fondness do,
But drop the unbidden tear & heave the sigh?

Ye youths whose ardent bosoms virtue fires,
Who eager wish applause and pant for fame,
Press round MONTGOMERY'S hearse, the NAME inspires
And lights in kindred souls its native flame.

COLUMBIA grateful hails the tender sound
And when MONTGOMERY'S nam'd still drops a tear,
From shore to shore to earth's remotest bound
Where LIBERTY is known that NAME is dear.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Light Shining out of Darkness
--------------- by William Cowper
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan His work in vain:
God is His own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.
------------------------------------------------------

BEAUTIFUL TRUTH, SO VERY WELL COMPOSED!!!--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Wine and Water
----------- by G. K. Chesterton

Old Noah he had an ostrich farm and fowls on the largest scale,
He ate his egg with a ladle in a egg-cup big as a pail,
And the soup he took was Elephant Soup and fish he took was Whale,
But they all were small to the cellar he took when he set out to sail,
And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine,
"I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine."

The cataract of the cliff of heaven fell blinding off the brink
As if it would wash the stars away as suds go down a sink,
The seven heavens came roaring down for the throats of hell to drink,
And Noah he cocked his eye and said, "It looks like rain, I think,
The water has drowned the Matterhorn as deep as a Mendip mine,
But I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine."

But Noah he sinned, and we have sinned; on tipsy feet we trod,
Till a great big black teetotaller was sent to us for a rod,
And you can't get wine at a P.S.A., or chapel, or Eisteddfod,
For the Curse of Water has come again because of the wrath of God,
And water is on the Bishop's board and the Higher Thinker's shrine,
But I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine.
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
G.K. was a genius. I'VE ALWAYS ADMIRED HIM AS A WRITER/AUTHOR, POET, PHILOSOPHER AND HONORABLE MAN..-TYR

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Testimony Of Light
-------------by Carolyn Forche


Our life is a fire dampened, or a fire shut up in stone.
--Jacob Boehme, De Incarnatione Verbi

Outside everything visible and invisible a blazing maple.
Daybreak: a seam at the curve of the world. The trousered legs of the women
shimmered.
They held their arms in front of them like ghosts.

The coal bones of the house clinked in a kimono of smoke.
An attention hovered over the dream where the world had been.

For if Hiroshima in the morning, after the bomb has fallen,
is like a dream, one must ask whose dream it is. {1}

Must understand how not to speak would carry it with us.
With bones put into rice bowls.
While the baby crawled over its dead mother seeking milk.

Muga-muchu {2}: without self, without center. Thrown up in the sky by a wind.

The way back is lost, the one obsession.
The worst is over.
The worst is yet to come.



1--...is the question asked by Peter Schwenger in Letter Bomb.
Nuclear Holocaust and the Exploding Word.
2--...is from Robert Jay Lifton's Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima.

Deep, stark and a true dose of cold, cruel reality..-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Lines Written From Home
-------------- by Anne Bronte
Though bleak these woods, and damp the ground
With fallen leaves so thickly thrown,
And cold the wind that wanders round
With wild and melancholy moan;
There is a friendly roof, I know,
Might shield me from the wintry blast;
There is a fire, whose ruddy glow
Will cheer me for my wanderings past.

And so, though still, where'er I go,
Cold stranger-glances meet my eye;
Though, when my spirit sinks in woe,
Unheeded swells the unbidden sigh;

Though solitude, endured too long,
Bids youthful joys too soon decay,
Makes mirth a stranger to my tongue,
And overclouds my noon of day;

When kindly thoughts, that would have way,
Flow back discouraged to my breast; --
I know there is, though far away,
A home where heart and soul may rest.

Warm hands are there, that, clasped in mine,
The warmer heart will not belie;
While mirth, and truth, and friendship shine
In smiling lip and earnest eye.

The ice that gathers round my heart
May there be thawed; and sweetly, then,
The joys of youth, that now depart,
Will come to cheer my soul again.

Though far I roam, that thought shall be
My hope, my comfort, everywhere;
While such a home remains to me,
My heart shall never know despair!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

While History's Muse
--------- by Thomas Moore

While History's Muse the memorial was keeping
Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves,
Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping,
For hers was the story that blotted the leaves.
But oh! how the tear in her eyelids grew bright,
When, after whole pages of sorrow and shame,
She saw History write,
With a pencil of light
That illumed the whole volume, her Wellington's name.

"Yet still the last crown of thy toils is remaining,
The grandest, the purest, even thou hast yet known;
Though proud was thy task, other nations unchaining,
Far prouder to heal the deep wounds of thy own.
At the foot of that throne, for whose weal thou hast stood,
Go, plead for the land that first cradled thy fame,
And, bright o'er the flood
Of her tears, and her blood,
Let the rainbow of Hope be her Wellington's name."

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Counsel—In the South

----------------By Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt

My boy, not of your will nor mine
You keep the mountain pass and wait,
Restless, for evil gold to shine
And hold you to your fate.

A stronger Hand than yours gave you
The lawless sword—you know not why.
That you must live is all too true,
And other men must die.

My boy, be brigand if you must,
But face the traveler in your track:
Stand one to one, and never thrust
The dagger in his back.

Nay, make no ambush of the dark.
Look straight into your victim’s eyes;
Then—let his free soul, like a lark,
Fly, singing, toward the skies.

My boy, if Christ must be betrayed,
And you must the betrayer be,
Oh, marked before the worlds were made!
What help is there for me?

Ah, if the prophets from their graves
Demand such blood of you as this,
Take Him, I say, with swords and staves,
But—never with a kiss!
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------

This is an awesome poem by a truly great poetess!
Closing stanza tis-- powerful, deep and pure gold!--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Any Wife To Any Husband
by Robert Browning

I

My love, this is the bitterest, that thou
Who art all truth and who dost love me now
As thine eyes say, as thy voice breaks to say—
Shouldst love so truly and couldst love me still
A whole long life through, had but love its will,
Would death that leads me from thee brook delay!

II

I have but to be by thee, and thy hand
Would never let mine go, thy heart withstand
The beating of my heart to reach its place.
When should I look for thee and feel thee gone?
When cry for the old comfort and find none?
Never, I know! Thy soul is in thy face.

III

Oh, I should fade—'tis willed so! might I save,
Galdly I would, whatever beauty gave
Joy to thy sense, for that was precious too.
It is not to be granted. But the soul
Whence the love comes, all ravage leaves that whole;
Vainly the flesh fades—soul makes all things new.

IV

And 'twould not be because my eye grew dim
Thou couldst not find the love there, thanks to Him
Who never is dishonoured in the spark
He gave us from his fire of fires, and bade
Remember whence it sprang nor be afraid
While that burns on, though all the rest grow dark.

V

So, how thou wouldst be perfect, white and clean
Outside as inside, soul and soul's demesne
Alike, this body given to show it by!
Oh, three-parts through the worst of life's abyss,
What plaudits from the next world after this,
Couldst thou repeat a stroke and gain the sky!

VI

And is it not the bitterer to think
That, disengage our hands and thou wilt sink
Although thy love was love in very deed?
I know that nature! Pass a festive day
Thou dost not throw its relic-flower away
Nor bid its music's loitering echo speed.

VII

Thou let'st the stranger's glove lie where it fell;
If old things remain old things all is well,
For thou art grateful as becomes man best:
And hadst thou only heard me play one tune,
Or viewed me from a window, not so soon
With thee would such things fade as with the rest.

VIII

I seem to see! we meet and part: 'tis brief:
The book I opened keeps a folded leaf,
The very chair I sat on, breaks the rank;
That is a portrait of me on the wall—
Three lines, my face comes at so slight a call;
And for all this, one little hour's to thank.

IX

But now, because the hour through years was fixed,
Because our inmost beings met amd mixed,
Because thou once hast loved me—wilt thou dare
Say to thy soul and Who may list beside,
"Therefore she is immortally my bride,
Chance cannot change that love, nor time impair.

X

"So, what if in the dusk of life that's left,
I, a tired traveller, of my sun bereft,
Look from my path when, mimicking the same,
The fire-fly glimpses past me, come and gone?
- Where was it till the sunset? where anon
It will be at the sunrise! what's to blame?"

XI

Is it so helpful to thee? canst thou take
The mimic up, nor, for the true thing's sake,
Put gently by such efforts at at beam?
Is the remainder of the way so long
Thou need'st the little solace, thou the strong?
Watch out thy watch, let weak ones doze and dream!

XII

"—Ah, but the fresher faces! Is it true,"
Thou'lt ask, "some eyes are beautiful and new?
Some hair,—how can one choose but grasp such wealth?
And if a man would press his lips to lips
Fresh as the wilding hedge-rose-cup there slips
The dew-drop out of, must it be by stealth?

XIII

"It cannot change the love kept still for Her,
Much more than, such a picture to prefer
Passing a day with, to a room's bare side.
The painted form takes nothing she possessed,
Yet while the Titian's Venus lies at rest
A man looks. Once more, what is there to chide?"

XIV

So must I see, from where I sit and watch,
My own self sell myself, my hand attach
Its warrant to the very thefts from me—
Thy singleness of soul that made me proud,
Thy purity of heart I loved aloud,
Thy man's truth I was bold to bid God see!

XV

Love so, then, if thou wilt! Give all thou canst
Away to the new faces—disentranced—
(Say it and think it) obdurate no more,
Re-issue looks and words from the old mint—
Pass them afresh, no matter whose the print
Image and superscription once they bore!

XVI

Re-coin thyself and give it them to spend,—
It all comes to the same thing at the end,
Since mine thou wast, mine art, and mine shalt be,
Faithful or faithless, sealing up the sum
Or lavish of my treasure, thou must come
Back to the heart's place here I keep for thee!

XVII

Only, why should it be with stain at all?
Why must I, 'twixt the leaves of coronal,
Put any kiss of pardon on thy brow?
Why need the other women know so much
And talk together, "Such the look and such
The smile he used to love with, then as now!"

XVIII

Might I die last and shew thee! Should I find
Such hardship in the few years left behind,
If free to take and light my lamp, and go
Into thy tomb, and shut the door and sit
Seeing thy face on those four sides of it
The better that they are so blank, I know!

XIX

Why, time was what I wanted, to turn o'er
Within my mind each look, get more and more
By heart each word, too much to learn at first,
And join thee all the fitter for the pause
'Neath the low door-way's lintel. That were cause
For lingering, though thou called'st, If I durst!

XX

And yet thou art the nobler of us two.
What dare I dream of, that thou canst not do,
Outstripping my ten small steps with one stride?
I'll say then, here's a trial and a task—
Is it to bear?—if easy, I'll not ask—
Though love fail, I can trust on in thy pride.

XXI

Pride?—when those eyes forestall the life behind
The death I have to go through!—when I find,
Now that I want thy help most, all of thee!
What did I fear? Thy love shall hold me fast
Until the little minute's sleep is past
And I wake saved.—And yet, it will not be!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Artists
---------------by Friedrich von Schiller
How gracefully, O man, with thy palm-bough,
Upon the waning century standest thou,
In proud and noble manhood's prime,
With unlocked senses, with a spirit freed,
Of firmness mild,--though silent, rich in deed,
The ripest son of Time,
Through meekness great, through precepts strong,
Through treasures rich, that time had long
Hid in thy bosom, and through reason free,--
Master of Nature, who thy fetters loves,
And who thy strength in thousand conflicts proves,
And from the desert soared in pride with thee!

Flushed with the glow of victory,
Never forget to prize the hand
That found the weeping orphan child
Deserted on life's barren strand,
And left a prey to hazard wild,--
That, ere thy spirit-honor saw the day,
Thy youthful heart watched over silently,
And from thy tender bosom turned away
Each thought that might have stained its purity;
That kind one ne'er forget who, as in sport,
Thy youth to noble aspirations trained,
And who to thee in easy riddles taught
The secret how each virtue might be gained;
Who, to receive him back more perfect still,
E'en into strangers' arms her favorite gave--
Oh, may'st thou never with degenerate will,
Humble thyself to be her abject slave!
In industry, the bee the palm may bear;
In skill, the worm a lesson may impart;
With spirits blest thy knowledge thou dost share,
But thou, O man, alone hast art!

Only through beauty's morning gate
Didst thou the land of knowledge find.
To merit a more glorious fate,
In graces trains itself the mind.
What thrilled thee through with trembling blessed,
When erst the Muses swept the chord,
That power created in thy breast,
Which to the mighty spirit soared.

When first was seen by doting reason's ken,
When many a thousand years had passed away,
A symbol of the fair and great e'en then,
Before the childlike mind uncovered lay.
Its blessed form bade us honor virtue's cause,--
The honest sense 'gainst vice put forth its powers,
Before a Solon had devised the laws
That slowly bring to light their languid flowers.
Before Eternity's vast scheme
Was to the thinker's mind revealed,
Was't not foreshadowed in his dream,
Whose eyes explored yon starry field?

Urania,--the majestic dreaded one,
Who wears a glory of Orions twined
Around her brow, and who is seen by none
Save purest spirits, when, in splendor shrined,
She soars above the stars in pride,
Ascending to her sunny throne,--
Her fiery chaplet lays aside,
And now, as beauty, stands alone;
While, with the Graces' girdle round her cast,
She seems a child, by children understood;
For we shall recognize as truth at last,
What here as beauty only we have viewed.

When the Creator banished from his sight
Frail man to dark mortality's abode,
And granted him a late return to light,
Only by treading reason's arduous road,--
When each immortal turned his face away,
She, the compassionate, alone
Took up her dwelling in that house of clay,
With the deserted, banished one.
With drooping wing she hovers here
Around her darling, near the senses' land,
And on his prison-walls so drear
Elysium paints with fond deceptive hand.

While soft humanity still lay at rest,
Within her tender arms extended,
No flame was stirred by bigots' murderous zest,
No guiltless blood on high ascended.
The heart that she in gentle fetters binds,
Views duty's slavish escort scornfully;
Her path of light, though fairer far it winds,
Sinks in the sun-track of morality.
Those who in her chaste service still remain,
No grovelling thought can tempt, no fate affright;
The spiritual life, so free from stain,
Freedom's sweet birthright, they receive again,
Under the mystic sway of holy might.

The purest among millions, happy they
Whom to her service she has sanctified,
Whose mouths the mighty one's commands convey,
Within whose breasts she deigneth to abide;
Whom she ordained to feed her holy fire
Upon her altar's ever-flaming pyre,--
Whose eyes alone her unveiled graces meet,
And whom she gathers round in union sweet
In the much-honored place be glad
Where noble order bade ye climb,
For in the spirit-world sublime,
Man's loftiest rank ye've ever had!

Ere to the world proportion ye revealed,
That every being joyfully obeys,--
A boundless structure, in night's veil concealed,
Illumed by naught but faint and languid rays,
A band of phantoms, struggling ceaselessly,
Holding his mind in slavish fetters bound,
Unsociable and rude as be,
Assailing him on every side around,--
Thus seemed to man creation in that day!
United to surrounding forms alone
By the blind chains the passions had put on,
Whilst Nature's beauteous spirit fled away
Unfelt, untasted, and unknown.

And, as it hovered o'er with parting ray,
Ye seized the shades so neighborly,
With silent hand, with feeling mind,
And taught how they might be combined
In one firm bond of harmony.
The gaze, light-soaring, felt uplifted then,
When first the cedar's slender trunk it viewed;
And pleasingly the ocean's crystal flood
Reflected back the dancing form again.
Could ye mistake the look, with beauty fraught,
That Nature gave to help ye on your way?
The image floating on the billows taught
The art the fleeting shadow to portray.

From her own being torn apart,
Her phantom, beauteous as a dream,
She plunged into the silvery stream,
Surrendering to her spoiler's art.
Creative power soon in your breast unfolded;
Too noble far, not idly to conceive,
The shadow's form in sand, in clay ye moulded,
And made it in the sketch its being leave.
The longing thirst for action then awoke,--
And from your breast the first creation broke.

By contemplation captive made,
Ensnared by your discerning eye,
The friendly phantom's soon betrayed
The talisman that roused your ecstasy.
The laws of wonder-working might,
The stores by beauty brought to light,
Inventive reason in soft union planned
To blend together 'neath your forming hand.
The obelisk, the pyramid ascended,
The Hermes stood, the column sprang on high,
The reed poured forth the woodland melody,
Immortal song on victor's deeds attended.

The fairest flowers that decked the earth,
Into a nosegay, with wise choice combined,
Thus the first art from Nature had its birth;
Into a garland then were nosegays twined,
And from the works that mortal hands had made,
A second, nobler art was now displayed.
The child of beauty, self-sufficient now,
That issued from your hands to perfect day,
Loses the chaplet that adorned its brow,
Soon as reality asserts its sway.
The column, yielding to proportion's chains,
Must with its sisters join in friendly link,
The hero in the hero-band must sink,
The Muses' harp peals forth its tuneful strains.

The wondering savages soon came
To view the new creation's plan
"Behold!"--the joyous crowds exclaim,--
"Behold, all this is done by man!"
With jocund and more social aim
The minstrel's lyre their awe awoke,
Telling of Titans, and of giant's frays
And lion-slayers, turning, as he spoke,
Even into heroes those who heard his lays.
For the first time the soul feels joy,
By raptures blessed that calmer are,
That only greet it from afar,
That passions wild can ne'er destroy,
And that, when tasted, do not cloy.

And now the spirit, free and fair,
Awoke from out its sensual sleep;
By you unchained, the slave of care
Into the arms of joy could leap.
Each brutish barrier soon was set at naught,
Humanity first graced the cloudless brow,
And the majestic, noble stranger, thought,
From out the wondering brain sprang boldly now.
Man in his glory stood upright,
And showed the stars his kingly face;
His speaking glance the sun's bright light
Blessed in the realms sublime of space.
Upon the cheek now bloomed the smile,
The voice's soulful harmony
Expanded into song the while,
And feeling swam in the moist eye;
And from the mouth, with spirit teeming o'er,
Jest, sweetly linked with grace, began to pour.

Sunk in the instincts of the worm,
By naught but sensual lust possessed,
Ye recognized within his breast
Love-spiritual's noble germ;
And that this germ of love so blest
Escaped the senses' abject load,
To the first pastoral song he owed.
Raised to the dignity of thought,
Passions more calm to flow were taught
From the bard's mouth with melody.
The cheeks with dewy softness burned;
The longing that, though quenched, still yearned,
Proclaimed the spirit-harmony.

The wisest's wisdom, and the strongest's vigor,--
The meekest's meekness, and the noblest's grace,
By you were knit together in one figure,
Wreathing a radiant glory round the place.
Man at the Unknown's sight must tremble,
Yet its refulgence needs must love;
That mighty Being to resemble,
Each glorious hero madly strove;
The prototype of beauty's earliest strain
Ye made resound through Nature's wide domain.

The passions' wild and headlong course,
The ever-varying plan of fate,
Duty and instinct's twofold force,
With proving mind and guidance straight
Ye then conducted to their ends.
What Nature, as she moves along,
Far from each other ever rends,
Become upon the stage, in song,
Members of order, firmly bound.
Awed by the Furies' chorus dread,
Murder draws down upon its head
The doom of death from their wild sound.
Long e'er the wise to give a verdict dared,
An Iliad had fate's mysteries declared
To early ages from afar;
While Providence in silence fared
Into the world from Thespis' car.
Yet into that world's current so sublime
Your symmetry was borne before its time,
When the dark hand of destiny
Failed in your sight to part by force.

What it had fashioned 'neath your eye,
In darkness life made haste to die,
Ere it fulfilled its beauteous course.
Then ye with bold and self-sufficient might
Led the arch further through the future's night:
Then, too, ye plunged, without a fear,
Into Avernus' ocean black,
And found the vanished life so dear
Beyond the urn, and brought it back.
A blooming Pollux-form appeared now soon,
On Castor leaning, and enshrined in light--
The shadow that is seen upon the moon,
Ere she has filled her silvery circle bright!

Yet higher,--higher still above the earth
Inventive genius never ceased to rise:
Creations from creations had their birth,
And harmonies from harmonies.
What here alone enchants the ravished sight,
A nobler beauty yonder must obey;
The graceful charms that in the nymph unite,
In the divine Athene melt away;
The strength with which the wrestler is endowed,
In the god's beauty we no longer find:
The wonder of his time--Jove's image proud--
In the Olympian temple is enshrined.

The world, transformed by industry's bold hand,
The human heart, by new-born instincts moved,
That have in burning fights been fully proved,
Your circle of creation now expand.
Advancing man bears on his soaring pinions,
In gratitude, art with him in his flight,
And out of Nature's now-enriched dominions
New worlds of beauty issue forth to light.
The barriers upon knowledge are o'erthrown;
The spirit that, with pleasure soon matured,
Has in your easy triumphs been inured
To hasten through an artist-whole of graces,
Nature's more distant columns duly places.
And overtakes her on her pathway lone.
He weighs her now with weights that human are,
Metes her with measures that she lent of old;
While in her beauty's rites more practised far,
She now must let his eye her form behold.
With youthful and self-pleasing bliss,
He lends the spheres his harmony,
And, if he praise earth's edifice,
'Tis for its wondrous symmetry.


In all that now around him breathes,
Proportion sweet is ever rife;
And beauty's golden girdle wreathes
With mildness round his path through life;
Perfection blest, triumphantly,
Before him in your works soars high;
Wherever boisterous rapture swells,
Wherever silent sorrow flees,
Where pensive contemplation dwells,
Where he the tears of anguish sees,
Where thousand terrors on him glare,
Harmonious streams are yet behind--
He sees the Graces sporting there,
With feeling silent and refined.
Gentle as beauty's lines together linking,
As the appearances that round him play,
In tender outline in each other sinking,
The soft breath of his life thus fleets away.
His spirit melts in the harmonious sea,
That, rich in rapture, round his senses flows,
And the dissolving thought all silently
To omnipresent Cytherea grows.
Joining in lofty union with the Fates,
On Graces and on Muses calm relying,
With freely-offered bosom he awaits
The shaft that soon against him will be flying
From the soft bow necessity creates.

Favorites beloved of blissful harmony,
Welcome attendants on life's dreary road,
The noblest and the dearest far that she,
Who gave us life, to bless that life bestowed!
That unyoked man his duties bears in mind,
And loves the fetters that his motions bind,
That Chance with brazen sceptre rules him not,--
For this eternity is now your lot,
Your heart has won a bright reward for this.
That round the cup where freedom flows,
Merrily sport the gods of bliss,--
The beauteous dream its fragrance throws,
For this, receive a loving kiss!

The spirit, glorious and serene,
Who round necessity the graces trains,--
Who bids his ether and his starry plains
Upon us wait with pleasing mien,--
Who, 'mid his terrors, by his majesty gives joy,
And who is beauteous e'en when seeking to destroy,--
Him imitate, the artist good!
As o'er the streamlet's crystal flood
The banks with checkered dances hover,
The flowery mead, the sunset's light,--
Thus gleams, life's barren pathway over,
Poesy's shadowy world so bright.
In bridal dress ye led us on
Before the terrible Unknown,
Before the inexorable fate,
As in your urns the bones are laid,
With beauteous magic veil ye shade
The chorus dread that cares create.
Thousands of years I hastened through
The boundless realm of vanished time
How sad it seems when left by you--
But where ye linger, how sublime!

She who, with fleeting wing, of yore
From your creating hand arose in might,
Within your arms was found once more,
When, vanquished by Time's silent flight,
Life's blossoms faded from the cheek,
And from the limbs all vigor went,
And mournfully, with footstep weak,
Upon his staff the gray-beard leant.
Then gave ye to the languishing,
Life's waters from a new-born spring;
Twice was the youth of time renewed,
Twice, from the seeds that ye had strewed.

When chased by fierce barbarian hordes away,
The last remaining votive brand ye tore
From Orient's altars, now pollution's prey,
And to these western lands in safety bore.
The fugitive from yonder eastern shore,
The youthful day, the West her dwelling made;
And on Hesperia's plains sprang up once more
Ionia's flowers, in pristine bloom arrayed.
Over the spirit fairer Nature shed,
With soft refulgence, a reflection bright,
And through the graceful soul with stately tread
Advanced the mighty Deity of light.
Millions of chains were burst asunder then,
And to the slave then human laws applied,
And mildly rose the younger race of men,
As brethren, gently wandering side by side,
With noble inward ecstasy,
The bliss imparted ye receive,
And in the veil of modesty,
With silent merit take your leave.
If on the paths of thought, so freely given,
The searcher now with daring fortune stands,
And, by triumphant Paeans onward driven,
Would seize upon the crown with dauntless hands--
If he with grovelling hireling's pay
Thinks to dismiss his glorious guide--
Or, with the first slave's-place array
Art near the throne his dream supplied--
Forgive him!--O'er your head to-day
Hovers perfection's crown in pride,
With you the earliest plant Spring had,
Soul-forming Nature first began;
With you, the harvest-chaplet glad,
Perfected Nature ends her plan.

The art creative, that all-modestly arose
From clay and stone, with silent triumph throws
Its arms around the spirit's vast domain.
What in the land of knowledge the discoverer knows,
He knows, discovers, only for your gain
The treasures that the thinker has amassed,
He will enjoy within your arms alone,
Soon as his knowledge, beauty-ripe at last.
To art ennobled shall have grown,--
Soon as with you he scales a mountain-height,
And there, illumined by the setting sun,
The smiling valley bursts upon his sight.
The richer ye reward the eager gaze
The higher, fairer orders that the mind
May traverse with its magic rays,
Or compass with enjoyment unconfined--
The wider thoughts and feelings open lie
To more luxuriant floods of harmony.
To beauty's richer, more majestic stream,--
The fair members of the world's vast scheme,
That, maimed, disgrace on his creation bring,
He sees the lofty forms then perfecting--

The fairer riddles come from out the night--
The richer is the world his arms enclose,
The broader stream the sea with which he flows--
The weaker, too, is destiny's blind might--
The nobler instincts does he prove--
The smaller he himself, the greater grows his love.
Thus is he led, in still and hidden race,
By poetry, who strews his path with flowers,
Through ever-purer forms, and purer powers,
Through ever higher heights, and fairer grace.
At length, arrived at the ripe goal of time,--
Yet one more inspiration all-sublime,
Poetic outburst of man's latest youth,
And--he will glide into the arms of truth!

Herself, the gentle Cypria,
Illumined by her fiery crown,
Then stands before her full-grown son
Unveiled--as great Urania;
The sooner only by him caught,
The fairer he had fled away!
Thus stood, in wonder rapture-fraught,
Ulysses' noble son that day,
When the sage mentor who his youth beguiled;
Herself transfigured as Jove's glorious child!

Man's honor is confided to your hand,--
There let it well protected be!
It sinks with you! with you it will expand!
Poesy's sacred sorcery
Obeys a world-plan wise and good;
In silence let it swell the flood
Of mighty-rolling harmony.

By her own time viewed with disdain,
Let solemn truth in song remain,
And let the Muses' band defend her!
In all the fullness of her splendor,
Let her survive in numbers glorious,
More dread, when veiled her charms appear,
And vengeance take, with strains victorious,
On her tormentor's ear!

The freest mother's children free,
With steadfast countenance then rise
To highest beauty's radiancy,
And every other crown despise!
The sisters who escaped you here,
Within your mother's arms ye'll meet;
What noble spirits may revere,
Must be deserving and complete.
High over your own course of time
Exalt yourselves with pinion bold,
And dimly let your glass sublime
The coming century unfold!
On thousand roads advancing fast
Of ever-rich variety,
With fond embraces meet at last
Before the throne of harmony!
As into seven mild rays we view
With softness break the glimmer white,
As rainbow-beams of seven-fold hue
Dissolve again in that soft light,
In clearness thousandfold thus throw
Your magic round the ravished gaze,--
Into one stream of light thus flow,--
One bond of truth that ne'er decays!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Fairly Sad Tale
---------by Dorothy Parker
I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire,
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me- I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were- shall we say?- born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song,
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
First came their parents or careers.
But ever does experience
Deny me wisdom, calm, and sense!
Though she's a fool who seeks to capture
The twenty-first fine, careless rapture,
I must go on, till ends my rope,
Who from my birth was cursed with hope.
A heart in half is chaste, archaic;
But mine resembles a mosaic-
The thing's become ridiculous!
Why am I so? Why am I thus?

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

88. The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer
--------------- by Robert Burns
YE Irish lords, ye knights an’ squires,
Wha represent our brughs an’ shires,
An’ doucely manage our affairs
In parliament,
To you a simple poet’s pray’rs
Are humbly sent.


Alas! my roupit Muse is hearse!
Your Honours’ hearts wi’ grief ’twad pierce,
To see her sittin on her arse
Low i’ the dust,
And scriechinh out prosaic verse,
An like to brust!


Tell them wha hae the chief direction,
Scotland an’ me’s in great affliction,
E’er sin’ they laid that curst restriction
On aqua-vit&æ;
An’ rouse them up to strong conviction,
An’ move their pity.


Stand forth an’ tell yon Premier youth
The honest, open, naked truth:
Tell him o’ mine an’ Scotland’s drouth,
His servants humble:
The muckle deevil blaw you south
If ye dissemble!


Does ony great man glunch an’ gloom?
Speak out, an’ never fash your thumb!
Let posts an’ pensions sink or soom
Wi’ them wha grant them;
If honestly they canna come,
Far better want them.


In gath’rin votes you were na slack;
Now stand as tightly by your tack:
Ne’er claw your lug, an’ fidge your back,
An’ hum an’ haw;
But raise your arm, an’ tell your crack
Before them a’.


Paint Scotland greetin owre her thrissle;
Her mutchkin stowp as toom’s a whissle;
An’ d—mn’d excisemen in a bussle,
Seizin a stell,
Triumphant crushin’t like a mussel,
Or limpet shell!


Then, on the tither hand present her—
A blackguard smuggler right behint her,
An’ cheek-for-chow, a chuffie vintner
Colleaguing join,
Picking her pouch as bare as winter
Of a’ kind coin.


Is there, that bears the name o’ Scot,
But feels his heart’s bluid rising hot,
To see his poor auld mither’s pot
Thus dung in staves,
An’ plunder’d o’ her hindmost groat
By gallows knaves?


Alas! I’m but a nameless wight,
Trode i’ the mire out o’ sight?
But could I like Montgomeries fight,
Or gab like Boswell, 2
There’s some sark-necks I wad draw tight,
An’ tie some hose well.


God bless your Honours! can ye see’t—
The kind, auld cantie carlin greet,
An’ no get warmly to your feet,
An’ gar them hear it,
An’ tell them wi’a patriot-heat
Ye winna bear it?


Some o’ you nicely ken the laws,
To round the period an’ pause,
An’ with rhetoric clause on clause
To mak harangues;
Then echo thro’ Saint Stephen’s wa’s
Auld Scotland’s wrangs.


Dempster, 3 a true blue Scot I’se warran’;
Thee, aith-detesting, chaste Kilkerran; 4
An’ that glib-gabbit Highland baron,
The Laird o’ Graham; 5
An’ ane, a chap that’s damn’d aulfarran’,
Dundas his name: 6


Erskine, a spunkie Norland billie; 7
True Campbells, Frederick and Ilay; 8
An’ Livistone, the bauld Sir Willie; 9
An’ mony ithers,
Whom auld Demosthenes or Tully
Might own for brithers.


See sodger Hugh, 10 my watchman stented,
If poets e’er are represented;
I ken if that your sword were wanted,
Ye’d lend a hand;
But when there’s ought to say anent it,
Ye’re at a stand.


Arouse, my boys! exert your mettle,
To get auld Scotland back her kettle;
Or faith! I’ll wad my new pleugh-pettle,
Ye’ll see’t or lang,
She’ll teach you, wi’ a reekin whittle,
Anither sang.


This while she’s been in crankous mood,
Her lost Militia fir’d her bluid;
(Deil na they never mair do guid,
Play’d her that pliskie!)
An’ now she’s like to rin red-wud
About her whisky.


An’ Lord! if ance they pit her till’t,
Her tartan petticoat she’ll kilt,
An’durk an’ pistol at her belt,
She’ll tak the streets,
An’ rin her whittle to the hilt,
I’ the first she meets!


For God sake, sirs! then speak her fair,
An’ straik her cannie wi’ the hair,
An’ to the muckle house repair,
Wi’ instant speed,
An’ strive, wi’ a’ your wit an’ lear,
To get remead.


Yon ill-tongu’d tinkler, Charlie Fox,
May taunt you wi’ his jeers and mocks;
But gie him’t het, my hearty cocks!
E’en cowe the cadie!
An’ send him to his dicing box
An’ sportin’ lady.


Tell you guid bluid o’ auld Boconnock’s, 11
I’ll be his debt twa mashlum bonnocks,
An’ drink his health in auld Nance Tinnock’s 12
Nine times a-week,
If he some scheme, like tea an’ winnocks,
Was kindly seek.


Could he some commutation broach,
I’ll pledge my aith in guid braid Scotch,
He needna fear their foul reproach
Nor erudition,
Yon mixtie-maxtie, queer hotch-potch,
The Coalition.


Auld Scotland has a raucle tongue;
She’s just a devil wi’ a rung;
An’ if she promise auld or young
To tak their part,
Tho’ by the neck she should be strung,
She’ll no desert.


And now, ye chosen Five-and-Forty,
May still you mither’s heart support ye;
Then, tho’a minister grow dorty,
An’ kick your place,
Ye’ll snap your gingers, poor an’ hearty,
Before his face.


God bless your Honours, a’ your days,
Wi’ sowps o’ kail and brats o’ claise,
In spite o’ a’ the thievish kaes,
That haunt St. Jamie’s!
Your humble poet sings an’ prays,
While Rab his name is.


POSTSCRIPTLET half-starv’d slaves in warmer skies
See future wines, rich-clust’ring, rise;
Their lot auld Scotland ne’re envies,
But, blythe and frisky,
She eyes her freeborn, martial boys
Tak aff their whisky.


What tho’ their Phoebus kinder warms,
While fragrance blooms and beauty charms,
When wretches range, in famish’d swarms,
The scented groves;
Or, hounded forth, dishonour arms
In hungry droves!


Their gun’s a burden on their shouther;
They downa bide the stink o’ powther;
Their bauldest thought’s a hank’ring swither
To stan’ or rin,
Till skelp—a shot—they’re aff, a’throw’ther,
To save their skin.


But bring a Scotchman frae his hill,
Clap in his cheek a Highland gill,
Say, such is royal George’s will,
An’ there’s the foe!
He has nae thought but how to kill
Twa at a blow.


Nae cauld, faint-hearted doubtings tease him;
Death comes, wi’ fearless eye he sees him;
Wi’bluidy hand a welcome gies him;
An’ when he fa’s,
His latest draught o’ breathin lea’es him
In faint huzzas.


Sages their solemn een may steek,
An’ raise a philosophic reek,
An’ physically causes seek,
In clime an’ season;
But tell me whisky’s name in Greek
I’ll tell the reason.


Scotland, my auld, respected mither!
Tho’ whiles ye moistify your leather,
Till, whare ye sit on craps o’ heather,
Ye tine your dam;
Freedom an’ whisky gang thegither!
Take aff your dram!


Note 1. This was written before the Act anent the Scotch distilleries, of session 1786, for which Scotland and the author return their most grateful thanks.—R. B. [back]
Note 2. James Boswell of Auchinleck, the biographer of Johnson. [back]
Note 3. George Dempster of Dunnichen. [back]
Note 4. Sir Adam Ferguson of Kilkerran, Bart. [back]
Note 5. The Marquis of Graham, eldest son of the Duke of Montrose. [back]
Note 6. Right Hon. Henry Dundas, M. P. [back]
Note 7. Probably Thomas, afterward Lord Erskine. [back]
Note 8. Lord Frederick Campbell, second brother of the Duke of Argyll, and Ilay Campbell, Lord Advocate for Scotland, afterward President of the Court of Session. [back]
Note 9. Sir Wm. Augustus Cunningham, Baronet, of Livingstone. [back]
Note 10. Col. Hugh Montgomery, afterward Earl of Eglinton. [back]
Note 11. Pitt, whose grandfather was of Boconnock in Cornwall. [back]
Note 12. A worthy old hostess of the author’s in Mauchline, where he sometimes studies politics over a glass of gude auld Scotch Drink.—R. B. [back]

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Avaricious Wife And Tricking Gallant
by Jean de La Fontaine

WHO knows the world will never feel surprise,
When men are duped by artful women's eves;
Though death his weapon freely will unfold;
Love's pranks, we find, are ever ruled by gold.
To vain coquettes I doubtless here allude;
But spite of arts with which they're oft endued;
I hope to show (our honour to maintain,)
We can, among a hundred of the train,
Catch one at least, and play some cunning trick:--
For instance, take blithe Gulphar's wily nick,
Who gained (old soldier-like) his ardent aim,
And gratis got an avaricious dame.

LOOK well at this, ye heroes of the sword,
Howe'er with wily freaks your heads be stored,
Beyond a doubt, at court I now could find,
A host of lovers of the Gulphar kind.

To Gasperin's so often went our wight,
The wife at length became his sole delight,
Whose youth and beauty were by all confessed;
But, 'midst these charms, such av'rice she possessed,
The warmest love was checked--a thing not rare,
In modern times at least, among the FAIR.
'Tis true, as I've already said, with such
Sighs naught avail, and promises not much;
Without a purse, who wishes should express,
Would vainly hope to gain a soft caress.
The god of love no other charm employs,
Then cards, and dress, and pleasure's cheering joys;
From whose gay shops more cuckolds we behold,
Than heroes sallied from Troy's horse of old.

BUT to our lady's humour let's adhere;
Sighs passed for naught: they entered not her ear;
'Twas speaking only would the charmer please,
The reader, without doubt, my meaning sees;
Gay Gulphar plainly spoke, and named a sum
A hundred pounds, she listened:--was o'ercome.

OUR wight the cash by Gasperin was lent;
And then the husband to the country went,
Without suspecting that his loving mate,
Designed with horns to ornament his pate.

THE money artful Gulphar gave the dame,
While friends were round who could observe the same;
Here, said the spark, a hundred pounds receive,
'Tis for your spouse:--the cash with you I leave.
The lady fancied what the swain had said,
Was policy, and to concealment led.

NEXT morn our belle regaled the arch gallant,
Fulfilled his promise:--and his eager want.
Day after day he followed up the game;
For cash he took, and int'rest on the same;
Good payers get, we always may conclude,
Full measure served, whatever is pursued.

WHEN Gasperin returned, our crafty wight,
Before the wife addressed her spouse at sight;
Said he the cash I've to your lady paid,
Not having (as I feared) required its aid;
To save mistakes, pray cross it in your book;
The lady, thunderstruck, with terror shook;
Allowed the payment; 'twas a case too clear;
In truth for character she 'gan to fear.
But most howe'er she grudged the surplus joy,
Bestowed on such a vile, deceitful boy.

THE loss was doubtless great in ev'ry view
Around the town the wicked Gulphar flew;
In all the streets, at every house to tell,
How nicely he had trick'd the greedy belle.

To blame him useless 'twere you must allow;
The French such frolicks readily avow.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Farewell Love and All Thy Laws Forever
-------------------by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Farewell love and all thy laws forever;
Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more.
Senec and Plato call me from thy lore
To perfect wealth, my wit for to endeavour.
In blind error when I did persever,
Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,
Hath taught me to set in trifles no store
And scape forth, since liberty is lever.
Therefore farewell; go trouble younger hearts
And in me claim no more authority.
With idle youth go use thy property
And thereon spend thy many brittle darts,
For hitherto though I have lost all my time,
Me lusteth no lenger rotten boughs to climb.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

In the Home Stretch
-----------------------------by Robert Frost
SHE stood against the kitchen sink, and looked
Over the sink out through a dusty window
At weeds the water from the sink made tall.
She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.
Behind her was confusion in the room,
Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people
In other chairs, and something, come to look,
For every room a house has—parlor, bed-room,
And dining-room—thrown pell-mell in the kitchen.
And now and then a smudged, infernal face
Looked in a door behind her and addressed
Her back. She always answered without turning.

“Where will I put this walnut bureau, lady?”
“Put it on top of something that’s on top
Of something else,” she laughed. “Oh, put it where
You can to-night, and go. It’s almost dark;
You must be getting started back to town.”
Another blackened face thrust in and looked
And smiled, and when she did not turn, spoke gently,
“What are you seeing out the window, lady?”

“Never was I beladied so before.
Would evidence of having been called lady
More than so many times make me a lady
In common law, I wonder.”

“But I ask,
What are you seeing out the window, lady?”

“What I’ll be seeing more of in the years
To come as here I stand and go the round
Of many plates with towels many times.”

“And what is that? You only put me off.”

“Rank weeds that love the water from the dish-pan
More than some women like the dish-pan, Joe;
A little stretch of mowing-field for you;
Not much of that until I come to woods
That end all. And it’s scarce enough to call
A view.”

“And yet you think you like it, dear?”

“That’s what you’re so concerned to know! You hope
I like it. Bang goes something big away
Off there upstairs. The very tread of men
As great as those is shattering to the frame
Of such a little house. Once left alone,
You and I, dear, will go with softer steps
Up and down stairs and through the rooms, and none
But sudden winds that snatch them from our hands
Will ever slam the doors.”

“I think you see
More than you like to own to out that window.”

“No; for besides the things I tell you of,
I only see the years. They come and go
In alternation with the weeds, the field,
The wood.”

“What kind of years?”
“Why, latter years—
Different from early years.”
“I see them, too.
You didn’t count them?”
“No, the further off
So ran together that I didn’t try to.
It can scarce be that they would be in number
We’d care to know, for we are not young now.
And bang goes something else away off there.
It sounds as if it were the men went down,
And every crash meant one less to return
To lighted city streets we, too, have known,
But now are giving up for country darkness.”

“Come from that window where you see too much for me,
And take a livelier view of things from here.
They’re going. Watch this husky swarming up
Over the wheel into the sky-high seat,
Lighting his pipe now, squinting down his nose
At the flame burning downward as he sucks it.”

“See how it makes his nose-side bright, a proof
How dark it’s getting. Can you tell what time
It is by that? Or by the moon? The new moon!
What shoulder did I see her over? Neither.
A wire she is of silver, as new as we
To everything. Her light won’t last us long.
It’s something, though, to know we’re going to have her
Night after night and stronger every night
To see us through our first two weeks. But, Joe,
The stove! Before they go! Knock on the window;
Ask them to help you get it on its feet.
We stand here dreaming. Hurry! Call them back!”

“They’re not gone yet.”

“We’ve got to have the stove,
Whatever else we want for. And a light.
Have we a piece of candle if the lamp
And oil are buried out of reach?”
Again
The house was full of tramping, and the dark,
Door-filling men burst in and seized the stove.
A cannon-mouth-like hole was in the wall,
To which they set it true by eye; and then
Came up the jointed stovepipe in their hands,
So much too light and airy for their strength
It almost seemed to come ballooning up,
Slipping from clumsy clutches toward the ceiling.
“A fit!” said one, and banged a stovepipe shoulder.
“It’s good luck when you move in to begin
With good luck with your stovepipe. Never mind,
It’s not so bad in the country, settled down,
When people ’re getting on in life, You’ll like it.”
Joe said: “You big boys ought to find a farm,
And make good farmers, and leave other fellows
The city work to do. There’s not enough
For everybody as it is in there.”
“God!” one said wildly, and, when no one spoke:
“Say that to Jimmy here. He needs a farm.”
But Jimmy only made his jaw recede
Fool-like, and rolled his eyes as if to say
He saw himself a farmer. Then there was a French boy
Who said with seriousness that made them laugh,
“Ma friend, you ain’t know what it is you’re ask.”
He doffed his cap and held it with both hands
Across his chest to make as ’twere a bow:
“We’re giving you our chances on de farm.”
And then they all turned to with deafening boots
And put each other bodily out of the house.
“Goodby to them! We puzzle them. They think—
I don’t know what they think we see in what
They leave us to: that pasture slope that seems
The back some farm presents us; and your woods
To northward from your window at the sink,
Waiting to steal a step on us whenever
We drop our eyes or turn to other things,
As in the game ‘Ten-step’ the children play.”

“Good boys they seemed, and let them love the city.
All they could say was ‘God!’ when you proposed
Their coming out and making useful farmers.”

“Did they make something lonesome go through you?
It would take more than them to sicken you—
Us of our bargain. But they left us so
As to our fate, like fools past reasoning with.
They almost shook me.”

“It’s all so much
What we have always wanted, I confess
It’s seeming bad for a moment makes it seem
Even worse still, and so on down, down, down.
It’s nothing; it’s their leaving us at dusk.
I never bore it well when people went.
The first night after guests have gone, the house
Seems haunted or exposed. I always take
A personal interest in the locking up
At bedtime; but the strangeness soon wears off.”
He fetched a dingy lantern from behind
A door. “There’s that we didn’t lose! And these!”—
Some matches he unpocketed. “For food—
The meals we’ve had no one can take from us.
I wish that everything on earth were just
As certain as the meals we’ve had. I wish
The meals we haven’t had were, anyway.
What have you you know where to lay your hands on?”

“The bread we bought in passing at the store.
There’s butter somewhere, too.”

“Let’s rend the bread.
I’ll light the fire for company for you;
You’ll not have any other company
Till Ed begins to get out on a Sunday
To look us over and give us his idea
Of what wants pruning, shingling, breaking up.
He’ll know what he would do if he were we,
And all at once. He’ll plan for us and plan
To help us, but he’ll take it out in planning.
Well, you can set the table with the loaf.
Let’s see you find your loaf. I’ll light the fire.
I like chairs occupying other chairs
Not offering a lady—”

“There again, Joe!
You’re tired.”

“I’m drunk-nonsensical tired out;
Don’t mind a word I say. It’s a day’s work
To empty one house of all household goods
And fill another with ’em fifteen miles away,
Although you do no more than dump them down.”

“Dumped down in paradise we are and happy.”

“It’s all so much what I have always wanted,
I can’t believe it’s what you wanted, too.”

“Shouldn’t you like to know?”

“I’d like to know
If it is what you wanted, then how much
You wanted it for me.”

“A troubled conscience!
You don’t want me to tell if I don’t know.”

“I don’t want to find out what can’t be known.

But who first said the word to come?”

“My dear,
It’s who first thought the thought. You’re searching, Joe,
For things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings—there are no such things.
There are only middles.”

“What is this?”
“This life?
Our sitting here by lantern-light together
Amid the wreckage of a former home?
You won’t deny the lantern isn’t new.
The stove is not, and you are not to me,
Nor I to you.”

“Perhaps you never were?”

“It would take me forever to recite
All that’s not new in where we find ourselves.
New is a word for fools in towns who think
Style upon style in dress and thought at last
Must get somewhere. I’ve heard you say as much.
No, this is no beginning.”

“Then an end?”

“End is a gloomy word.”
“Is it too late
To drag you out for just a good-night call
On the old peach trees on the knoll to grope
By starlight in the grass for a last peach
The neighbors may not have taken as their right
When the house wasn’t lived in? I’ve been looking:
I doubt if they have left us many grapes.
Before we set ourselves to right the house,
The first thing in the morning, out we go
To go the round of apple, cherry, peach,
Pine, alder, pasture, mowing, well, and brook.
All of a farm it is.”

“I know this much:
I’m going to put you in your bed, if first
I have to make you build it. Come, the light.”

When there was no more lantern in the kitchen,
The fire got out through crannies in the stove
And danced in yellow wrigglers on the ceiling,
As much at home as if they’d always danced there.

I have loved this poem since the first time I read it, many decades ago!!!!!!!!--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter
---- By Ezra Pound

After Li Po

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chōkan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever, and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed
You went into far Ku-tō-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.
I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Chō-fū-Sa.

Source: Selected Poems (1957)

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

In heaven
by Stephen Crane
In heaven,
Some little blades of grass
Stood before God.
"What did you do?"
Then all save one of the little blades
Began eagerly to relate
The merits of their lives.
This one stayed a small way behind,
Ashamed.
Presently, God said,
"And what did you do?"
The little blade answered, "Oh my Lord,
Memory is bitter to me,
For, if I did good deeds,
I know not of them."
Then God, in all His splendor,
Arose from His throne.
"Oh, best little blade of grass!" He said.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

UPON THE LOSS OF HIS MISTRESSES
by Robert Herrick
I have lost, and lately, these
Many dainty mistresses:--
Stately Julia, prime of all;
Sapho next, a principal:
Smooth Anthea, for a skin
White, and heaven-like crystalline:
Sweet Electra, and the choice
Myrha, for the lute and voice.
Next, Corinna, for her wit,
And the graceful use of it;
With Perilla:--All are gone;
Only Herrick's left alone,
For to number sorrow by
Their departures hence, and die

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Dark Hour
------by William Henry Davies
And now, when merry winds do blow,
And rain makes trees look fresh,
An overpowering staleness holds
This mortal flesh.

Though well I love to feel the rain,
And be by winds well blown --
The mystery of mortal life
Doth press me down.

And, In this mood, come now what will,
Shine Rainbow, Cuckoo call;
There is no thing in Heaven or Earth
Can lift my soul.

I know not where this state comes from --
No cause for grief I know;
The Earth around is fresh and green,
Flowers near me grow.

I sit between two fair rose trees;
Red roses on my right,
And on my left side roses are
A lovely white.

The little birds are full of joy,
Lambs bleating all the day;
The colt runs after the old mare,
And children play.

And still there comes this dark, dark hour --
Which is not borne of Care;
Into my heart it creeps before
I am aware.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Travail Of Passion
------------by William Butler Yeats

When the flaming lute-thronged angelic door is wide;
When an immortal passion breathes in mortal clay;
Our hearts endure the scourge, the plaited thorns, the way
Crowded with bitter faces, the wounds in palm and side,
The vinegar-heavy sponge, the flowers by Kedron stream;
We will bend down and loosen our hair over you,
That it may drop faint perfume, and be heavy with dew,
Lilies of death-pale hope, roses of passionate dream.
------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------

One of his best short poems, IMHO..-TYR

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Thought For A Lonely Death-Bed
------------- by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

IF God compel thee to this destiny,
To die alone, with none beside thy bed
To ruffle round with sobs thy last word said
And mark with tears the pulses ebb from thee,--
Pray then alone, ' O Christ, come tenderly !
By thy forsaken Sonship in the red
Drear wine-press,--by the wilderness out-spread,--
And the lone garden where thine agony
Fell bloody from thy brow,--by all of those
Permitted desolations, comfort mine !
No earthly friend being near me, interpose
No deathly angel 'twixt my face aud thine,
But stoop Thyself to gather my life's rose,
And smile away my mortal to Divine

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Old Pardon, the Son of Reprieve
------------------ by Andrew Barton Paterson
You never heard tell of the story?
Well, now, I can hardly believe!
Never heard of the honour and glory
Of Pardon, the son of Reprieve?
But maybe you're only a Johnnie
And don't know a horse from a hoe?
Well, well, don't get angry, my sonny,
But, really, a young un should know.
They bred him out back on the "Never",
His mother was Mameluke breed.
To the front -- and then stay there - was ever
The root of the Mameluke creed.
He seemed to inherit their wiry
Strong frames -- and their pluck to receive --
As hard as a flint and as fiery
Was Pardon, the son of Reprieve.

We ran him at many a meeting
At crossing and gully and town,
And nothing could give him a beating --
At least when our money was down.
For weight wouldn't stop him, nor distance,
Nor odds, though the others were fast;
He'd race with a dogged persistence,
And wear them all down at the last.

At the Turon the Yattendon filly
Led by lengths at the mile-and-a-half,
And we all began to look silly,
While her crowd were starting to laugh;
But the old horse came faster and faster,
His pluck told its tale, and his strength,
He gained on her, caught her, and passed her,
And won it, hands down, by a length.

And then we swooped down on Menindie
To run for the President's Cup;
Oh! that's a sweet township -- a shindy
To them is board, lodging, and sup.
Eye-openers they are, and their system
Is never to suffer defeat;
It's "win, tie, or wrangle" -- to best 'em
You must lose 'em, or else it's "dead heat".

We strolled down the township and found 'em
At drinking and gaming and play;
If sorrows they had, why they drowned 'em,
And betting was soon under way.
Their horses were good uns and fit uns,
There was plenty of cash in the town;
They backed their own horses like Britons,
And, Lord! how we rattled it down!

With gladness we thought of the morrow,
We counted our wages with glee,
A simile homely to borrow --
"There was plenty of milk in our tea."
You see we were green; and we never
Had even a thought of foul play,
Though we well might have known that the clever
Division would "put us away".

Experience docet, they tell us,
At least so I've frequently heard;
But, "dosing" or "stuffing", those fellows
Were up to each move on the board:
They got to his stall -- it is sinful
To think what such villains will do --
And they gave him a regular skinful
Of barley -- green barley -- to chew.

He munched it all night, and we found him
Next morning as full as a hog --
The girths wouldn't nearly meet round him;
He looked like an overfed frog.
We saw we were done like a dinner --
The odds were a thousand to one
Against Pardon turning up winner,
'Twas cruel to ask him to run.

We got to the course with our troubles,
A crestfallen couple were we;
And we heard the " books" calling the doubles --
A roar like the surf of the sea.
And over the tumult and louder
Rang "Any price Pardon, I lay!"
Says Jimmy, "The children of Judah
Are out on the warpath today."

Three miles in three heats: -- Ah, my sonny,
The horses in those days were stout,
They had to run well to win money;
I don't see such horses about.
Your six-furlong vermin that scamper
Half-a-mile with their feather-weight up,
They wouldn't earn much of their damper
In a race like the President's Cup.

The first heat was soon set a-going;
The Dancer went off to the front;
The Don on his quarters was showing,
With Pardon right out of the hunt.
He rolled and he weltered and wallowed --
You'd kick your hat faster, I'll bet;
They finished all bunched, and he followed
All lathered and dripping with sweat.

But troubles came thicker upon us,
For while we were rubbing him dry
The stewards came over to warn us:
"We hear you are running a bye!
If Pardon don't spiel like tarnation
And win the next heat -- if he can --
He'll earn a disqualification;
Just think over that now, my man!"

Our money all gone and our credit,
Our horse couldn't gallop a yard;
And then people thought that we did it
It really was terribly hard.
We were objects of mirth and derision
To folks in the lawn and the stand,
Anf the yells of the clever division
Of "Any price Pardon!" were grand.

We still had a chance for the money,
Two heats remained to be run:
If both fell to us -- why, my sonny,
The clever division were done.
And Pardon was better, we reckoned,
His sickness was passing away,
So we went to the post for the second
And principal heat of the day.

They're off and away with a rattle,
Like dogs from the leashes let slip,
And right at the back of the battle
He followed them under the whip.
They gained ten good lengths on him quickly
He dropped right away from the pack;
I tell you it made me feel sickly
To see the blue jacket fall back.

Our very last hope had departed --
We thought the old fellow was done,
When all of a sudden he started
To go like a shot from a gun.
His chances seemed slight to embolden
Our hearts; but, with teeth firmly set,
We thought, "Now or never! The old un
May reckon with some of 'em yet."

Then loud rose the war-cry for Pardon;
He swept like the wind down the dip,
And over the rise by the garden
The jockey was done with the whip.
The field was at sixes and sevens --
The pace at the first had been fast --
And hope seemed to drop from the heavens,
For Pardon was coming at last.

And how he did come! It was splendid;
He gained on them yards every bound,
Stretching out like a greyhound extended,
His girth laid right down on the ground.
A shimmer of silk in the cedars
As into the running they wheeled,
And out flashed the whips on the leaders,
For Pardon had collared the field.

Then right through the ruck he was sailing --
I knew that the battle was won --
The son of Haphazard was failing,
The Yattendon filly was done;
He cut down The Don and The Dancer,
He raced clean away from the mare --
He's in front! Catch him now if you can, sir!
And up went my hat in the air!

Then loud fron the lawn and the garden
Rose offers of "Ten to one on!"
"Who'll bet on the field? I back Pardon!"
No use; all the money was gone.
He came for the third heat light-hearted,
A-jumping and dancing about;
The others were done ere they started
Crestfallen, and tired, and worn out.

He won it, and ran it much faster
Than even the first, I believe;
Oh, he was the daddy, the master,
Was Pardon, the son of Reprieve.
He showed 'em the method of travel --
The boy sat still as a stone --
They never could see him for gravel;
He came in hard-held, and alone.

* * * * * * *

But he's old -- and his eyes are grown hollow
Like me, with my thatch of the snow;
When he dies, then I hope I may follow,
And go where the racehorses go.
I don't want no harping nor singing --
Such things with my style don't agree;
Where the hoofs of the horses are ringing
There's music sufficient for me.

And surely the thoroughbred horses
Will rise up again and begin
Fresh faces on far-away courses,
And p'raps they might let me slip in.
It would look rather well the race-card on
'Mongst Cherubs and Seraphs and things,
"Angel Harrison's black gelding Pardon,
Blue halo, white body and wings."

And if they have racing hereafter,
(And who is to say they will not?)
When the cheers and the shouting and laughter
Proclaim that the battle grows hot;
As they come down the racecourse a-steering,
He'll rush to the front, I believe;
And you'll hear the great multitude cheering
For Pardon, the son of Reprieve

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Prayer in the Prospect of Death
--- by Robert Burns
O THOU unknown, Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear!
In whose dread presence, ere an hour,
Perhaps I must appear!


If I have wander’d in those paths
Of life I ought to shun,
As something, loudly, in my breast,
Remonstrates I have done;


Thou know’st that Thou hast formed me
With passions wild and strong;
And list’ning to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.


Where human weakness has come short,
Or frailty stept aside,
Do Thou, All-Good-for such Thou art—
In shades of darkness hide.


Where with intention I have err’d,
No other plea I have,
But, Thou art good; and Goodness still
Delighteth to forgive.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Moments Of Vision
---------------- by Thomas Hardy

That mirror
Which makes of men a transparency,
Who holds that mirror
And bids us such a breast-bare spectacle see
Of you and me?

That mirror
Whose magic penetrates like a dart,
Who lifts that mirror
And throws our mind back on us, and our heart,
until we start?

That mirror
Works well in these night hours of ache;
Why in that mirror
Are tincts we never see ourselves once take
When the world is awake?

That mirror
Can test each mortal when unaware;
Yea, that strange mirror
May catch his last thoughts, whole life foul or fair,
Glassing it -- where?

-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------

'Death is nothing at all' ~ Canon Henry Scott Holland of St. Paul's Cathedral

Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other that we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was,
let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was; there is unbroken continuity.
[There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident?]
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner.

All is well.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Universal Prayer
-----------------by Alexander Pope
Father of all! In every age,
In ev'ry clime ador'd,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Cause, least understood,
Who all my sense confin'd
To know but this, that Thou art good,
And that myself am blind:

Yet gave me, in this dark estate,
To see the good from ill;
And, binding Nature fast in Fate,
Left free the human Will.

What Conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do;
This teach me more than Hell to shun,
That more than Heav'n pursue.

What blessings thy free bounty gives
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when man receives;
T' enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound,
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round.

Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw,
And teach damnation round the land
On each I judge thy foe.

If I am right, thy grace impart,
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, O teach my heart
To find that better way.

Save me alike from foolish Pride
Or impious Discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught that goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's woe,
To right the fault I see:
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Mean tho' I am, not wholly so,
Since quicken'd by thy breath;
O lead me whereso'er I go,
Thro' this day's life or death!

This day be bread and peace my lot:
All else beneath the sun
Though know'st if best bestow'd or not,
And let Thy will be done.

To Thee, whose temple is of Space,
Whose altar earth, sea, skies,
One chorus let all Beings raise!
All Nature's incense rise!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Beloved, Let Us Once More Praise The Rain
----------------by Conrad Aiken
Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.
Let us discover some new alphabet,
For this, the often praised; and be ourselves,
The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,
The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,
And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,—
Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion,
Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done.
There is an oriole who, upside down,
Hangs at his nest, and flicks an orange wing,—
Under a tree as dead and still as lead;
There is a single leaf, in all this heaven
Of leaves, which rain has loosened from its twig:
The stem breaks, and it falls, but it is caught
Upon a sister leaf, and thus she hangs;
There is an acorn cup, beside a mushroom
Which catches three drops from the stooping cloud.
The timid bee goes back to the hive; the fly
Under the broad leaf of the hollyhock
Perpends stupid with cold; the raindark snail
Surveys the wet world from a watery stone...
And still the syllables of water whisper:
The wheel of cloud whirs slowly: while we wait
In the dark room; and in your heart I find
One silver raindrop,—on a hawthorn leaf,—
Orion in a cobweb, and the World.

One of my top five favorites by Conrad.--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Air And Angels
--------- by John Donne
Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
Before I knew thy face or name,
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame,
Angels affect us oft, and worship'd be;
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtile than the parent is,
Love must not be, but take a body too,
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love, I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw, I had love's pinnace overfraught,
Ev'ry thy hair for love to work upon
Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;
Then as an Angel, face, and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure doth wear,
So thy love may be my loves sphere;
Just such disparity
As is twixt Air and Angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love, and men's will ever be.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Prayer For My Son
--------------- by William Butler Yeats
Bid a strong ghost stand at the head
That my Michael may sleep sound,
Nor cry, nor turn in the bed
Till his morning meal come round;
And may departing twilight keep
All dread afar till morning's back.
That his mother may not lack
Her fill of sleep.

Bid the ghost have sword in fist:
Some there are, for I avow
Such devilish things exist,
Who have planned his murder, for they know
Of some most haughty deed or thought
That waits upon his future days,
And would through hatred of the bays
Bring that to nought.

Though You can fashion everything
From nothing every day, and teach
The morning stars to sing,
You have lacked articulate speech
To tell Your simplest want, and known,
Wailing upon a woman's knee,
All of that worst ignominy
Of flesh and bone;

And when through all the town there ran
The servants of Your enemy,
A woman and a man,
Unless the Holy Writings lie,
Hurried through the smooth and rough
And through the fertile and waste,
protecting, till the danger past,
With human love.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Lost Angel
by Ellis Parker Butler

When first we met she seemed so white
I feared her;
As one might near a spirit bright
I neared her;
An angel pure from heaven above
I dreamed her,
And far too good for human love
I deemed her.
A spirit free from mortal taint
I thought her,
And incense as unto a saint
I brought her.

Well, incense burning did not seem
To please her,
And insolence I feared she’d deem
To squeeze her;
Nor did I dare for that same why
To kiss her,
Lest, shocked, she’d cause my eager eye
To miss her.
I sickened thinking of some way
To win her,
When lo! she asked me, one fine day,
To dinner!

Twas thus that made of common flesh
I found her,
And in a mortal lover’s mesh
I wound her.
Embraces, kisses, loving looks
I gave her,
And buying bon-bons, flowers and books,
I save her;
For her few honest, human taints
I love her,
Nor would I change for all the saints
Above her
Those eyes, that little face, that so
Endear her,
And all the human joy I know
When near her;
And I am glad, when to my breast
I press her,
She’s just a woman, like the rest,
God bless her!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Country of the Blind
-----by C. S. Lewis
Hard light bathed them-a whole nation of eyeless men,
Dark bipeds not aware how they were maimed. A long
Process, clearly, a slow curse,
Drained through centuries, left them thus.

At some transitional stage, then, a luckless few,
No doubt, must have had eyes after the up-to-date,
Normal type had achieved snug
Darkness, safe from the guns of heavn;

Whose blind mouths would abuse words that belonged to their
Great-grandsires, unabashed, talking of light in some
Eunuch'd, etiolated,
Fungoid sense, as a symbol of

Abstract thoughts. If a man, one that had eyes, a poor
Misfit, spoke of the grey dawn or the stars or green-
Sloped sea waves, or admired how
Warm tints change in a lady's cheek,

None complained he had used words from an alien tongue,
None question'd. It was worse. All would agree 'Of course,'
Came their answer. "We've all felt
Just like that." They were wrong. And he


Knew too much to be clear, could not explain. The words --
Sold, raped flung to the dogs -- now could avail no more;
Hence silence. But the mouldwarps,
With glib confidence, easily

Showed how tricks of the phrase, sheer metaphors could set
Fools concocting a myth, taking the worlds for things.
Do you think this a far-fetched
Picture? Go then about among

Men now famous; attempt speech on the truths that once,
Opaque, carved in divine forms, irremovable,
Dear but dear as a mountain-
Mass, stood plain to the inward eye.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

To the True Romance
----------by Rudyard Kipling
Thy face is far from this our war,
Our call and counter-cry,
I shall not find Thee quick and kind,
Nor know Thee till I die,
Enough for me in dreams to see
And touch Thy garments' hem:
Thy feet have trod so near to God
I may not follow them.

Through wantonness if men profess
They weary of Thy parts,
E'en let them die at blasphemy
And perish with their arts;
But we that love, but we that prove
Thine excellence august,
While we adore discover more
Thee perfect, wise, and just.

Since spoken word Man's Spirit stirred
Beyond his belly-need,
What is is Thine of fair design
In thought and craft and deed;
Each stroke aright of toil and fight,
That was and that shall be,
And hope too high, wherefore we die,
Has birth and worth in Thee.

Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee
To gild his dross thereby,
And knowledge sure that he endure
A child until he die --
For to make plain that man's disdain
Is but new Beauty's birth --
For to possess in loneliness
The joy of all the earth.

As Thou didst teach all lovers speech
And Life all mystery,
So shalt Thou rule by every school
Till love and longing die,
Who wast or yet the Lights were set,
A whisper in the Void,
Who shalt be sung through planets young
When this is clean destroyed.

Beyond the bounds our staring rounds,
Across the pressing dark,
The children wise of outer skies
Look hitherward and mark
A light that shifts, a glare that drifts,
Rekindling thus and thus,
Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne
Strange tales to them of us.

Time hath no tide but must abide
The servant of Thy will;
Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme
The ranging stars stand still --
Regent of spheres that lock our fears,
Our hopes invisible,
Oh 'twas certes at Thy decrees
We fashioned Heaven and Hell!

Pure Wisdom hath no certain path
That lacks thy morning-eyne,
And captains bold by Thee controlled
Most like to Gods design;
Thou art the Voice to kingly boys
To lift them through the fight,
And Comfortress of Unsuccess,
To give the dead good-night --

A veil to draw 'twixt God His Law
And Man's infirmity,
A shadow kind to dumb and blind
The shambles where we die;
A rule to trick th' arithmetic
Too base of leaguing odds --
The spur of trust, the curb of lust,
Thou handmaid of the Gods!

O Charity, all patiently
Abiding wrack and scaith!
O Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats
Yet drops no jot of faith!
Devil and brute Thou dost transmute
To higher, lordlier show,
Who art in sooth that lovely Truth
The careless angels know!

Thy face is far from this our war,
Our call and counter-cry,
I may not find Thee quick and kind,
Nor know Thee till I die.

Yet may I look with heart unshook
On blow brought home or missed --
Yet may I hear with equal ear
The clarions down the List;
Yet set my lance above mischance
And ride the barriere --
Oh, hit or miss, how little 'tis,
My Lady is not there!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Ballad Of The Foxhunter
----------by William Butler Yeats
'Lay me in a cushioned chair;
Carry me, ye four,
With cushions here and cushions there,
To see the world once more.

'To stable and to kennel go;
Bring what is there to bring;
Lead my Lollard to and fro,
Or gently in a ring.

'Put the chair upon the grass:
Bring Rody and his hounds,
That I may contented pass
From these earthly bounds.'

His eyelids droop, his head falls low,
His old eyes cloud with dreams;
The sun upon all things that grow
Falls in sleepy streams.

Brown Lollard treads upon the lawn,
And to the armchair goes,
And now the old man's dreams are gone,
He smooths the long brown nose.

And now moves many a pleasant tongue
Upon his wasted hands,
For leading aged hounds and young
The huntsman near him stands.

'Huntsmam Rody, blow the horn,
Make the hills reply.'
The huntsman loosens on the morn
A gay wandering cry.

Fire is in the old man's eyes,
His fingers move and sway,
And when the wandering music dies
They hear him feebly say,

'Huntsman Rody, blow the horn,
Make the hills reply.'
'I cannot blow upon my horn,
I can but weep and sigh.'

Servants round his cushioned place
Are with new sorrow wrung;
Hounds are gazing on his face,
Aged hounds and young.

One blind hound only lies apart
On the sun-smitten grass;
He holds deep commune with his heart:
The moments pass and pass:

The blind hound with a mournful din
Lifts slow his wintry head;
The servants bear the body in;
The hounds wail for the dead.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Scorn not the Sonnet

---------By William Wordsworth

Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains—alas, too few!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Goblet of Life
-------------- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Filled is Life's goblet to the brim;
And though my eyes with tears are dim,
I see its sparkling bubbles swim,
And chant a melancholy hymn
With solemn voice and slow.

No purple flowers,--no garlands green,
Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen,
Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,
Like gleams of sunshine, flash between
Thick leaves of mistletoe.

This goblet, wrought with curious art,
Is filled with waters, that upstart,
When the deep fountains of the heart,
By strong convulsions rent apart,
Are running all to waste.

And as it mantling passes round,
With fennel is it wreathed and crowned,
Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned
Are in its waters steeped and drowned,
And give a bitter taste.

Above the lowly plants it towers,
The fennel, with its yellow flowers,
And in an earlier age than ours
Was gifted with the wondrous powers,
Lost vision to restore.

It gave new strength, and fearless mood;
And gladiators, fierce and rude,
Mingled it in their daily food;
And he who battled and subdued,
A wreath of fennel wore.

Then in Life's goblet freely press,
The leaves that give it bitterness,
Nor prize the colored waters less,
For in thy darkness and distress
New light and strength they give!

And he who has not learned to know
How false its sparkling buhbles show,
How bitter are the drops of woe,
With which its brim may overflow,
He has not learned to live.

The prayer of Ajax was for light;
Through all that dark and desperate fight
The blackness of that noonday night
He asked but the return of sight,
To see his foeman's face.

Let our unceasing, earnest prayer
Be, too, for light,--for strength to bear
Our portion of the weight of care,
That crushes into dumb despair
One half the human race.

O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted one; who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, and yet afraid to die,
Patient, though sorely tried !

I pledge you in this cup of grief,
Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf !
The Battle of our Life is briet
The alarm,--the struggle,--the relief,
Then sleep we side by side

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

As a Beam O'er the Face of the Waters May Glow
------------------ by Thomas Moore
As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow
While the tide runs in darkness and coldness below,
So the cheek may be tinged with a warm sunny smile,
Though the cold heart to ruin runs darkly the while.

One fatal remembrance, one sorrow that throws
Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes,
To which life nothing darker or brighter can bring,
For which joy has no balm and affliction no sting --

Oh! this thought in the midst of enjoyment will stay,
Like a dead, leafless branch in the summer's bright ray;
The beams of the warm sun play round it in vain;
It may smile in his light, but it blooms not again.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

To Spring
---------by William Blake
O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down
Thro' the clear windows of the morning, turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

The hills tell each other, and the listening
Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned
Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth,
And let thy holy feet visit our clime.

Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds
Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
Thy golden crown upon her languished head,
Whose modest tresses were bound up for thee.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Sorrows of the Blind
------by William Topaz McGonagall
Pity the sorrows of the poor blind,
For they can but little comfort find;
As they walk along the street,
They know not where to put their feet.
They are deprived of that earthly joy
Of seeing either man, woman, or boy;
Sad and lonely through the world they go,
Not knowing a friend from a foe:
Nor the difference betwixt day and night,
For the want of their eyesight;
The blind mother cannot see her darling boy,
That was once her soul's joy.
By day and night,
Since she lost her precious sight;
To her the world seems dark and drear,
And she can find no comfort here.
She once found pleasure in reading books,
But now pale and careworn are her looks.
Since she has lost her eyesight,
Everything seems wrong and nothing right.

The face of nature, with all its beauties and livery green,
Appears to the blind just like a dream.
All things beautiful have vanished from their sight,
Which were once their heart's delight.
The blind father cannot see his beautiful child, nor wife,
That was once the joy of his life;
That he was wont to see at morn and night,
When he had his eyesight.
All comfort has vanished from him now,
And a dejected look hangs on his brow.

Kind Christians all, both great and small,
Pity the sorrows of the blind,
They can but little comfort find;
Therefore we ought to be content with our lot,
And for the eyesight we have got,
And pray to God both day and night
To preserve our eyesight;
To be always willing to help the blind in their distress,
And the Lord will surely bless
And guard us by night and day,
And remember us at the judgment day.

------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------

Such a brilliant piece.... highlighting blindness may come in many forms and we should thank God for our blessings..-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Clod and the Pebble
----------------By William Blake
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."

So sung a little Clod of Clay
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:

"Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Indian Serenade
----------- by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me -who knows how?
To thy chamber-window, Sweet!

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream -
The champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O beloved as thou art!

Oh lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;
Oh press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Broken Men
by Rudyard Kipling
For things we never mention,
For Art misunderstood --
For excellent intention
That did not turn to good;
From ancient tales' renewing,
From clouds we would not clear --
Beyond the Law's pursuing
We fled, and settled here.

We took no tearful leaving,
We bade no long good-byes;
Men talked of crime and thieving,
Men wrote of fraud and lies.
To save our injured feelings
'T was time and time to go --
Behind was dock and Dartmoor,
Ahead lay Callao!

The widow and the orphan
That pray for ten per cent,
They clapped their trailers on us
To spy the road we went.
They watched the foreign sailings
(They scan the shipping still),
And that's your Christian people
Returning good for ill!

God bless the thoughtfull islands
Where never warrants come;
God bless the just Republics
That give a man a home,
That ask no foolish questions,
But set him on his feet;
And save his wife and daughters
From the workhouse and the street!

On church and square and market
The noonday silence falls;
You'll hear the drowsy mutter
Of the fountain in our halls.
Asleep amid the yuccas
The city takes her ease --
Till twilight brings the land-wind
To the clicking jalousies.

Day long the diamond weather,
The high, unaltered blue --
The smell of goats and incense
And the mule-bells tinkling through.
Day long the warder ocean
That keeps us from our kin,
And once a month our levee
When the English mail comes in.

You'll find us up and waiting
To treat you at the bar;
You'll find us less exclusive
Than the average English are.
We'll meet you with a carriage,
Too glad to show you round,
But -- we do not lunch on steamers,
For they are English ground.

We sail o' nights to England
And join our smiling Boards --
Our wives go in with Viscounts
And our daughters dance with Lords,
But behind our princely doings,
And behind each coup we make,
We feel there's Something Waiting,
And -- we meet It when we wake.

Ah God! One sniff of England --
To greet our flesh and blood --
To hear the traffic slurring
Once more through London mud!
Our towns of wasted honour --
Our streets of lost delight!
How stands the old Lord Warden?
Are Dover's cliffs still white?

Yes his critics in his time, in their jealous and smug ego's declared him no poet..
What ffing vermin, I'd spit on any of them, as this great author definitely wrote fine poetry, too!-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Past One O’Clock ...
-------------- by Vladimir Mayakovsky

Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed.
The Milky Way streams silver through the night.
I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams
I have no cause to wake or trouble you.
And, as they say, the incident is closed.
Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind.
Now you and I are quits. Why bother then
To balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts.
Behold what quiet settles on the world.
Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars.
In hours like these, one rises to address
The ages, history, and all creation.


Transcribed: by Mitch Abidor.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

On the Bay
--------------by Lucy Maud Montgomery
When the salt wave laps on the long, dim shore,
And frets the reef with its windy sallies,
And the dawn's white light is threading once more
The purple firs in the landward valleys,
While yet the arms of the wide gray sea
Are cradling the sunrise that is to be,
The fisherman's boat, through the mist afar,
Has sailed in the wake of the morning star.

The wind in his cordage and canvas sings
Its old glad song of strength and endeavor,
And up from the heart of the ocean rings
A call of courage and cheer forever;
Toil and danger and stress may wait
Beyond the arch of the morning's gate,
But he knows that behind him, upon the shore,
A true heart prays for him evermore.

When a young moon floats in the hollow sky,
Like a fairy shallop, all pale and golden,
And over the rocks that are grim and high,
The lamp of the light-house aloft is holden;
When the bay is like to a lucent cup
With glamor and glory and glow filled up,
In the track of the sunset, across the foam,
The fisherman's boat comes sailing home.

The wind is singing a low, sweet song
Of a rest well won and a toil well over,
And there on the shore shines clear and strong
The star of the homelight to guide the rover:
And deep unto deep may call and wail
But the fisherman laughs as he furls his sail,
For the bar is passed and the reef is dim
And a true heart is waiting to welcome him!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Prayer
------------ by James Joyce

Again!
Come, give, yield all your strength to me!
From far a low word breathes on the breaking brain
Its cruel calm, submission's misery,
Gentling her awe as to a soul predestined.
Cease, silent love! My doom!

Blind me with your dark nearness, O have mercy, beloved enemy of my will!
I dare not withstand the cold touch that I dread.
Draw from me still
My slow life! Bend deeper on me, threatening head,
Proud by my downfall, remembering, pitying
Him who is, him who was!

Again!
Together, folded by the night, they lay on earth. I hear
From far her low word breathe on my breaking brain.
Come! I yield. Bend deeper upon me! I am here.
Subduer, do not leave me! Only joy, only anguish,
Take me, save me, soothe me, O spare me!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Holy Sonnet VI: This Is My Play's Last Scene, Here Heavens Appoint
-----------------------by John Donne
This is my play's last scene, here heavens appoint
My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race
Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,
My span's last inch, my minute's latest point,
And gluttonous death, will instantly unjoint
My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space;
But my ever-waking part shall see that face,
Whose fear already shakes my every joint:
Then, as my soul, t' heaven her first seat, takes flight,
And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,
So fall my sins that all may have their right
(To where they're bred, and would press me) to hell.
Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil,
For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

To The Sad Moon
------------by Sir Philip Sidney
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! May it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call 'virtue' there— ungratefulness?

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

RUSSIAN-AMERICAN ROMANCE
-------------------by Andrei Voznesensky
In my land and yours they do hit the hay
and sleep the whole night in a similar way.

There's the golden Moon with a double shine.
It lightens your land and it lightens mine.

At the same low price, that is for free,
there's the sunrise for you and the sunset for me.

The wind is cool at the break of day,
it's neither your fault nor mine, anyway.

Behind your lies and behind my lies
there is pain and love for our Motherlands.

I wish in your land and mine some day
we'd put all idiots out of the way.

© Copyright Alec Vagapov's translation

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Death, Be Not Proud
------ by John Donne

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Music, When Soft Voices Die by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Analysis

"Music, When Soft Voices Die" is a death poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. This poem is most likely about a loved one's death. In the second stanza, Shelley states that we put roses on the beloved person's bed and think about them when they are gone. Love continues even if the person we loved passed away.

"Music, When Soft Voices Die" is a poem made up of two stanzas with four lines in each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, even though the first rhyme of the poem isn't perfect (at least, not to modern day ears). This poem is written in trochee foot.
Poem

Music, When Soft Voices Die
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory --
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts when thou are gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.



Read more about Music, When Soft Voices Die by Percy Bysshe Shelley Analysis & Poem by www.poemofquotes.com

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I see around me tombstones grey
-----------------by Emily Bronte

I see around me tombstones grey
Stretching their shadows far away.

Beneath the turf my footsteps tread
Lie low and lone the silent dead -
Beneath the turf - beneath the mould -
Forever dark, forever cold -
And my eyes cannot hold the tears
That memory hoards from vanished years
For Time and Death and Mortal pain
Give wounds that will not heal again -
Let me remember half the woe
I've seen and heard and felt below,
And Heaven itself - so pure and blest,
Could never give my spirit rest -
Sweet land of light! thy children fair
Know nought akin to our despair -
Nor have they felt, nor can they tell
What tenants haunt each mortal cell,
What gloomy guests we hold within -
Torments and madness, tears and sin!
Well - may they live in ectasy
Their long eternity of joy;
At least we would not bring them down
With us to weep, with us to groan,
No - Earth would wish no other sphere
To taste her cup of sufferings drear;
She turns from Heaven with a careless eye
And only mourns that we must die!
Ah mother, what shall comfort thee
In all this boundless misery?
To cheer our eager eyes a while
We see thee smile; how fondly smile!
But who reads not through that tender glow
Thy deep, unutterable woe:
Indeed no dazzling land above
Can cheat thee of thy children's love.

We all, in life's departing shine,
Our last dear longings blend with thine;
And struggle still and strive to trace
With clouded gaze, thy darling face.

We would not leave our native home
For any world beyond the Tomb.

No - rather on thy kindly breast
Let us be laid in lasting rest;
Or waken but to share with thee
A mutual immortality -

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Daughter of Eve
---------------by Christina Rossetti

A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.


My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.


Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:—
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.

Poem by Christina Rossetti

*************************************

Monna Innominata: A Sonnet of Sonnets
--------------by Christina Rossetti

1

Lo d? che han detto a' dolci amici addio.
- Dante
Amor, con quanto sforzo oggi mi vinci! - Petrarca

Come back to me, who wait and watch for you:--
Or come not yet, for it is over then,
And long it is before you come again,
So far between my pleasures are and few.

While, when you come not, what I do I do
Thinking "Now when he comes," my sweetest when:"
For one man is my world of all the men
This wide world holds; O love, my world is you.

Howbeit, to meet you grows almost a pang
Because the pang of parting comes so soon;
My hope hangs waning, waxing, like a moon
Between the heavenly days on which we meet:
Ah me, but where are now the songs I sang
When life was sweet because you call'd them sweet?

2

Era gi? 1'ora che volge il desio.
- Dante
Ricorro al tempo ch' io vi vidi prima.
- Petrarca

I wish I could remember that first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me,
If bright or dim the season, it might be
Summer or winter for aught I can say;
So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to foresee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom yet for many a May.

If only I could recollect it, such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;
It seem'd to mean so little, meant so much;
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand--Did one but know!


3

O ombre vane, fuor che ne l'aspetto! - Dante
Immaginata guida la conduce.
- Petrarca

I dream of you to wake: would that I might
Dream of you and not wake but slumber on;
Nor find with dreams the dear companion gone,
As summer ended summer birds take flight.

In happy dreams I hold you full in sight,
I blush again who waking look so wan;
Brighter than sunniest day that ever shone,
In happy dreams your smile makes day of night.

Thus only in a dream we are at one,
Thus only in a dream we give and take
The faith that maketh rich who take or give;
If thus to sleep is sweeter than to wake,
To die were surely sweeter than to live,
Though there be nothing new beneath the sun.



4

Poca favilla gran fliamma seconda.
- Dante
Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore,
E sol ivi con voi rimansi amore.
- Petrarca

I lov'd you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drown'd the friendly cooings of my dove.

Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And yours one moment seem'd to wax more strong;
I lov'd and guess'd at you, you construed me--
And lov'd 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.



5

Amor che a nullo amato amar perdona.
- Dante
Amor m'addusse in s? gioiosa spene.
- Petrarca

O my heart's heart, and you who are to me
More than myself myself, God be with you,
Keep you in strong obedience leal and true
To Him whose noble service setteth free,
Give you all good we see or can foresee,
Make your joys many and your sorrows few,
Bless you in what you bear and what you do,
Yea, perfect you as He would have you be.

So much for you; but what for me, dear friend?
To love you without stint and all I can
Today, tomorrow, world without an end;
To love you much and yet to love you more,
As Jordan at his flood sweeps either shore;
Since woman is the helpmeet made for man.



6

Or puoi la quantitate
Comprender de l'amor che a te mi scalda.
- Dante
Non vo' che da tal nodo mi scioglia.
- Petrarca

Trust me, I have not earn'd your dear rebuke,
I love, as you would have me, God the most;
Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost,
Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look
Unready to forego what I forsook;
This say I, having counted up the cost,
This, though I be the feeblest of God's host,
The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook.

Yet while I love my God the most, I deem
That I can never love you overmuch;
I love Him more, so let me love you too;
Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such
I cannot love you if I love not Him,
I cannot love Him if I love not you.



7

Qui primavera sempre ed ogni frutto.
- Dante
Ragionando con meco ed io con lui.
- Petrarca

"Love me, for I love you"--and answer me,
"Love me, for I love you"--so shall we stand
As happy equals in the flowering land
Of love, that knows not a dividing sea.

Love builds the house on rock and not on sand,
Love laughs what while the winds rave desperately;
And who hath found love's citadel unmann'd?
And who hath held in bonds love's liberty?
My heart's a coward though my words are brave
We meet so seldom, yet we surely part
So often; there's a problem for your art!
Still I find comfort in his Book, who saith,
Though jealousy be cruel as the grave,
And death be strong, yet love is strong as death.



8

Come dicesse a Dio: D'altro non calme.
- Dante
Spero trovar piet? non che perdono.
- Petrarca

"I, if I perish, perish"--Esther spake:
And bride of life or death she made her fair
In all the lustre of her perfum'd hair
And smiles that kindle longing but to slake.

She put on pomp of loveliness, to take
Her husband through his eyes at unaware;
She spread abroad her beauty for a snare,
Harmless as doves and subtle as a snake.

She trapp'd him with one mesh of silken hair,
She vanquish'd him by wisdom of her wit,
And built her people's house that it should stand:--
If I might take my life so in my hand,
And for my love to Love put up my prayer,
And for love's sake by Love be granted it!


9

O dignitosa coscienza e netta! - Dante
Spirto pi? acceso di virtuti ardenti.
- Petrarca

Thinking of you, and all that was, and all
That might have been and now can never be,
I feel your honour'd excellence, and see
Myself unworthy of the happier call:
For woe is me who walk so apt to fall,
So apt to shrink afraid, so apt to flee,
Apt to lie down and die (ah, woe is me!)
Faithless and hopeless turning to the wall.

And yet not hopeless quite nor faithless quite,
Because not loveless; love may toil all night,
But take at morning; wrestle till the break
Of day, but then wield power with God and man:--
So take I heart of grace as best I can,
Ready to spend and be spent for your sake.



10

Con miglior corso e con migliore stella.
- Dante
La vita fugge e non s'arresta un' ora.
- Petrarca

Time flies, hope flags, life plies a wearied wing;
Death following hard on life gains ground apace;
Faith runs with each and rears an eager face,
Outruns the rest, makes light of everything,
Spurns earth, and still finds breath to pray and sing;
While love ahead of all uplifts his praise,
Still asks for grace and still gives thanks for grace,
Content with all day brings and night will bring.

Life wanes; and when love folds his wings above
Tired hope, and less we feel his conscious pulse,
Let us go fall asleep, dear friend, in peace:
A little while, and age and sorrow cease;
A little while, and life reborn annuls
Loss and decay and death, and all is love.



11

Vien dietro a me e lascia dir le genti.
- Dante
Contando i casi della vita nostra.
- Petrarca

Many in aftertimes will say of you
"He lov'd her"--while of me what will they say?
Not that I lov'd you more than just in play,
For fashion's sake as idle women do.

Even let them prate; who know not what we knew
Of love and parting in exceeding pain,
Of parting hopeless here to meet again,
Hopeless on earth, and heaven is out of view.

But by my heart of love laid bare to you,
My love that you can make not void nor vain,
Love that foregoes you but to claim anew
Beyond this passage of the gate of death,
I charge you at the Judgment make it plain
My love of you was life and not a breath.



12

Amor, che ne la mente mi ragiona.
- Dante
Amor vien nel bel viso di costei.
- Petrarca

If there be any one can take my place
And make you happy whom I grieve to grieve,
Think not that I can grudge it, but believe
I do commend you to that nobler grace,
That readier wit than mine, that sweeter face;
Yea, since your riches make me rich, conceive
I too am crown'd, while bridal crowns I weave,
And thread the bridal dance with jocund pace.

For if I did not love you, it might be
That I should grudge you some one dear delight;
But since the heart is yours that was mine own,
Your pleasure is my pleasure, right my right,
Your honourable freedom makes me free,
And you companion'd I am not alone.



13

E drizzeremo gli occhi al Primo Amore.
- Dante
Ma trovo peso non da le mie braccia.
- Petrarca

If I could trust mine own self with your fate,
Shall I not rather trust it in God's hand?
Without Whose Will one lily doth not stand,
Nor sparrow fall at his appointed date;
Who numbereth the innumerable sand,
Who weighs the wind and water with a weight,
To Whom the world is neither small nor great,
Whose knowledge foreknew every plan we plann'd.

Searching my heart for all that touches you,
I find there only love and love's goodwill
Helpless to help and impotent to do,
Of understanding dull, of sight most dim;
And therefore I commend you back to Him
Whose love your love's capacity can fill.



14

E la Sua Volontade ? nostra pace.
- Dante
Sol con questi pensier, con altre chiome.
- Petrarca

Youth gone, and beauty gone if ever there
Dwelt beauty in so poor a face as this;
Youth gone and beauty, what remains of bliss?
I will not bind fresh roses in my hair,
To shame a cheek at best but little fair,--
Leave youth his roses, who can bear a thorn,--
I will not seek for blossoms anywhere,
Except such common flowers as blow with corn.

Youth gone and beauty gone, what doth remain?
The longing of a heart pent up forlorn,
A silent heart whose silence loves and longs;
The silence of a heart which sang its songs
While youth and beauty made a summer morn,
Silence of love that cannot sing again.

Poem by Christina Rossetti

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Biography

Samuel Taylor Coleridge poems, biography, quotes, examples of poetry, articles, essays and more. The best Samuel Taylor Coleridge resource with comprehensive poet information, a list of poems, short poems, quotations, best poems, poet's works and more.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Biography...Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as for his major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. He coined many familiar words and phrases, including the celebrated suspension of disbelief. He was a major influence, via Emerson, on American transcendentalism.. English poet

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Work Without Hope
----------------by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All Nature seems at work.
Slugs leave their lair --
The bees are stirring -- birds are on the wing --
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.


Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.

Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Winter Song
------------By Jean Ingelow
Came the dread Archer up yonder lawn —
Night is the time for the old to die —
But woe for an arrow that smote the fawn,
When the hind that was sick unscathed went by.

Father lay moaning, Her fault was sore
(Night is the time when the old must die),
Yet, ah to bless her, my child, once more,
For heart is failing: the end is nigh.

Daughter, my daughter, my girl, I cried
(Night is the time for the old to die)
Woe for the wish if till morn ye bide —
Dark was the welkin and wild the sky.

Heavily plunged from the roof the snow —
(Night is the time when the old will die),
She answered, My mother, 'tis well, I go.
Sparkled the north star, the wrack flew high.

First at his head, and last at his feet
(Night is the time when the old should die),
Kneeling I watched till his soul did fleet,
None else that loved him, none else were nigh.

I wept in the night as the desolate weep
(Night is the time for the old to die),
Cometh my daughter? the drifts are deep,
Across the cold hollows how white they lie.

I sought her afar through the spectral trees
(Night is the time when the old must die),
The fells were all muffled, the floods did freeze,
And a wrathful moon hung red in the sky.

By night I found her where pent waves steal
(Night is the time when the old should die),
But she lay stiff by the locked mill-wheel,
And the old stars lived in their homes on high.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Heaven
by Rupert Brooke
Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud!—Death eddies near—
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

the quality of courage
---------------- by stephen vincent benet
black trees against an orange sky,
trees that the wind shook terribly,
like a harsh spume along the road,
quavering up like withered arms,
writhing like streams, like twisted charms
of hot lead flung in snow. Below
the iron ice stung like a goad,
slashing the torn shoes from my feet,
and all the air was bitter sleet.

And all the land was cramped with snow,
steel-strong and fierce and glimmering wan,
like pale plains of obsidian.
-- and yet i strove -- and i was fire
and ice -- and fire and ice were one
in one vast hunger of desire.
A dim desire, of pleasant places,
and lush fields in the summer sun,
and logs aflame, and walls, and faces,
-- and wine, and old ambrosial talk,
a golden ball in fountains dancing,
and unforgotten hands. (ah, god,
i trod them down where i have trod,
and they remain, and they remain,
etched in unutterable pain,
loved lips and faces now apart,
that once were closer than my heart --
in agony, in agony,
and horribly a part of me. . . .
For lethe is for no man set,
and in hell may no man forget.)

and there were flowers, and jugs, bright-glancing,
and old italian swords -- and looks,
a moment's glance of fire, of fire,
spiring, leaping, flaming higher,
into the intense, the cloudless blue,
until two souls were one, and flame,
and very flesh, and yet the same!
As if all springs were crushed anew
into one globed drop of dew!
But for the most i thought of heat,
desiring greatly. . . . Hot white sand
the lazy body lies at rest in,
or sun-dried, scented grass to nest in,
and fires, innumerable fires,
great fagots hurling golden gyres
of sparks far up, and the red heart
in sea-coals, crashing as they part
to tiny flares, and kindling snapping,
bunched sticks that burst their string and wrapping
and fall like jackstraws; green and blue
the evil flames of driftwood too,
and heavy, sullen lumps of coke
with still, fierce heat and ugly smoke. . . .
. . . And then the vision of his face,
and theirs, all theirs, came like a sword,
thrice, to the heart -- and as i fell
i thought i saw a light before.

I woke. My hands were blue and sore,
torn on the ice. I scarcely felt
the frozen sleet begin to melt
upon my face as i breathed deeper,
but lay there warmly, like a sleeper
who shifts his arm once, and moans low,
and then sinks back to night. Slow, slow,
and still as death, came sleep and death
and looked at me with quiet breath.
Unbending figures, black and stark
against the intense deeps of the dark.
Tall and like trees. Like sweet and fire
rest crept and crept along my veins,
gently. And there were no more pains. . . .

Was it not better so to lie?
The fight was done. Even gods tire
of fighting. . . . My way was the wrong.
Now i should drift and drift along
to endless quiet, golden peace . . .
And let the tortured body cease.

And then a light winked like an eye.
. . . And very many miles away
a girl stood at a warm, lit door,
holding a lamp. Ray upon ray
it cloaked the snow with perfect light.
And where she was there was no night
nor could be, ever. God is sure,
and in his hands are things secure.
It is not given me to trace
the lovely laughter of that face,
like a clear brook most full of light,
or olives swaying on a height,
so silver they have wings, almost;
like a great word once known and lost
and meaning all things. Nor her voice
a happy sound where larks rejoice,
her body, that great loveliness,
the tender fashion of her dress,
i may not paint them.
These i see,
blazing through all eternity,
a fire-winged sign, a glorious tree!

She stood there, and at once i knew
the bitter thing that i must do.
There could be no surrender now;
though sleep and death were whispering low.
My way was wrong. So. Would it mend
if i shrank back before the end?
And sank to death and cowardice?
No, the last lees must be drained up,
base wine from an ignoble cup;
(yet not so base as sleek content
when i had shrunk from punishment)
the wretched body strain anew!
Life was a storm to wander through.
I took the wrong way. Good and well,
at least my feet sought out not hell!
Though night were one consuming flame
i must go on for my base aim,
and so, perhaps, make evil grow
to something clean by agony . . .
And reach that light upon the snow . . .
And touch her dress at last . . .
So, so,
i crawled. I could not speak or see
save dimly. The ice glared like fire,
a long bright hell of choking cold,
and each vein was a tautened wire,
throbbing with torture -- and i crawled.
My hands were wounds.
So i attained
the second hell. The snow was stained
i thought, and shook my head at it
how red it was! Black tree-roots clutched
and tore -- and soon the snow was smutched
anew; and i lurched babbling on,
and then fell down to rest a bit,
and came upon another hell . . .
Loose stones that ice made terrible,
that rolled and gashed men as they fell.
I stumbled, slipped . . . And all was gone
that i had gained. Once more i lay
before the long bright hell of ice.
And still the light was far away.
There was red mist before my eyes
or i could tell you how i went
across the swaying firmament,
a glittering torture of cold stars,
and how i fought in titan wars . . .
And died . . . And lived again upon
the rack . . . And how the horses strain
when their red task is nearly done. . . .

I only know that there was pain,
infinite and eternal pain.
And that i fell -- and rose again.

So she was walking in the road.
And i stood upright like a man,
once, and fell blind, and heard her cry . . .
And then there came long agony.
There was no pain when i awoke,
no pain at all. Rest, like a goad,
spurred my eyes open -- and light broke
upon them like a million swords:
And she was there. There are no words.

Heaven is for a moment's span.
And ever.
So i spoke and said,
"my honor stands up unbetrayed,
and i have seen you. Dear . . ."
sharp pain
closed like a cloak. . . .
I moaned and died.

Here, even here, these things remain.
I shall draw nearer to her side.

Oh dear and laughing, lost to me,
hidden in grey eternity,
i shall attain, with burning feet,
to you and to the mercy-seat!
The ages crumble down like dust,
dark roses, deviously thrust
and scattered in sweet wine -- but i,
i shall lift up to you my cry,
and kiss your wet lips presently
beneath the ever-living tree.

This in my heart i keep for goad!
Somewhere, in heaven she walks that road.
Somewhere . . . In heaven . . . She walks . . . That . . . Road. . . .

you would be hard pressed indeed, to find a more beautiful poem on the subject of courage, methinks..-tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Sonnet 33 - Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear
--------------by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear
The name I used to run at, when a child,
From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled,
To glance up in some face that proved me dear
With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear
Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled
Into the music of Heaven's undefiled,
Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,
While I call God—call God!—So let thy mouth
Be heir to those who are now exanimate.
Gather the north flowers to complete the south,
And catch the early love up in the late.
Yes, call me by that name,—and I, in truth,
With the same heart, will answer and not wait.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Journey Through The Moonlight
----------------- by Russell Edson
In sleep when an old man's body is no longer
aware of his boundaries, and lies flattened by
gravity like a mere of wax in its bed . . . It drips
down to the floor and moves there like a tear down a
cheek . . . Under the back door into the silver meadow,
like a pool of sperm, frosty under the moon, as if in
his first nature, boneless and absurd.

The moon lifts him up into its white field, a cloud
shaped like an old man, porous with stars.

He floats through high dark branches, a corpse tangled
in a tree on a river.

The title kind of threw me off a bit.. was not expecting this to be dark......
Almost decided no to post but the genius, imagery, creativity and originality in this piece demands that I not dismiss it..
I had to toss away my dislike of just one verse in the poem, in favor of its majority..-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Who Goes Home?
------------ by G. K. Chesterton
In the city set upon slime and loam
They cry in their parliament 'Who goes home?'
And there comes no answer in arch or dome,
For none in the city of graves goes home.
Yet these shall perish and understand,
For God has pity on this great land.

Men that are men again; who goes home?
Tocsin and trumpeter! Who goes home?
For there's blood on the field and blood on the foam
And blood on the body when Man goes home.
And a voice valedictory . . . Who is for Victory?
Who is for Liberty? Who goes home?

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Time's Revenges
------------- by Robert Browning

I've a Friend, over the sea;
I like him, but he loves me.
It all grew out of the books I write;
They find such favour in his sight
That he slaughters you with savage looks
Because you don't admire my books.
He does himself though,---and if some vein
Were to snap to-night in this heavy brain,
To-morrow month, if I lived to try,
Round should I just turn quietly,
Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand
Till I found him, come from his foreign land
To be my nurse in this poor place,
And make my broth and wash my face
And light my fire and, all the while,
Bear with his old good-humoured smile
That I told him ``Better have kept away
``Than come and kill me, night and day,
``With, worse than fever throbs and shoots,
``The creaking of his clumsy boots.''
I am as sure that this he would do
As that Saint Paul's is striking two.
And I think I rather ... woe is me!
---Yes, rather would see him than not see,
If lifting a hand could seat him there
Before me in the empty chair
To-night, when my head aches indeed,
And I can neither think nor read
Nor make these purple fingers hold
The pen; this garret's freezing cold!

And I've a Lady---there he wakes,
The laughing fiend and prince of snakes
Within me, at her name, to pray
Fate send some creature in the way
Of my love for her, to be down-torn,
Upthrust and outward-borne,
So I might prove myself that sea
Of passion which I needs must be!
Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint
And my style infirm and its figures faint,
All the critics say, and more blame yet,
And not one angry word you get.
But, please you, wonder I would put
My cheek beneath that lady's foot
Rather than trample under mine
The laurels of the Florentine,
And you shall see how the devil spends
A fire God gave for other ends!
I tell you, I stride up and down
This garret, crowned with love's best crown,
And feasted with love's perfect feast,
To think I kill for her, at least,
Body and soul and peace and fame,
Alike youth's end and manhood's aim,
---So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,
Filled full, eaten out and in
With the face of her, the eyes of her,
The lips, the little chin, the stir
Of shadow round her month; and she
---I'll tell you,---calmly would decree
That I should roast at a slow fire,
If that would compass her desire
And make her one whom they invite
To the famous ball to-morrow night.

There may be heaven; there must be hell;
Meantime, there is our earth here---well!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

From a Window
----By Charlotte Mew
Up here, with June, the sycamore throws
Across the window a whispering screen;
I shall miss the sycamore more, I suppose,
Than anything else on this earth that is out in green.
But I mean to go through the door without fear,
Not caring much what happens here
When I’m away:—
How green the screen is across the panes
Or who goes laughing along the lanes
With my old lover all summer day.


---------------------------------------------------

The Farmer’s Bride
---------By Charlotte Mew

Three summers since I chose a maid,
Too young maybe—but more’s to do
At harvest-time than bide and woo.
When us was wed she turned afraid
Of love and me and all things human;
Like the shut of a winter’s day
Her smile went out, and ’twadn’t a woman—
More like a little frightened fay.
One night, in the Fall, she runned away.

“Out ’mong the sheep, her be,” they said,
’Should properly have been abed;
But sure enough she wadn’t there
Lying awake with her wide brown stare.
So over seven-acre field and up-along across the down
We chased her, flying like a hare
Before out lanterns. To Church-Town
All in a shiver and a scare
We caught her, fetched her home at last
And turned the key upon her, fast.

She does the work about the house
As well as most, but like a mouse:
Happy enough to chat and play
With birds and rabbits and such as they,
So long as men-folk keep away.
“Not near, not near!” her eyes beseech
When one of us comes within reach.
The women say that beasts in stall
Look round like children at her call.
I’ve hardly heard her speak at all.

Shy as a leveret, swift as he,
Straight and slight as a young larch tree,
Sweet as the first wild violets, she,
To her wild self. But what to me?

The short days shorten and the oaks are brown,
The blue smoke rises to the low grey sky,
One leaf in the still air falls slowly down,
A magpie’s spotted feathers lie
On the black earth spread white with rime,
The berries redden up to Christmas-time.
What’s Christmas-time without there be
Some other in the house than we!

She sleeps up in the attic there
Alone, poor maid. ’Tis but a stair
Betwixt us. Oh! my God! the down,
The soft young down of her, the brown,
The brown of her—her eyes, her hair, her hair!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Written by William Ernest Henley


There's a Regret

There's a regret
So grinding, so immitigably sad,
Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad.
Do you not know it yet?

For deeds undone
Rankle and snarl and hunger for their due,
Till there seems naught so despicable as you
In all the grin o' the sun.


Like an old shoe
The sea spurns and the land abhors, you lie
About the beach of Time, till by and by
Death, that derides you too --

Death, as he goes
His ragman's round, espies you, where you stray,
With half-an-eye, and kicks you out of his way
And then -- and then, who knows

But the kind Grave
Turns on you, and you feel the convict Worm,
In that black bridewell working out his term,
Hanker and grope and crave?

"Poor fool that might --
That might, yet would not, dared not, let this be,
Think of it, here and thus made over to me
In the implacable night!"

And writhing, fain
And like a triumphing lover, he shall take,
His fill where no high memory lives to make
His obscene victory vain.

---------------------------------------------------------------


I am the Reaper.

All things with heedful hook
Silent I gather.

Pale roses touched with the spring,
Tall corn in summer,
Fruits rich with autumn, and frail winter blossoms—
Reaping, still reaping—
All things with heedful hook
Timely I gather.


I am the Sower.

All the unbodied life
Runs through my seed-sheet.

Atom with atom wed,
Each quickening the other,
Fall through my hands, ever changing, still changeless.

Ceaselessly sowing,
Life, incorruptible life,
Flows from my seed-sheet.


Maker and breaker,
I am the ebb and the flood,
Here and Hereafter,
Sped through the tangle and coil
Of infinite nature,
Viewless and soundless I fashion all being.

Taker and giver,
I am the womb and the grave,
The Now and the Ever

Written by William Ernest Henley |

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Courage
by Robert William Service

Today I opened wide my eyes,
And stared with wonder and surprise,
To see beneath November skies
An apple blossom peer;
Upon a branch as bleak as night
It gleamed exultant on my sight,
A fairy beacon burning bright
Of hope and cheer.


"Alas!" said I, "poor foolish thing,
Have you mistaken this for Spring?
Behold, the thrush has taken wing,
And Winter's near.
"
Serene it seemed to lift its head:
"The Winter's wrath I do not dread,
Because I am," it proudly said,
"A Pioneer.


"Some apple blossom must be first,
With beauty's urgency to burst
Into a world for joy athirst,
And so I dare;
And I shall see what none shall see -
December skies gloom over me,
And mock them with my April glee,
And fearless fare.


"And I shall hear what none shall hear -
The hardy robin piping clear,
The Storm King gallop dark and drear
Across the sky;
And I shall know what none shall know -
The silent kisses of the snow,
The Christmas candles' silver glow,
Before I die.


"Then from your frost-gemmed window pane
One morning you will look in vain,
My smile of delicate disdain
No more to see;
But though I pass before my time,
And perish in the grale and grime,
Maybe you'll have a little rhyme
To spare for me.
"

Poem by Robert William Service

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

When the Dark Comes Down
----------------by Lucy Maud Montgomery
When the dark comes down, oh, the wind is on the sea
With lisping laugh and whimper to the red reef's threnody,
The boats are sailing homeward now across the harbor bar
With many a jest and many a shout from fishing grounds afar.
So furl your sails and take your rest, ye fisher folk so brown,
For task and quest are ended when the dark comes down.

When the dark comes down, oh, the landward valleys fill
Like brimming cups of purple, and on every landward hill
There shines a star of twilight that is watching evermore
The low, dim lighted meadows by the long, dim-lighted shore,
For there, where vagrant daisies weave the grass a silver crown,
The lads and lassies wander when the dark comes down.

When the dark comes down, oh, the children fall asleep,
And mothers in the fisher huts their happy vigils keep;
There's music in the song they sing and music on the sea,
The loving, lingering echoes of the twilight's litany,
For toil has folded hands to dream, and care has ce

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Sea Child
---------- by Bliss Carman
The lover of child Marjory
Had one white hour of life brim full;
Now the old nurse, the rocking sea,
Hath him to lull.
The daughter of child Marjory
Hath in her veins, to beat and run,
The glad indomitable sea,
The strong white sun.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The face that launchd a thousand ships
----------by Christopher Marlowe

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.

Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies!
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.

Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.

I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy, shall Wittenberg be sack'd;
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.

O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appear'd to hapless Semele;
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Hope Of My Heart
---------- by John McCrae

"Delicta juventutis et ignorantius ejus, quoesumus ne memineris, Domine."


I left, to earth, a little maiden fair,
With locks of gold, and eyes that shamed the light;
I prayed that God might have her in His care
And sight.

Earth's love was false; her voice, a siren's song;
(Sweet mother-earth was but a lying name)
The path she showed was but the path of wrong
And shame.

"Cast her not out!" I cry. God's kind words come --
"Her future is with Me, as was her past;
It shall be My good will to bring her home
At last."


I have always loved this magnificent poem and thought it quite brilliant..-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Ballad of Hell
-------------by John Davidson
'A letter from my love to-day!
Oh, unexpected, dear appeal!'
She struck a happy tear away,
And broke the crimson seal.

'My love, there is no help on earth,
No help in heaven; the dead-man's bell
Must toll our wedding; our first hearth
Must be the well-paved floor of hell.'

The colour died from out her face,
Her eyes like ghostly candles shone;
She cast dread looks about the place,
Then clenched her teeth and read right on.

'I may not pass the prison door;
Here must I rot from day to day,
Unless I wed whom I abhor,
My cousin, Blanche of Valencay.

'At midnight with my dagger keen,
I'll take my life; it must be so.
Meet me in hell to-night, my queen,
For weal and woe.'

She laughed although her face was wan,
She girded on her golden belt,
She took her jewelled ivory fan,
And at her glowing missal knelt.

Then rose, 'And am I mad?' she said:
She broke her fan, her belt untied;
With leather girt herself instead,
And stuck a dagger at her side.

She waited, shuddering in her room,
Till sleep had fallen on all the house.
She never flinched; she faced her doom:
They two must sin to keep their vows.

Then out into the night she went,
And, stooping, crept by hedge and tree;
Her rose-bush flung a snare of scent,
And caught a happy memory.

She fell, and lay a minute's space;
She tore the sward in her distress;
The dewy grass refreshed her face;
She rose and ran with lifted dress.

She started like a morn-caught ghost
Once when the moon came out and stood
To watch; the naked road she crossed,
And dived into the murmuring wood.

The branches snatched her streaming cloak;
A live thing shrieked; she made no stay!
She hurried to the trysting-oak—
Right well she knew the way.

Without a pause she bared her breast,
And drove her dagger home and fell,
And lay like one that takes her rest,
And died and wakened up in hell.

She bathed her spirit in the flame,
And near the centre took her post;
From all sides to her ears there came
The dreary anguish of the lost.

The devil started at her side,
Comely, and tall, and black as jet.
'I am young Malespina's bride;
Has he come hither yet?'

'My poppet, welcome to your bed.'
'Is Malespina here?'
'Not he! To-morrow he must wed
His cousin Blanche, my dear!'

'You lie, he died with me to-night.'
'Not he! it was a plot' ... 'You lie.'
'My dear, I never lie outright.'
'We died at midnight, he and I.'

The devil went. Without a groan
She, gathered up in one fierce prayer,
Took root in hell's midst all alone,
And waited for him there.

She dared to make herself at home
Amidst the wail, the uneasy stir.
The blood-stained flame that filled the dome,
Scentless and silent, shrouded her.

How long she stayed I cannot tell;
But when she felt his perfidy,
She marched across the floor of hell;
And all the damned stood up to see.

The devil stopped her at the brink:
She shook him off; she cried, 'Away!'
'My dear, you have gone mad, I think.'
'I was betrayed: I will not stay.'

Across the weltering deep she ran;
A stranger thing was never seen:
The damned stood silent to a man;
They saw the great gulf set between.

To her it seemed a meadow fair;
And flowers sprang up about her feet
She entered heaven; she climbed the stair
And knelt down at the mercy-seat.

Seraphs and saints with one great voice
Welcomed that soul that knew not fear.
Amazed to find it could rejoice,
Hell raised a hoarse, half-human cheer.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I see thee better -- in the Dark
-- by Emily Dickinson


I see thee better -- in the Dark --
I do not need a Light --
The Love of Thee -- a Prism be --
Excelling Violet --

I see thee better for the Years
That hunch themselves between --
The Miner's Lamp -- sufficient be --
To nullify the Mine --

And in the Grave -- I see Thee best --
Its little Panels be
Aglow -- All ruddy -- with the Light
I held so high, for Thee --

What need of Day --
To Those whose Dark -- hath so -- surpassing Sun --
It deem it be -- Continually --
At the Meridian?

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Dialogue Of Self And Soul
by William Butler Yeats
My Soul. I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
"Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul

My Self. The consecretes blade upon my knees
Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was,
Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
Unspotted by the centuries;
That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
From some court-lady's dress and round
The wodden scabbard bound and wound
Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn

My Soul. Why should the imagination of a man
Long past his prime remember things that are
Emblematical of love and war?
Think of ancestral night that can,
If but imagination scorn the earth
And interllect is wandering
To this and that and t'other thing,
Deliver from the crime of death and birth.

My Self. Montashigi, third of his family, fashioned it
Five hundred years ago, about it lie
Flowers from I know not what embroidery -
Heart's purple - and all these I set
For emblems of the day against the tower
Emblematical of the night,
And claim as by a soldier's right
A charter to commit the crime once more.

My Soul. Such fullness in that quarter overflows
And falls into the basin of the mind
That man is stricken deaf and dumb and blind,
For intellect no longer knows
Is from the Ought, or knower from the Known -
That is to say, ascends to Heaven;
Only the dead can be forgiven;
But when I think of that my tongue's a stone.

II

My Self. A living man is blind and drinks his drop.
What matter if the ditches are impure?
What matter if I live it all once more?
Endure that toil of growing up;
The ignominy of boyhood; the distress
Of boyhood changing into man;
The unfinished man and his pain
Brought face to face with his own clumsiness;

The finished man among his enemies? -
How in the name of Heaven can he escape
That defiling and disfigured shape
The mirror of malicious eyes
Casts upon his eyes until at last
He thinks that shape must be his shape?
And what's the good of an escape
If honour find him in the wintry blast?

I am content to live it all again
And yet again, if it be life to pitch
Into the frog-spawn of a blind man's ditch,
A blind man battering blind men;
Or into that most fecund ditch of all,
The folly that man does
Or must suffer, if he woos
A proud woman not kindred of his soul.

I am content to follow to its source
Every event in action or in thought;
Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!
When such as I cast out remorse
So great a sweetness flows into the breast
We must laugh and we must sing,
We are blest by everything,
Everything we look upon is blest.
----------------------------------------------------------
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A fine example of why I love the poetry of this magnificent poet ! -Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Sun Rising
----by John Donne

Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys and sour 'prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.


Thy beams so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and, tomorrow late, tell me
Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.

Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear 'All here in one bed lay'.


She is all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is.

Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.

Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Solitary Reaper
William Wordsworth, 1770 - 1850

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending;—
I listen’d, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Nocturne Of Remembered Spring
--------------by Conrad Aiken

I.

Moonlight silvers the tops of trees,
Moonlight whitens the lilac shadowed wall
And through the evening fall,
Clearly, as if through enchanted seas,
Footsteps passing, an infinite distance away,
In another world and another day.
Moonlight turns the purple lilacs blue,
Moonlight leaves the fountain hoar and old,
And the boughs of elms grow green and cold,
Our footsteps echo on gleaming stones,
The leaves are stirred to a jargon of muted tones.
This is the night we have kept, you say:
This is the moonlit night that will never die.
Through the grey streets our memories retain
Let us go back again.

II.

Mist goes up from the river to dim the stars,
The river is black and cold; so let us dance
To flare of horns, and clang of cymbals and drums;
And strew the glimmering floor with roses,
And remember, while the rich music yawns and closes,
With a luxury of pain, how silence comes.
Yes, we loved each other, long ago;
We moved like wind to a music's ebb and flow.
At a phrase from violins you closed your eyes,
And smiled, and let me lead you how young we were!
Your hair, upon that music, seemed to stir.
Let us return there, let us return, you and I;
Through changeless streets our memories retain
Let us go back again.

III.

Mist goes up from the rain steeped earth, and clings
Ghostly with lamplight among drenched maple trees.
We walk in silence and see how the lamplight flings
Fans of shadow upon it the music's mournful pleas
Die out behind us, the door is closed at last,
A net of silver silence is softly cast
Over our thought slowly we walk,
Quietly with delicious pause, we talk,
Of foolish trivial things; of life and death,
Time, and forgetfulness, and dust and truth;
Lilacs and youth.
You laugh, I hear the after taken breath,
You darken your eyes and turn away your head
At something I have said
Some intuition that flew too deep,
And struck a plageant chord.
Tonight, tonight you will remember it as you fall asleep,
Your dream will suddenly blossom with sharp delight,
Goodnight! You say.
The leaves of the lilac dip and sway;
The purple spikes of bloom
Nod their sweetness upon us, lift again,
Your white face turns, I am cought with pain
And silence descends, and dripping of dew from eaves,
And jeweled points of leaves.

IV.

I walk in a pleasure of sorrow along the street
And try to remember you; slow drops patter;
Water upon the lilacs has made them sweet;
I brush them with my sleeve, the cool drops scatter;
And suddenly I laugh and stand and listen
As if another had laughed a gust
Rustles the leaves, the wet spikes glisten;
And it seems as though it were you who had shaken the bough,
And spilled the fragrance I pursue your face again,
It grows more vague and lovely, it eludes me now.
I remember that you are gone, and drown in pain.
Something there was I said to you I recall,
Something just as the music seemed to fall
That made you laugh, and burns me still with pleasure.
What were those words the words like dripping fire?
I remember them now, and in sweet leisure
Rehearse the scene, more exquisite than before,
And you more beautiful, and I more wise.
Lilacs and spring, and night, and your clear eyes,
And you, in white, by the darkness of a door:
These things, like voices weaving to richest music,
Flow and fall in the cool night of my mind,
I pursue your ghost among green leaves that are ghostly,
I pursue you, but cannot find.
And suddenly, with a pang that is sweetest of all,
I become aware that I cannot remember you;
The ghost I knew
Has silently plunged in shadows, shadows that stream and fall.

V.

Let us go in and dance once more
On the dream's glimmering floor,
Beneath the balcony festooned with roses.
Let us go in and dance once more.
The door behind us closes
Against an evening purple with stars and mist.
Let us go in and keep our tryst
With music and white roses, and spin around
In swirls of sound.
Do you forsee me, married and grown old?
And you, who smile about you at this room,
Is it foretold
That you must step from tumult into gloom,
Forget me, love another?
No, you are Cleopatra, fiercely young,
Laughing upon the topmost stair of night;
Roses upon the desert must be flung;
Above us, light by light,
Weaves the delirious darkness, petal fall,
And music breaks in waves on the pillared wall;
And you are Cleopatra, and do not care.
And so, in memory, you will always be
Young and foolish, a thing of dream and mist;
And so, perhaps when all is disillusioned,
And eternal spring returns once more,
Bringing a ghost of lovelier springs remembered,
You will remember me.

VI.

Yet when we meet we seem in silence to say,
Pretending serene forgetfulness of our youth,
"Do you remember but then why should you remember!
Do you remember a certain day,
Or evening rather, spring evening long ago,
We talked of death, and love, and time, and truth,
And said such wise things, things that amused us so
How foolish we were, who thought ourselves so wise!"
And then we laugh, with shadows in our eyes.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

My Lost Youth
----------- by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Often I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
And my youth comes back to me.
And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams.
And the burden of that old song,
It murmurs and whispers still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the black wharves and the ships,
And the sea-tides tossing free;
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.
And the voice of that wayward song
Is singing and saying still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
And the fort upon the hill;
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,
And the bugle wild and shrill.
And the music of that old song
Throbs in my memory still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the breezy dome of groves,
The shadows of Deering's Woods;
And the friendships old and the early loves
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves
In quiet neighborhoods.
And the verse of that sweet old song,
It flutters and murmurs still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the school-boy's brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.
And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on, and is never still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

Strange to me now are the forms I meet
When I visit the dear old town;
But the native air is pure and sweet,
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,
As they balance up and down,
Are singing the beautiful song,
Are sighing and whispering still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that were,
I find my lost youth again.
And the strange and beautiful song,
The groves are repeating it still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

-----------------------------------
-----------------------------------

I have always considered this poem to be one of his very best! --Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Poem by Margret Atwood a famous Canadian poet..

The Moment
--- By Margret Atwood

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

By Margret Atwood

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Three Enemies
-----------By Christina Rossetti
THE FLESH
"Sweet, thou art pale."
"More pale to see,
Christ hung upon the cruel tree
And bore His Father's wrath for me."

"Sweet, thou art sad."
"Beneath a rod
More heavy, Christ for my sake trod
The winepress of the wrath of God."

"Sweet, thou art weary."
"Not so Christ:
Whose mighty love of me suffic'd
For Strength, Salvation, Eucharist."

"Sweet, thou art footsore."
"If I bleed,
His feet have bled; yea in my need
His Heart once bled for mine indeed."

THE WORLD
"Sweet, thou art young."
"So He was young
Who for my sake in silence hung
Upon the Cross with Passion wrung."

"Look, thou art fair."
"He was more fair
Than men, Who deign'd for me to wear
A visage marr'd beyond compare."

"And thou hast riches."
"Daily bread:
All else is His: Who, living, dead,
For me lack'd where to lay His Head."

"And life is sweet."
"It was not so
To Him, Whose Cup did overflow
With mine unutterable woe."

THE DEVIL
"Thou drinkest deep."
"When Christ would sup
He drain'd the dregs from out my cup:
So how should I be lifted up?"

"Thou shalt win Glory."
"In the skies,
Lord Jesus, cover up mine eyes
Lest they should look on vanities."

"Thou shalt have Knowledge."
"Helpless dust!
In Thee, O Lord, I put my trust:
Answer Thou for me, Wise and Just."

"And Might."—
"Get thee behind me. Lord,
Who hast redeem'd and not abhorr'd
My soul, oh keep it by Thy Word."

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Solitude
-------------------------by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

https://www.poemhunter.com/ella-wheeler-wilcox/

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox Poems

Solitude Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and ...
"It Might Have Been" We will be what we could be. Do not say,...
A Golden Day The subtle beauty of this day Hangs o'er me ...
As You Go Through Life Don’t look for the flaws as you go ...
A Lovers' Quarrel We two were lovers, the Sea and I; We ...
A Fallen Leaf A trusting little leaf of green, A bold ...
A Maiden To Her Mirror He said he loved me! Then he called my...

more at link given, video there ...

----------------------------------------

I have always loved the poetry of this magnificent poetess..-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Contentment
------By Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

“Man wants but little here below”

Little I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone,
(A very plain brown stone will do,)
That I may call my own;—
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.

Plain food is quite enough for me;
Three courses are as good as ten;—
If Nature can subsist on three,
Thank Heaven for three. Amen!
I always thought cold victual nice;—
My choice would be vanilla-ice.

I care not much for gold or land;—
Give me a mortgage here and there,—
Some good bank-stock, some note of hand,
Or trifling railroad share,—
I only ask that Fortune send
A little more than I shall spend.

Honors are silly toys, I know,
And titles are but empty names;
I would, perhaps, be Plenipo,—
But only near St. James;
I’m very sure I should not care
To fill our Gubernator’s chair.

Jewels are baubles; ’t is a sin
To care for such unfruitful things;—
One good-sized diamond in a pin,—
Some, not so large, in rings,—
A ruby, and a pearl, or so,
Will do for me;—I laugh at show.

My dame should dress in cheap attire;
(Good, heavy silks are never dear)—
I own perhaps I might desire
Some shawls of true Cashmere,—
Some marrowy crapes of China silk,
Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk.

I would not have the horse I drive
So fast that folks must stop and stare;
An easy gait—two forty-five—
Suits me; I do not care;—
Perhaps, for just a single spurt,
Some seconds less would do no hurt.

Of pictures, I should like to own
Titians and Raphaels three or four,—
I love so much their style and tone,
One Turner, and no more,
(A landscape,—foreground golden dirt,—
The sunshine painted with a squirt.)

Of books but few,—some fifty score
For daily use, and bound for wear;
The rest upon an upper floor;—
Some little luxury there
Of red morocco’s gilded gleam
And vellum rich as country cream.

Busts, cameos, gems,—such things as these,
Which others often show for pride,
I value for their power to please,
And selfish churls deride;—
One Stradivarius, I confess,
Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess.

Wealth’s wasteful tricks I will not learn,
Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;—
Shall not carved tables serve my turn,
But all must be of buhl?
Give grasping pomp its double share,—
I ask but one recumbent chair.

Thus humble let me live and die,
Nor long for Midas’ golden touch;
If Heaven more generous gifts deny,
I shall not miss them much,—
Too grateful for the blessing lent
Of simple tastes and mind content!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Pear Tree
---by H.D.
(H. D., 1886 - 1961)

Silver dust
lifted from the earth,
higher than my arms reach,
you have mounted.
O silver,
higher than my arms reach
you front us with great mass;

no flower ever opened
so staunch a white leaf,
no flower ever parted silver
from such rare silver;

O white pear,
your flower-tufts,
thick on the branch,
bring summer and ripe fruits
in their purple hearts.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Song: Memory, hither come
----by William Blake

Memory, hither come,
And tune your merry notes;
And, while upon the wind
Your music floats,

I'll pore upon the stream
Where sighing lovers dream,
And fish for fancies as they pass
Within the watery glass.

I'll drink of the clear stream,
And hear the linnet's song;
And there I'll lie and dream
The day along:

And, when night comes, I'll go
To places fit for woe,
Walking along the darken'd valley
With silent Melancholy.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Rhapsody Of A Southern Winter Night
- Poem by Henry Timrod

Oh! dost thou flatter falsely, Hope?
The day hath scarcely passed that saw thy birth,
Yet thy white wings are plumed to all their scope,
And hour by hour thine eyes have gathered light,
And grown so large and bright,
That my whole future life unfolds what seems,
Beneath their gentle beams,
A path that leads athwart some guiltless earth,
To which a star is dropping from the night!

Not many moons ago,
But when these leafless beds were all aglow
With summer's dearest treasures, I
Was reading in this lonely garden-nook;
A July noon was cloudless in the sky,
And soon I put my shallow studies by;
Then, sick at heart, and angered by the book,
Which, in good sooth, was but the long-drawn sigh
Of some one who had quarreled with his kind,
Vexed at the very proofs which I had sought,
And all annoyed while all alert to find
A plausible likeness of my own dark thought,
I cast me down beneath yon oak's wide boughs,
And, shielding with both hands my throbbing brows,
Watched lazily the shadows of my brain.
The feeble tide of peevishness went down,
And left a flat dull waste of dreary pain,
Which seemed to clog the blood in every vein;
The world, of course, put on its darkest frown --
In all its realms I saw no mortal crown
Which did not wound or crush some restless head;
And hope, and will, and motive, all were dead.
So, passive as a stone, I felt too low
To claim a kindred with the humblest flower;
Even that would bare its bosom to a shower,
While I henceforth would take no pains to live,
Nor place myself where I might feel or give
A single impulse whence a wish could grow.
There was a tulip scarce a gossamer's throw
Beyond that platanus. A little child,
Most dear to me, looked through the fence and smiled
A hint that I should pluck it for her sake.
Ah, me! I trust I was not well awake --
The voice was very sweet,
Yet a faint languor kept me in my seat.
I saw a pouted lip, a toss, and heard
Some low expostulating tones, but stirred
Not even a leaf's length, till the pretty fay,
Wondering, and half abashed at the wild feat,
Climbed the low pales, and laughed my gloom away.
And here again, but led by other powers,
A morning and a golden afternoon,
These happy stars, and yonder setting moon,
Have seen me speed, unreckoned and untasked,
A round of precious hours.
Oh! here, where in that summer noon I basked,
And strove, with logic frailer than the flowers,
To justify a life of sensuous rest,
A question dear as home or heaven was asked,
And without language answered. I was blest!
Blest with those nameless boons too sweet to trust
Unto the telltale confidence of song.
Love to his own glad self is sometimes coy,
And even thus much doth seem to do him wrong;
While in the fears which chasten mortal joy,
Is one that shuts the lips, lest speech too free,
With the cold touch of hard reality,
Should turn its priceless jewels into dust.
Since that long kiss which closed the morning's talk,
I have not strayed beyond this garden walk.
As yet a vague delight is all I know,
A sense of joy so wild 't is almost pain,
And like a trouble drives me to and fro,
And will not pause to count its own sweet gain.
I am so happy! that is all my thought.
To-morrow I will turn it round and round,
And seek to know its limits and its ground.
To-morrow I will task my heart to learn
The duties which shall spring from such a seed,
And where it must be sown, and how be wrought.
But oh! this reckless bliss is bliss indeed!
And for one day I choose to seal the urn
Wherein is shrined Love's missal and his creed.
Meantime I give my fancy all it craves;
Like him who found the West when first he caught
The light that glittered from the world he sought,
And furled his sails till Dawn should show the land;
While in glad dreams he saw the ambient waves
Go rippling brightly up a golden strand.

Hath there not been a softer breath at play
In the long woodland aisles than often sweeps
At this rough season through their solemn deeps --
A gentle Ariel sent by gentle May,
Who knew it was the morn
On which a hope was born,
To greet the flower e'er it was fully blown,
And nurse it as some lily of her own?
And wherefore, save to grace a happy day,
Did the whole West at blushing sunset glow
With clouds that, floating up in bridal snow,
Passed with the festal eve, rose-crowned, away?
And now, if I may trust my straining sight,
The heavens appear with added stars to-night,
And deeper depths, and more celestial height,
Than hath been reached except in dreams or death.
Hush, sweetest South! I love thy delicate breath;
But hush! methought I felt an angel's kiss!
Oh! all that lives is happy in my bliss.
That lonely fir, which always seems
As though it locked dark secrets in itself,
Hideth a gentle elf,
Whose wand shall send me soon a frolic troop
Of rainbow visions, and of moonlit dreams.
Can joy be weary, that my eyelids droop?
To-night I shall not seek my curtained nest,
But even here find rest.
Who whispered then? And what are they that peep
Betwixt the foliage in the tree-top there?
Come, Fairy Shadows! for the morn is near,
When to your sombre pine ye all must creep;
Come, ye wild pilots of the darkness, ere
My spirit sinks into the gulf of Sleep;
Even now it circles round and round the deep --
Appear! Appear!


Henry Timrod

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

How Is Your Heart?
--------by Charles Bukowski
during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

Bukowski, was dirty,dark, gritty , a bit savage anD brutally honest in his writings...
He is famous, because of those traits and the fact that he pulled it off!!!
Takes a true genius to do that, even tho' we may find him to be a womanzing, alcoholic reprobate..

""cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire."""
^^^^^^^^ Just about says it all, IMHO........-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

On Parting
- Poem by Edward Coote Pinkney

ALAS! our pleasant moments fly
On rapid wings away,
While those recorded with a sigh,
Mock us by long delay.

Time,--envious time,--loves not to be
In company with mirth,
But makes malignant pause to see
The work of pain on earth.

Edward Coote Pinkney

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Serenade
- Poem by Edward Coote Pinkney

Look out upon the stars, my love.
And shame them with thine eyes,
On which, than on the lights above,
There hang more destinies.
Night's beauty is the harmony
Of blending shades and light ,
Then, lady, up, look out, and be
A sister to the night!

Sleep not! thine image wakes for aye
Within my watching breast:
Sleep not! from her soft sleep should fly
Who robs all hearts of rest.
Nay, lady, from thy slumbers break,
And make this darkness gay
With looks, whose brightness well might make
Of darker nights a day.

Edward Coote Pinkney

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

After the Persian
----- by Louise Bogan

I

I do not wish to know
The depths of your terrible jungle:
From what nest your leopard leaps
Or what sterile lianas are at once your serpents' disguise
and home.

I am the dweller on the temperate threshold,
The strip of corn and vine,
Where all is translucence (the light!)
Liquidity, and the sound of water.
Here the days pass under shade
And the nights have the waxing and the waning moon.
Here the moths take flight at evening;
Here at morning the dove whistles and the pigeons coo.
Here, as night comes on, the fireflies wink and snap
Close to the cool ground,
Shining in a profusion
Celestial or marine.

Here it is never wholly dark but always wholly green,
And the day stains with what seems to be more than the
sun
What may be more than my flesh.

II

I have wept with the spring storm;
Burned with the brutal summer.
Now, hearing the wind and the twanging bow-strings,
I know what winter brings.

The hunt sweeps out upon the plain
And the garden darkens.
They will bring the trophies home
To bleed and perish
Beside the trellis and the lattices,
Beside the fountain, still flinging diamond water,
Beside the pool
(Which is eight-sided, like my heart).

III

All has been translated into treasure:
Weightless as amber,
Translucent as the currant on the branch,
Dark as the rose's thorn.

Where is the shimmer of evil?
This is the shell's iridescence
And the wild bird's wing.

IV

Ignorant, I took up my burden in the wilderness.
Wise with great wisdom, I shall lay it down upon flowers.

V

Goodbye, goodbye!
There was so much to love, I could not love it all;
I could not love it enough.

Some things I overlooked, and some I could not find.
Let the crystal clasp them
When you drink your wine, in autumn.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

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 & desires.
**********************************

The School Boy
----------by William Blake
I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the sky-lark sings with me.
O! what sweet company.

But to go to school in a summer morn,
O! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn.
The little ones spend the day,
In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour,
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learnings bower,
Worn thro' with the dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy,
Sit in a cage and sing.
How can a child when fears annoy.
But droop his tender wing.
And forget his youthful spring.

O! father & mother. if buds are nip'd,
And blossoms blown away,
And if the tender plants are strip'd
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay.

How shall the summer arise in joy.
Or the summer fruits appear.
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy
Or bless the mellowing year.
When the blasts of winter appear.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

There is another sky
by Emily Dickinson
There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!

I am at loss for words when it comes to expressing how much I admire his lady, this famous and greatest poet of her generation....
To me, she is the only female poet to break firmly into the ranks of the top ten best poets ever!!!!-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Digging
--------- by Seamus Heaney
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pin rest; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Burning Drift-Wood
------------by John Greenleaf Whittier
Before my drift-wood fire I sit,
And see, with every waif I burn,
Old dreams and fancies coloring it,
And folly's unlaid ghosts return.

O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft
The enchanted sea on which they sailed,
Are these poor fragments only left
Of vain desires and hopes that failed?

Did I not watch from them the light
Of sunset on my towers in Spain,
And see, far off, uploom in sight
The Fortunate Isles I might not gain?

Did sudden lift of fog reveal
Arcadia's vales of song and spring,
And did I pass, with grazing keel,
The rocks whereon the sirens sing?

Have I not drifted hard upon
The unmapped regions lost to man,
The cloud-pitched tents of Prester John,
The palace domes of Kubla Khan?

Did land winds blow from jasmine flowers,
Where Youth the ageless Fountain fills?
Did Love make sign from rose blown bowers,
And gold from Eldorado's hills?

Alas! the gallant ships, that sailed
On blind Adventure's errand sent,
Howe'er they laid their courses, failed
To reach the haven of Content.

And of my ventures, those alone
Which Love had freighted, safely sped,
Seeking a good beyond my own,
By clear-eyed Duty piloted.

O mariners, hoping still to meet
The luck Arabian voyagers met,
And find in Bagdad's moonlit street,
Haroun al Raschid walking yet,

Take with you, on your Sea of Dreams,
The fair, fond fancies dear to youth.
I turn from all that only seems,
And seek the sober grounds of truth.

What matter that it is not May,
That birds have flown, and trees are bare,
That darker grows the shortening day,
And colder blows the wintry air!

The wrecks of passion and desire,
The castles I no more rebuild,
May fitly feed my drift-wood fire,
And warm the hands that age has chilled.

Whatever perished with my ships,
I only know the best remains;
A song of praise is on my lips
For losses which are now my gains.

Heap high my hearth! No worth is lost;
No wisdom with the folly dies.
Burn on, poor shreds, your holocaust
Shall be my evening sacrifice!

Far more than all I dared to dream,
Unsought before my door I see;
On wings of fire and steeds of steam
The world's great wonders come to me,

And holier signs, unmarked before,
Of Love to seek and Power to save, --
The righting of the wronged and poor,
The man evolving from the slave;

And life, no longer chance or fate,
Safe in the gracious Fatherhood.
I fold o'er-wearied hands and wait,
In full assurance of the good.

And well the waiting time must be,
Though brief or long its granted days,
If Faith and Hope and Charity
Sit by my evening hearth-fire's blaze.

And with them, friends whom Heaven has spared,
Whose love my heart has comforted,
And, sharing all my joys, has shared
My tender memories of the dead, --

Dear souls who left us lonely here,
Bound on their last, long voyage, to whom
We, day by day, are drawing near,
Where every bark has sailing room.

I know the solemn monotone
Of waters calling unto me;
I know from whence the airs have blown
That whisper of the Eternal Sea.

As low my fires of drift-wood burn,
I hear that sea's deep sounds increase,
And, fair in sunset light, discern
Its mirage-lifted Isles of Peace.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Death
by Thomas Hood
It is not death, that sometime in a sigh
This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;
That sometime these bright stars, that now reply
In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;
That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,
And all life's ruddy springs forget to flow;
That thoughts shall cease, and the immortal sprite
Be lapped in alien clay and laid below;
It is not death to know this,--but to know
That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves
In tender pilgrimage, will cease to go
So duly and so oft,--and when grass waves
Over the past-away, there may be then
No resurrection in the minds of men.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Horses and Men in Rain
---------------by Carl Sandburg
LET us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter’s day,
gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window,
And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys.

Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches
—and talk about mail carriers and messenger boys slipping along the icy sidewalks.
Let us write of olden, golden days and hunters of the Holy Grail
and men called “knights” riding horses in the rain,
in the cold frozen rain for ladies they loved.

A roustabout hunched on a coal wagon goes by, icicles drip on his hat rim,
sheets of ice wrapping the hunks of coal, the caravanserai a gray blur in
slant of rain.
Let us nudge the steam radiator with our wool slippers and write poems
of Launcelot, the hero, and Roland, the hero, and all the olden golden men
who rode horses in the rain.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/50341

"Go, lovely Rose"
-----By Edmund Waller
Go, lovely Rose—
Tell her that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that’s young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired:
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.

Then die—that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Secret People
by G. K. Chesterton

Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget;
For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.
There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,
There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.
There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise.
There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes;
You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet:
Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet.

The fine French kings came over in a flutter of flags and dames.
We liked their smiles and battles, but we never could say their names.
The blood ran red to Bosworth and the high French lords went down;
There was naught but a naked people under a naked crown.
And the eyes of the King's Servants turned terribly every way,
And the gold of the King's Servants rose higher every day.
They burnt the homes of the shaven men, that had been quaint and kind,
Till there was no bed in a monk's house, nor food that man could find.
The inns of God where no man paid, that were the wall of the weak.
The King's Servants ate them all. And still we did not speak.

And the face of the King's Servants grew greater than the King:
He tricked them, and they trapped him, and stood round him in a ring.
The new grave lords closed round him, that had eaten the abbey's fruits,
And the men of the new religion, with their bibles in their boots,
We saw their shoulders moving, to menace or discuss,
And some were pure and some were vile; but none took heed of us.
We saw the King as they killed him, and his face was proud and pale;
And a few men talked of freedom, while England talked of ale.

A war that we understood not came over the world and woke
Americans, Frenchmen, Irish; but we knew not the things they spoke.
They talked about rights and nature and peace and the people's reign:
And the squires, our masters, bade us fight; and scorned us never again.
Weak if we be for ever, could none condemn us then;
Men called us serfs and drudges; men knew that we were men.
In foam and flame at Trafalgar, on Albuera plains,
We did and died like lions, to keep ourselves in chains,
We lay in living ruins; firing and fearing not
The strange fierce face of the Frenchmen who knew for what they fought,
And the man who seemed to be more than a man we strained against and broke;
And we broke our own rights with him. And still we never spoke.

Our patch of glory ended; we never heard guns again.
But the squire seemed struck in the saddle; he was foolish, as if in pain,
He leaned on a staggering lawyer, he clutched a cringing Jew,
He was stricken; it may be, after all, he was stricken at Waterloo.
Or perhaps the shades of the shaven men, whose spoil is in his house,
Come back in shining shapes at last to spoil his last carouse:
We only know the last sad squires rode slowly towards the sea,
And a new people takes the land: and still it is not we.

They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger or honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
Their doors are shut in the evening; and they know no songs.

We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,
Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.
It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,
Our wrath come after Russia's wrath and our wrath be the worst.
It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest
God's scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.
But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

While History's Muse
by Thomas Moore
While History's Muse the memorial was keeping
Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves,
Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping,
For hers was the story that blotted the leaves.
But oh! how the tear in her eyelids grew bright,
When, after whole pages of sorrow and shame,
She saw History write,
With a pencil of light
That illumed the whole volume, her Wellington's name.

"Yet still the last crown of thy toils is remaining,
The grandest, the purest, even thou hast yet known;
Though proud was thy task, other nations unchaining,
Far prouder to heal the deep wounds of thy own.
At the foot of that throne, for whose weal thou hast stood,
Go, plead for the land that first cradled thy fame,
And, bright o'er the flood
Of her tears, and her blood,
Let the rainbow of Hope be her Wellington's name."

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Lost Angel
-- by Ellis Parker Butler
When first we met she seemed so white
I feared her;
As one might near a spirit bright
I neared her;
An angel pure from heaven above
I dreamed her,
And far too good for human love
I deemed her.
A spirit free from mortal taint
I thought her,
And incense as unto a saint
I brought her.

Well, incense burning did not seem
To please her,
And insolence I feared she’d deem
To squeeze her;
Nor did I dare for that same why
To kiss her,
Lest, shocked, she’d cause my eager eye
To miss her.
I sickened thinking of some way
To win her,
When lo! she asked me, one fine day,
To dinner!

Twas thus that made of common flesh
I found her,
And in a mortal lover’s mesh
I wound her.
Embraces, kisses, loving looks
I gave her,
And buying bon-bons, flowers and books,
I save her;
For her few honest, human taints
I love her,
Nor would I change for all the saints
Above her
Those eyes, that little face, that so
Endear her,
And all the human joy I know
When near her;
And I am glad, when to my breast
I press her,
She’s just a woman, like the rest,
God bless her!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Tide of Sorrow
---------by George William Russell


ON the twilight-burnished hills I lie and long and gaze
Where below the grey-lipped sands drink in the flowing tides,
Drink, and fade and disappear: interpreting their ways
A seer in my heart abides.


Once the diamond dancing day-waves laved thy thirsty lips:
Now they drink the dusky night-tide running cold and fleet,
Drink, and as the chilly brilliance o’er their pallor slips
They fade in the touch they meet.


Wave on wave of pain where leaped of old the billowy joys:
Hush and still thee now unmoved to drink the bitter sea,
Drink with equal heart: be brave; and life with laughing voice
And death will be one for thee.


Ere my mortal days pass by and life in the world be done,
Oh, to know what world shall rise within the spirit’s ken
When it grows into the peace where light and dark are one!
What voice for the world of men?

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/bivouac.htm


Bivouac Of The Dead
By Theodore O'Hara
(Written in memory of the Kentucky troops killed in the Mexican War - 1847)

Portions Of This Haunting Poem Are Inscribed On Placards
Throughout Arlington, As Well as On
The McClellan Gate There


Bivouac Of The Dead

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents to spread,
And glory guards, with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;
Nor troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;
No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's dreams alarms;
No braying horn or screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shriveled swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed,
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms, by battle gashed
Are free from anguish now.

The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout, are past;
Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that nevermore may feel
The rapture of the fight.

Like the fierce Northern hurricane
That sweeps the great plateau,
Flushed with triumph, yet to gain,
Come down the serried foe,
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,
Knew the watchword of the day
Was "Victory or death!"

Long had the doubtful conflict raged
O'er all that stricken plain,
For never fiercer fight had waged
The vengeful blood of Spain;
And still the storm of battle blew,
Still swelled the glory tide;
Not long, our stout old Chieftain knew,
Such odds his strength could bide.

Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to a martyr's grave
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation's flag to save.
By rivers of their father's gore
His first-born laurels grew,
And well he deemed the sons would pour
Their lives for glory too.

For many a mother's breath has swept
O'er Angostura's plain --
And long the pitying sky has wept
Above its moldered slain.
The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,
Or shepherd's pensive lay,
Alone awakes each sullen height
That frowned o'er that dread fray.

Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground
Ye must not slumber there,
Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air.
Your own proud land's heroic soil
Shall be your fitter grave;
She claims from war his richest spoil --
The ashes of her brave.

Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,
Borne to a Spartan mother's breast
On many a bloody shield;
The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The heroes sepulcher.

Rest on embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave;
No impious footstep here shall tread
The herbage of your grave;
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While Fame her record keeps,
For honor points the hallowed spot
Where valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanquished ago has flown,
The story how ye fell;
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor time's remorseless doom,
Can dim one ray of glory's light
That gilds your deathless tomb.


Poet pens monument with 'Bivouac of Dead'

Kentucky native Theodore O'Hara found adventure and everlasting fame. A lawyer, journalist and soldier, O'Hara wrote "The Bivouac of the Dead," a poem that is inscribed upon scores of Confederate monuments across the South.

Although written to honor Kentuckians slain during the Mexican War, the poem was commonly used to remember veterans of the Civil War. Scores of obituaries in Confederate Veteran magazine refer to soldiers who have joined their comrades at the "bivouac of the dead."

Despite the fact that O'Hara served the Confederacy, both sides used his verse to commemorate their slain companions. Even the gateway to Arlington National Cemetery bears an inscription from O'Hara's most noted poem.

O'Hara was born in Danville, Kentucky, on February 11, 1820, the son of a prominent local teacher. lthough the family eventually relocated to Frankfort, Kentucky, O'Hara returned to Danville to attend Centre College, where he was a classmate of future U.S. Vice President and Confederate Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge's. Before graduation, however, O'Hara left Centre to attend St. Joseph's College in nearby Bardstown, graduating in 1839. The future poet then studied law and, in 1842, was admitted to the bar.

Three years later, O'Hara moved to Washington, where he secured a position at the U.S. Treasury Department. His adventurous spirit did not let him stay in Washington long. When war was declared on Mexico in May 1846, O'Hara quickly responded to the call for troops. Within a month, he was appointed captain and assistant quartermaster for the Kentucky volunteers. Because of gallantry displayed during the conflict, he was promoted to brevet major.

By 1847, O'Hara had returned from Mexico and was again living in central Kentucky. That was the year in which his famous poem was heard. In February, scores of Kentuckians were slain at the Battle of Buena Vista. Josiah Gregg of Louisville, a Kentucky volunteer at the battle, wrote to the Louisville Journal, "The principal attack of the enemy was directed upon our left, which was defended by the 2nd regiment of Kentucky infantry, and second and third of Indiana, supported by the Kentucky and Arkansas cavalry."

Gregg added: "The firmness and bravery of the Kentucky regiment, and the third Indiana, have been particularly lauded. But they suffered greatly, as well in officers as privates." When the smoke cleared, among the dead was Henry Clay Jr., son of the famous Kentucky compromiser. When many of these Kentuckians were buried at the Frankfort cemetery, throngs attended the solemn occasion. The principal speaker, young lawyer John C. Breckinridge, spoke for nearly an hour. After Breckinridge's remarks, O'Hara read "The Bivouac of the Dead," a poem Kentucky historian Thomas D. Clark has termed "a worthy contribution to American Literature." The first two stanzas of the poem are:

"The muffled drum's sad roll has beat / The soldier's last tattoo! / No more on life's parade shall meet / That brave and fallen few. / On Fame's eternal camping ground / Their silent tents are spread, / And Glory guards, with solemn round, / The bivouac of the dead.

"Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground! / Ye must not slumber there, / Where stranger steps and tongue resound / Along the headless air; / Your own proud land's heroic soil / Should be your fitter grave: / She claims from war its richest spoil / The ashes of the brave."

Despite the acclaim he received, O'Hara's nature would not let the young Kentuckian stay confined to the bluegrass. During the summer of 1849, O'Hara began recruiting troops for one of Narciso Lopez's expeditions to annex Cuba.

Between 1848 and 1851, Lopez attempted four times to wrest Cuba from Spanish domination. Although he had been born in Venezuela and had served as a general in the Spanish army, the hopes of land influenced Lopez and many others to invade the island. Although U.S. policy officially condemned him, the public wholeheartedly endorsed his expeditions. Within several months, he had raised enough troops to lead his own invasion.

On May 19, 1850, O'Hara led his Kentuckians in several unsuccessful attacks against a Spanish garrison at Cardenas, Cuba, during which O'Hara was severely wounded in the leg. The surviving Kentuckians took O'Hara back to their ship and fled. Although Spanish ships pursued, the crew escaped to Key West.

Once his wound healed, O'Hara returned to Kentucky, where he became a reporter for the Frankfort Yeoman. In 1852, he left to work at the Louisville Daily Times.

When the Civil War erupted, he exchanged his pen for a musket and joined the Confederate army. By March 2, 1861, with experience in Mexico and Cuba under his belt, the poet took command of Fort McRee near Pensacola, Fla. After just a few months, he was discharged "as a disgrace to the service" by General Braxton Bragg, who commanded the coast between Pensacola and Mobile. It is probable that Bragg, a strict disciplinarian, loathed O'Hara's adventurous spirit.

O'Hara was ordered to report to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he was "detailed for the recruiting service." Despite his previous success in recruiting men for the Cuba expedition, this mission was short-lived. On July 1, he was ordered to report to Richmond to serve as lieutenant colonel of the 12th Alabama Infantry Regiment. He was again transferred, however, before he saw combat with this unit. He went west and secured a position as inspector general on the staff of Kentucky-born Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston.

O'Hara was present when the beloved general was killed at Shiloh Church in southwestern Tennessee in 1862. Johnston's army had encountered Ulysses S. Grant's Union troops there, and as troops under John C. Breckinridge attacked the Union left, Johnston rode to the front to direct the fighting. As he neared the Union lines, bullets tore Johnston's uniform, and one shot peeled away his boot heel. A staff officer noticed blood running from the heel and asked the commander to take cover. Johnston refused. Moments later, O'Hara saw that Johnston's horse had been shot. O'Hara said, "General, your horse is wounded." Johnston replied, "Yes, and his master, too." Johnston had been shot below the right knee. O'Hara rushed off to find a surgeon and encountered the general's aide-de-camp, who later wrote that O'Hara "conducted me to the spot [where Johnston was lying] and went for a surgeon whom he could not obtain until too late." The bullet had severed an artery, and although a tourniquet might have saved his life, Johnston bled to death on the field.

Without a command of his own, O'Hara joined the staff of now-General Breckinridge, former vice president of the United States and O'Hara's Centre College classmate. At the December 1862 Battle of Murfreesboro (or Stones River), O'Hara served as his adjutant general.

On the field, O'Hara's military experience became evident. As the Confederate lines surged ahead, he saw a Federal artillery battery that was prepared to fire upon the Southern troops. Breckinridge dispatched him to find Confederate cannon to counterfire, which O'Hara personally placed. It was obvious that Breckinridge trusted the poet, for O'Hara spent much of the day placing infantry in position and delivering orders for his commander.

The fighting raged for another day. On January 2, Bragg ordered Breckinridge's command to attack an impregnable Union position on the Confederate right. Breckinridge, who believed the attack to be suicidal, advanced with his 4,500 troops. As the men moved forward, he later wrote, "The quick eye of Colonel O'Hara discovered a force extending considerably beyond our right." Thanks to the poet, the Rebel line was extended. The advance was doomed from the start, however, and the Confederates faced massed fire from 58 artillery pieces. Beaten back, Breckinridge lost nearly 1,700 men.

O'Hara's disdain for Bragg, first forged when he was removed from Pensacola, was heightened after Murfreesboro. As Bragg always blamed others for his failures, he began scheming against Breckinridge, and O'Hara warned his former classmate that Bragg "is evidently preparing and marshalling all his resources of shallow cunning and foolish chicanery, energized by a ranting hate, to make war upon you & wreak to the utmost his ignoble spite against you." Bragg blamed Breckinridge for not supporting his 1862 Kentucky Campaign (which culminated at the Battle of Perryville), an animosity that lasted for the entire war.

O'Hara ended his military career in Georgia as a soldier under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. When the war was over, the poet moved to Columbus, Ga., and then to Alabama, where he became editor of the Mobile Register. O'Hara died from a fever at Guerrytown, Alabama, on June 6, 1867; he was buried at Columbus.

In 1873, however, the Kentucky state legislature decided that the Kentucky native should be in the bluegrass of his birth. With funding from the legislature, his remains were moved to Frankfort, to rest near the graves of the soldiers who had inspired his famous verse.

Stuart W. Sanders is director of interpretations at the Perryville Battlefield Preservation Association in Kentucky.

Should we forget our fallen heroes we will be doomed as a nation. One may despise war and its brutality and deaths but still honor the service, bravery and sacrifice of our sons and daughters that did their duty for this nation and its freedoms.
Freedoms that come with a very. very heavy cost..... of both blood and treasure...sure.

I salute all our brave and courageous military both past and present .. :saluting2:

Sincere Salute To Our Brave, Fallen Heroes

With dear heart and blood given, sometimes torn
gallant fallen heroes faithfully sworn.
From start to finish, so brave one and all
each with fealty to our nation's call
As we mourn, let us remember this way,
Heaven tis their reward on judgement day.
This day, we honor our brave fallen dead
death faced, that we may sleep safe in our beds.

Robert J. Lindley, 5-29-2017


Note-I am still quite sick but I had to write poem to honor our heroes, this morn..
Its brevity I apologize for my friends as they deserve far more words but I can only muster these few....

[Russ]

Should we forget our fallen heroes we will be doomed as a nation. One may despise war and its brutality and deaths but still honor the service, bravery and sacrifice of our sons and daughters that did their duty for this nation and its freedoms.
Freedoms that come with a very. very heavy cost..... of both blood and treasure...sure.

I salute all our brave and courageous military both past and present .. :saluting2:

Sincere Salute To Our Brave, Fallen Heroes

With dear heart and blood given, sometimes torn
gallant fallen heroes faithfully sworn.
From start to finish, so brave one and all
each with fealty to our nation's call
As we mourn, let us remember this way,
Heaven tis their reward on judgement day.
This day, we honor our brave fallen dead
death faced, that we may sleep safe in our beds.

Robert J. Lindley, 5-29-2017


Note-I am still quite sick but I had to write poem to honor our heroes, this morn..
Its brevity I apologize for my friends as they deserve far more words but I can only muster these few....

Thank you for this excellent and timely post, Robert. And I love the historical not with it. :salute:

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Of Yellow was the outer Sky

Nature rarer uses Yellow
Than another Hue.
Saves she all of that for Sunsets
Prodigal of Blue

Spending Scarlet, like a Woman
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly
Like a Lover's Words.

Emily Dickinson

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Commando Memorial
---------------by Archie MacLellan

The sun shone down upon the snow
Atop Aonach and the Ben,
As in the shadows there trained below
A finest group of fighting men,
None braver lived is to be said
Honour flowed throughout their veins,
Freedom bred, Lord Lovat led
Their lives to stop dictators' gains.

They gave it their all for the nation they served
Their courage maintained foreign parts,
A Memorial stands proud down in Spean
Let us all build one more in our hearts.

With command for to land on the shore at Sword Beach
On the Sixth Day of June Forty Four,
A place in our history was now within reach
The Piper to take them ashore,
Though danger around him, The Piper gave stand
He stuck to his task without care,
His march unrepentant, as if claiming the land
As ‘Road To The Isles’ filled the air.
Battle ferocious, the enemy strong
Sweat mixed with sand mixed with mud,
Young men unrelenting though battle was long
The water still flows with their blood.

They gave it their all for the nation they served
Their courage maintained foreign parts,
A Memorial stands proud down in Spean
Let us all build one more in our hearts.

Perished did men still young in their years
The land of our birth lost Her Sons,
But liveth they on in Remembrance tears
Liveth on how they silenced the guns,
Lest we forget the Sacrifice
In our Bloody Wars were made,
That Sacrifice that takes us here
Can never be repaid.

They gave it their all for the nation they served
Their courage maintained foreign parts,
A Memorial stands proud down in Spean
Let us all build one more in our hearts.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Churchwarden and the Apparition: A Fable
by Thomas Chatterton, age 11

The night was cold, the wind was high,
And stars bespangled all the sky;
Churchwarden Joe had laid him down,
And slept secure on bed of down;
But still the pleasing hope of gain,
That never left his active brain,
Exposed the churchyard to his view,
That seat of treasure wholly new.
“Pull down that cross,” he quickly cried,
The mason instantly complied:
When lo! behold, the golden prize
Appears—joy sparkles in his eyes.
The door now creaks, the window shakes,
With sudden fear he starts and wakes;
Quaking and pale, in eager haste
His haggard eyes around he cast;
A ghastly phantom, lean and wan,
That instant rose, and thus began:
“Weak wretch—to think to blind my eyes!
Hypocrisy’s a thin disguise;
Your humble mien and fawning tongue
Have oft deceived the old and young.
On this side now, and now on that,
The very emblem of the bat:
Whatever part you take, we know
’Tis only interest makes it so,
And though with sacred zeal you burn,
Religion’s only for your turn;
I’m Conscience called!” Joe greatly feared;
The lightning flashed—it disappeared.

This poem is, perhaps, average in places for a more mature poet, but quite vivid in others. Again, for a child it is rather remarkable. And I think the perception that the churchwarden saw the churchyard as a "seat of treasure" and his "hope of gain" is remarkable for a child.

Sly Dick
by Thomas Chatterton, age 11

Sharp was the frost, the wind was high
And sparkling stars bedeckt the sky
Sly Dick in arts of cunning skill'd,
Whose rapine all his pockets fill'd,
Had laid him down to take his rest
And soothe with sleep his anxious breast.
'Twas thus a dark infernal sprite
A native of the blackest night,
Portending mischief to devise
Upon Sly Dick he cast his eyes;
Then straight descends the infernal sprite,
And in his chamber does alight;
In visions he before him stands,
And his attention he commands.
Thus spake the sprite―hearken my friend,
And to my counsels now attend.
Within the garret's spacious dome
There lies a well stor'd wealthy room,
Well stor'd with cloth and stockings too,
Which I suppose will do for you,
First from the cloth take thou a purse,
For thee it will not be the worse,
A noble purse rewards thy pains,
A purse to hold thy filching gains;
Then for the stockings let them reeve
And not a scrap behind thee leave,
Five bundles for a penny sell
And pence to thee will come pell mell;
See it be done with speed and care
Thus spake the sprite and sunk in air.
When in the morn with thoughts erect
Sly Dick did on his dreams reflect,
Why faith, thinks he, 'tis something too,
It might―perhaps―it might be true,
I'll go and see―away he hies,
And to the garret quick he flies,
Enters the room, cuts up the clothes
And after that reeves up the hose;
Then of the cloth he purses made,
Purses to hold his filching trade.

This is, indeed, a sly poem for a child to write. Again, it demonstrates considerable perception.





http://www.thehypertexts.com/Thomas%20Chatterton%20Modern%20English%20Translati ons%20Modernizations%20Burch.htm

The HyperTexts

CHATTERTON

the best poems of Thomas Chatterton with an intro and two "modernizations" by Michael R. Burch

Was Thomas Chatterton the greatest child prodigy in the history of poetry and an angelic figure, or was he a dastardly forger and fraud? He has been portrayed as both, sometimes simultaneously. (An interesting aspect of conspiracy theorists is that they are able to believe completely contradictory notions.) That Chatterton was among the most remarkable of child prodigies is hard to dispute, because at age ten he was writing poems that were published, and by his early teens he had taught himself medieval English and was producing poems by a fictitious poet, Thomas Rowley, in the language and style of Chaucer and his contemporaries. The clever young Chatterton taught himself to write in the "ye olde Englische" style, and to use ocher and other chemicals to age the "discovered" manuscripts to make them look like antiques. While his pseudo-medieval compositions were imperfect, in terms of complying with all the complicated rules of that long-ago day, and were eventually exposed as modern work, they enchanted some of the better-known Romantic poets to come―including Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley and Keats―who saw Chatterton not only as one of them, but also as a trailblazer leading other poets back to the wellspring of English poetry. They were inclined to view and portray Chatterton as a rejected genius and a rather angelic, tragic figure. His detractors, however, tended to portray him as a deliberate deceiver, forger and fraud. Today, in a number of biographies and scholarly papers about Chatterton, we see both views superimposed on his boyish image: he is the angelic victim with the long, flowing, curly locks who became the notorious conman. But was Chatterton that notorious, really, or were there perhaps perfectly good and understandable reasons for his deceptions? And didn't other writers of his day do similar things, including Horace Walpole, whose curt dismissal of the younger writer may have led to his suicide at age seventeen?

I believe there were perfectly good and understandable reasons for Chatterton's deceptions. First, his family was poor, his father died before he was born, he was sent to a charity school, and to improve his lot in life he needed to make money. (And it can be very difficult for adolescents to make money, or to be taken seriously by adults!) Second, Chatterton had limited options. After leaving school he had basically become an indentured servant to a lawyer who allegedly beat him and tore up his poems, even though Chatterton fulfilled all his duties and only wrote poetry when he had no official work to do. Chatterton only escaped this virtual enslavement by threatening to commit suicide, at which point the lawyer let him go. Third, Chatterton came from a lower-class family at a time when England still had a substantially rigid caste system. Even if Chatterton had been older, the landed and monied gentry would have been unlikely to treat him as their peer. For instance, when Walpole learned that Chatterton was "beneath" him in status, although he had previously been enamored with the Rowley poems and later called them works of "masterly genius," his attitude in his letters changed abruptly and he advised the poet to "get a real job" and work on poetry as a hobby. For a poet with Chatterton's abilities and ambitions, the prejudices of his day were apparently a crushing cross to bear. I see no reason to continue to crucify him.

However, they are other possible reasons for Chatterton pretending to be Rowley. When he fell in love with those illuminated capitals, he may have had a romance of sorts with the elder poets, their language and their work. Perhaps in the beginning he was simply writing poems in a style that he loved and desired to emulate. At times, according to witnesses, he did claim to be the author of the Rowley poems, but it seems the adults refused to take him seriously. So he may have followed the "path of least resistance" and when money was tight and times were dire, perhaps he saw the "medieval" poems as his only―or most likely―salvation.

But in any case, I believe we must ultimately detach the myth―or even the reality―of Chatterton the "boy genius" and/or "fraud" from our evaluation of his work. In the end, if Chatterton was a poet―and I believe he was―it is the work that really matters: not the myth, not the man (or boy), not our feelings about his life and death, not even his genius even if it can somehow be identified, quantified and measured. There have been other tragic figures who were not necessarily great artists. Abraham Lincoln wrote poetry. His assassination―one of the ultimate tragedies―does not make his poetry better or worse. To determine whether Abraham Lincoln was a great, good, mediocre, bad or terrible poet, we have to consider his poems as poems. And I believe we must do the same with Chatterton's poems, if we are to do them justice, and him. If we determine that Chatterton was a good or great poet as a boy, that does seem rather remarkable. But there is nothing at all remarkable about a boy writing mediocre, bad or terrible poems. I wrote some terrible poems when I was a boy, then tore them all up in frustration. That does not make me a good poet. Nor should writing not-so-good poems and passing them off as someone else's work make Chatterton a legend. But what if his poems were good, or great? In the literary world, that is the question, because that is what determines whether poems live or die, and whether we remember or forget their authors.

Before we proceed, please allow me to point out that if Chatterton's poems have artistic merit, there really isn't a case to be made against him. If he told the truth and really did find the poems, then he was an honest boy who was very unfairly criminalized. If, on the other hand, he wrote the poems himself, he was not a "forger," but an unusually original artist at a surprisingly young age. But in either case, where is the case against him? I don't see one, myself. But a valid question remains: how good were the poems he wrote, since it seems completely obvious at this stage that he really did write the poems? Great poets praised Chatterton. Presumably, great poets should know good poetry when they read it. So let's take a look ...

Thomas Chatterton Timeline

1752 — Thomas Chatterton is born in Bristol, England on November 20, 1752. His father dies before he is born and his family is poor.
1758 — Up to around age six or seven, young Thomas is considered "slow," even a "dunce" and a "fool." But then he discovers a manuscript with illuminated capitals; he becomes enraptured, his mother teaches him to read using these new objects of rapture, and he becomes a voracious devourer of books.
1760 — Around age eight, Chatterton begins attending Colston's Hospital, a Bristol charity-school where "the pupils were tonsured like monks and suspected leanings towards religious non-conformity were punishable by expulsion." The students were forced to wear blue gowns; Chatterton has been called a "blue-coat boy." At Colston's he meets Thomas Phillips, an usher whose verses have been published in Felix Farley's Bristol Journal; Chatterton will soon follow in his footsteps.
1762 — Around age ten, Chatterton writes his first known poem, "On the Last Epiphany, or, Christ Coming to Judgment." It appears in the Bristol Journal on Jan. 8, 1763. Another early poem "The Churchwarden and the Apparition, A Fable" also appears in the Bristol Journal.
1763 — Around age eleven, Chatterton writes "A Hymn for Christmas Day," "Apostate Will" and "Sly Dick."
1764 — Around age twelve, Chatterton writes a medieval pastoral eclogue titled "Elinoure and Juga" (the only Rowley poem published during Chatterton's lifetime).
1767 — Around age fourteen, Chatterton becomes a scrivener (clerk) to a Bristol attorney, but is unpaid except for room and board. When his employer catches Chatterton writing poetry, he tears it up! Chatterton offers "evidence" of his family's "noble pedigree" to Henry Burgum, a Bristol businessman, who pays him five shillings. Chatterton then gives Burgum a medieval version of his poem "Romance of the Knight," telling Burgum that it was written by an ancestor of Burgum's who was "an ornament of the age." Chatterton also provides Burgum with a version of the poem "modernized" by Chatterton. He ends up giving a number of his Rowley poems to Burgum and his associate George Calcott.
1768 — Around age fifteen, Chatterton offers some of his Rowley poems to William Barrett, the author of History of Bristol (1789), who would include the Rowley poems as authentic. Chatterton writing as "Dunelmus Bristoliensis" becomes a frequent contributor to the Bristol Journal, and creates excitement with his "discovery" of the account of ceremonies related to the opening of an ancient Bristol bridge (providentially, just at the time of the dedication of a new bridge!).
1769 — Now sixteen, Chatterton offers some of his Rowley writings to Horace Walpole, who declines to help the younger writer. Chatterton writes a bitter satirical poem in reply, "To Horace Walpole." (Walpole would later say of Chatterton: "I do not believe there ever existed so masterly a genius.") The Rowley poem "Elinoure and Juga" is published by Town and Country Magazine (May 1769).
1770 — In the spring of 1770, Chatterton writes a letter in which he threatens to commit suicide, perhaps as a ruse to end his unpaid employment. He is let go by the lawyer, then moves to London hoping to earn a living as a writer, arriving on April 25th. Despite his youth, over a period of four months Chatterton appears in eleven of the principal publications then in circulation: the Middlesex Journal, the Court and City Journal, the Political Register, the London Museum, Town and Country, the Christian, the Universal, the Gospel, the London, the Lady's, and the Freeholder's magazines. He even writes a burletta, "The Revenge," to be sung and performed in Marylebone Gardens. But some of the publishers don't pay him, others are tardy, one dies, two end up in prison, and he is slowly starving to death, too proud to accept offers of meals from his landlady. By August he is hoping to go abroad as a surgeon's assistant on an African trader, although he lacks training. On the last day of his life, August 24th, his landlady notes that he has not eaten for two or three days and looks starved. Finally, Chatterton commits suicide by drinking arsenic at age seventeen, three months short of his eighteenth birthday. He is buried in a pauper's grave as "William Chatterton, the Poet." While the rest of the literary world either ignored Chatterton or treated him as a fraud, the great Romantic poets to come would hail him as a true poet, a genius, and the first of their tribe.

If your reading time is limited, or you'd like to have some idea where to start, here in my opinion, for whatever it's worth, are the best poems of Thomas Chatterton:

The Top Ten Poems of Thomas Chatterton (in one person's opinion)

"Song from Ælla: Under the Willow Tree" or "Minstrel's Song" (a Rowley poem with an accompanying "modernization")
"An Excellent Ballad of Charity" (a Rowley poem with an accompanying "modernization")
"Elegy, Written At Stanton-Drew"
"Elegy on the Death of Mr. Phillips" (written for the Colston's usher who befriended Chatterton and may have been his mentor)
"The Resignation"
"To Horace Walpole"
"Elinoure and Juga" (perhaps the first Rowley poem, written around age 12)
"The ROMANCE of the KNIGHT" (a poem Chatterton wrote around age 14 and modernized himself)
"A Hymn for Christmas Day," "The Gouler's Requiem", "Apostate Will" and "Sly Dick" (all written around age 11-12)

All the poems listed above appear on this page; two of the Rowley poems appear side-by-side with my "translations" or "modernizations." Other poems by Chatterton were written in more modern English and can easily be read and understood in their original forms. There has been speculation that Chatterton wrote his Rowley poems in modern English, then "backdated" them using glossaries of archaic words. If so, it seems the originals may have been lost or destroyed.

Song from Ælla: Under the Willow Tree, or, Minstrel's Song
by Thomas Chatterton, age 17 or younger
Modernization/Translation by Michael R. Burch

MYNSTRELLES SONGE MINSTREL'S SONG

O! synge untoe mie roundelaie, O! sing unto my roundelay, roundelay=poem/song with a refrain
O! droppe the brynie teare wythe mee, O! drop the briny tear with me,
Daunce ne moe atte hallie daie, Dance no more at holy-day, holidays were originally "holy days"
Lycke a reynynge ryver bee; Like a running river be:
Mie love ys dedde, My love is dead,
Gon to hys death-bedde, Gone to his death-bed
Al under the wyllowe tree. All under the willow-tree. a "weeping" willow suggests sorrow

Blacke hys cryne as the wyntere nyghte, Black his crown as the winter night, cryne=crown/hair/locks
Whyte hys rode as the sommer snowe, White his flesh as the summer snow rode=complexion/skin/flesh
Rodde hys face as the mornynge lyghte, Red his face as the morning light,
Cale he lyes ynne the grave belowe; Cold he lies in the grave below:
Mie love ys dedde, My love is dead,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde, Gone to his death-bed
Al under the wyllowe tree. All under the willow-tree.

Swote hys tyngue as the throstles note, Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note, throstle=song thrush
Quycke ynn daunce as thoughte canne bee, Quick in dance as thought can be,
Defte hys taboure, codgelle stote, Deft his tabor, cudgel stout; tabor=portable drum
O! hee lyes bie the wyllowe tree: O! he lies by the willow-tree!
Mie love ys dedde, My love is dead,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde, Gone to his death-bed
Al under the wyllowe tree. All under the willow-tree.

Harke! the ravenne flappes hys wynge, Hark! the raven flaps his wing
In the briered delle belowe; In the briar'd dell below;
Harke! the dethe-owle loude dothe synge, Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing
To the nyghte-mares as heie goe; To the nightmares, as they go:
Mie love ys dedde, My love is dead,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde, Gone to his death-bed
Al under the wyllowe tree. All under the willow-tree.

See! the whyte moone sheenes onne hie; See! the white moon shines on high;
Whyterre ys mie true loves shroude; Whiter is my true-love's shroud:
Whyterre yanne the mornynge skie, Whiter than the morning sky,
Whyterre yanne the evenynge cloude: Whiter than the evening cloud:
Mie love ys dedde, My love is dead,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde, Gone to his death-bed
Al under the wyllowe tree. All under the willow-tree.

Heere, uponne mie true loves grave, Here upon my true-love's grave
Schalle the baren fleurs be layde. Shall the barren flowers be laid;
Nee one hallie Seyncte to save Not one holy saint to save
Al the celness of a mayde. All the coldness of a maid:
Mie love ys dedde, My love is dead,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde, Gone to his death-bed
Al under the wyllowe tree. All under the willow-tree.

Wythe mie hondes I'lle dente the brieres With my hands I'll frame the briars dent=fasten/gird/frame
Rounde his hallie corse to gre, Round his holy corpse to grow: corse=corpse; gre=grow
Ouphante fairie, lyghte youre fyres, Elf and fairy, light your fires, ouph=elf; "Elf and Fairy"
Heere mie boddie stylle schalle bee. Here my body, stilled, shall go:
Mie love ys dedde, My love is dead,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde, Gone to his death-bed
Al under the wyllowe tree. All under the willow-tree.

Comme, wythe acorne-coppe & thorne, Come, with acorn-cup and thorn,
Drayne mie hartys blodde awaie; Drain my heartès blood away;
Lyfe & all yttes goode I scorne, Life and all its good I scorn,
Daunce bie nete, or feaste by daie. Dance by night, or feast by day:
Mie love ys dedde, My love is dead,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde, Gone to his death-bed
Al under the wyllowe tree. All under the willow-tree.

Waterre wytches, crownede wythe reytes Water witches, crowned with plaits,
Bere mee to yer leathalle tyde. Bear me to your lethal tide.
I die; I comme; mie true love waytes. I die; I come; my true love waits.
Thos the damselle spake, and dyed. Thus the damsel spoke, and died.

The song above is, in my opinion, competitive with Shakespeare's songs in his plays, and may be the best of Thomas Chatterton's Rowley poems. It seems rather obvious that this song was written in modern English, then "backdated." One wonders whether Chatterton wrote it in response to Shakespeare's "Under the Greenwood Tree." The greenwood tree or evergreen is a symbol of immortality. The "weeping willow" is a symbol of sorrow, and the greatest human sorrow is that of mortality and the separations caused by death. If Chatterton wrote his song as a refutation of Shakespeare's, I think he did a damn good job. But it's a splendid song in its own right.

The Resignation
by Thomas Chatterton, age unknown

O God, whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom globe surveys,
To thee, my only rock, I fly,
Thy mercy in thy justice praise.

The mystic mazes of thy will,
The shadows of celestial light,
Are past the pow'r of human skill,―
But what th' Eternal acts is right.

O teach me in the trying hour,
When anguish swells the dewy tear,
To still my sorrows, own thy pow'r,
Thy goodness love, thy justice fear.

If in this bosom aught but Thee
Encroaching sought a boundless sway,
Omniscience could the danger see,
And Mercy look the cause away.

Then why, my soul, dost thou complain?
Why drooping seek the dark recess?
Shake off the melancholy chain.
For God created all to bless.

But ah! my breast is human still;
The rising sigh, the falling tear,
My languid vitals' feeble rill,
The sickness of my soul declare.

But yet, with fortitude resigned,
I'll thank th' inflicter of the blow;
Forbid the sigh, compose my mind,
Nor let the gush of mis'ry flow.

The gloomy mantle of the night,
Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light,
Which God, my East, my sun reveals.

This is a powerful, moving poem. One can imagine hearing the influences of Charles Wesley in the first stanza, George Herbert in the fifth, John Donne in the eighth (I believe Donne called God his "East" in one of his holy sonnets). But Chatterton was not merely imitating other poets; he was clearly speaking for himself in what one might call a "high romantic style" that has been rivaled by few other poets. Phrases like "dewy tear," "languid vitals' feeble rill," "gush of mis'ry" and the "drooping" soul seem to anticipate (or perhaps pave the way for) the work of emotive poets like Shelley and Keats to come. I would hazard that this poem rivals the best of Donne's holy sonnets, and is more powerful and moving than the best poems in this genre by Herbert and Henry Vaughn. I don't think we can compare Chatterton to Gerard Manley Hopkins directly because their styles were so different, but I am inclined to say that this poem compares favorably with the best poetic expressions of faith in the English language.

Elegy, Written At Stanton-Drew
by Thomas Chatterton, probably age 16 or earlier

Joyless I hail the solemn gloom,
Joyless I view the pillars vast and rude
Where erst the fool of Superstition trod,
In smoking blood imbrued
And rising from the tomb—
Mistaken homage to an unknown God.
Fancy, whither dost thou stray,
Whither dost thou wing thy way?
Check the rising wild delight—
Ah! what avails this awful sight?
Maria is no more!
Why, curst remembrance, wilt thou haunt my mind?
The blessings past are misery now;
Upon her lovely brow
Her lovelier soul she wore.
Soft as the evening gale
When breathing perfumes through the rose-hedged vale,
She was my joy, my happiness refined.
All hail, ye solemn horrors of this scene,
The blasted oak, the dusky green.
Ye dreary altars, by whose side
The druid-priest, in crimson dyed,
The solemn dirges sung,
And drove the golden knife
Into the palpitating seat of life,
When, rent with horrid shouts, the distant valleys rung.
The bleeding body bends,
The glowing purple stream ascends,
Whilst the troubled spirit near
Hovers in the steamy air;
Again the sacred dirge they sing,
Again the distant hill and coppice-valley ring.
Soul of my dear Maria, haste,
Whilst my languid spirits waste;
When from this my prison free,
Catch my soul, it flies to thee;
Death had doubly armed his dart,
In piercing thee, it pierced my heart.

This may be the best of Chatterton's modern English love poems. Stanton Drew is eight miles south of Bristol, where Chatterton lived until the last year of his life. It is the site of a standing stone circle, similar to the one at Stonehenge, with the second-largest standing stones in England. It is thought that such sites were used for human sacrifices, to which Chatterton alludes in the poem.

Below, the original poem appears on the left. My translation/modernization on the right can be used as a reference or study guide. If you prefer not to wrestle with the medieval spellings, you can start with the translation and refer back to the original poem as you prefer. Please keep in mind that translating or "modernizing" such a poem is far from a perfect science. Concessions must be made to meter, if the poem is to remain rhythmic; this means sometimes adding a word here and deleting a word there, hopefully without altering the poet's intended meaning. Chatterton is difficult to interpret, in spots, because it seems likely that he coined words to suit his meter and purpose. While there is nothing "wrong" with that (Shakespeare did the same), it is not always completely obvious what Chatterton meant. I have tried to remain faithful to what I interpret as his "larger" meaning. ― Michael R. Burch

An Excelente Balade of Charitie An Excellent Ballad of Charity
by Thomas Chatterton, age 17 by Thomas Chatterton, age 17
Original Version Modernization/Translation by Michael R. Burch

In Virgynë the sweltrie sun gan sheene, In Virgynë the swelt'ring sun grew keen,
And hotte upon the mees did caste his raie; Then hot upon the meadows cast his ray;
The apple rodded from its palie greene, The apple ruddied from its pallid green
And the mole peare did bende the leafy spraie; And the fat pear did bend its leafy spray;
The peede chelandri sunge the livelong daie; The pied goldfinches sang the livelong day;
’Twas nowe the pride, the manhode of the yeare, 'Twas now the pride, the manhood of the year,
And eke the grounde was dighte in its moste And the ground was mantled in fine green cashmere.
defte aumere.

The sun was glemeing in the midde of daie, The sun was gleaming in the bright mid-day,
Deadde still the aire, and eke the welken blue, Dead-still the air, and likewise the heavens blue,
When from the sea arist in drear arraie When from the sea arose, in drear array,
A hepe of cloudes of sable sullen hue, A heap of clouds of sullen sable hue,
The which full fast unto the woodlande drewe, Which full and fast unto the woodlands drew,
Hiltring attenes the sunnis fetive face, Hiding at once the sun's fair festive face,
And the blacke tempeste swolne and gatherd As the black tempest swelled and gathered up apace.
up apace.

Beneathe an holme, faste by a pathwaie side, Beneath a holly tree, by a pathway's side,
Which dide unto Seyncte Godwine’s covent lede, Which did unto Saint Godwin's convent lead,
A hapless pilgrim moneynge did abide. A hapless pilgrim moaning did abide.
Pore in his newe, ungentle in his weede, Poor in his sight, ungentle in his weed,
Longe bretful of the miseries of neede, Long brimful of the miseries of need,
Where from the hail-stone coulde the almer flie? Where from the hailstones could the beggar fly?
He had no housen theere, ne anie covent nie. He had no shelter there, nor any convent nigh.

Look in his glommed face, his sprighte there scanne; Look in his gloomy face; his sprite there scan;
Howe woe-be-gone, how withered, forwynd, deade! How woebegone, how withered, dried-up, dead!
Haste to thie church-glebe-house, asshrewed manne! Haste to thy parsonage, accursèd man!
Haste to thie kiste, thie onlie dortoure bedde. Haste to thy crypt, thy only restful bed.
Cale, as the claie whiche will gre on thie hedde, Cold, as the clay which will grow on thy head,
Is Charitie and Love aminge highe elves; Is Charity and Love among high elves;
Knightis and Barons live for pleasure and themselves. Knights and Barons live for pleasure and themselves.

The gatherd storme is rype; the bigge drops falle; The gathered storm is ripe; the huge drops fall;
The forswat meadowes smethe, and drenche the raine; The sunburnt meadows smoke and drink the rain;
The comyng ghastness do the cattle pall, The coming aghastness makes the cattle pale;
And the full flockes are drivynge ore the plaine; And the full flocks are driving o'er the plain;
Dashde from the cloudes the waters flott againe; Dashed from the clouds, the waters float again;
The welkin opes; the yellow levynne flies; The heavens gape; the yellow lightning flies;
And the hot fierie smothe in the wide lowings dies. And the hot fiery steam in the wide flamepot dies.

Liste! now the thunder’s rattling clymmynge sound Hark! now the thunder's rattling, clamoring sound
Cheves slowlie on, and then embollen clangs, Heaves slowly on, and then enswollen clangs,
Shakes the hie spyre, and losst, dispended, drown’d, Shakes the high spire, and lost, dispended, drown'd,
Still on the gallard eare of terroure hanges; Still on the coward ear of terror hangs;
The windes are up; the lofty elmen swanges; The winds are up; the lofty elm-tree swings;
Again the levynne and the thunder poures, Again the lightning―then the thunder pours,
And the full cloudes are braste attenes in stonen And the full clouds are burst at once in stormy showers.
showers.

Spurreynge his palfrie oere the watrie plaine, Spurring his palfrey o'er the watery plain,
The Abbote of Seyncte Godwynes convente came; The Abbot of Saint Godwin's convent came;
His chapournette was drented with the reine, His chapournette was drenchèd with the rain,
And his pencte gyrdle met with mickle shame; And his pinched girdle met with enormous shame;
He aynewarde tolde his bederoll at the same; He cursing backwards gave his hymns the same;
The storme encreasen, and he drew aside, The storm increasing, and he drew aside
With the mist almes craver neere to the holme to bide. With the poor alms-craver, near the holly tree to bide.

His cope was all of Lyncolne clothe so fyne, His cape was all of Lincoln-cloth so fine,
With a gold button fasten’d neere his chynne; With a gold button fasten'd near his chin;
His autremete was edged with golden twynne, His ermine robe was edged with golden twine,
And his shoone pyke a loverds mighte have binne; And his high-heeled shoes a Baron's might have been;
Full well it shewn he thoughten coste no sinne: Full well it proved he considered cost no sin;
The trammels of the palfrye pleasde his sighte, The trammels of the palfrey pleased his sight
For the horse-millanare his head with roses dighte. For the horse-milliner loved rosy ribbons bright.

“An almes, sir prieste!” the droppynge pilgrim saide, "An alms, Sir Priest!" the drooping pilgrim said,
“O! let me waite within your covente dore, "Oh, let me wait within your convent door,
Till the sunne sheneth hie above our heade, Till the sun shineth high above our head,
And the loude tempeste of the aire is oer; And the loud tempest of the air is o'er;
Helpless and ould am I alas! and poor; Helpless and old am I, alas!, and poor;
No house, ne friend, ne moneie in my pouche; No house, no friend, no money in my purse;
All yatte I call my owne is this my silver crouche.” All that I call my own is this―my silver cross.

“Varlet,” replyd the Abbatte, “cease your dinne; "Varlet," replied the Abbott, "cease your din;
This is no season almes and prayers to give; This is no season alms and prayers to give;
Mie porter never lets a faitour in; My porter never lets a beggar in;
None touch mie rynge who not in honour live.” None touch my ring who in dishonor live."
And now the sonne with the blacke cloudes did stryve, And now the sun with the blackened clouds did strive,
And shettynge on the grounde his glairie raie, And shed upon the ground his glaring ray;
The Abbatte spurrde his steede, and eftsoones roadde The Abbot spurred his steed, and swiftly rode away.
awaie.

Once moe the skie was blacke, the thunder rolde; Once more the sky grew black; the thunder rolled;
Faste reyneynge oer the plaine a prieste was seen; Fast running o'er the plain a priest was seen;
Ne dighte full proude, ne buttoned up in golde; Not full of pride, not buttoned up in gold;
His cope and jape were graie, and eke were clene; His cape and jape were gray, and also clean;
A Limitoure he was of order seene; A Limitour he was, his order serene;
And from the pathwaie side then turned hee, And from the pathway side he turned to see
Where the pore almer laie binethe the holmen tree. Where the poor almer lay beneath the holly tree.

“An almes, sir priest!” the droppynge pilgrim sayde, "An alms, Sir Priest!" the drooping pilgrim said,
“For sweete Seyncte Marie and your order sake.” "For sweet Saint Mary and your order's sake."
The Limitoure then loosen’d his pouche threade, The Limitour then loosen'd his purse's thread,
And did thereoute a groate of silver take; And from it did a groat of silver take;
The mister pilgrim dyd for halline shake. The needy pilgrim did for happiness shake.
“Here take this silver, it maie eathe thie care; "Here, take this silver, it may ease thy care;
We are Goddes stewards all, nete of oure owne we bare. "We are God's stewards all, naught of our own we bear."

“But ah! unhailie pilgrim, lerne of me, "But ah! unhappy pilgrim, learn of me,
Scathe anie give a rentrolle to their Lorde. Scarce any give a rentroll to their Lord.
Here take my semecope, thou arte bare I see; Here, take my cloak, as thou are bare, I see;
Tis thyne; the Seynctes will give me mie rewarde.” 'Tis thine; the Saints will give me my reward."
He left the pilgrim, and his waie aborde. He left the pilgrim, went his way abroad.
Virgynne and hallie Seyncte, who sitte yn gloure, Virgin and happy Saints, in glory showered,
Or give the mittee will, or give the gode man power. Let the mighty bend, or the good man be empowered!

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES: It is possible that some words used by Chatterton were his own coinages; some of them apparently cannot be found in other medieval literature. In a few places I have used similar-sounding words that seem to not overly disturb the meaning of the poem, which are not "exact matches" for the original poem's words. ― Michael R. Burch

Bristol
by Thomas Chatterton, age 16

The Muses have no Credit here; and Fame
Confines itself to the mercantile name.
Bristol may keep her prudent maxims still;
I scorn her Prudence, and I ever will.
Since all my vices magnify'd are here,
She cannot paint me worse than I appear.
When raving in the lunacy of ink,
I catch the Pen and publish what I think.

The lines above were apparently written by Chatterton to explain to his literate friends why he chose to leave Bristol for London at age sixteen.

Sentiment
by Thomas Chatterton, age 17

Since we can die but once, what matters it,
If rope or garter, poison, pistol, sword,
Slow-wasting sickness, or the sudden burst
Of valve arterial in the noble parts,
Curtail the miseries of human life?
Though varied is the cause, the effect's the same:
All to one common dissolution tends.

The lines above apparently reflect Chatterton's views on the manner of a human being's passing. He also wrote that he did not consider suicide to be a crime, at a time when it was considered a "mortal sin" by church, state and courts. For instance, Hume's Essay on Suicide was not published until after his death in 1777, and seven years after Chatterton's. When the essay was finally published, it was almost immediately suppressed. The idea that human beings had a right to end their lives was still very much ahead of its time. Unsuccessful suicides would continue to face public scorn, and either prison or the gallows.

The Methodist
by Thomas Chatterton, age 17

Says Tom to Jack, 'tis very odd,
These representatives of God,
In color, way of life and evil,
Should be so very like the devil.

Toward the end of his life, Chatterton wrote that he was "no Christian." He seemed to especially dislike the hypocrisy and lack of compassion and good works that he saw in organized religion and its representatives, as the lines above demonstrate.

On The Last Epiphany (or, Christ Coming To Judgment)
by Thomas Chatterton, age 10

Behold! just coming from above,
The judge, with majesty and love!
The sky divides, and rolls away,
T'admit him through the realms of day!
The sun, astonished, hides its face,
The moon and stars with wonder gaze
At Jesu's bright superior rays!
Dread lightnings flash, and thunders roar,
And shake the earth and briny shore;
The trumpet sounds at heaven's command,
And pierceth through the sea and land;
The dead in each now hear the voice,
The sinners fear and saints rejoice;
For now the awful hour is come,
When every tenant of the tomb
Must rise, and take his everlasting doom.

As far as I have been able to determine, this is the first poem written by Thomas Chatterton, when he was around age ten, if not younger. While I wouldn't call the poem a masterpiece, it does exhibit good meter, rhyme, imagery and drama (especially in the last three lines). It is obviously a remarkable poem for a child to have written. "The sun, astonished, hides its face" is an arresting image. "Dread lightnings flash, and thunders roar" is another.

A Hymn For Christmas Day
by Thomas Chatterton, age 11

Almighty Framer of the Skies!
O let our pure devotion rise,
Like Incense in thy Sight!
Wrapt in impenetrable Shade
The Texture of our Souls were made
Till thy Command gave light.
The Sun of Glory gleam'd the Ray,
Refin'd the Darkness into Day,
And bid the Vapours fly;
Impell'd by his eternal Love
He left his Palaces above
To cheer our gloomy Sky.

How shall we celebrate the day,
When God appeared in mortal clay,
The mark of worldly scorn;
When the Archangel's heavenly Lays,
Attempted the Redeemer's Praise
And hail'd Salvation's Morn!

A Humble Form the Godhead wore,
The Pains of Poverty he bore,
To gaudy Pomp unknown;
Tho' in a human walk he trod
Still was the Man Almighty God
In Glory all his own.

Despis'd, oppress'd, the Godhead bears
The Torments of this Vale of tears;
Nor bade his Vengeance rise;
He saw the Creatures he had made,
Revile his Power, his Peace invade;
He saw with Mercy's Eyes.

How shall we celebrate his Name,
Who groan'd beneath a Life of shame
In all Afflictions tried!
The Soul is raptured to conceive
A Truth, which Being must believe,
The God Eternal died.

My Soul exert thy Powers, adore,
Upon Devotion's plumage soar
To celebrate the Day;
The God from whom Creation sprung
Shall animate my grateful Tongue;
From him I'll catch the Lay!

This is a fine hymn, one worthy of a seasoned composer. The first stanza is especially good, and the entire hymn is commendable. That a child wrote it makes it a wonder.

The Churchwarden and the Apparition: A Fable
by Thomas Chatterton, age 11

The night was cold, the wind was high,
And stars bespangled all the sky;
Churchwarden Joe had laid him down,
And slept secure on bed of down;
But still the pleasing hope of gain,
That never left his active brain,
Exposed the churchyard to his view,
That seat of treasure wholly new.
“Pull down that cross,” he quickly cried,
The mason instantly complied:
When lo! behold, the golden prize
Appears—joy sparkles in his eyes.
The door now creaks, the window shakes,
With sudden fear he starts and wakes;
Quaking and pale, in eager haste
His haggard eyes around he cast;
A ghastly phantom, lean and wan,
That instant rose, and thus began:
“Weak wretch—to think to blind my eyes!
Hypocrisy’s a thin disguise;
Your humble mien and fawning tongue
Have oft deceived the old and young.
On this side now, and now on that,
The very emblem of the bat:
Whatever part you take, we know
’Tis only interest makes it so,
And though with sacred zeal you burn,
Religion’s only for your turn;
I’m Conscience called!” Joe greatly feared;
The lightning flashed—it disappeared.

This poem is, perhaps, average in places for a more mature poet, but quite vivid in others. Again, for a child it is rather remarkable. And I think the perception that the churchwarden saw the churchyard as a "seat of treasure" and his "hope of gain" is remarkable for a child.

Sly Dick
by Thomas Chatterton, age 11

Sharp was the frost, the wind was high
And sparkling stars bedeckt the sky
Sly Dick in arts of cunning skill'd,
Whose rapine all his pockets fill'd,
Had laid him down to take his rest
And soothe with sleep his anxious breast.
'Twas thus a dark infernal sprite
A native of the blackest night,
Portending mischief to devise
Upon Sly Dick he cast his eyes;
Then straight descends the infernal sprite,
And in his chamber does alight;
In visions he before him stands,
And his attention he commands.
Thus spake the sprite―hearken my friend,
And to my counsels now attend.
Within the garret's spacious dome
There lies a well stor'd wealthy room,
Well stor'd with cloth and stockings too,
Which I suppose will do for you,
First from the cloth take thou a purse,
For thee it will not be the worse,
A noble purse rewards thy pains,
A purse to hold thy filching gains;
Then for the stockings let them reeve
And not a scrap behind thee leave,
Five bundles for a penny sell
And pence to thee will come pell mell;
See it be done with speed and care
Thus spake the sprite and sunk in air.
When in the morn with thoughts erect
Sly Dick did on his dreams reflect,
Why faith, thinks he, 'tis something too,
It might―perhaps―it might be true,
I'll go and see―away he hies,
And to the garret quick he flies,
Enters the room, cuts up the clothes
And after that reeves up the hose;
Then of the cloth he purses made,
Purses to hold his filching trade.

This is, indeed, a sly poem for a child to write. Again, it demonstrates considerable perception.

Apostate Will
by Thomas Chatterton, age 11

In days of old, when Wesley's power
Gathered new strength by every hour;
Apostate Will, just sunk in trade,
Resolved his bargain should be made;
Then strait to Wesley he repairs,
And puts on grave and solemn airs;
Then thus the pious man addressed.
Good sir, I think your doctrine best;
Your servant will a Wesley be,
Therefore the principles teach me.
The preacher then instructions gave.
How he in this world should behave;
He hears, assents, and gives a nod,
Says every word's the word of God,
Then lifting his dissembling eyes,
How blessed is the sect! he cries;
Nor Bingham, Young, nor Stillingfleet,
Shall make me from this sect retreat.
He then his circumstances declared,
How hardly with him matters fared,
Begg'd him next morning for to make
A small collection for his sake.
The preacher said, Do not repine,
The whole collection shall be thine.
With looks demure and cringing bows,
About his business strait he goes.
His outward acts were grave and prim,
The methodist appear'd in him.
But, be his outward what it will,
His heart was an apostate's still.
He'd oft profess an hallow'd flame,
And every where preach'd Wesley's name;
He was a preacher, and what not,
As long as money could be got;
He'd oft profess, with holy fire.
The labourer's worthy of his hire.
It happen'd once upon a time,
When all his works were in their prime,
A noble place appear'd in view;
Then ______ to the methodists, adieu.
A methodist no more he'll be,
The protestants serve best for he.
Then to the curate strait he ran,
And thus address'd the rev'rend man:
I was a methodist, tis true;
With penitence I turn to you.
O that it were your bounteous will
That I the vacant place might fill!
With justice I'd myself acquit,
Do every thing that's right and fit.
The curate straitway gave consent―
To take the place he quickly went.
Accordingly he took the place,
And keeps it with dissembled grace.

This is another sly, very perceptive poem. Lines like: "Then lifting his dissembling eyes, How blessed is the sect! he cries" are worthy of a mature satirist. Again, we have a damn good poem for a mature poet, a wonder for a child.

Elinoure and Juga
by Thomas Chatterton, age 12
Published in Town and Country Magazine (May 1769) pp 273-74.

Onne Ruddeborne bank twa pynynge maydens sate,
Theire teares faste dryppeyn to the waterre cleere;
Echone bementynge for her absente mate,
Who atte Seyncte Albonns shouke the morthynge speare.
The nottebrowne Ellynor to Juga fayre,
Dydde speke acroole, with languyshmente of eyne,
Lyke droppes of pearlie dew, lemed the quyvrynge brine.

ELINOURE.
O gentle Juga! hear mie dernie plainte,
To fyghte for Yorke mie love is dyght in stele;
O mai ne sanguen steine the whyte rose peyncte;
Maie good Seyncte Cuthberte watch Syrre Robynne wele.
Moke moe thanne deathe in phantasie I feelle;
See! see! upon the grounde he bleedynge lies!
Inhild some joice of life, or else my deare love dies.

JUGA.
Systers in sorrowe on thys daise-ey'd banke,
Where melancholych broods we wylle lamente:
Be wette with mornynge dewe and evene danke;
Lyche levynde okes in eche the oder bente,
Or lyke forletten halles of merriemente,
Whose gastlie mitches holde the traine of fryghte,
Where lethale ravens bark, and owlets wake the nyghte.

No mo the miskynette shalle wake the morne,
The minstrelle daunce, good cheere, and morryce plaie;
No mo the amblynge palfrie and the horne,
Shall from the lessel rouze the foxe awaie:
I'll seke the forest alle the lyve-longe daie:
Alle nete amenge the gravde chirche glebe wyll go,
And to the passante spryghtes lecture mie tale of woe.

Whan mokie cloudes do hange upon the leme,
Of leden moon ynn sylver mantels dyghte:
The tryppeynge faeries weve the golden dreme,
Of selyness, whyche flyethe with the nyghte:
Thenne (butte the seynctes forbydde!) gif to a spryghte,
Syrre Rychardes forme is lyped; I'll holde dystraughte,
Hys bledeynge clai-colde corse, and die eche daie yn thoughte.

ELINOURE.
Ah woe bementynge wordes; what wordes can shewe!
Thou limed river on thie Linche mai bleede,
Champyons, whose bloude wylle wythe thie waterres flowe,
And Rudborne streeme be Rudborne streeme indeede!
Haste gentle Juga trippe ytte oere the meade,
To know or wheder wee muste waile agayne,
Or whythe oure fallen knyghte be menged onne the plain.

So saeing lyke twa levyn blasted-trees,
Or twain of cloudes that holdeth stormie raine;
Theie moved gentle o'ere the dewie mees;
To where Seyncte Albons holie shrynes remayne.
There dyd theye finde that bothe their knyghtes were sleyne;
Distraughte: thei wandered to swollen Rudborne's syde.
Yelled theyre leathalle knelle; sonke in the waves and dyde.

This poem is a war-eclogue in seven rhyme-royal Spenserians, "Written three hundred Years ago by T. Rowley, a Secular Priest" (p. 273). The poem, the only Rowley poem to be published in Chatterton's lifetime, is signed with Chatterton's usual signature, "D. B. Bristol, May, 1769."

Herbert Croft: "In 'an account of the most celebrated monasteries in Europe' (April, p. 201.) mention is made of the abbey of St. Alban's, which was suppressed at the dissolution of the monasteries. The scene of Elinoure and Juga (in the next month, May, p. 272.) is laid on Ruddeborne bank, a river near St. Alban's (as we learn from Chatterton's notes); and after the dialogue, Elinoure and Juga — 'moved gentle o'er the dewy mees, | To where St. Alban's holy shrines remain.'" (Love and Madness, 1780, p. 218)

George Gregory: "The last of these pastorals, called Elinoure and Juga, is one of the finest pathetic tales I have ever read. The complaint of two young females lamenting their lovers slain in the wars of York and Lancaster, was one of the happiest subjects that could be chosen for a tragic pastoral." (Life of Chatterton, 1789, in Works of Chatterton, 1803, 1:cxxx)

Percival Stockdale: "You will certainly allow that he was equal to the tender melancholy of elegy, when I give you some lines from his Elinoure and Juga. This poem was sent to the man [Horace Walpole] who deprived himself of the high honour of giving an easy, and effectual protection, and encouragement to Chatterton. It was, indeed, a most extraordinary performance, from a boy. Whether he had sent it as his own, or as the production of another, will always be of very little consequence with generous minds, when they reflect that such poetical excellence was achieved by tender years. It would have affected into liberality any literary heart but that of a Walpole." (Lectures on the truly eminent English Poets, 1807, p. 321-322)

Oliver Elton: "The Rowley romance ... began as a piece of childish make-believe, formed itself into a poetic dream, and became, by easy degrees, an elaborated hoax. The stages are not to be sharply distinguished or precisely dated, and all three were present to the end. The charm of black-letter, and of the illuminated capitals, is said to have stirred Chatterton before he was seven; and the vellums, saved from the muniment room of St. Mary Redcliffe, are thought to have set him on the track of his inventions. Elinoure and Juga, according to one story, was written at the age of twelve. In any case, his whole mind came to be subdued, without scruple, to his creative fancy. The tombs and brasses, the science of blazonry, the historic figure of William Canynge the Mayor, the eighteenth-century glossaries of the younger John Kersey and of Nathan Bailey, the poetry of the Elizabethans and Chaucer — out of all this Chatterton came to build a fictitious world, peopled by poets and patrons of poets; and he began to pass off upon the local antiquaries, and on citizens concerned for the glory of Bristol, the series of poems by an imaginary Thomas Rowley, a monk and the confessor of Canynge." (Survey of English Literature 1730-80, 1928, 2:108)

A modernized version in heroic couplets was published in Town and Country Magazine the following month, signed "S. W. A. aged 16" — said to be Richard Nares, afterwards editor of the British Critic. Two later rhyme-royal modernizations were later published, in Weekly Magazine or Edinburgh Amusement 43 (30 December 1778) pp. 14-15; and in European Magazine 18 (September 1790) pp. 224-25.

The Gouler's Requiem
by Thomas Chatterton, age 12

Mie boolie entes, adiewe: ne more the syghte
Of guilden merke shalle mete mie joieous eyne;
Ne moe the sylver noble sheenynge bryghte,
Shalle fylle mie hande wythe weighte to speke ytte fyne;
Ne moe, ne moe, alas, I calle you myne;
Whyder must you, ah! whydder moste I goe?
I kenne not either! Oh mie emmers dygne,
To parte wythe you wyll wurche me myckle woe.
I must begon, butte where I dare nott telle,
O storthe unto mie mynde! I goe to helle.
Soone as the morne dyd dyghte the roddie sunne,
A shade of theves eache streacke of lyghte dyd seeme;
Whan yn the Heaven full half hys course was ronne,
Eche styrrynge nayghbour dyd mie harte afleme;
Thie Losse, or quyck or slepe, was aie mie dreme;
For thee, O goulde, I did the lawe ycrase,
For thee I gotten or bie wiles or breme;
Ynn thee I all mie joie and goode dyd place;
Botte nowe to mee thie pleasaunce ys ne moe,
I kenne notte botte for thee I to the quede muste goe.

The ROMAUNTE of the CNYGHTE
By JOHN' DE BERGHAM (Thomas Chatterton)
From a ms. in Chatterton's hand-writing, in the possession of Mr. Cottle

The Sunne ento Vyrgyne was gotten,
The floureys al arounde onspryngede,
The woddie Grasse blaunched the Fenne
The Quenis Ermyne arised fro Bedde;
Syr Knyghte dyd ymounte oponn a Stede
Ke Rouncie ne Drybblette of make

Romaunte: Romance
Cnyghte: Knight
Onspryngede: faded, fallen
Woddie: woody
Blaunched: whitened
Rouncie: a cart horse, or one put to menial services
Dhybblette: small, little

The ROMANCE of the KNIGHT
MODERNISED By THOMAS CHATTERTON
From a ms. of Chatterton's in the possession of Mr. Cottle

The pleasing Sweets of Spring and Summer past,
The falling Leaf flies in the sultry blast,
The Fields resign their spangling Orbs of Gold,
The wrinkled Grass its Silver Joys unfold
Mantling the spreading Moor in Heavenly white,
Meeting from every Hill the ravished sight.
The yellow Flag uprears its spotted Head,
Hanging regardant o'er its wat'ry bed:
The worthy Knight ascends his foaming Steed,
Of Size uncommon, and no common Breed.

To Horace Walpole
by Thomas Chatterton, age 17

WALPOLE, I thought not I should ever see
So mean a heart as thine has proved to be.
Thou who, in luxury nurst, behold'st with scorn
The boy, who friendless, fatherless, forlorn,
Asks thy high favour—thou mayst call me cheat.
Say, didst thou never practise such deceit?
Who wrote Otranto? but I will not chide:
Scorn I'll repay with scorn, and pride with pride.
Still, Walpole, still thy prosy chapters write,
And twaddling letters to some fair indite;
Laud all above thee, fawn and cringe to those
Who, for thy fame, were better friends than foes;
Still spurn th' incautious fool who dares—
Had I the gifts of wealth and luxury shared,
Not poor and mean, Walpole! thou hadst not dared
Thus to insult. But I shall live and stand
By Rowley's side, when thou art dead and damned.
Elegy On The Death Of Mr. Phillips
by Thomas Chatterton, age 16

No more I hail the morning's golden gleam,
No more the wonders of the view I sing;
Friendship requires a melancholy theme,
At her command the awful lyre I string!

Now as I wander through this leafless grove,
Where tempests howl, and blasts eternal rise,
How shall I teach the chorded shell to move,
Or stay the gushing torrent from my eyes?

Phillips! great master of the boundless lyre,
The would my soul-rack'd muse attempt to paint;
Give me a double portion of thy fire,
Or all the powers of language are too faint.

Say, soul unsullied by the filth of vice,
Say, meek-eyed spirit, where's thy tuneful shell,
Which when the silver stream was lock'd with ice,
Was wont to cheer the tempest-ravaged dell?

Oft as the filmy veil of evening drew
The thick'ning shade upon the vivid green,
Thou, lost in transport at the dying view,
Bid'st the ascending muse display the scene.

When golden Autumn, wreathed in ripen'd corn,
From purple clusters prest the foamy wine,
Thy genius did his sallow brows adorn,
And made the beauties of the season thine.

With rustling sound the yellow foliage flies,
And wantons with the wind in rapid whirls;
The gurgling riv'let to the valley hies,
Whilst on its bank the spangled serpent curls.

The joyous charms of Spring delighted saw
Their beauties doubly glaring in thy lay;
Nothing was Spring which Phillips did not draw,
And every image of his muse was May.

So rose the regal hyacinthial star,
So shone the verdure of the daisied bed,
So seemed the forest glimmering from afar;
You saw the real prospect as you read.

Majestic Summer's blooming flow'ry pride
Next claim'd the honour of his nervous song;
He taught the stream in hollow trills to glide,
And led the glories of the year along.

Pale rugged Winter bending o'er his tread,
His grizzled hair bedropt with icy dew;
His eyes, a dusky light congealed and dead,
His robe, a tinge of bright ethereal blue.

His train a motley'd, sanguine, sable cloud,
He limps along the russet, dreary moor,
Whilst rising whirlwinds, blasting, keen, and loud,
Roll the white surges to the sounding shore.

Nor were his pleasures unimproved by thee;
Pleasures he has, though horridly deform'd;
The polished lake, the silver'd hill we see,
Is by thy genius fired, preserved, and warm'd.

The rough October has his pleasures too;
But I'm insensible to every joy:
Farewell the laurel! now I grasp the yew,
And all my little powers in grief employ.

Immortal shadow of my much-loved friend!
Clothed in thy native virtue meet my soul,
When on the fatal bed, my passions bend,
And curb my floods of anguish as they roll.

In thee each virtue found a pleasing cell,
Thy mind was honour, thy soul divine;
With thee did every god of genius dwell,
Thou was the Helicon of all the nine.

Fancy, whose various figure-tinctured vest
Was ever changing to a different hue;
Her head, with varied bays and flow'rets drest,
Her eyes, two spangles of the morning dew.

With dancing attitude she swept thy string;
And now she soars, and now again descends;
And now reclining on the zephyr's wing,
Unto the velvet-vested mead she bends.

Peace, deck'd in all the softness of the dove,
Over thy passions spread her silver plume;
The rosy veil of harmony and love
Hung on thy soul in eternal bloom.

Peace, gentlest, softest of the virtues, spread
Her silver pinions, wet with dewy tears,
Upon her best distinguished poet's head,
And taught his lyre the music of the spheres.

Temp'rance, with health and beauty in her train,
And massy-muscled strength in graceful pride,
Pointed at scarlet luxury and pain,
And did at every frugal feast preside.

Black melancholy stealing to the shade
With raging madness, frantic, loud, and dire,
Whose bloody hand displays the reeking blade,
Were strangers to thy heaven-directed lyre.

Content, who smiles in every frown of fate,
Wreath'd thy pacific brow and sooth'd thy ill:
In thy own virtues and thy genius great,
The happy muse laid every trouble still.

But see! the sick'ning lamp of day retires,
And the meek evening shakes the dusky grey;
The west faint glimmers with the saffron fires,
And like thy life, O Phillips! dies away.

Here, stretched upon this heaven-ascending hill,
I'll wait the horrors of the coming night,
I'll imitate the gently-plaintive rill,
And by the glare of lambent vapours write.

Wet with the dew the yellow hawthorns bow;
The rustic whistles through the echoing cave;
Far o'er the lea the breathing cattle low,
And the full Avon lifts the darken'd wave.

Now, as the mantle of the evening swells
Upon my mind, I feel a thick'ning gloom!
Ah! could I charm by necromantic spells
The soul of Phillips from the deathy tomb!

Then would we wander through the darken'd vale,
In converse such as heavenly spirits use,
And, borne upon the pinions of the gale,
Hymn the Creator, and exert the muse.

But, horror to reflection! now no more
Will Phillips sing, the wonder of the plain!
When, doubting whether they might not adore,
Admiring mortals heard his nervous strain.

See! see! the pitchy vapour hides the lawn,
Nought but a doleful bell of death is heard,
Save where into a blasted oak withdrawn
The scream proclaims the curst nocturnal bird.

Now, rest my muse, but only rest to weep
A friend made dear by every sacred tie;
Unknown to me be comfort peace or sleep:
Phillips is dead- 'tis pleasure then to die.

Few are the pleasures Chatterton e'er knew,
Short were the moments of his transient peace;
But melancholy robb'd him of those few,
And this hath bid all future comfort cease.

And can the muse be silent, Phillips gone!
And am I still alive? My soul, arise!
The robe of immortality put on,
And meet thy Phillips in his native skies.
Chatterton’s appearance has been described by those who were familiar with it. According to them all he was well grown and manly, having a proud air and a stately bearing. Whenever he cared to ingratiate himself, he is said to have been exceedingly repossessing; though as a rule he bore himself as a conscious and acknowledged superior. His eyes, which were grey and very brilliant, were evidently his most remarkable feature. One was brighter than the other (Gent. Mag. new ser. x. 133), appearing even larger than the other when flashing under strong excitement. George Catcott describes it as "a kind of hawk’s eye," adding that "one could see his soul through it." William Barrett, who had observed him keenly as an anatomist, said "he never saw such eyes—fire rolling at the bottom of them." He acknowledged to Sir Herbert Croft (Love and Madness, p. 272) that he had often purposely differed in opinion from Chatterton "to see how wonderfully his eye would strike fire, kindle, and blaze up!"

Chatterton Quotes

William Wordsworth called Chatterton "the marvelous boy" in his poem "Resolution and Independence" and said that he "excelled in every species of composition."
Percy Bysshe Shelley mentioned the "rose pale" Chatterton with obvious affection and admiration; in his tribute poem to Keats, "Adonais," Shelley named Chatterton among the "inheritors of unfulfilled renown."
Lord Byron compared Chatterton favorably to Burns and Wordsworth for purity and avoiding vulgar displays of elegance.

John Keats dedicated his poem "Endymion" to Thomas Chatterton and wrote a "Sonnet to Chatterton" in which he praised the "flash" of his "Genius" and his "voice, majestic and elate." Keats also called Chatterton "the most English of poets except Shakespeare." [One very interesting thing about Chatterton―and there are so many!―is the high percentage of "native" English words that he uses (by which I mean words that predate French and later additions to the language). Chatterton seems to have had a natural affiliation for, and a strong inclination to use, the older words in the English lexicon.] Keats also called him the "purest writer in the English language." When Chatterton wrote, he went back to Rossetti's "day-spring" of Romantic poetry: the well that Chaucer first drew from.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's first published poem was "Monody on the Death of Chatterton" in which he called Chatterton a "heaven-born genius" and a "sweet harper." Coleridge stared the poem when he was 13 and revised it at least six times over a period of almost 50 years. The final version was published shortly before his death in 1834.

Dr. Samuel Johnson told his biographer Boswell: "This is the most extraordinary young man that has encountered my knowledge. It is wonderful how the whelp has written such things."
Dante Gabriel Rossetti called Chatterton "the true day-spring of Romantic poetry," named him "the absolutely miraculous Chatterton" and declared him to be "as great as any English poet whatever."
Robert Browning praised Chatterton's gift for imitation.
Robert Southey in his poem "A Vision of Judgement" named Chatterton "first" among "the youths whom the Muses / Mark'd for themselves at birth."
Joseph Warton said that Chatterton was "a prodigy of genius, and would have proved the first of English poets had he reached a mature age."
Edmond Malone declared him to be "the greatest genius that England has produced since the days of Shakespeare."
John Evans called Chatterton "the mad genius by birthright."
Joseph Cottle said of Chatterton that "it is fair to proclaim him the very first of all premature geniuses."

Romantic Poet Timeline with Birth Dates

Hallmarks of the "Romantic" poet include: individualism, speaking in the first person or from the poet's individual perspective, the preference for imagination and tolerance over conformity, the belief in social justice and equality, rejection of ancient gods and primitive religious beliefs, rejection of the idea that kings and lords are better than commoners and/or ought to rule them, expressions of raw emotions including passion, and a return to one's natural native language over high-blown rhetoric. Not every poet here is "Romantic" in every sense, but I think the poets below do share certain poetic "genes." I agree with others who have postulated that Modernism is primarily an extension of Romanticism. Thus, I have included those Modernists who seem most "Romantic" to me, but it's far from a perfect science!―Michael R. Burch

Sappho (circa 630 BC) was the first great lyric poet that we know by name today
The author of the Bible's "Song of Songs" or "Song of Solomon" (circa 500 BC)
Ovid (43 AD) was famous in his early twenties for his erotic love poems
Edmund Spenser (1552) was the father of the English Romantics to follow―in spirit, in emotion, in passion, and in those lovely, flowing, haunting melodies
John Milton (1608) claimed to be "justifying the ways of God to man," but he made Adam, Eva and Lucifer rebellious romantic heroes for the ages!
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712) was an important early influence on the Romantic poets and writers to come
Thomas Gray (1716) may not have been a Romantic, per se, but he did speak eloquently for the common man, a major Romantic theme
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749) was the first superstar of the worldwide Romantic Movement, although he later disavowed being a Romantic!
Thomas Chatterton (1752) was he the first of the major poets of the English Romantic Movement?
William Blake (1757) not only influenced poets to come, but singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Jim Morrison (the Doors were named after Blake's "doors of perception")
Robert Burns (1759) the great Scottish Romantic poet and songwriter ("Auld Lang Syne", etc.) was named the greatest Scotsman of all time in a recent poll
William Wordsworth (1770) was the most famous of the English Romantic poets in his day; his and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads became the prime text of English Romanticism
Sir Walter Scott (1771) is more famous today as a novelist (Ivanhoe, etc.) but he was a talented poet as well
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772) is famous primarily for two poems: "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
Robert Southey (1774) became England's Poet Laureate and edited Chatterton's poems when they were published; he also introduced the world to Gerard Manley Hopkins' poetry
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788) was the "bad boy" of English poetry in his day, but a good poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792) is generally considered to have been a major poet despite dying young
John Clare (1793) joined the Romantics in writing poems of individualism and nature, although he was perhaps not a Romantic per se
John Keats (1795) is generally considered to have been a major poet despite dying young, like his friend Shelley
Victor Hugo (1802) the famous novelist (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Les Miserables, etc.) was also an important French Romantic poet
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803) was perhaps one of the earliest Modernists, drawing on Oriental sources as well as English
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806) is best known today for her Sonnets from the Portuguese
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807) would rival Alfred Tennyson in fame during their lifetimes
Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809) is probably England's most famous Poet Laureate
Edgar Allan Poe (1809) would be a major influence on French Romantics and Symbolists like Charles Baudelaire
Robert Browning (1812) became famous for his dramatic monologues; he was married to Elizabeth Barrett Browning (the first star coupling of poets!)
Walt Whitman (1819) was similar to William Blake in many of his views, and to Wordsworth at times, although their writing styles were very different
Herman Melville (1819) is best known for his novels (Moby Dick, etc.), but he was also a poet
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828) is known for his highly Romantic paintings, and he was also an accomplished poet
Christina Rossetti (1830) may have been a better poet than her more famous brother
Emily Dickinson (1830) defies classification, but she sounds decidedly Romantic at times!
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837) is remembered today for his lush rhythms and sometimes "naughty" themes
Thomas Hardy (1840) was a famous novelist who chose to write poetry later in life; his "Darkling Thrush" is one of the most anthologized English poems
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844) is another hard-to-classify poet, but like Chatterton he went back to the day-spring of English poetry
A. E. Housman (1859) while not a Romantic, per se, did share major themes with the Romantics, including the need for tolerance, compassion and sane laws
William Butler Yeats (1865) has been called the Last Romantic and the First Modernist; whatever he was, he was damn good!
Anne Reeve Aldrich (1866) is little-known today, but her best poems rival those of Emily Dickinson and Christina Rossetti
Ernest Dowson (1867) may be little-known today, but it is hardly his fault, as he wrote some of the most passionate, moving poems on record
Edward Arlington Robinson (1869) was as famous as Robert Frost in their day, and deservedly so
Robert Frost (1874) was a darkly Romantic poet in poems like "Acquainted with the Night" and quite a good love poet in "To Earthward"
Edward Thomas (1878) was a friend of Frost's and wrote one of his best poems, "Adlestrop," on the train going to meet him for the first time
Wallace Stevens (1879) was a master of word-melody, and like the Romantics preferred the human imagination to obsolete religions and imaginary gods
D. H. Lawrence (1885) could match Shelley and Keats in emotional intensity in poems like "Piano" and like the Romantics he believed sex was good, not "evil"
Ezra Pound (1885) may have been the most influential of the Modernists
T. S. Eliot (1888) may have written the most Romantic of modern poems: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Conrad Aiken (1889) was a friend of Eliot's and also sounded quite the modern Romantic in his Senlin poems and the lovely, haunting "Bread and Music"
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892) wrote philosophical love sonnets to rival Shakespeare's, from a woman's perspective
Wilfred Owen (1893) was perhaps the greatest of the anti-war poets, and one of the ultimate modern realists
e. e. cummings (1894) may have been eccentric with capitalization and typography, but he was surely a Romantic at heart, and in his desire for compassion, justice and tolerance
Louise Bogan (1897) is undervalued today, but only because not enough people read her best poems
Hart Crane (1899) the ultimate rhapsode may have written the best love poem in the English language in the longer version of "Voyages"
Langston Hughes (1902) wrote Romantic poems from a black perspective: "Harlem," "Cross," "The Weary Blues," "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"
W. H. Auden (1907) may have written the best lullaby in the English language and the best elegy in his tribute to W. B. Yeats
Theodore Roethke (1908) is still remembered for poems like "My Papa's Waltz," "The Waking" and "I Knew a Woman"
Robert Hayden (1913) wrote one of the best and most moving sonnets in the English language: "Those Winter Sundays"
Dylan Thomas (1914) may have been the first modern performance superstar, half a century before M. C. Hammer and Eminem!
John Berryman (1914) was well-known in his day for his Dream Songs and homage to Anne Bradstreet (the first American poet of note)
Randall Jarrell (1914) is best known today as a very able poetry critic and for hyper-realistic poems like "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"
Robert Lowell (1917) was the first of the modern Confessional poets; like the Romantics they were highly individualist in their poems
W. D. Snodgrass (1926) is undervalued today, but he wrote a number of fine poems with Romantic/Confessional attributes
Anne Sexton (1928) was a well-known Confessional poet in her day; she committed suicide in 1974
Sylvia Plath (1932) wrote a number of "supercharged" Romantic/Confessional poems before committing suicide in 1963
Kevin N. Roberts (1969) claimed to be the reincarnation of Swinburne and was highly regarded among the Neo-Romantics; he founded and edited Romantics Quarterly

Famous Juvenile Writers

Poets and other writers who began writing at an early age include:

Mattie Stepanek started writing poems at age 4 and published several best-selling "Heartstrings" poetry books before dying at age 13; President Jimmy Carter called him "the most extraordinary person whom I have ever known."
Marshall Ball wrote his first poem, "Altogether Lovely," at age 5, despite being unable to speak and barely able to move; he learned to write by pointing at alphabet blocks.
E. E. Cummings wrote a poem to his father at age 6, and was writing poetry regularly by age 8.
Marjory Fleming learned to read at age 3, preferring adult books, and died at age 8; Robert Louis Stevenson called her "the noblest work of God."
Thomas Chatterton was considered "slow" and a "fool" at age 6-7; he became a voracious reader and writer and some of his published poems and hymns were written at age 10-12; all his poems were written by age 17.
Thomas Warton, a future Poet Laureate of England, did a translation of a Martial poem at age 9 and wrote his most famous poem, "The Pleasures of Melancholy," at age 17.
Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote the poem "Verses on a Cat" at age 10.
Helen Keller, despite being blind, deaf and unable to speak until age 6, wrote a short story, "The Frost King," that was published by age 11.
Alexander Pope wrote the poem "Ode to Solitude" at age 12.
Anne Frank started her famous diary at age 13.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge started writing his monody to Chatterton at age 13.
William Cullen Bryant had his satirical poem "The Embargo" published at age 13.
Lord Byron had poems written at age 14 published in Fugitive Pieces, but the book was recalled and burned because some of the poems were too "hot," especially the poem "To Mary."
Stephen Crane wrote the short story "Uncle Jake and the Bell Handle" at age 14.
Arthur Rimbaud was published at age 15; he retired from writing at age 19 to become a soldier and smuggler!
S. E. Hinton wrote her first book at age 15 and published her best-selling novel The Outsiders at age 18.
Mary Shelley, the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, began work on her famous gothic horror novel Frankenstein at age 18.

Poets Who May Have Been Mad and/or Committed Suicide

Poets who were said to have been mad include: William Blake, Lord Byron, Thomas Chatterton, John Clare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Collins, John Gay, Oliver Goldsmith, Edgar Allan Poe, Ezra Pound, Theodore Roethke, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Christopher Smart

Poets who committed suicide include: John Berryman, Paul Celan, Thomas Chatterton, Hart Crane, Randall Jarrell, Vachel Lindsay, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Sara Teasdale, Marina Tsvetaeva

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnets-for-h-l-ne-extract/

Sonnets For Hélène
. . Extract - Poem by Pierre de Ronsard

If to love, Madam, is to dream and long
and brood by day and night on means of pleasing you,
to be forgetful of all else, to wish to do nothing else
but adore and serve the beauty that wounds me,
If to love is to pursue a happiness which flies me,
to lose myself in loneliness, to suffer much pain,
to fear greatly and to hold my tongue,
to weep, to beg for pity, and to see myself sent away,
If to love is to live in you more than in myself,
to hide great weariness under a mask of joy,
to feel in the depths of my soul the odds against which I fight,
to be hot and cold as the fever of love takes me,
To be ashamed, when I speak to you, to confess my pain –
if that is to love, then I love you furiously,
I love you, knowing full well my pain is deadly.
The heart says so often enough; the tongue is silent.


Sonnets pour Hélène


Si c’est aimer, Madame, et de jour et de nuict,
Resver, songer, penser le moyen de vous plaire,
Oublier toute chose, et ne vouloir rien faire
Qu’adorer et servir la beauté qui me nuit,
Si c’est aimer, de suivre un bonheur qui me fuit,
De me perdre moymesme et d’estre solitaire,
Souffrir beaucoup de mal, beaucoup craindre et me taire,
Pleurer, crier mercy, et m’en voir esconduit,
Si c’est aimer, de vivre en vous plus qu’en moymesme,
Cacher d’un front joyeux une langueur extresme,
Sentir au fond de l’àme un combat inegal,
Chaud, froid, comme la fievre amoureuse me traitte,
Honteux, parlant à vous, de confesser mon mal :
Si cela c’est aimer, furieux je vous aime,
Je vous aime, et sçay bien que mon mal est fatal,
Le coeur le dit assez, mai la langue est muette.


Pierre de Ronsard

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

from , (Word from the Hills)
a sonnet sequence in four movements
--- by Richard Moore

11
You were so solid, father, cold and raw
as these north winters, where your angry will
first hardened, as the earth when the long chill
deepens—as is this country's cruel law—
yet under trackless snow, without a flaw
covering meadow, road, and stubbled hill,
the springs and muffled streams were running still,
dark until spring came, and the awful thaw.
In your decay a gentleness appears
I hadn't guessed—when, gray as rotting snow,
propped in your chair, your face will run with tears,
trying to speak, and your hand, stiff and slow,
will touch my child—who, sensing the cold years
in your eyes, cries until you let her go.
by Richard Moore


This is a wonderfully haunting poem by the poet Richard Moore, who lived in a dilapidated mansion close by the sea, until his death.
This poem about the poet's father and daughter proves that real life can be darker and more frightening than any horror story.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Part 6 from The Dark Side of the Deity: Interlude
-------------------------by Joe M. Ruggier

When Satan hurled, before the Dawn,
defiance at the Lord of History;
and Michael stood, and Glory shone,
Whose hand controlled the timeless Mystery?
Who but the Insult was the leveler;
Deliverer and bedeviler?

When Athens, sung in verse and prose,
caught all the World's imagination;
when Ilion fell, and Rome arose,
and Time went on like pagination:
Who but the Insult was the leveler;
Deliverer and bedeviler?

When books, in numberless infinities,
cross-fertilize the teeming brain,
and warring, vex the Soul with Vanities,
and Insults hurtle, Insults rain:
Who but the Insult is the leveler;
Deliverer and bedeviler?

And when we too shall cease to be,
like all the Kingdoms of the Past,
and groaning, gasping, wrenching free,
we bite, at last, alone, the dust:
Who but the Insult is the leveler;
Deliverer and bedeviler?

When church‑bells fill the wandering fields
with Love and Fear,
the Flesh and Blood of Jesus yields
deliverance dear,
to them who believe in the Compliment Sinsear.

----------------------------------------------------

Joe Ruggier is quite a story, having sold over 20,000 books by going door-to-door. He is a Maltese poet who now lives in British Columbia.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Nature -- the Gentlest Mother is,
------------- by Emily Dickinson


Nature -- the Gentlest Mother is,
Impatient of no Child --
The feeblest -- or the waywardest --
Her Admonition mild --

In Forest -- and the Hill --
By Traveller -- be heard --
Restraining Rampant Squirrel --
Or too impetuous Bird --

How fair Her Conversation --
A Summer Afternoon --
Her Household -- Her Assembly --
And when the Sun go down --

Her Voice among the Aisles
Incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest Cricket --
The most unworthy Flower --

When all the Children sleep --
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light Her lamps --
Then bending from the Sky --

With infinite Affection --
And infiniter Care --
Her Golden finger on Her lip --
Wills Silence -- Everywhere --

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Carlovingian Dreams
---------by Carl Sandburg

COUNT these reminiscences like money.
The Greeks had their picnics under another name.
The Romans wore glad rags and told their neighbors, “What of it?”
The Carlovingians hauling logs on carts, they too
Stuck their noses in the air and stuck their thumbs to their noses
And tasted life as a symphonic dream of fresh eggs broken over a frying pan left by an uncle who killed men with spears and short swords.
Count these reminiscences like money.

Drift, and drift on, white ships.
Sailing the free sky blue, sailing and changing and sailing,
Oh, I remember in the blood of my dreams how they sang before me.
Oh, they were men and women who got money for their work, money or love or dreams.
Sail on, white ships.
Let me have spring dreams.
Let me count reminiscences like money; let me count picnics, glad rags and the great bad manners of the Carlovingians breaking fresh eggs in the copper pans of their proud uncles.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

'Tis Moonlight, Summer Moonlight
------- by Emily Bronte
'Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
All soft and still and fair;
The solemn hour of midnight
Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,

But most where trees are sending
Their breezy boughs on high,
Or stooping low are lending
A shelter from the sky.

And there in those wild bowers
A lovely form is laid;
Green grass and dew-steeped flowers
Wave gently round her head.

----------------------------------------------------------------------


There came a Day at Summer's full
--------- by Emily Dickinson
There came a Day at Summer's full,
Entirely for me --
I thought that such were for the Saints,
Where Resurrections -- be --

The Sun, as common, went abroad,
The flowers, accustomed, blew,
As if no soul the solstice passed
That maketh all things new --

The time was scarce profaned, by speech --
The symbol of a word
Was needless, as at Sacrament,
The Wardrobe -- of our Lord --

Each was to each The Sealed Church,
Permitted to commune this -- time --
Lest we too awkward show
At Supper of the Lamb.

The Hours slid fast -- as Hours will,
Clutched tight, by greedy hands --
So faces on two Decks, look back,
Bound to opposing lands --

And so when all the time had leaked,
Without external sound
Each bound the Other's Crucifix --
We gave no other Bond --

Sufficient troth, that we shall rise --
Deposed -- at length, the Grave --
To that new Marriage,
Justified -- through Calvaries of Love --

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Sea And the Hills
------- by Rudyard Kipling, 1902


Who hath desired the Sea? -- the sight of salt wind-hounded --
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber win hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing --
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing --
His Sea in no showing the same his Sea and the same 'neath each showing:
His Sea as she slackens or thrills?
So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills!

Who hath desired the Sea? -- the immense and contemptuous surges?
The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bow-sprit emerges?
The orderly clouds of the Trades, the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder --
Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail's low-volleying thunder --
His Sea in no wonder the same his Sea and the same through each wonder:
His Sea as she rages or stills?
So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills.

Who hath desired the Sea? Her menaces swift as her mercies?
The in-rolling walls of the fog and the silver-winged breeze that disperses?
The unstable mined berg going South and the calvings and groans that de clare it --
White water half-guessed overside and the moon breaking timely to bare it --
His Sea as his fathers have dared -- his Sea as his children shall dare it:
His Sea as she serves him or kills?
So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwisc -- hillmen desire their Hills.

Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather
Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets where men gather
Inland, among dust, under trees -- inland where the slayer may slay him --
Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay him
His Sea from the first that betrayed -- at the last that shall never betray him:
His Sea that his being fulfils?
So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills.

Kipling was criticized by top poets of his era due to their jealousy of his talent in writing his being a noted author in both poetry and a very famous published author of fiction/tales.
I share not that biased opinion that criticized him during his time and I see him as a truly great poet as well.-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

All In a Family Way
--- by Thomas Moore
My banks are all furnished with rags,
So thick, even Freddy can't thin 'em;
I've torn up my old money-bags,
Having little or nought to put in 'em.
My tradesman are smashing by dozens,
But this is all nothing, they say;
For bankrupts, since Adam, are cousins,
So, it's all in the family way.


My Debt not a penny takes from me,
As sages the matter explain; --
Bob owes it to Tom and then Tommy
Just owes it to Bob back again.
Since all have thus taken to owing,
There's nobody left that can pay;
And this is the way to keep going, --
All quite in the family way.


My senators vote away millions,
To put in Prosperity's budget;
And though it were billions or trillions,
The generous rogues wouldn't grudge it.
'Tis all but a family hop,
'Twas Pitt began dancing the hay;
Hands round! -- why the deuce should we stop?
'Tis all in the family way.


My labourers used to eat mutton,
As any great man of the State does;
And now the poor devils are put on
Small rations of tea and potatoes.
But cheer up John, Sawney and Paddy,
The King is your father, they say;
So ev'n if you starve for your Daddy,
'Tis all in the family way.


My rich manufacturers tumble,
My poor ones have nothing to chew;
And, even if themselves do not grumble,
Their stomachs undoubtedly do.
But coolly to fast en famille,
Is as good for the soul as to pray;
And famine itself is genteel,
When one starves in a family way.


I have found out a secret for Freddy,
A secret for next Budget day;
Though, perhaps he may know it already,
As he, too, 's a sage in his way.
When next for the Treasury scene he
Announces "the Devil to pay",
Let him write on the bills, "Nota bene,
'Tis all in the family way."

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Armadillo
--- by Elizabeth Bishop
for Robert Lowell


This is the time of year
when almost every night
the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.
Climbing the mountain height,

rising toward a saint
still honored in these parts,
the paper chambers flush and fill with light
that comes and goes, like hearts.

Once up against the sky it's hard
to tell them from the stars —
planets, that is — the tinted ones:
Venus going down, or Mars,

or the pale green one. With a wind,
they flare and falter, wobble and toss;
but if it's still they steer between
the kite sticks of the Southern Cross,

receding, dwindling, solemnly
and steadily forsaking us,
or, in the downdraft from a peak,
suddenly turning dangerous.

Last night another big one fell.
It splattered like an egg of fire
against the cliff behind the house.
The flame ran down. We saw the pair

of owls who nest there flying up
and up, their whirling black-and-white
stained bright pink underneath, until
they shrieked up out of sight.

The ancient owls' nest must have burned.
Hastily, all alone,
a glistening armadillo left the scene,
rose-flecked, head down, tail down,

and then a baby rabbit jumped out,
short-eared, to our surprise.
So soft! — a handful of intangible ash
with fixed, ignited eyes.

Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!
O falling fire and piercing cry
and panic, and a weak mailed fist
clenched ignorant against the sky!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Burning Drift-Wood
----by John Greenleaf Whittier
Before my drift-wood fire I sit,
And see, with every waif I burn,
Old dreams and fancies coloring it,
And folly's unlaid ghosts return.

O ships of mine, whose swift keels cleft
The enchanted sea on which they sailed,
Are these poor fragments only left
Of vain desires and hopes that failed?

Did I not watch from them the light
Of sunset on my towers in Spain,
And see, far off, uploom in sight
The Fortunate Isles I might not gain?

Did sudden lift of fog reveal
Arcadia's vales of song and spring,
And did I pass, with grazing keel,
The rocks whereon the sirens sing?

Have I not drifted hard upon
The unmapped regions lost to man,
The cloud-pitched tents of Prester John,
The palace domes of Kubla Khan?

Did land winds blow from jasmine flowers,
Where Youth the ageless Fountain fills?
Did Love make sign from rose blown bowers,
And gold from Eldorado's hills?

Alas! the gallant ships, that sailed
On blind Adventure's errand sent,
Howe'er they laid their courses, failed
To reach the haven of Content.

And of my ventures, those alone
Which Love had freighted, safely sped,
Seeking a good beyond my own,
By clear-eyed Duty piloted.

O mariners, hoping still to meet
The luck Arabian voyagers met,
And find in Bagdad's moonlit street,
Haroun al Raschid walking yet,

Take with you, on your Sea of Dreams,
The fair, fond fancies dear to youth.
I turn from all that only seems,
And seek the sober grounds of truth.

What matter that it is not May,
That birds have flown, and trees are bare,
That darker grows the shortening day,
And colder blows the wintry air!

The wrecks of passion and desire,
The castles I no more rebuild,
May fitly feed my drift-wood fire,
And warm the hands that age has chilled.

Whatever perished with my ships,
I only know the best remains;
A song of praise is on my lips
For losses which are now my gains.

Heap high my hearth! No worth is lost;
No wisdom with the folly dies.
Burn on, poor shreds, your holocaust
Shall be my evening sacrifice!

Far more than all I dared to dream,
Unsought before my door I see;
On wings of fire and steeds of steam
The world's great wonders come to me,

And holier signs, unmarked before,
Of Love to seek and Power to save, --
The righting of the wronged and poor,
The man evolving from the slave;

And life, no longer chance or fate,
Safe in the gracious Fatherhood.
I fold o'er-wearied hands and wait,
In full assurance of the good.

And well the waiting time must be,
Though brief or long its granted days,
If Faith and Hope and Charity
Sit by my evening hearth-fire's blaze.

And with them, friends whom Heaven has spared,
Whose love my heart has comforted,
And, sharing all my joys, has shared
My tender memories of the dead, --

Dear souls who left us lonely here,
Bound on their last, long voyage, to whom
We, day by day, are drawing near,
Where every bark has sailing room.

I know the solemn monotone
Of waters calling unto me;
I know from whence the airs have blown
That whisper of the Eternal Sea.

As low my fires of drift-wood burn,
I hear that sea's deep sounds increase,
And, fair in sunset light, discern
Its mirage-lifted Isles of Peace.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Father
---- by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
He never made a fortune, or a noise
In the world where men are seeking after fame;
But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys
Who loved the very ground on which he trod.
They thought him just little short of God;
Oh you should have heard the way they said his name –
‘Father.’

There seemed to be a loving little prayer
In their voices, even when they called him ‘Dad.’
Though the man was never heard of anywhere,
As a hero, yet somehow understood
He was doing well his part and making good;
And you knew it, by the way his children had
Of saying ‘Father.’

He gave them neither eminence nor wealth,
But he gave them blood untainted with a vice,
And opulence of undiluted health.
He was honest, and unpurchable and kind;
He was clean in heart, and body, and in mind.
So he made them heirs to riches without price –
This father.

He never preached or scolded; and the rod –
Well, he used it as a turning pole in play.
But he showed the tender sympathy of God.
To his children in their troubles, and their joys.
He was always chum and comrade with his boys,
And his daughters – oh, you ought to hear them say
‘Father.’

Now I think of all achievements ‘tis the least
To perpetuate the species; it is done
By the insect and the serpent, and the beast.
But the man who keeps his body, and his thought,
Worth bestowing on an offspring love-begot,
Then the highest earthly glory he was won,
When in pride a grown-up daughter or a son
Says ‘That’s Father.’

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I Wake And Feel The Fell Of Dark, Not Day
-----------by Gerard Manley Hopkins
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.

With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decrees
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.

Self yeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves, but worse.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Ballad of Death
------------ by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,
Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth
Upon the sides of mirth,
Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears
Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing;
Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs
Upon the flesh to cleave,
Set pains therein and many a grievous thing,
And many sorrows after each his wise
For armlet and for gorget and for sleeve.

O Love's lute heard about the lands of death,
Left hanged upon the trees that were therein;
O Love and Time and Sin,
Three singing mouths that mourn now underbreath,
Three lovers, each one evil spoken of;
O smitten lips wherethrough this voice of mine
Came softer with her praise;
Abide a little for our lady's love.
The kisses of her mouth were more than wine,
And more than peace the passage of her days.

O Love, thou knowest if she were good to see.
O Time, thou shalt not find in any land
Till, cast out of thine hand,
The sunlight and the moonlight fail from thee,
Another woman fashioned like as this.
O Sin, thou knowest that all thy shame in her
Was made a goodly thing;
Yea, she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss,
With her fair kiss, and lips much lovelier
Than lips of amorous roses in late spring.

By night there stood over against my bed
Queen Venus with a hood striped gold and black,
Both sides drawn fully back
From brows wherein the sad blood failed of red,
And temples drained of purple and full of death.
Her curled hair had the wave of sea-water
And the sea's gold in it.
Her eyes were as a dove's that sickeneth.
Strewn dust of gold she had shed over her,
And pearl and purple and amber on her feet.

Upon her raiment of dyed sendaline
Were painted all the secret ways of love
And covered things thereof,
That hold delight as grape-flowers hold their wine;
Red mouths of maidens and red feet of doves,
And brides that kept within the bride-chamber
Their garment of soft shame,
And weeping faces of the wearied loves
That swoon in sleep and awake wearier,
With heat of lips and hair shed out like flame.

The tears that through her eyelids fell on me
Made mine own bitter where they ran between
As blood had fallen therein,
She saying; Arise, lift up thine eyes and see
If any glad thing be or any good
Now the best thing is taken forth of us;
Even she to whom all praise
Was as one flower in a great multitude,
One glorious flower of many and glorious,
One day found gracious among many days:

Even she whose handmaiden was Love--to whom
At kissing times across her stateliest bed
Kings bowed themselves and shed
Pale wine, and honey with the honeycomb,
And spikenard bruised for a burnt-offering;
Even she between whose lips the kiss became
As fire and frankincense;
Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king,
Whose eyes were as the morning purged with flame,
Whose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence.

Then I beheld, and lo on the other side
My lady's likeness crowned and robed and dead.
Sweet still, but now not red,
Was the shut mouth whereby men lived and died.
And sweet, but emptied of the blood's blue shade,
The great curled eyelids that withheld her eyes.
And sweet, but like spoilt gold,
The weight of colour in her tresses weighed.
And sweet, but as a vesture with new dyes,
The body that was clothed with love of old.

Ah! that my tears filled all her woven hair
And all the hollow bosom of her gown--
Ah! that my tears ran down
Even to the place where many kisses were,
Even where her parted breast-flowers have place,
Even where they are cloven apart--who knows not this?
Ah! the flowers cleave apart
And their sweet fills the tender interspace;
Ah! the leaves grown thereof were things to kiss
Ere their fine gold was tarnished at the heart.

Ah! in the days when God did good to me,
Each part about her was a righteous thing;
Her mouth an almsgiving,
The glory of her garments charity,
The beauty of her bosom a good deed,
In the good days when God kept sight of us;
Love lay upon her eyes,
And on that hair whereof the world takes heed;
And all her body was more virtuous
Than souls of women fashioned otherwise.

Now, ballad, gather poppies in thine hands
And sheaves of brier and many rusted sheaves
Rain-rotten in rank lands,
Waste marigold and late unhappy leaves
And grass that fades ere any of it be mown;
And when thy bosom is filled full thereof
Seek out Death's face ere the light altereth,
And say "My master that was thrall to Love
Is become thrall to Death."
Bow down before him, ballad, sigh and groan.
But make no sojourn in thy outgoing;
For haply it may be
That when thy feet return at evening
Death shall come in with thee.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Growing Old
-------by Matthew Arnold
What is it to grow old?
Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The lustre of the eye?
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?
Yes, but not for this alone.

Is it to feel our strength—
Not our bloom only, but our strength—decay?
Is it to feel each limb
Grow stiffer, every function less exact,
Each nerve more weakly strung?

Yes, this, and more! but not,
Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be!
'Tis not to have our life
Mellowed and softened as with sunset-glow,
A golden day's decline!

'Tis not to see the world
As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,
And heart profoundly stirred;
And weep, and feel the fulness of the past,
The years that are no more!

It is to spend long days
And not once feel that we were ever young.
It is to add, immured
In the hot prison of the present, month
To month with weary pain.

It is to suffer this,
And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel:
Deep in our hidden heart
Festers the dull remembrance of a change,
But no emotion—none.

It is—last stage of all—
When we are frozen up within, and quite
The phantom of ourselves,
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
Which blamed the living man.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Tide of Sorrow
by George William Russell
ON the twilight-burnished hills I lie and long and gaze
Where below the grey-lipped sands drink in the flowing tides,
Drink, and fade and disappear: interpreting their ways
A seer in my heart abides.


Once the diamond dancing day-waves laved thy thirsty lips:
Now they drink the dusky night-tide running cold and fleet,
Drink, and as the chilly brilliance o’er their pallor slips
They fade in the touch they meet.


Wave on wave of pain where leaped of old the billowy joys:
Hush and still thee now unmoved to drink the bitter sea,
Drink with equal heart: be brave; and life with laughing voice
And death will be one for thee.


Ere my mortal days pass by and life in the world be done,
Oh, to know what world shall rise within the spirit’s ken
When it grows into the peace where light and dark are one!
What voice for the world of men?

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Friend Of Humanity And The Rhymer
- Poem by Henry Austin Dobson


F. OF H. I want a verse. It gives you little pains;--
You just sit down, and draw upon your brains.

Come, now, be amiable.

R. To hear you talk,
You'd make it easier to fly than walk.
You seem to think that rhyming is a thing
You can produce if you but touch a spring;

That fancy, fervour, passion--and what not,

Are just a case of 'penny in the slot.'
You should reflect that no evasive bird
Is half so shy as is your fittest word;
And even similes, however wrought,
Like hares, before you cook them, must be caught;--

Impromptus, too, require elaboration,
And (unlike eggs) grow fresh by incubation;
Then,--as to epigrams,..

F. of H. Nay, nay, I've done.
I did but make petition. You make fun.

R. Stay. I am grave. Forgive me if I ramble:
But, then, a negative needs some preamble
To break the blow. I feel with you, in truth,
These complex miseries of Age and Youth;
I feel with you--and none can feel it more
Than I--this burning Problem of the Poor;
The Want that grinds, the Mystery of Pain,
The Hearts that sink, and never rise again;--
How shall I set this to some careless screed,
Or jigging stave, when Help is what you need,
Help, Help,--more Help?

F. of H. I fancied that with ease
You'd scribble off some verses that might please,
And so give help to us.

R. Why then--TAKE THESE!


Henry Austin Dobson

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Mother
---------by Robert William Service
Your children grow from you apart,
Afar and still afar;
And yet it should rejoice your heart
To see how glad they are;
In school and sport, in work and play,
And last, in wedded bliss
How others claim with joy to-day
The lips you used to kiss.

Your children distant will become,
And wide the gulf will grow;
The lips of loving will be dumb,
The trust you used to know
Will in another's heart repose,
Another's voice will cheer . . .
And you will fondle baby clothes
And brush away a tear.

But though you are estranged almost,
And often lost to view,
How you will see a little ghost
Who ran to cling to you!
Yet maybe children's children will
Caress you with a smile . . .
Grandmother love will bless you still,--
Well, just a little while.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Wordsworth's Grave
- Poem by William Watson


I

The old rude church, with bare, bald tower, is here;
Beneath its shadow high-born Rotha flows;
Rotha, remembering well who slumbers near,
And with cool murmur lulling his repose

Rotha, remembering well who slumbers near.
His hills, his lakes, his streams are with him yet.
Surely the heart that read her own heart clear
Nature forgets not soon: 'tis we forget.

We that with vagrant soul his fixity
Have slighted; faithless, done his deep faith wrong;
Left him for poorer loves, and bowed the knee
To misbegotten strange new gods of song.

Yet, led by hollow ghost or beckoning elf
Far from her homestead to the desert bourn,
The vagrant soul returning to herself
Wearily wise, must needs to him return.

To him and to the powers that with him dwell:--
Inflowings that divulged not whence they came;
And that secluded spirit unknowable,
The mystery we make darker with a name;

The Somewhat which we name but cannot know,
Ev'n as we name a star and only see
His quenchless flashings forth, which ever show
And ever hide him, and which are not he.


II

Poet who sleepest by this wandering wave!
When thou wast born, what birth-gift hadst thou then?
To thee what wealth was that the Immortals gave,
The wealth thou gavest in thy turn to men?

Not Milton's keen, translunar music thine;
Not Shakespeare's cloudless, boundless human view;
Not Shelley's flush of rose on peaks divine;
Nor yet the wizard twilight Coleridge knew.

What hadst thou that could make so large amends
For all thou hadst not and thy peers possessed,
Motion and fire, swift means to radiant ends?--
Thou hadst, for weary feet, the gift of rest.

From Shelley's dazzling glow or thunderous haze,
From Byron's tempest-anger, tempest-mirth,
Men turned to thee and found--not blast and blaze,
Tumult of tottering heavens, but peace on earth,

Nor peace that grows by Lethe, scentless flower,
There in white languors to decline and cease;
But peace whose names are also rapture, power,
Clear sight, and love: for these are parts of peace.


III

I hear it vouched the Muse is with us still;--
If less divinely frenzied than of yore,
In lieu of feelings she has wondrous skill
To simulate emotion felt no more.

Not such the authentic Presence pure, that made
This valley vocal in the great days gone!--
In _his_ great days, while yet the spring-time played
About him, and the mighty morning shone.

No word-mosaic artificer, he sang
A lofty song of lowly weal and dole.
Right from the heart, right to the heart it sprang,
Or from the soul leapt instant to the soul.

He felt the charm of childhood, grace of youth,
Grandeur of age, insisting to be sung.
The impassioned argument was simple truth
Half-wondering at its own melodious tongue.

Impassioned? ay, to the song's ecstatic core!
But far removed were clangour, storm and feud;
For plenteous health was his, exceeding store
Of joy, and an impassioned quietude.


IV

A hundred years ere he to manhood came,
Song from celestial heights had wandered down,
Put off her robe of sunlight, dew and flame,
And donned a modish dress to charm the Town.

Thenceforth she but festooned the porch of things;
Apt at life's lore, incurious what life meant.
Dextrous of hand, she struck her lute's few strings;
Ignobly perfect, barrenly content.

Unflushed with ardour and unblanched with awe,
Her lips in profitless derision curled,
She saw with dull emotion--if she saw--
The vision of the glory of the world.

The human masque she watched, with dreamless eyes
In whose clear shallows lurked no trembling shade:
The stars, unkenned by her, might set and rise,
Unmarked by her, the daisies bloom and fade.

The age grew sated with her sterile wit.
Herself waxed weary on her loveless throne.
Men felt life's tide, the sweep and surge of it,
And craved a living voice, a natural tone.

For none the less, though song was but half true,
The world lay common, one abounding theme.
Man joyed and wept, and fate was ever new,
And love was sweet, life real, death no dream.

In sad stern verse the rugged scholar-sage
Bemoaned his toil unvalued, youth uncheered.
His numbers wore the vesture of the age,
But, 'neath it beating, the great heart was heard.

From dewy pastures, uplands sweet with thyme,
A virgin breeze freshened the jaded day.
It wafted Collins' lonely vesper-chime,
It breathed abroad the frugal note of Gray.

It fluttered here and there, nor swept in vain
The dusty haunts where futile echoes dwell,--
Then, in a cadence soft as summer rain,
And sad from Auburn voiceless, drooped and fell.

It drooped and fell, and one 'neath northern skies,
With southern heart, who tilled his father's field,
Found Poesy a-dying, bade her rise
And touch quick nature's hem and go forth healed.

On life's broad plain the ploughman's conquering share
Upturned the fallow lands of truth anew,
And o'er the formal garden's trim parterre
The peasant's team a ruthless furrow drew.

Bright was his going forth, but clouds ere long
Whelmed him; in gloom his radiance set, and those
Twin morning stars of the new century's song,
Those morning stars that sang together, rose.

In elvish speech the _Dreamer_ told his tale
Of marvellous oceans swept by fateful wings.--
The _Seër_ strayed not from earth's human pale,
But the mysterious face of common things

He mirrored as the moon in Rydal Mere
Is mirrored, when the breathless night hangs blue:
Strangely remote she seems and wondrous near,
And by some nameless difference born anew.


V

Peace--peace--and rest! Ah, how the lyre is loth,
Or powerless now, to give what all men seek!
Either it deadens with ignoble sloth
Or deafens with shrill tumult, loudly weak.

Where is the singer whose large notes and clear
Can heal and arm and plenish and sustain?
Lo, one with empty music floods the ear,
And one, the heart refreshing, tires the brain.

And idly tuneful, the loquacious throng
Flutter and twitter, prodigal of time,
And little masters make a toy of song
Till grave men weary of the sound of rhyme.

And some go prankt in faded antique dress,
Abhorring to be hale and glad and free;
And some parade a conscious naturalness,
The scholar's not the child's simplicity.

Enough;--and wisest who from words forbear.
The kindly river rails not as it glides;
And suave and charitable, the winning air
Chides not at all, or only him who chides.


VI

Nature! we storm thine ear with choric notes.
Thou answerest through the calm great nights and days,
'Laud me who will: not tuneless are your throats;
Yet if ye paused I should not miss the praise.'

We falter, half-rebuked, and sing again.
We chant thy desertness and haggard gloom,
Or with thy splendid wrath inflate the strain,
Or touch it with thy colour and perfume.

One, his melodious blood aflame for thee,
Wooed with fierce lust, his hot heart world-defiled.
One, with the upward eye of infancy,
Looked in thy face, and felt himself thy child.

Thee he approached without distrust or dread--
Beheld thee throned, an awful queen, above--
Climbed to thy lap and merely laid his head
Against thy warm wild heart of mother-love.

He heard that vast heart beating--thou didst press
Thy child so close, and lov'dst him unaware.
Thy beauty gladdened him; yet he scarce less
Had loved thee, had he never found thee fair!

For thou wast not as legendary lands
To which with curious eyes and ears we roam.
Nor wast thou as a fane mid solemn sands,
Where palmers halt at evening. Thou wast home.

And here, at home, still bides he; but he sleeps;
Not to be wakened even at thy word;
Though we, vague dreamers, dream he somewhere keeps
An ear still open to thy voice still heard,--

Thy voice, as heretofore, about him blown,
For ever blown about his silence now;
Thy voice, though deeper, yet so like his own
That almost, when he sang, we deemed 'twas thou!


VII

Behind Helm Crag and Silver Howe the sheen
Of the retreating day is less and less.
Soon will the lordlier summits, here unseen,
Gather the night about their nakedness.

The half-heard bleat of sheep comes from the hill,
Faint sounds of childish play are in the air.
The river murmurs past. All else is still.
The very graves seem stiller than they were.

Afar though nation be on nation hurled,
And life with toil and ancient pain depressed,
Here one may scarce believe the whole wide world
Is not at peace, and all man's heart at rest.

Rest! 'twas the gift _he_ gave; and peace! the shade
_He_ spread, for spirits fevered with the sun.
To him his bounties are come back--here laid
In rest, in peace, his labour nobly done.


William Watson

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Ladies Of St. James’s
------ Poem by Henry Austin Dobson


THE LADIES of St. James’s
Go swinging to the play;
Their footmen run before them,
With a “Stand by! Clear the way!”
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
She takes her buckled shoon,
When we go out a-courting
Beneath the harvest moon.

The ladies of St. James’s
Wear satin on their backs;
They sit all night at Ombre,
With candles all of wax:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
She dons her russet gown,
And runs to gather May dew
Before the world is down.

The ladies of St. James’s!
They are so fine and fair,
You ’d think a box of essences
Was broken in the air:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
The breath of heath and furze,
When breezes blow at morning,
Is not so fresh as hers.

The ladies of St. James’s!
They ’re painted to the eyes;
Their white it stays for ever,
Their red it never dies:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Her color comes and goes;
It trembles to a lily,—
It wavers to a rose.

The ladies of St. James’s!
You scarce can understand
The half of all their speeches,
Their phrases are so grand:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Her shy and simple words
Are clear as after rain-drops
The music of the birds.

The ladies of St. James’s!
They have their fits and freaks;
They smile on you—for seconds,
They frown on you—for weeks:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Come either storm or shine,
From Shrove-tide unto Shrove-tide,
Is always true—and mine.

My Phyllida! my Phyllida!
I care not though they heap
The hearts of all St. James’s,
And give me all to keep;
I care not whose the beauties
Of all the world may be,
For Phyllida—for Phyllida
Is all the world to me!

Henry Austin Dobson

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46550/the-new-colossus


The New Colossus
------By Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”


Source: Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems and Other Writings (2002)

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44994/de-profundis

De Profundis
-----------By Christina Rossetti
Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.

I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.

I never watch the scatter'd fire
Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:

For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.

***************************


Paradise: In A Dream
---- by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Once in a dream I saw the flowers
That bud and bloom in Paradise;
More fair they are than waking eyes
Have seen in all this world of ours.
And faint the perfume-bearing rose,
And faint the lily on its stem,
And faint the perfect violet
Compared with them.

I heard the songs of Paradise:
Each bird sat singing in his place;
A tender song so full of grace
It soared like incense to the skies.
Each bird sat singing to his mate
Soft cooing notes among the trees:
The nightingale herself were cold
To such as these.

I saw the fourfold River flow,
And deep it was, with golden sand;
It flowed between a mossy land
With murmured music grave and low.
It hath refreshment for all thirst,
For fainting spirits strength and rest:
Earth holds not such a draught as this
From east to west.

The Tree of Life stood budding there,
Abundant with its twelvefold fruits;
Eternal sap sustains its roots,
Its shadowing branches fill the air.
Its leaves are healing for the world,
Its fruit the hungry world can feed,
Sweeter than honey to the taste
And balm indeed.

I saw the gate called Beautiful;
And looked, but scarce could look, within;
I saw the golden streets begin,
And outskirts of the glassy pool.
Oh harps, oh crowns of plenteous stars,
Oh green palm-branches many-leaved—
Eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard,
Nor heart conceived.

I hope to see these things again,
But not as once in dreams by night;
To see them with my very sight,
And touch, and handle, and attain:
To have all Heaven beneath my feet
For narrow way that once they trod;
To have my part with all the saints,
And with my God.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Old Times
------------by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Friend of my youth, let us talk of old times;
Of the long lost golden hours.
When "Winter" meant only Christmas chimes,
And "Summer" wreaths of flowers.
Life has grown old, and cold, my friend,
And the winter now, means death.
And summer blossoms speak all too plain
Of the dear, dead forms beneath.

But let us talk of the past to-night;
And live it over again,
We will put the long years out of sight,
And dream we are young as then.
But you must not look at me, my friend,
And I must not look at you,
Or the furrowed brows, and silvered locks,
Will prove our dream untrue.

Let us sing of the summer, too sweet to last,
And yet too sweet to die.
Let us read tales, from the book of the past,
And talk of the days gone by.
We will turn our backs to the West, my friend,
And forget we are growing old.
The skies of the Present are dull, and gray,
But the Past's are blue, and gold.

The sun has passed over the noontide line
And is sinking down the West.
And of friends we knew in days Lang Syne,
Full half have gone to rest.
And the few that are left on earth, my friend
Are scattered far, and wide.
But you and I will talk of the days
Ere any roamed, or died.

Auburn ringlets, and hazel eyes
Blue eyes and tresses of gold.
Winds joy laden, and azure skies,
Belong to those days of old.
We will leave the Present's shores awhile
And float on the Past's smooth sea.
But I must not look at you, my friend,
And you must not look at me.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Happiness
----by Carl Sandburg

I ASKED the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell
me what is happiness.

And I went to famous executives who boss the work of
thousands of men.

They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though
I was trying to fool with them
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along
the Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with
their women and children
and a keg of beer and an
accordion.

Methinks Carl was onto something that about 95.9% of mankind overlooks. That true happiness rests in love of life and love of family.-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

High Flight
By John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
(A sonnet written by John Gillespie Magee, an American pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War. He came to Britain, flew in a Spitfire squadron, and was killed at the age of nineteen on 11 December 1941 during a training flight from the airfield near Scopwick.)

Portions Of This Lovely Poem Appear On The Headstones
Of Many Interred In Arlington National Cemetery,
Particularly Aviators And Astronauts



High Flight
----------------- By John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds -
and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.

"Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God."

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Nocturnal Reverie
----by Anne Kingsmill Finch

In such a night, when every louder wind
Is to its distant cavern safe confined;
And only gentle Zephyr fans his wings,
And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings;
Or from some tree, famed for the owl's delight,
She, hollowing clear, directs the wand'rer right:
In such a night, when passing clouds give place,
Or thinly veil the heav'ns' mysterious face;
When in some river, overhung with green,
The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen;
When freshened grass now bears itself upright,
And makes cool banks to pleasing rest invite,
Whence springs the woodbind, and the bramble-rose,
And where the sleepy cowslip sheltered grows;
Whilst now a paler hue the foxglove takes,
Yet checkers still with red the dusky brakes
When scattered glow-worms, but in twilight fine,
Shew trivial beauties watch their hour to shine;
Whilst Salisb'ry stands the test of every light,
In perfect charms, and perfect virtue bright:
When odors, which declined repelling day,
Through temp'rate air uninterrupted stray;
When darkened groves their softest shadows wear,
And falling waters we distinctly hear;
When through the gloom more venerable shows
Some ancient fabric, awful in repose,
While sunburnt hills their swarthy looks conceal,
And swelling haycocks thicken up the vale:
When the loosed horse now, as his pasture leads,
Comes slowly grazing through th' adjoining meads,
Whose stealing pace, and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear:
When nibbling sheep at large pursue their food,
And unmolested kine rechew the cud;
When curlews cry beneath the village walls,
And to her straggling brood the partridge calls;
Their shortlived jubilee the creatures keep,
Which but endures, whilst tyrant man does sleep;
When a sedate content the spirit feels,
And no fierce light disturbs, whilst it reveals;
But silent musings urge the mind to seek
Something, too high for syllables to speak;
Till the free soul to a composedness charmed,
Finding the elements of rage disarmed,
O'er all below a solemn quiet grown,
Joys in th' inferior world, and thinks it like her own:
In such a night let me abroad remain,
Till morning breaks, and all's confused again;
Our cares, our toils, our clamors are renewed,
Or pleasures, seldom reached, again pursued.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

To the True Romance
-- by Rudyard Kipling
Thy face is far from this our war,
Our call and counter-cry,
I shall not find Thee quick and kind,
Nor know Thee till I die,
Enough for me in dreams to see
And touch Thy garments' hem:
Thy feet have trod so near to God
I may not follow them.

Through wantonness if men profess
They weary of Thy parts,
E'en let them die at blasphemy
And perish with their arts;
But we that love, but we that prove
Thine excellence august,
While we adore discover more
Thee perfect, wise, and just.

Since spoken word Man's Spirit stirred
Beyond his belly-need,
What is is Thine of fair design
In thought and craft and deed;
Each stroke aright of toil and fight,
That was and that shall be,
And hope too high, wherefore we die,
Has birth and worth in Thee.

Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee
To gild his dross thereby,
And knowledge sure that he endure
A child until he die --
For to make plain that man's disdain
Is but new Beauty's birth --
For to possess in loneliness
The joy of all the earth.

As Thou didst teach all lovers speech
And Life all mystery,
So shalt Thou rule by every school
Till love and longing die,
Who wast or yet the Lights were set,
A whisper in the Void,
Who shalt be sung through planets young
When this is clean destroyed.

Beyond the bounds our staring rounds,
Across the pressing dark,
The children wise of outer skies
Look hitherward and mark
A light that shifts, a glare that drifts,
Rekindling thus and thus,
Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne
Strange tales to them of us.

Time hath no tide but must abide
The servant of Thy will;
Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme
The ranging stars stand still --
Regent of spheres that lock our fears,
Our hopes invisible,
Oh 'twas certes at Thy decrees
We fashioned Heaven and Hell!

Pure Wisdom hath no certain path
That lacks thy morning-eyne,
And captains bold by Thee controlled
Most like to Gods design;
Thou art the Voice to kingly boys
To lift them through the fight,
And Comfortress of Unsuccess,
To give the dead good-night --

A veil to draw 'twixt God His Law
And Man's infirmity,
A shadow kind to dumb and blind
The shambles where we die;
A rule to trick th' arithmetic
Too base of leaguing odds --
The spur of trust, the curb of lust,
Thou handmaid of the Gods!

O Charity, all patiently
Abiding wrack and scaith!
O Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats
Yet drops no jot of faith!
Devil and brute Thou dost transmute
To higher, lordlier show,
Who art in sooth that lovely Truth
The careless angels know!

Thy face is far from this our war,
Our call and counter-cry,
I may not find Thee quick and kind,
Nor know Thee till I die.

Yet may I look with heart unshook
On blow brought home or missed --
Yet may I hear with equal ear
The clarions down the List;
Yet set my lance above mischance
And ride the barriere --
Oh, hit or miss, how little 'tis,
My Lady is not there!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Let No Charitable Hope
------------by Elinor Wylie

Now let no charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope:
I am in nature none of these.

I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing from a stone
The little nourishment I get.

In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But none has merited my fear,
And none has quite escaped my smile.



Ophelia
----------by Elinor Wylie

My locks are shorn for sorrow
Of love which may not be;
Tomorrow and tomorrow
Are plotting cruelty.

The winter wind tangles
These ringlets half-grown,
The sun sprays with spangles
And rays like his own.

Oh, quieter and colder
Is the stream; he will wait;
When my curls touch my shoulder
He will comb them straight.
************************************************** **********

Double poems presented today--because they, as was she, are so very good..-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

My Sad Captains
-----by Thom Gunn

One by one they appear in
the darkness: a few friends, and
a few with historical
names. How late they start to shine!
but before they fade they stand
perfectly embodied, all

the past lapping them like a
cloak of chaos. They were men
who, I thought, lived only to
renew the wasteful force they
spent with each hot convulsion.
They remind me, distant now.

True, they are not at rest yet,
but now they are indeed
apart, winnowed from failures,
they withdraw to an orbit
and turn with disinterested
hard energy, like the stars.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Grief
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I TELL you hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair
Half-taught in anguish through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach.
Full desertness
In souls as countries lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens.
Deep-hearted man express
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.

Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep it could arise and go.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

POPPIES ON LUDLOW CASTLE

by: Willa Cather (1873-1947)

THROUGH halls of vanished pleasure,
And hold of vanished power,
And crypt of faith forgotten,
A came to Ludlow tower.

A-top of arch and stairway,
Of crypt and donjan cell,
Of council hall, and chamber,
Of wall, and ditch, and well,

High over grated turrets
Where clinging ivies run,
A thousand scarlet poppies
Enticed the rising sun,

Upon the topmost turret,
With death and damp below,--
Three hundred years of spoilage,--
The crimson poppies grow.

This hall it was that bred him,
These hills that knew him brave,
The gentlest English singer
That fills an English grave.

How have they heart to blossom
So cruel and gay and red,
When beauty so hath perished
And valour so hath sped?

When knights so fair are rotten,
And captains true asleep,
And singing lips are dust-stopped
Six English earth-feet deep?

When ages old remind me
How much hath gone for naught,
What wretched ghost remaineth
Of all that flesh hath wrought;

Of love and song and warring,
Of adventure and play,
Of art and comely building,
Of faith and form and fray--

I'll mind the flowers of pleasure,
Of short-lived youth and sleep,
That drunk the sunny weather
A-top of Ludlow keep.

"Poppies on Ludlow Castle" is reprinted from April Twilights. Willa Cather. Boston: The Gorham Press, 1903.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Memory of My Mother
-- by Eunice de Chazeau

She saw him, knew, and waited for a year
that he should ask; then gave her perishable body
without vanity. Leaving the rectangular
town and reassurance of deep sod, she
followed him where crag and glacier
stab the sun, and rivers plunging flay
their stones. She lay beside him on sand, her
dreams unsheltered from the Milky Way.

Had she known how quickly days would spill
their splendor, only dregs of time be left—
had she known how at last, and by his will,
her ashes and bones would be strewn to drift
with his in troughs of ocean, nevertheless,
eyes wide with fear, she would have answered yes.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50330/the-oblation


The Oblation
--- By Algernon Charles Swinburne

Ask nothing more of me, sweet;
All I can give you I give.
Heart of my heart, were it more,
More would be laid at your feet—
Love that should help you to live,
Song that should spur you to soar.

All things were nothing to give,
Once to have sense of you more,
Touch you and taste of you, sweet,
Think you and breathe you and live,
Swept of your wings as they soar,
Trodden by chance of your feet.

I that have love and no more
Give you but love of you, sweet.
He that hath more, let him give;
He that hath wings, let him soar;
Mine is the heart at your feet
Here, that must love you to live.


More Poems by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Ave Atque Vale
By Algernon Charles Swinburne
A Ballad of Death
By Algernon Charles Swinburne
A Ballad of François Villon, Prince of All Ballad-Makers
By Algernon Charles Swinburne
A Channel Crossing
By Algernon Charles Swinburne
Choriambics
By Algernon Charles Swinburne



Swinburne was one of the most accomplished lyric poets of the Victorian era and was a preeminent symbol of rebellion against the conservative values of his time. The explicit and often pathological sexual themes of his most important collection of poetry, Poems and Ballads (1866),...
Read Full Biography
More About this Poet

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Alone

I am alone, in spite of love,
In spite of all I take and give—
In spite of all your tenderness,
Sometimes I am not glad to live.

I am alone, as though I stood
On the highest peak of the tired gray world,
About me only swirling snow,
Above me, endless space unfurled;

With earth hidden and heaven hidden,
And only my own spirit's pride
To keep me from the peace of those
Who are not lonely, having died.

Sara Teasdale

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Listeners
By Walter de La Mare
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Source: The Collected Poems of Walter de la Mare (1979)

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Best%20Unknown%20Poets.htm

The HyperTexts

The Best Unknown Poets



Dowson died at age 32 and is only known for a few poems today, but his best poems are highly memorable. He's one of my favorite lesser-known poets.

A Last Word
by Ernest Dowson

Let us go hence: the night is now at hand;
The day is overworn, the birds all flown;
And we have reaped the crops the gods have sown;
Despair and death; deep darkness o'er the land,
Broods like an owl; we cannot understand
Laughter or tears, for we have only known
Surpassing vanity: vain things alone
Have driven our perverse and aimless band.
Let us go hence, somewhither strange and cold,
To Hollow Lands where just men and unjust
Find end of labour, where's rest for the old,
Freedom to all from love and fear and lust.
Twine our torn hands! O pray the earth enfold
Our life-sick hearts and turn them into dust.

Dowson's influence on the language and other writers can be seen in phrases like "gone with the wind" and "the days of wine and roses." His work certainly influenced T. S. Eliot, who said that certain lines of Dowson's "have always run in my head."

Dowson's poetry rests firmly in my own personal list of top 20 poets.. --Tyr

[High_Plains_Drifter]

deleted... Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Sonnet 84: While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn yields
--By Anna Seward
While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn yields,
Trembles upon the thin, and naked spray,
November, dragging on this sunless day,
Lours, cold and sullen, on the watery fields;
And Nature to the waste dominion yields,
Stripped her last robes, with gold and purple gay —
So droops my life, of your soft beams despoiled,
Youth, Health, and Hope, that long exulting smiled;
And the wild carols, and the bloomy hues
Of merry Spring-time, spruce on every plain
Her half-blown bushes, moist with sunny rain,
More pensive thoughts in my sunk heart infuse
Than Winter’s grey, and desolate domain
Faded like my lost Youth, that no bright Spring renews.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Best%20Unknown%20Poets.htm


The Poem of Poems
----by Greg Alan Brownderville

A boy passes ghost-like through a curtain of weeping willow.
In rainbow-stained apparel, birds are singing a cappella.
Suddenly I sense it, in the birds and in the child:
The world is a poem growing wild.

A dewdrop on a blade of grass soon slips from where it clung
Like a perfect word that gathers on the tip of a poet's tongue.
And men are merely characters to love and be defiled.
God is a poem growing wild.

****************************


This is a fine contemporary poem in the mystic tradition of Blake and Whitman. Jack Butler and Greg Brownderville are both "Arkansas" boys . . . there must be something in the water down there, or perhaps it's in the mayhaw jelly


Or it could be it is from, the many Native American bloodlines here , deep woods, days well spent as a child learning from Nature and God's blue Heavens above. Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Dream Of The South Winds
- Poem by Paul Hamilton Hayne

O FRESH, how fresh and fair
Through the crystal gulfs of air,
The fairy South Wind floateth on her subtle wings of balm!
And the green earth lapped in bliss,
To the magic of her kiss
Seems yearning upward fondly through the golden- crested calm!


From the distant Tropic strand,
Where the billows, bright and bland,
Go creeping, curling round the palms with sweet, faint under-tune,
From its fields of purpling flowers
Still wet with fragrant showers,
The happy South Wind lingering sweeps the royal blooms of June.



All heavenly fancies rise
On the perfume of her sighs,
Which steep the inmost spirit in a languor rare and fine,
And a peace more pure than sleep's
Unto dim, half-conscious deeps,
Transports me, lulled and dreaming, on its twilight tides divine.


Those dreams! ah me! the splendor,
So mystical and tender, 20
Wherewith like soft heat-lightnings they gird their meaning round,
And those waters, calling, calling,
With a nameless charm enthralling,
Like the ghost of music melting on a rainbow spray of sound!


Touch, touch me not, nor wake me,
Lest grosser thoughts o'ertake me,
From earth receding faintly with her dreary din and jars -
What viewless arms caress me?
What whispered voices bless me,
With welcomes dropping dewlike from the weird and wondrous stars?


Alas! dim, dim, and dimmer
Grows the preternatural glimmer
Of that trance the South Wind brought me on her subtle wings of balm,
For behold! its spirit flieth,
And its fairy murmur dieth,
And the silence closing round me is a dull and soulless calm!


Paul Hamilton Hayne

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Remember
- Poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

In these my later years, this brilliant and fantastically talented poet is fast making headway in a charge at replacing Emily Dickinson as my number one favorite poetess. --Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Best%20Unknown%20Poets.htm


Rondel
---- by Kevin N. Roberts

Our time has passed on swift and careless feet,
With sighs and smiles and songs both sad and sweet.
Our perfect hours have grown and gone so fast,
And these are things we never can repeat.
Though we might plead and pray that it would last,
Our time has passed.

Like shreds of mist entangled in a tree,
Like surf and sea foam on a foaming sea,
Like all good things we know can never last,
Too soon we'll see the end of you and me.
Despite the days and realms that we amassed,
Our time has passed.

Kevin Nicholas Roberts [1969-2008] was a poet, fiction writer and professor of English Literature. He died on December 10, 2008. Kevin had lived and studied all over the United States and had also spent three years in the English countryside of Suffolk writing Romantic poetry and studying the Romantic Masters beside the North Sea. His poetry has been compared to that of Swinburne, one of his major influences. Kevin was born on the 4th of April in the United States, which, accounting for the hour of his birth and the time zone difference, just happened to be Swinburne's birthdate, April the 5th, in England. And he told me once that he believed he was the reincarnation of Swinburne.

I always love to go to the link shown above and read in early morning hours.
Such depth of talent, and so many unrewarded, as these poets and their works should be read in schools and have far greater praise heaped upon them, IMHO. TYR

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&q=samuel+taylor+coleridge+poems&oq=Samuel+Taylor+Coleridge&gs_l=psy-ab.1.1.0i131k1j0l3.3683.3683.0.5811.1.1.0.0.0.0.16 7.167.0j1.1.0....0...1..64.psy-ab..0.1.164.1iCkJiqTVA4

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
English poet
Image result for samuel taylor coleridge poems
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. Wikipedia
Born: October 21, 1772, Ottery St Mary, United Kingdom
Died: July 25, 1834, Highgate, United Kingdom
Movies: The Ancient Mariner, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, The Albatross, Christabel, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Poems: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge, Kubla Khan, MORE


************************************************** *******



https://www.poemhunter.com/samuel-taylor-coleridge/


The Good, Great Man
- Poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

'How seldom, friend! a good great man inherits
Honour or wealth with all his worth and pains!
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits
If any man obtain that which he merits
Or any merit that which he obtains.'

Reply to the Above

For shame, dear friend, renounce this canting strain!
What would'st thou have a good great man obtain?
Place? titles? salary? a gilded chain?
Or throne of corses which his sword had slain?
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? three treasures, LOVE, and LIGHT,
And CALM THOUGHTS, regular as infant's breath:
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,
HIMSELF, his MAKER, and the ANGEL DEATH!
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

One of my favorites by Coleridge..-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Ballad Of The Trees And The Master
- Poem by Sidney Lanier


Into the woods my Master went,
Clean forspent, forspent.
Into the woods my Master came,
Forspent with love and shame.
But the olives they were not blind to Him,
The little gray leaves were kind to Him:
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him
When into the woods He came.

Out of the woods my Master went,
And He was well content.
Out of the woods my Master came,
Content with death and shame.
When Death and Shame would woo Him last,
From under the trees they drew Him last:
'Twas on a tree they slew Him - last
When out of the woods He came.
Sidney Lanier

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Hardy
--By Robert Mezey



Thrown away at birth, he was recovered,

Plucked from the swaddling-shroud, and chafed and slapped,

The crone implacable. At last he shivered,

Drew the first breath, and howled, and lay there, trapped

In a world from which there is but one escape

And that forestalled now almost ninety years.

In such a scene as he himself might shape,

The maker of a thousand songs appears.



From this it follows, all the ironies

Life plays on one whose fate it is to follow

The way of things, the suffering one sees,

The many cups of bitterness he must swallow

Before he is permitted to be gone

Where he was headed in that early dawn.



Robert Mezey

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

There Was One Who Walked In Shadow
- Poem by Digby Mackworth Dolben

There was one who walked in shadow,
There was one who walked in light:
But once their way together lay,
Where sun and shade unite,


In the meadow of the lotus,
In the meadow of the rose,
Where fair with youth and clear with truth
The Living River flows.


Scarcely summer stillness breaking,
Questions, answers, soft and low-
The words they said, the vows they made,
None but the willows know.


Both have passed away for ever
From the meadow and the stream;
Past their waking, past their breaking
The sweetness of that dream.


One along the dusty highway
Toiling counts the weary hours,
And one among its shining throng
The world has crowned with flowers.


Sometimes perhaps amid the gardens,
Where the noble have their part,
Though noon's o'erhead, a dew-drop's shed
Into a lily's heart.


This I know, till one heart reaches
Labour's sum, the restful grave,
Will still be seen the willow-green,
And heard the rippling wave.

Digby Mackworth Dolben

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Full Moon
------ by Robert Hayden

No longer throne of a goddess to whom we pray,
no longer the bubble house of childhood's
tumbling Mother Goose man,

The emphatic moon ascends--
the brilliant challenger of rocket experts,
the white hope of communications men.

Some I love who are dead
were watchers of the moon and knew its lore;
planted seeds, trimmed their hair,

Pierced their ears for gold hoop earrings
as it waxed or waned.
It shines tonight upon their graves.

And burned in the garden of Gethsemane,
its light made holy by the dazzling tears
with which it mingled.

And spread its radiance on the exile's path
of Him who was The Glorious One,
its light made holy by His holiness.

Already a mooted goal and tomorrow perhaps
an arms base, a livid sector,
the full moon dominates the dark.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Sonnets Pour Helene Book I: VI
-- Pierre Ronsard,

Among love’s pounding seas, for me there’s no support,

And I can see no light, and yet have no desires

(O desire too bold!) except, as my vessel tires,

That after such dangers I may still reach port.

Alas! Before I can offer my prayers ashore,

Shipwrecked, I die: for I only see one fire

Burning above me, one Helen who inspires

My vessel to seek its death on reefs so dire.

Drowning I am alone, my own self-murderer,

Choosing a child, a blind boy, as my leader,

So, I ought to shed tears, and blush for shame.

I don’t know if my reason or senses guide me,

Steering my boat, but I still know it grieves me

To see so fair a harbour yet not attain.

--- Pierre Ronsard



Note: Ronsard’s Helene, was Hélène de Surgères, a lady in waiting to Catherine de Médicis.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

To Help the Monkey Cross the River,

which he must
cross, by swimming, for fruits and nuts,
to help him
I sit with my rifle on a platform
high in a tree, same side of the river
as the hungry monkey. How does this assist
him? When he swims for it
I look first upriver: predators move faster with
the current than against it.
If a crocodile is aimed from upriver to eat the monkey
and an anaconda from downriver burns
with the same ambition, I do
the math, algebra, angles, rate-of-monkey,
croc- and snake-speed, and if, if
it looks as though the anaconda or the croc
will reach the monkey
before he attains the river’s far bank,
I raise my rifle and fire
one, two, three, even four times into the river
just behind the monkey
to hurry him up a little.
Shoot the snake, the crocodile?
They’re just doing their jobs,
but the monkey, the monkey
has little hands like a child’s,
and the smart ones, in a cage, can be taught to smile.

—Thomas Lux

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Nevertheless
- Poem by Marianne Moore


you've seen a strawberry
that's had a struggle; yet
was, where the fragments met,

a hedgehog or a star-
fish for the multitude
of seeds. What better food

than apple seeds - the fruit
within the fruit - locked in
like counter-curved twin

hazelnuts? Frost that kills
the little rubber-plant -
leaves of kok-sagyyz-stalks, can't

harm the roots; they still grow
in frozen ground. Once where
there was a prickley-pear -

leaf clinging to a barbed wire,
a root shot down to grow
in earth two feet below;

as carrots from mandrakes
or a ram's-horn root some-
times. Victory won't come

to me unless I go
to it; a grape tendril
ties a knot in knots till

knotted thirty times - so
the bound twig that's under-
gone and over-gone, can't stir.

The weak overcomes its
menace, the strong over-
comes itself. What is there

like fortitude! What sap
went through that little thread
to make the cherry red!


Marianne Moore

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

From Sunset to Star Rise
-------by Christina Rossetti
Go from me, summer friends, and tarry not:
I am no summer friend, but wintry cold,
A silly sheep benighted from the fold,
A sluggard with a thorn-choked garden plot.
Take counsel, sever from my lot your lot,
Dwell in your pleasant places, hoard your gold;
Lest you with me should shiver on the wold,
Athirst and hungering on a barren spot.
For I have hedged me with a thorny hedge,
I live alone, I look to die alone:
Yet sometimes, when a wind sighs through the sedge,
Ghosts of my buried years, and friends come back,
My heart goes sighing after swallows flown
On sometime summer's unreturning track

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Chanson Un Peu Naïve
by Louise Bogan
What body can be ploughed,
Sown, and broken yearly?
But she would not die, she vowed,
But she has, nearly.
Sing, heart sing;
Call and carol clearly.

And, since she could not die,
Care would be a feather,
A film over the eye
Of two that lie together.
Fly, song, fly,
Break your little tether.

So from strength concealed
She makes her pretty boast:
Plain is a furrow healed
And she may love you most.
Cry, song, cry,
And hear your crying lost.

This poet, tho' not as prolific as was Emily Dickinson, rates right up there with her in quality, depth and poetic genius, IMHO..--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

My Firstborn Picks an Apple



One day in apple country

on a small hill

dappled with afternoon,

the light stood still.



Windfall about our steps

dimpled the grass

eloquent in praise

of things that pass



while overhead the season

moved without haste

teaching a kind of patience

sweet to the taste.



Four of us linked together

combed that hillside,

your father and I,

you and your bride



sharing your single apple

down to the core,

ourselves whole as good fruit.

Who could ask more



than such an hour,

such hands to hold,

walking in apple weather,

harvesting gold?



Rhina P. Espaillat

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Away, haunt thou me not,

In A Lecture Room
- Poem by Arthur Hugh Clough

Thou vain Philosophy!
Little hast thou bestead,
Save to perplex the head,
And leave the spirit dead.
Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go,
While from the secret treasure-depths below,
Fed by the skyey shower,
And clouds that sink and rest on hilltops high,
Wisdom at once, and Power,
Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly?
Why labor at the dull mechanic oar,
When the fresh breeze is blowing,
And the strong current flowing,
Right onward to the Eternal Shore?
Arthur Hugh Clough

----------------------------------------------


Qua Cursum Ventus (As The Winds Blows)
- Poem by Arthur Hugh Clough

As ships, becalm'd at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day
Are scarce long leagues apart descried;

When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,
And all the darkling hours they plied,
Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas
By each was cleaving, side by side:

E'en so--but why the tale reveal
Of those whom, year by year unchang'd,
Brief absence join'd anew, to feel,
Astounded, soul from soul estrang'd?

At dead of night their sails were fill'd,
And onward each rejoicing steer'd--
Ah, neither blame, for neither will'd,
Or wist, what first with dawn appear'd!

To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,
Through winds and tides one compass guides--
To that, and your own selves, be true.

But O blithe breeze! and O great seas,
Though ne'er, that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare,--
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there!
Arthur Hugh Clough

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

In After Days
- Poem by Henry Austin Dobson

IN after days when grasses high
O'er-top the stone where I shall lie,
Though ill or well the world adjust
My slender claim to honour'd dust,
I shall not question nor reply.

I shall not see the morning sky;
I shall not hear the night-wind sigh;
I shall be mute, as all men must
In after days!

But yet, now living, fain would I
That some one then should testify,
Saying--'He held his pen in trust
To Art, not serving shame or lust.'
Will none?--Then let my memory die
In after days!
Henry Austin Dobson

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Sunday Morning
- Poem by Wallace Stevens

1

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

2

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measure destined for her soul.

3

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

4

She says, 'I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?'
There is not any haunt of prophecy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.

5

She says, 'But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss.'
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

6

Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

7

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

8

She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, 'The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.'
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Wallace Stevens

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Spring
- Poem by Charles Duke of Orleans


The year has changed his mantle cold
Of wind, of rain, of bitter air;
And he goes clad in cloth of gold,
Of laughing suns and season fair;
No bird or beast of wood or wold
But doth with cry or song declare
The year lays down his mantle cold.
All founts, all rivers, seaward rolled,
The pleasant summer livery wear,
With silver studs on broidered vair;
The world puts off its raiment old,
The year lays down his mantle cold.
Charles Duke of Orleans

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/all-that-s-past/


All That's Past
- Poem by Walter de la Mare


Very old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the brier's boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are--
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.
Very old are the brooks;
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone,
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.

Very old are we men;
Our dreams are tales
Told in dim Eden
By Eve's nightingales;
We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.
Walter de la Mare

************************************************** *********

https://www.poemhunter.com/walter-de-la-mare/biography/

Biography of Walter de la Mare
Walter de la Mare poet

Sir Walter de la Mare was born in Charlton, Kent, in the south of England, of well-to-do parents. His father, James Edward Delamaere, was an official of the Bank of England. His mother, Lucy Sophia (Browning) Delamare, was related to the poet Robert Browning. He was educated in London at St. Paul's Cathedral Choir School, which he left at age 16. From 1890 to 1908 he worked in London in the accounting department of the Anglo-American Oil Company. His career as a writer started from about 1895 and he continued to publish to the end of his life. His first published story, 'Kismet' (1895), appeared in the Sketch under the pseudonym Walter Ramal.

In 1908 de la Mare was awarded a yearly government pension of £100, and he devoted himself entirely to writing. He retired to Taplow in Buckinghamshire, where he lived with his wife, Constance Elfrida Ingpen, and four children. His son Richard became chairman of Faber & Faber, and published several of his father's books. In 1915 he became of of the legatees of his fellow poet Rupert Brooke. De la Mare received the CH in 1948, and the OM in 1953. He died at Twickenham, near London, on June 22, 1958. De la Mare is buried in St Paul's Cathedral.

His first stories and poems De la Mare wrote for periodicals, among others for The Sketch, and published in 1902 a collection of poetry, SONGS OF CHILDHOOD, under the name Walter Ramal. It attracted little notice. Subsequently De la Mare published many volumes of poetry for both adults and children. In 1904 appeared under his own name the prose romance HENRY BROCKEN, in which the young hero encounters writers form the past.

THE RETURN (1910) was an eerie story of spirit possession. Arthur Lawford suspects that an eighteenth-century pirate, Nicholas Sabathier, is seizing control of his personality. "'Here lie ye bones of one, Nicholas Sabathier,' he began murmuring again - 'merely bones, mind you; brains and heart are quite another story. And it's pretty certain the fellow had some kind of brains. Besides, poor devil, he killed himself. That seems to hint at brains..."

De la Mare's first successful book was The Listeners; the title poem is one of his most anthologized pieces. In the work supernatural presence haunts the solitary Traveller, the typical speaker of his poems: "Is there anybody there? said the Traveller, / Knocking on the moonlit door; / And his horse in the silence champed the grasses / Of the forest's ferny floor.... / But no one descended to the Traveller; / No head from the leaf-fringed sill / Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, / Where he stood perplexed and still." In 1923 he produced a collection of other people's poetry, COME HITHER. In his poems de la Mare has described the English sea and coast, the secret and hidden world of nature.

His favorite themes, childhood, death, dreams, commonplace objects and events, de la Mare examined with a touch of mystery and often with an undercurrent of melancholy. His novels have been reprinted many times in horror collections because of their sense of wonder, and also hidden malevolence. However, De la Mare did not have the morbid atmosphere of Poe, but his dreamlike visions had much similarities with Blake.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia Walter de la Mare; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.
Walter de la Mare Poems

The Listeners
"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grass Of the forest's ferny floor;
Silver
Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon; This way, and that, she peers, and sees Silver fruit upon silver trees;
Some One
Some one came knocking At my wee, small door; Someone came knocking; I'm sure-sure-sure;
Music
When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, And all her lovely things even lovelier grow; Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies.
Arabia
Far are the shades of Arabia, Where the Princes ride at noon, 'Mid the verdurous vales and thickets, Under the ghost of the moon;
Nicholas Nye
Thistle and darnell and dock grew there, And a bush, in the corner, of may, On the orchard wall I used to sprawl In the blazing heat of the day;
All That's Past
Very old are the woods; And the buds that break Out of the brier's boughs, When March winds wake,
A Song Of Enchantment
A song of Enchantment I sang me there, In a green-green wood, by waters fair, Just as the words came up to me I sang it under the wild wood tree.
An Epitaph
Here lies a most beautiful lady, Light of step and heart was she; I think she was the most beautiful lady That ever was in the West Country.
Alone
The abode of the nightingale is bare, Flowered frost congeals in the gelid air, The fox howls from his frozen lair: Alas, my loved one is gone,
AUTUMN (November)
There is a wind where the rose was, Cold rain where sweet grass was, And clouds like sheep Stream o'er the steep
The Ghost
Peace in thy hands, Peace in thine eyes, Peace on thy brow; Flower of a moment in the eternal hour,
Bones
Said Mr. Smith, “I really cannot Tell you, Dr. Jones— The most peculiar pain I’m in— I think it’s in my bones.”
Snow
No breath of wind, No gleam of sun – Still the white snow Whirls softly down

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poemhunter.com/ronald-stuart-thomas/

A Marriage
- Poem by Ronald Stuart Thomas

We met
under a shower
of bird-notes.
Fifty years passed,
love's moment
in a world in
servitude to time.
She was young;
I kissed with my eyes
closed and opened
them on her wrinkles.
`Come,' said death,
choosing her as his
partner for
the last dance, And she,
who in life
had done everything
with a bird's grace,
opened her bill now
for the shedding
of one sigh no
heavier than a feather.
Ronald Stuart Thomas

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.poemhunter.com/ronald-stuart-thomas/

A Blackbird Singing
- Poem by Ronald Stuart Thomas


It seems wrong that out of this bird,
Black, bold, a suggestion of dark
Places about it, there yet should come
Such rich music, as though the notes'
Ore were changed to a rare metal
At one touch of that bright bill.

You have heard it often, alone at your desk
In a green April, your mind drawn
Away from its work by sweet disturbance
Of the mild evening outside your room.

A slow singer, but loading each phrase
With history's overtones, love, joy
And grief learned by his dark tribe
In other orchards and passed on
Instinctively as they are now,
But fresh always with new tears.


Ronald Stuart Thomas
************************************************** *

https://www.poemhunter.com/ronald-stuart-thomas/

BIOGRAPHY
Ronald Stuart Thomas poet

Ronald Stuart Thomas was born in Cardiff in 1913, the son of a sea captain. He was educated at University College of North Wales and later undertook theological training at St Michael's College in Cardiff. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1936.

During his time as a rector he began to write poetry and verse. His writing career continued for fifty years during which time he produced twenty volumes of poetry and was nominated for a Nobel prize and awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Whilst religion, understandably, was one of the major themes of his work, he also wrote about nature and about Welsh history. Thomas was fervent and often outspoken Welsh patriot and even wrote his autobiography Nab (Nobody - 1985) in Welsh.

Thomas enjoyed working in the countryside and spent his whole time as a clergyman working in rural parishes. He retired in 1978. His first wife Elsi, by whom he had a son, died in 1991 after 51 years of marriage. He later married his second wife, Betty, who was with him until his death. He died at the age of 87 n 25th September 2000.

Whilst still remembered for his Welsh republican views, it is for his religious poetry that he is still held in high regard. Of his work, he said:

"My chief aim is to make a poem . You make it for yourself firstly, and then if other people want to join in... then there we are." His Collected Poems was published in 1993 and is still available today.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia Ronald Stuart Thomas; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.
Ronald Stuart Thomas Poems

The Dance
She is young. Have I the right Even to name her? Child, It is not love I offer
A Day In Autumn
It will not always be like this, The air windless, a few last Leaves adding their decoration To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs
Children's Song
We live in our own world, A world that is too small For you to stoop and enter Even on hands and knees,
Ninetieth Birthday
You go up the long track That will take a car, but is best walked On slow foot, noting the lichen That writes history on the page
A Blackbird Singing
It seems wrong that out of this bird, Black, bold, a suggestion of dark Places about it, there yet should come Such rich music, as though the notes'
A Marriage
We met under a shower of bird-notes.
A Welsh Testament
All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter? I spoke a tongue that was passed on To me in the place I happened to be, A place huddled between grey walls
A Peasant
Iago Prytherch his name, though, be it allowed, Just an ordinary man of the bald Welsh hills, Who pens a few sheep in a gap of cloud. Docking mangels, chipping the green skin
Welsh Landscape
To live in Wales is to be conscious At dusk of the spilled blood That went into the making of the wild sky, Dyeing the immaculate rivers
The Cat And The Sea
It is a matter of a black cat On a bare cliff top in March Whose eyes anticipate The gorse petals;
Here
I am a man now. Pass your hand over my brow. You can feel the place where the brains grow.
Pisces
Who said to the trout, You shall die on Good Friday To be food for a man And his pretty lady?
Death Of A Poet
Laid now on his smooth bed For the last time, watching dully Through heavy eyelids the day's colour Widow the sky, what can he say
Welsh History
We were a people taut for war; the hills Were no harder, the thin grass Clothed them more warmly than the coarse Shirts our small bones.

All poems of Ronald Stuart Thomas »

[LongTermGuy]

A Marriage
- Poem by Ronald Stuart Thomas

We met
under a shower
of bird-notes.
Fifty years passed,
love's moment
in a world in
servitude to time.
She was young;
I kissed with my eyes
closed and opened
them on her wrinkles.
`Come,' said death,
choosing her as his
partner for
the last dance, And she,
who in life
had done everything
with a bird's grace,
opened her bill now
for the shedding
of one sigh no
heavier than a feather.
Ronald Stuart Thomas

-------------------------------------------------------------------------


A Blackbird Singing
- Poem by Ronald Stuart Thomas


It seems wrong that out of this bird,
Black, bold, a suggestion of dark
Places about it, there yet should come
Such rich music, as though the notes'
Ore were changed to a rare metal
At one touch of that bright bill.

You have heard it often, alone at your desk
In a green April, your mind drawn
Away from its work by sweet disturbance
Of the mild evening outside your room.

A slow singer, but loading each phrase
With history's overtones, love, joy
And grief learned by his dark tribe
In other orchards and passed on
Instinctively as they are now,
But fresh always with new tears.


Ronald Stuart Thomas
************************************************** *


BIOGRAPHY
Ronald Stuart Thomas poet

Ronald Stuart Thomas was born in Cardiff in 1913, the son of a sea captain. He was educated at University College of North Wales and later undertook theological training at St Michael's College in Cardiff. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1936.

During his time as a rector he began to write poetry and verse. His writing career continued for fifty years during which time he produced twenty volumes of poetry and was nominated for a Nobel prize and awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Whilst religion, understandably, was one of the major themes of his work, he also wrote about nature and about Welsh history. Thomas was fervent and often outspoken Welsh patriot and even wrote his autobiography Nab (Nobody - 1985) in Welsh.

Thomas enjoyed working in the countryside and spent his whole time as a clergyman working in rural parishes. He retired in 1978. His first wife Elsi, by whom he had a son, died in 1991 after 51 years of marriage. He later married his second wife, Betty, who was with him until his death. He died at the age of 87 n 25th September 2000.

Whilst still remembered for his Welsh republican views, it is for his religious poetry that he is still held in high regard. Of his work, he said:

"My chief aim is to make a poem . You make it for yourself firstly, and then if other people want to join in... then there we are." His Collected Poems was published in 1993 and is still available today.

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia Ronald Stuart Thomas; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.
Ronald Stuart Thomas Poems

The Dance
She is young. Have I the right Even to name her? Child, It is not love I offer
A Day In Autumn
It will not always be like this, The air windless, a few last Leaves adding their decoration To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs
Children's Song
We live in our own world, A world that is too small For you to stoop and enter Even on hands and knees,
Ninetieth Birthday
You go up the long track That will take a car, but is best walked On slow foot, noting the lichen That writes history on the page
A Blackbird Singing
It seems wrong that out of this bird, Black, bold, a suggestion of dark Places about it, there yet should come Such rich music, as though the notes'
A Marriage
We met under a shower of bird-notes.
A Welsh Testament
All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter? I spoke a tongue that was passed on To me in the place I happened to be, A place huddled between grey walls
A Peasant
Iago Prytherch his name, though, be it allowed, Just an ordinary man of the bald Welsh hills, Who pens a few sheep in a gap of cloud. Docking mangels, chipping the green skin
Welsh Landscape
To live in Wales is to be conscious At dusk of the spilled blood That went into the making of the wild sky, Dyeing the immaculate rivers
The Cat And The Sea
It is a matter of a black cat On a bare cliff top in March Whose eyes anticipate The gorse petals;
Here
I am a man now. Pass your hand over my brow. You can feel the place where the brains grow.
Pisces
Who said to the trout, You shall die on Good Friday To be food for a man And his pretty lady?
Death Of A Poet
Laid now on his smooth bed For the last time, watching dully Through heavy eyelids the day's colour Widow the sky, what can he say
Welsh History
We were a people taut for war; the hills Were no harder, the thin grass Clothed them more warmly than the coarse Shirts our small bones.

All poems of Ronald Stuart Thomas »



Good Morning Tyr.....very nice!
http://media0.giphy.com/media/aMs2phB9gvHji/giphy.gif~ "It is a matter of a black cat On a bare cliff top in March Whose eyes anticipate The gorse petals;
Here
I am a man now. Pass your hand over my brow. You can feel the place where the brains grow.
Pisces...." ~

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-78/


Sonnet
- Poem by Arthur Davison Ficke

There are strange shadows fostered of the moon,
More numerous than the clear-cut shade of day….
Go forth, when all the leaves whisper of June,
Into the dusk of swooping bats at play;
Or go into that late November dusk
When hills take on the noble lines of death,
And on the air the faint, astringent musk
Of rotting leaves pours vaguely troubling breath.
Then shall you see shadows whereof the sun,
Knows nothing—aye, a thousand shadows there
Shall leap and flicker and stir and stay and run,
Like petrels of the changing foul or fair;
Like ghosts of twilight, of the moon, of him
Whose homeland lies past each horizon's rim….
Arthur Davison Ficke

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Helmsman
- Poem by Hilda Doolittle


O be swift—
we have always known you wanted us.

We fled inland with our flocks.
we pastured them in hollows,
cut off from the wind
and the salt track of the marsh.

We worshipped inland—
we stepped past wood-flowers,
we forgot your tang,
we brushed wood-grass.

We wandered from pine-hills
through oak and scrub-oak tangles,
we broke hyssop and bramble,
we caught flower and new bramble-fruit
in our hair: we laughed
as each branch whipped back,
we tore our feet in half-buried rocks
and knotted roots and acorn-cups.

We forgot—we worshipped,
we parted green from green,
we sought further thickets,
we dipped our ankles
through leaf-mould and earth,
and wood and wood-bank enchanted us—

and the feel of the clefts in the bark,
and the slope between tree and tree—
and a slender path strung field to field
and wood to wood
and hill to hill
and the forest after it.

We forgot—for a moment
tree-resin, tree-bark,
sweat of a torn branch
were sweet to taste.

We were enchanted with the fields,
the tufts of coarse grass—
in the shorter grass—
we loved all this.

But now, our boat climbs—hesitates—drops—
climbs—hesitates—crawls back—
climbs—hesitates—
O, be swift—
we have always known you wanted us.
Hilda Doolittle

************************************************** ************

https://www.poemhunter.com/hilda-doolittle/biography/


Biography of Hilda Doolittle
Hilda Doolittle poet

H.D. (born Hilda Doolittle) was an American poet, novelist and memoirist known for her association with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets such as Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington. The Imagist model was based on the idioms, rhythms and clarity of common speech, and freedom to choose subject matter as the writer saw fit. H.D.'s later writing developed on this aesthetic to incorporate a more female-centric version of modernism.

H.D. was born in Pennsylvania in 1886, and moved to London in 1911 where her publications earned her a central role within the then emerging Imagism movement. A charismatic figure, she was championed by the modernist poet Ezra Pound, who was instrumental in building and furthering her career. From 1916–17, she acted as the literary editor of the Egoist journal, while her poetry appeared in the English Review and the Transatlantic Review. During the First World War, H.D. suffered the death of her brother and the breakup of her marriage to the poet Richard Aldington, and these events weighed heavily on her later poetry. Glenn Hughes, the authority on Imagism, said of her 'her loneliness cries out from her poems. She had a deep interest in Ancient Greek literature, and her poetry often borrowed from Greek mythology and classical poets. Her work is noted for its incorporation of natural scenes and objects, which are often used to emote a particular feeling or mood.

She befriended Sigmund Freud during the 1930s, and became his patient in order to understand and express her bisexuality.

H.D. married once, and undertook a number of heterosexual and lesbian relationships. She was unapologetic about her sexuality, and thus became an icon for both the gay rights and feminist movements when her poems, plays, letters and essays were rediscovered during the 1970s and 1980s. This period saw a wave of feminist literature on the gendering of Modernism and psychoanalytical misogyny, by a generation of writers who saw her as an early icon of the feminist movement.

Career

Early life

Hilda Doolittle was born into the Moravian community in Bethlehem in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. Her father, Charles Doolittle, was professor of astronomy at Lehigh University and her mother, Helen (Wolle), was a Moravian with a strong interest in music. In 1896, Charles Doolittle was appointed Flower Professor of Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania, and the family moved to a house in Upper Darby, an affluent Philadelphia suburb. She attended Philadelphia's Friends Central High School, at Fifteenth and Race streets, graduating in 1905. In 1901, she met and befriended Ezra Pound, who was to play a major role both in her private life and her emergence as a writer. In 1905, Pound presented her with a sheaf of love poems under the collective title Hilda's Book.

That year, Doolittle attended Bryn Mawr College to study Greek literature, but left after only three terms due to poor grades and the excuse of poor health. While at the college, she met the poets Marianne Moore and William Carlos Williams. Her first published writings, some stories for children, were published in The Comrade, a Philadelphia Presbyterian Church paper, between 1909 and 1913, mostly under the name Edith Gray. In 1907, she became engaged to Pound. Her father disapproved of Pound,] and by the time her father left for Europe in 1908, the engagement had been called off. Around this time, H.D. started a relationship with a young female art student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Frances Josepha Gregg. After spending part of 1910 living in Greenwich Village, she sailed to Europe with Gregg and Gregg's mother in 1911. In Europe, H.D. began a more serious career as a writer. Her relationship with Gregg cooled, and she met a writing enthusiast named Brigit Patmore with whom she became involved in an affair. Patmore introduced H.D. to another poet, Richard Aldington.

H.D. Imagiste

Soon after arriving in England, H.D. showed Pound some poems she had written. Pound had already begun to meet with other poets at the Eiffel Tower restaurant in Soho. He was impressed by the closeness of H.D. poems's to the ideas and principles he had been discussing with Aldington, with whom he had shared plans to reform contemporary poetry through free verse, the tanka and the tightness and conciseness of the haiku, and the removal of all unnecessary verbiage. In summer 1912, the three poets declared themselves the "three original Imagists", and set out their principles as:
Direct treatment of the 'thing' whether subjective or objective.
To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.
As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of a metronome.

During a meeting with H.D. in a tea room near the British Museum that year, Pound appended the signature H.D. Imagiste to her poetry, creating a label that was to stick to the poet for most of her writing life. However H.D. told different versions of this story at various times, and during her career published under a variety of pseudonyms. That same year, Harriet Monroe started her Poetry magazine and asked Pound to act as foreign editor. In October, he submitted three poems each by H.D. and Aldington under the rubric Imagiste. Aldington's poems were in the November issue of Poetry and her poems "Hermes of the Ways," "Orchard," and "Epigram", in the January 1913 issue. Imagism as a movement was launched with H.D. as its prime exponent.

The early models for the Imagist group were from Japan, and H.D. often visited the exclusive Print Room at the British Museum in the company of Richard Aldington and the curator and poet Laurence Binyon in order to examine Nishiki-e prints that incorporated traditional Japanese verse. However, she also derived her way of making poems from her reading of Classical Greek literature and especially of Sappho, an interest she shared with Aldington and Pound, each of whom produced versions of the Greek poet's work. In 1915, H.D. and Aldington launched the Poets' Translation Series, pamphlets of translations from Greek and Latin classics. H.D. worked on the plays by Euripides, publishing in 1916 a translation of choruses from Iphigeneia at Aulis, in 1919 a translation of choruses from Iphigeneia at Aulis and Hippolytus, an adaptation of Hippolytus called Hippolytus Temporizes (1927), a translation of choruses from The Bacchae and Hecuba (1931), and Euripides' Ion (1937) a loose translation of Ion.

She continued her association with the group until the final issue of the Some Imagist Poets anthology in 1917. She and Aldington did most of the editorial work on the 1915 anthology. Her work also appeared in Aldington's Imagist Anthology 1930. All of her poetry up to the end of the 1930s was written in an Imagist mode, utilising spare use of language, and a classical, austere purity. This style of writing was not without its critics. In a special Imagist issue of The Egoist magazine in May 1915, the poet and critic Harold Monro called H.D.'s early work "petty poetry", denoting "either poverty of imagination or needlessly excessive restraint".

Oread, one of her earliest and best-known poems, which was first published in the 1915 anthology, illustrates this early style:

Whirl up, sea—
Whirl your pointed pines.
Splash your great pines
On our rocks.
Hurl your green over us—
Cover us with your pools of fir.

World War I and after

Before World War I, H.D. married Aldington in 1913; however, their first and only child, a daughter, was stillborn in 1915. Aldington enlisted in the army. The couple became estranged and Aldington reportedly took a mistress in 1917. H.D.

became involved in a close but platonic relationship with D. H. Lawrence. In 1916, her first book, Sea Garden, was published and she was appointed assistant editor of The Egoist, replacing her husband. In 1918, her brother Gilbert was killed in action, and that March she moved into a cottage in Cornwall with the composer Cecil Gray, a friend of Lawrence's. She became pregnant with Gray's child, however, by the time she realised she was expecting, the relationship had cooled and Gray had returned to live in London. When Aldington returned from active service he was noticeably traumatised, and he and H.D. later separated.

Close to the end of the war, H.D. met the wealthy English novelist Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellerman). They lived together until 1946, and although both took numerous other partners, Bryher remained her lover for the rest of H.D.'s life. In 1919, H.D. came close to death when she gave birth to her daughter Frances Perdita Aldington—although the father was not Aldington, but Gray—while suffering from war influenza. During this time, her father, who had never recovered from Gilbert's death, died. In 1919, H.D. wrote one of her few known statements on poetics, Notes on Thought and Vision, which was unpublished until 1982. In this, she speaks of poets (herself included) as belonging to a kind of elite group of visionaries with the power to 'turn the whole tide of human thought'.

H.D. and Aldington attempted to salvage their relationship during this time, but he was suffering from the effects of his participation in the war, possibly post-traumatic stress disorder, and they became estranged, living completely separate lives, but not divorcing until 1938. They remained friends, however, for the rest of their lives. From 1920, her relationship with Bryher became closer and the pair travelled in Egypt, Greece and the United States before eventually settling in Switzerland. Bryher entered a marriage of convenience in 1921 with Robert McAlmon, which allowed him to fund his publishing ventures in Paris by utilising some of her personal wealth for his Contact Press.Both Bryher and H.D. slept with McAlmon during this time. Bryher and McAlmon divorced in 1927.

Novels, films and psychoanalysis

In the early 1920s, H.D. started to write three projected cycles of novels. The first of these, Magna Graeca, consists of Palimpsest (1921) and Hedylus (1928). The Magna Graeca novels use their classical settings to explore the poetic vocation, particularly as it applies to women in a patriarchal literary culture. The Madrigal cycle consists of HERmione, Bid Me to Live, Paint It Today and Asphodel, and is largely autobiographical, dealing with the development of the female artist and the conflict between heterosexual and lesbian desire. Kora and Ka and The Usual Star, two novellas from the Borderline cycle, were published in 1933. In this period, she also wrote Pilate's Wife, Mira-Mare, and Nights.

During this period her mother had died and Bryher had divorced her husband, only to marry H.D.'s new male lover, Kenneth Macpherson. H.D., Bryher, and Macpherson lived together and traveled through Europe as what the poet and critic Barbara Guest termed in her biography of H.D. as a 'menagerie of three'. Bryher and Macpherson adopted H.D.'s daughter, Perdita. In 1928, H.D. became pregnant but chose to abort the pregnancy in November. Bryher and Macpherson set up the magazine Close Up (to which H.D. regularly contributed) as a medium for intellectual discussion of cinema. In 1927, the small independent film cinema group POOL or Pool Group was established (largely funded with Bryher's inheritance) and was managed by all three. Only one POOL film survives in its entirety, Borderline (1930), which featured H.D. and Paul Robeson in the lead roles. In common with the Borderline novellas, the film explores extreme psychic states and their relationship to surface reality. As well as acting in this film, H.D. wrote an explanatory pamphlet to accompany it, a piece later published in Close Up.

In 1933, H.D. traveled to Vienna to undergo analysis with Sigmund Freud. She had an interest in Freud's theories as far back as 1909, when she read some of his works in the original German. H.D. was referred by Bryher's psychoanalyst due to her increasing paranoia about the rise of Adolf Hitler which indicated another world war, an idea that H.D. found intolerable. The Great War (World War I) had left her feeling shattered. She had lost her brother in action, while her husband suffered effects of combat experiences, and she believed that the onslaught of the war indirectly caused the death of her child with Aldington: she believed it was her shock at hearing the news about the RMS Lusitania that directly caused her miscarriage. Writing on the Wall, her memoir about this psychoanalysis, was written concurrently with Trilogy and published in 1944; in 1956 it was republished with Advent, a journal of the analysis, under the title Tribute to Freud.

World War II and after

H.D. and Bryher spent the duration of World War II in London. During this time, H.D. wrote The Gift, a memoir of her childhood and family life in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which reflects on people and events in her background that helped shape her as a writer. The Gift was eventually published in 1960 and 1982. She also wrote Trilogy, published as The Walls do not Fall (1944), Tribute to the Angels (1945) and The Flowering of the Rod (1946). The opening lines of The Walls do not Fall clearly and immediately signal H.D.'s break with her earlier work:

An incident here and there,
and rails gone (for guns)
from your (and my) old town square.

After the war, H.D. and Bryher no longer lived together, but remained in contact. H.D. moved to Switzerland where, in the spring of 1946, she suffered a severe mental breakdown which resulted in her staying in a clinic until the autumn of that year. Apart from a number of trips to the States, H.D. spent the rest of her life in Switzerland. In the late 1950s, she underwent more treatment, this time with the psychoanalyst Erich Heydt. At Heydt's prompting, she wrote End to Torment, a memoir of her relationship with Pound, who allowed the poems of Hilda's Book to be included when the book was published. Doolittle was one of the leading figures in the bohemian culture of London in the early decades of the century. Her later poetry explores traditional epic themes, such as violence and war, from a feminist perspective. H.D. was the first woman to be granted the American Academy of Arts and Letters medal.

Later life and death

During the 1950s, H.D. wrote a considerable amount of poetry, most notably Helen in Egypt (written between 1952–54), an examination from a feminist point of view of a male-centred epic poetry. H.D. used Euripides's play Helen as a starting point for a reinterpretation of the basis of the Trojan War and, by extension, of war itself. This work has been seen by some critics, including Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas, as H.D.'s response to Pound's Cantos, a work she greatly admired. Other poems from this period include Sagesse, Winter Love and Hermetic Definition. These three were published posthumously with the collective title Hermetic Definition (1972). The poem Hermetic Definition takes as its starting points her love for a man 30 years her junior and the line 'so slow is the rose to open' from Pound's Canto 106. Sagesse, written in bed after H.D. had broken her hip in a fall, serves as a kind of coda to Trilogy, being partly written in the voice of a young female Blitz survivor who finds herself living in fear of the atom bomb. Winter Love was written together with End to Torment and uses as narrator the Homeric figure of Penelope to restate the material of the memoir in poetic form. At one time, H.D. considered appending this poem as a coda to Helen in Egypt.

H.D. visited the United States in 1960 to collect an American Academy of Arts and Letters medal. Returning to Switzerland, she suffered a stroke in July 1961 and died a couple of months later in the Klinik Hirslanden in Zürich. Her ashes were returned to Bethlehem, and were buried in the family plot in the Nisky Hill Cemetery on October 28, 1961. Her epitaph consists of the following lines from her early poem "Let Zeus Record":

So you may say,
Greek flower; Greek ecstasy
reclaims forever
one who died
following intricate song's
lost measure.

Legacy

The rediscovery of H.D. began in the 1970s, and coincided with the emergence of a feminist criticism that found much to admire in the questioning of gender roles typical of her writings. Specifically, those critics who were challenging the standard view of English-language literary modernism based on the work of such male writers as Pound, Eliot and James Joyce, were able to restore H.D. to a more significant position in the history of that movement. Her writings have served as a model for a number of more recent women poets working in the modernist tradition; including the New York School poet Barbara Guest, the Anglo-American poet Denise Levertov, the Black Mountain poet Hilda Morley and the Language poet Susan Howe. Her influence is not limited to female poets, and many male writers, including Robert Duncan and Robert Creeley, have acknowledged their debt.

Hilda Doolittle's Works:

Poems

"Eurydice"
"Sea Rose"
"Garden"
"Mid-day"
"Hermes of the Ways"
"The Helmsman"
"Helen"
"Oread"
"Heat"

Poetry collections

Sea Garden (1916)
The God (1917)
Translations (1920)
Hymen (1921)
Heliodora and Other Poems (1924)
Hippolytus Temporizes (1927)
Red Roses for Bronze (1932)
The Walls Do Not Fall (1944)
Tribute to the Angels (1945)
Trilogy (1946)
Flowering of the Rod (1946)
By Avon River (1949)
Helen in Egypt, New Directions (1961)
Hermetic Definition, New Directions (1972)

Prose

Notes on Thought and Vision (1919)
Paint it Today (written 1921, published 1992)
Asphodel (written 1921-22, published 1992)
Palimpsest (1926)
Kora and Ka (1930)
Nights (1935)
The Hedgehog (1936)
Tribute to Freud (1956)
Bid Me to Live (1960)
End to Torment: A Memoir of Ezra Pound, New Directions (1979)
HERmione, New Directions (1981)
The Gift, New Directions (1982)
Majic Ring (written 1943-44, published 2009)
The Sword Went Out to Sea (written 1946-47, published 2007)
White Rose and the Red (written 1948, published 2009)
The Mystery (written 1948-51, published 2009)

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia Hilda Doolittle; it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the CC-BY-SA.
Hilda Doolittle Poems

Helen
All Greece hates the still eyes in the white face, the lustre as of olives where she stands,
Sea Rose
Rose, harsh rose, marred and with stint of petals, meagre flower, thin, sparse of leaf,
Adonis
1. Each of us like you has died once,
The Mysteries Remain
The mysteries remain, I keep the same cycle of seed-time and of sun and rain;
Pear Tree
Silver dust lifted from the earth, higher than my arms reach, you have mounted.
Oread
Whirl up, sea— Whirl your pointed pines. Splash your great pines On our rocks.
Sheltered Garden
I have had enough. I gasp for breath. Every way ends, every road,
Leda
Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak,
Sea Poppies
Amber husk fluted with gold, fruit on the sand marked with a rich grain,
Heat
O wind, rend open the heat, cut apart the heat, rend it to tatters.
At Baia
I should have thought in a dream you would have brought some lovely, perilous thing, orchids piled in a great sheath,
The Pool
Are you alive? I touch you. You quiver like a sea-fish. I cover you with my net.
At Ithaca
Over and back, the long waves crawl and track the sand with foam; night darkens, and the sea
Acon
Bear me to Dictaeus, and to the steep slopes; to the river Erymanthus.

My friends , this is brilliant poetry from a magnificent poetic mind, a writing genius, IMHO...-TYR

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47374/the-congo-a-study-of-the-negro-race


The Congo: A Study of the Negro Race
---- By Vachel Lindsay

I. THEIR BASIC SAVAGERY
Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, BOOM,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.
THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision.
I could not turn from their revel in derision.
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
CUTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.
Then along that riverbank
A thousand miles
Tattooed cannibals danced in files;
Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song
And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong.
And “BLOOD” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors,
“BLOOD” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors,
“Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle,
Harry the uplands,
Steal all the cattle,
Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle,
Bing.
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,”
A roaring, epic, rag-time tune
From the mouth of the Congo
To the Mountains of the Moon.
Death is an Elephant,
Torch-eyed and horrible,
Foam-flanked and terrible.
BOOM, steal the pygmies,
BOOM, kill the Arabs,
BOOM, kill the white men,
HOO, HOO, HOO.
Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.
Listen to the creepy proclamation,
Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation,
Blown past the white-ants’ hill of clay,
Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play: —
“Be careful what you do,
Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo,
And all of the other
Gods of the Congo,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.”

II. THEIR IRREPRESSIBLE HIGH SPIRITS
Wild crap-shooters with a whoop and a call
Danced the juba in their gambling-hall
And laughed fit to kill, and shook the town,
And guyed the policemen and laughed them down
With a boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
CUTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.
A negro fairyland swung into view,
A minstrel river
Where dreams come true.
The ebony palace soared on high
Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky.
The inlaid porches and casements shone
With gold and ivory and elephant-bone.
And the black crowd laughed till their sides were sore
At the baboon butler in the agate door,
And the well-known tunes of the parrot band
That trilled on the bushes of that magic land.

A troupe of skull-faced witch-men came
Through the agate doorway in suits of flame,
Yea, long-tailed coats with a gold-leaf crust
And hats that were covered with diamond-dust.
And the crowd in the court gave a whoop and a call
And danced the juba from wall to wall.
But the witch-men suddenly stilled the throng
With a stern cold glare, and a stern old song: —
“Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.” ...
Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes,
Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats,
Canes with a brilliant lacquer shine,
And tall silk hats that were red as wine.
And they pranced with their butterfly partners there,
Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair,
Knee-skirts trimmed with the jassamine sweet,
And bells on their ankles and little black-feet.
And the couples railed at the chant and the frown
Of the witch-men lean, and laughed them down.
(O rare was the revel, and well worth while
That made those glowering witch-men smile.)

The cake-walk royalty then began
To walk for a cake that was tall as a man
To the tune of “Boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,”
While the witch-men laughed, with a sinister air,
And sang with the scalawags prancing there: —
“Walk with care, walk with care,
Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo,
And all the other
Gods of the Congo,
Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.
Beware, beware, walk with care,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom.
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom.
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom.
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay,
BOOM.”
Oh rare was the revel, and well worth while
That made those glowering witch-men smile.

III. THE HOPE OF THEIR RELIGION
A good old negro in the slums of the town
Preached at a sister for her velvet gown.
Howled at a brother for his low-down ways,
His prowling, guzzling, sneak-thief days.
Beat on the Bible till he wore it out
Starting the jubilee revival shout.
And some had visions, as they stood on chairs,
And sang of Jacob, and the golden stairs,
And they all repented, a thousand strong
From their stupor and savagery and sin and wrong
And slammed with their hymn books till they shook the room
With “glory, glory, glory,”
And “Boom, boom, BOOM.”
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
CUTTING THROUGH THE FOREST WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.
And the gray sky opened like a new-rent veil
And showed the Apostles with their coats of mail.
In bright white steel they were seated round
And their fire-eyes watched where the Congo wound.
And the twelve Apostles, from their thrones on high
Thrilled all the forest with their heavenly cry: —
“Mumbo-Jumbo will die in the jungle;
Never again will he hoo-doo you,
Never again will he hoo-doo you.”

Then along that river, a thousand miles
The vine-snared trees fell down in files.
Pioneer angels cleared the way
For a Congo paradise, for babes at play,
For sacred capitals, for temples clean.
Gone were the skull-faced witch-men lean.
There, where the wild ghost-gods had wailed
A million boats of the angels sailed
With oars of silver, and prows of blue
And silken pennants that the sun shone through.
’Twas a land transfigured, ’twas a new creation.
Oh, a singing wind swept the negro nation
And on through the backwoods clearing flew: —
“Mumbo-Jumbo is dead in the jungle.
Never again will he hoo-doo you.
Never again will he hoo-doo you.

Redeemed were the forests, the beasts and the men,
And only the vulture dared again
By the far, lone mountains of the moon
To cry, in the silence, the Congo tune:—
“Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you,
“Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.
Mumbo ... Jumbo ... will ... hoo-doo ... you.”

************************************************** ****


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vachel_Lindsay

Vachel Lindsay
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vachel Lindsay
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay 1913.jpg
Lindsay in 1913
Born November 10, 1879
Springfield, Illinois, United States
Died December 5, 1931 (aged 52)
Springfield, Illinois, United States
Occupation Poet

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (/ˈveɪtʃəl ˈlɪnzi/; November 10, 1879 – December 5, 1931) was an American poet. He is considered a founder of modern singing poetry, as he referred to it, in which verses are meant to be sung or chanted.

Contents

1 Early years
2 Beginnings as a poet
3 Poetry as performance
4 Attitudes towards race
5 Later years
5.1 Fame
5.2 Marriage, children and financial troubles
5.3 Suicide
5.4 Legacy
5.4.1 Literary
5.4.2 Archives etc
6 Selected works
7 References and notes
8 External links

Early years

Lindsay was born in Springfield, Illinois where his father, Vachel Thomas Lindsay, worked as a medical doctor and had amassed considerable financial resources. The Lindsays lived across the street from the Illinois Executive Mansion, home of the Governor of Illinois. The location of his childhood home influenced Lindsay, and one of his poems, "The Eagle Forgotten", eulogizes Illinois governor John P. Altgeld, whom Lindsay admired for his courage in pardoning the anarchists involved in the Haymarket Affair, despite the strong protests of US President Grover Cleveland.

Growing up in Springfield influenced Lindsay in other ways, as evidenced in such poems as "On the Building of Springfield" and culminating in poems praising Springfield's most famous resident, Abraham Lincoln. In "Lincoln", Lindsay exclaims, "Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all!" In his 1914 poem "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight (In Springfield, Illinois)", Lindsay specifically places Lincoln in Springfield, with the poem's opening:

It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest...

Lindsay studied medicine at Ohio's Hiram College from 1897 to 1900, but he did not want to be a doctor; his parents were pressuring him toward medicine. Once he wrote to them that he wasn't meant to be a doctor but a painter; they wrote back saying that doctors can draw pictures in their free time. He left Hiram anyway, heading to Chicago to study at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1900 to 1903. In 1904 he left to attend the New York School of Art (now The New School) to study pen and ink. Lindsay remained interested in art for the rest of his life, drawing illustrations for some of his poetry. His art studies also probably led him to appreciate the new art form of silent film.[1] His 1915 book The Art of the Moving Picture is generally considered the first book of film criticism, according to critic Stanley Kauffmann, discussing Lindsay in For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism.
Beginnings as a poet
Vachel Lindsay in 1912

While in New York in 1905 Lindsay turned to poetry in earnest. He tried to sell his poems on the streets. Self-printing his poems, he began to barter a pamphlet titled "Rhymes To Be Traded For Bread", which he traded for food as a self-perceived modern version of a medieval troubadour.

From March to May, 1906, Lindsay traveled roughly 600 miles on foot from Jacksonville, Florida, to Kentucky, again trading his poetry for food and lodging. From April to May, 1908, Lindsay undertook another poetry-selling trek, walking from New York City to Hiram, Ohio.

From May to September 1912 he traveled — again on foot — from Illinois to New Mexico, trading his poems for food and lodging. During this last trek, Lindsay composed his most famous poem, "The Congo". Going through Kansas, he was supposedly so successful that "he had to send money home to keep his pockets empty".[2] On his return, Harriet Monroe published in Poetry magazine first his poem "General William Booth Enters into Heaven" in 1913 and then "The Congo" in 1914. At this point, Lindsay became very well known.
Poetry as performance

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Unlike Lindsay’s more purely intellectual contemporaries, the poet declaimed his works from the stage, complete with the extravagant gestures of a carnival barker and old time preacher, from the beginning declaring himself to be a product of what he termed ‘Higher Vaudeville’: “I think that my first poetic impulse is for music; second a definite conception with the ring of the universe...” (Vachel Lindsay, Edgar Lee Masters 1935, page 62) This is evidenced by the 1931 recording he made just before his suicide, his still-radical performances of ‘The Mysterious Cat’, ‘The Flower-Fed Buffaloes’ and parts of ‘The Congo’ exhibiting a fiery and furious, zany, at times incoherent delivery that appears to have owed more to jazz than poetry, though the highly religious Lindsay was always reluctant to align himself thus.

Part of the success and great fame that Lindsay achieved — albeit briefly — was due to the singular manner in which he presented his poetry "fundamentally as a performance, as an aural and temporal experience...meant...to be chanted, whispered, belted out, sung, amplified by gesticulation and movement, and punctuated by shouts and whoops." [2]

Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle,
Harry the uplands,
Steal all the cattle,
Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle,
Bing.
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, Boom...
The Congo[3]

His best-known poem, "The Congo," exemplified his revolutionary aesthetic of sound for sound's sake. It imitates the pounding of the drums in the rhythms and in onomatopoeic nonsense words. At parts, the poem ceases to use conventional words when representing the chants of Congo's indigenous people, relying just on sound alone.

Lindsay's extensive correspondence with the poet W. B. Yeats details his intentions of reviving the musical qualities of poetry as they were practiced by the ancient Greeks. Because of his identity as a performance artist and his use of American midwestern themes, Lindsay became known in the 1910s as the "Prairie Troubador."

In the final twenty years of his life, Lindsay was one of the best known poets in the U.S. His reputation enabled him to befriend, encourage and mentor other poets, such as Langston Hughes and Sara Teasdale. His poetry, though, lacked elements which encouraged the attention of academic scholarship, and, after his death, he became an obscure figure.
Attitudes towards race

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Most contemporaries acknowledged Lindsay's intention to be an advocate for African-Americans.[4] This intention was particularly evident in the 1918 poem "The Jazz Birds", praising the war efforts of African-Americans during World War I, an issue to which the vast majority of the white US seemed blind. Additionally, W.E.B. Du Bois hailed Lindsay's story "The Golden-Faced People" for its insights into racism. Lindsay saw himself as anti-racist not only in his own writing but in his encouragement of a writer; he credited himself with discovering Langston Hughes, who, while working as a busboy at a Washington, D.C., was at the restaurant where Lindsay ate and gave Lindsay copies of his poems.[4]

However, many contemporaries and later critics have contended over whether a couple of Lindsay's poems should be seen as homages to African and African-American music, as perpetuation of the "savage African" stereotype, or as both. DuBois, before reading and praising "the Golden-Faced People," wrote in a review of Lindsay's "Booker T. Washington Trilogy" that "Lindsay knows two things, and two things only, about Negroes: The beautiful rhythm of their music and the ugly side of their drunkards and outcasts. From this poverty of material he tries now and then to make a contribution to Negro literature." DuBois also criticized "The Congo," which has been the most persistent focus of the criticisms of racial stereotyping in Lindsay's work.

Subtitled "A Study of the Negro Race" and beginning with a section titled "Their Basic Savagery", "The Congo" reflects the tensions within a relatively isolated and pastoral society suddenly confronted by the industrialized world. The poem was inspired by a sermon preached in October 1913 that detailed the drowning of a missionary in the Congo River; this event had drawn worldwide criticism, as had the colonial exploitation of the Congo under the government of Leopold II of Belgium. Lindsay defended the poem; in a letter to Joel Spingarn, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the NAACP, Lindsay wrote that "My 'Congo' and 'Booker T. Washington Trilogy' have both been denounced by the Colored people for reasons that I cannot fathom.... The third section of 'The Congo' is certainly as hopeful as any human being dare to be in regard to any race." Spingarn responded by acknowledging Lindsay's good intentions, but saying that Lindsay sometimes glamorized differences between people of African descent and people of other races, while many African-Americans wished to emphasize the "feelings and desires" that they held in common with others.[5]

Similarly, critics in academia often portray Lindsay as a well-meaning but misguided primitivist in his representations of Africans and African Americans. One such critic, Rachel DuPlessis, argues that the poem, while perhaps meant to be "hopeful," actually "others" Africans as an inherently violent race. In the poem and in Lindsay's defenses of it, DuPlessis hears Lindsay warning white readers not to be "hoo-doo'd" or seduced by violent African "mumbo jumbo." This warning seems to suggest that white civilization has been "infected" by African violence; Lindsay thus, in effect, "blames blacks for white violence directed against them." [5] Conversely, Susan Gubar notes approvingly that "the poem contains lines blaming black violence on white imperialism." While acknowledging that the poem seems to have given its author and audiences an excuse to indulge in "'romantic racism' or 'slumming in slang,'" she also observes that Lindsay was "much more liberal than many of his poetic contemporaries," and that he seems to have intended a statement against the kind of racist violence perpetrated under Leopold in the Congo.[5]
Later years
Fame

Lindsay's fame as a poet grew in the 1910s. Because Harriet Monroe showcased him with two other Illinois poets — Carl Sandburg and Edgar Lee Masters — his name became linked to theirs. The success of either of the other two, in turn, seemed to help the third.

Edgar Lee Masters published a biography of Lindsay in 1935 (four years after its subject's death) entitled 'Vachel Lindsay: A Poet in America'.

Lindsay himself indicated in the 1915 preface to "The Congo" that no less a figure than William Butler Yeats respected his work. Yeats felt they shared a concern for capturing the sound of the primitive and of singing in poetry. In 1915, Lindsay gave a poetry reading to President Woodrow Wilson and the entire Cabinet.[citation needed]
Marriage, children and financial troubles

Lindsay's private life was rife with disappointments, such as his unsuccessful courtship in 1914 of fellow poet Sara Teasdale before she married rich businessman Ernst Filsinger. While this itself may have caused Lindsay to become more concerned with money, his financial pressures would greatly increase later on.

In 1924 he moved to Spokane, Washington, where he lived in room 1129 of the Davenport Hotel until 1929. On May 19, 1925, at age 45, he married 23-year-old Elizabeth Connor. The new pressure to support his considerably younger wife escalated as she bore him daughter Susan Doniphan Lindsay in May 1926 and son Nicholas Cave Lindsay in September 1927.

Desperate for money, Lindsay undertook an exhausting string of readings throughout the East and Midwest from October 1928 through March 1929. During this time, Poetry magazine awarded him a lifetime achievement award of $500 (equivalent to about $6974 in 2012 dollars). In April 1929, Lindsay and his family moved to the house of his birth in Springfield, Illinois, an expensive undertaking. In that same year, coinciding with the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Lindsay published two more poetry volumes: The Litany of Washington Street and Every Soul A Circus. He gained money by doing odd jobs throughout but in general earned very little during his travels.
Suicide

Crushed by financial worry and in failing health from his six-month road trip, Lindsay sank into depression. On December 5, 1931, he committed suicide by drinking a bottle of Lysol. His last words were: "They tried to get me; I got them first!"[6]
Legacy
Literary

Lindsay, a versatile and prolific writer and poet, helped to 'keep alive the appreciation of poetry as a spoken art' [7] whose 'poetry was said to 'abound in meter and rhymes and is no shredded prose'[8] had a traditional verse structure[9] and was described by a contemporary in 1924 as 'pungent phrases, clinging cadences, dramatic energy, comic thrust, lyric seriousness and tragic intensity.[10]Lindsay's biographer, Dennis Camp records that 'Lindsay's ideas on 'civic beauty and civic tolerance' ,were published in 1912 in his broadside ' The Gospel of Beauty' and that later,in 1915, Lindsay published the first American study of film as an art form, 'The Art of The Moving Picture and notes on Lindsay's tombstone is recorded a single word, 'Poet'.[11]
Archives etc

Today the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency helps to maintain the Vachel Lindsay House at 603 South Fifth Street in Springfield, the site of Lindsay's birth and death. The agency has donated the home to the state, which then closed it to restore the home at a cost of $1.5 million. As of October 8, 2014, the site is now again open to the public giving full guided tours for those who choose to ring the bell on Thursday to Sunday, from 1 to 5 pm. Lindsay's grave lies in Oak Ridge Cemetery. The bridge crossing the midpoint of Lake Springfield, built in 1934, is named in Lindsay's honor.[12]

The massive Vachel Lindsay Archive resides at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia, and comprises his personal papers, manuscripts of his works, correspondence, photographs, artworks, printing blocks, books from his personal library, and a comprehensive collection of books by and about Lindsay. The Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College holds a small collection of manuscripts and other items sent by Lindsay to Eugenia Graham.
Selected works

"Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight"
"An Indian Summer Day on the Prairie"
"A Rhyme About an Electrical Advertising Sign"
"A Sense of Humor"
"Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan"
"The Dandelion"
"Drying Their Wings"
"Euclid"
"Factory Windows are Always Broken"
"The Flower-Fed Buffaloes"
"General William Booth Enters Into Heaven" — the American Classical Composer Charles Ives would write music to this poem (with a couple of additional text alterations) shortly after its publication
"In Praise of Johnny Appleseed"
"The Kallyope Yell" — see calliope for references
"The Leaden-Eyed"
"Love and Law"
"The Mouse That Gnawed the Oak Tree Down"
"The North Star Whispers to the Blacksmith's Son"
"On the Garden Wall"
"The Prairie Battlements"
The Golden Book of Springfield
"Prologue to "Rhymes to be Traded for Bread" "
"The Congo: A Study of the Negro Race"
"The Eagle That is Forgotten"
"The Firemen's Ball"
"The Rose of Midnight"
"This Section is a Christmas Tree"
"To Gloriana"
"What Semiramis Said"
"What the Ghost of the Gambler Said"
"Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket"
"Written for a Musician"

References and notes

Solbert, Oscar N.; Newhall, Beaumont; Card, James G., eds. (April 1953). "Vachel Lindsey on Film" (PDF). Image, Journal of Photography of George Eastman House. Rochester, N.Y.: International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House Inc. 2 (4): 23–24. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
"A modern troubadour". The Independent. Dec 28, 1914. Retrieved July 28, 2012.
"The Congo and Other Poems, by Vachel Lindsay". Gutenberg.org. Retrieved 2015-03-10.
Ward, John Chapman Ward: "Vachel Lindsay Is 'Lying Low'", College Literature 12 (1985): 233–45)
"Race Criticism of "The Congo"". English.illinois.edu. Retrieved 2015-03-10.
Masters, Edgar Lee (1935). Vachel Lindsay : A Poet in America. p. 361. ISBN 978-0819602398.
Reading list -'Biography, Vachel Lindsay'-Poetry Foundation.org , Chicago 2015
Howells, William Dean 'Harpers' Magazine , Sept. 1915
'Biography of Vachel Lindsay' Poetry Foundation.org , Chicago 2015
Van Doren, Carl 'Many Minds' Knopf, New York 1924
Camp, Dennis Dr 'Biography in Brief' Vachel Lindsay Association (est 1946), Springfield US

http://historiccommissions.springfield.il.us/VachelLindsayBridge.asp

External links
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Vachel Lindsay

Vachel Lindsay Association website- biography, essays, works
Profile of Vachel Linsay from PBS's "I Hear America Singing" program, hosted by Thomas Hampson
Vachel Lindsay Collection, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections
Entry on Vachel Lindsay from Anthology of Modern American Poetry
Works by Vachel Lindsay at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Vachel Lindsay at Internet Archive
Works by Vachel Lindsay at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
"The Chinese Nightingale"
"The Congo and Other Poems by Vachel Lindsay"
Vachel Lindsay at Library of Congress Authorities, with 80 catalog records
Vachel Lindsay Collection - Harry Ransom Center Digital Collections

Authority control

WorldCat Identities VIAF: 9889931 LCCN: n79148281 ISNI: 0000 0001 1037 7221 GND: 118780069 SUDOC: 030306701 BNF: cb12174978f (data) MusicBrainz: 0e5f0876-22ac-46c8-a768-c419a1b8c2f2 BNE: XX1000508 IATH: w6xk8f3t

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American male poetsWriters from Springfield, IllinoisPeople with epilepsySuicides by poisonPoets who committed suicideSchool of the Art Institute of Chicago alumniHiram College alumni1879 births1931 deathsSuicides in IllinoisPeople associated with the Dil Pickle ClubMale suicides

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[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Coyote
- Poem by Charles Badger Clark

Trailing the last gleam after,
In the valleys emptied of light,
Ripples a whimsical laughter
Under the wings of the night.
Mocking the faded west airily,
Meeting the little bats merrily,
Over the mesas it shrills
To the red moon on the hills.

Mournfully rising and waning,
Far through the moon-silvered land
Wails a weird voice of complaining
Over the thorns and the sand.
Out of blue silences eerily.
On to the black mountains wearily,
Till the dim desert is crossed,
Wanders the cry, and is lost.

Here by the fire's ruddy streamers,
Tired with our hopes and our fears,
We inarticulate dreamers
Hark to the song of our years.
Up to the brooding divinity
Far in that sparkling infinity
Cry our despair and delight,
Voice of the Western night!
Charles Badger Clark

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

While History's Muse
by Thomas Moore


While History's Muse the memorial was keeping
Of all that the dark hand of Destiny weaves,
Beside her the Genius of Erin stood weeping,
For hers was the story that blotted the leaves.
But oh! how the tear in her eyelids grew bright,
When, after whole pages of sorrow and shame,
She saw History write,
With a pencil of light
That illumed the whole volume, her Wellington's name.

"Yet still the last crown of thy toils is remaining,
The grandest, the purest, even thou hast yet known;
Though proud was thy task, other nations unchaining,
Far prouder to heal the deep wounds of thy own.
At the foot of that throne, for whose weal thou hast stood,
Go, plead for the land that first cradled thy fame,
And, bright o'er the flood
Of her tears, and her blood,
Let the rainbow of Hope be her Wellington's name."

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

An Old Man's Winter Night
Poem by Robert Frost


All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him -- at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; -- and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man -- one man -- can't keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It's thus he does it of a winter night.
----- Robert Frost

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.bestoffrost.com/spotlight/reluctance/


Reluctance
--by Robert Frost

OUT through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Reluctance is about man’s unwillingness to accept life as it flows – with its disappointments. The poet having wandered over fields and walls (suggesting civilization) and hills and woods (suggestive of wilderness) is on his way back home. At a more philosophical level, he is saying that he has seen and experienced all aspects of life and is now home, that is, his journey through life has come to a close. ‘Climbing hills’ refers to the difficulties faced in life and ‘descended’ perhaps to the compromises one has to make in life.

The mood of the poem is pensive. The use of words – ended, dead, lone, gone, wither, aching – all go to create this mood. His melancholy mood is reflected in nature too – the trees are barren, the snow is crusted, the dead leaves lie in heaps and the last of the blossoms are withered.

His mood lightens as he speaks of the Oak, pictured perhaps as naughty for it is ‘keeping’ its leaves to let them go down one by one ‘when others are sleeping’. But this does nothing to uplift his mood.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://allpoetry.com/poem/8495769-Aubade-by-Philip-Larkin


Aubade
---- by Phillip Larkin

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://allpoetry.com/Bells-For-John-Whiteside%27s-Daughter


Bells For John Whiteside's Daughter

There was such speed in her little body,
And such lightness in her footfall,
It is no wonder her brown study
Astonishes us all.

Her wars were bruited in our high window.
We looked among orchard trees and beyond
Where she took arms against her shadow,
Or harried unto the pond

The lazy geese, like a snow cloud
Dripping their snow on the green grass,
Tricking and stopping, sleepy and proud,
Who cried in goose, Alas,

For the tireless heart within the little
Lady with rod that made them rise
From their noon apple-dreams and scuttle
Goose-fashion under the skies!

But now go the bells, and we are ready,
In one house we are sternly stopped
To say we are vexed at her brown study,
Lying so primly propped.
by John Crowe Ransom

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

**************************



https://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides4/Bellsfor.html

.
Study Guide Prepared by Michael J. Cummings..© 2010
.
Type of Work and Date of Publication

......."Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter" is an elegy, a poem that reflects on a person's death or on death in general. It consists of five stanzas, each with four lines. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., published the poem in New York in 1924 in a collection of Ransom's poems, Chills and Fever.

Setting

.......The action probably takes place in the rural South. (Ransom was born in the small town of Pulaski, Tennessee.) The time is the early 1920s.

Summary of the Poem

.......The death of a lively little girl shocks neighbors who used to observe her while she was outdoors. She was always so energetic and so full of noise and mischief. Playfully, she would make war against her shadow and sometimes rouse sleepy geese—which were no doubt dreaming of eating apples from a nearby orchard—and chase them across the green grass and into a pond. When the funeral bells toll, the neighbors are “vexed" (line 19) that a child who was only recently so full of life is now a silent, “primly propped" (line 20) corpse.
Theme

.......The theme of the poem is that an unexpected death jolts people into confronting the fragility of life and the inscrutability of the forces that end life. Although they may mourn the loss of the spirited presence on the grass outdoors, they also mourn for themselves in the realization that they too are mortal and that they too will one day become a “brown study" (lines 3, 23). As John Donne wrote in Meditation 17 of Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions:

[S]end not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

What Is a Brown Study?

......."Brown study" (lines 3 and 23) is term that means a state of deep thought, like that of the figure depicted in Rodin's most famous sculpture, The Thinker.

There is some controversy in what some think callousness in the way the author presents the death of this child. Yet others see a comparison made in that tho' the author cites what may be personal disdain for some of her actions, he notes the sorrow of a young and promising young life lost too soon!
Was it intended, this comparison or a subconscious act in his composing?
Regardless, this poem clearly shows his great poetic talent, IMHO. TYR

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

ROSE AYLMER
by Walter Savage Landor

Ah, what avails the sceptred race!
Ah, what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.

Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and sighs
I consecrate to thee.
Walter Savage Landor

************************************************** **********

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Savage_Landor


Walter Savage Landor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Savage Landor (30 January 1775 – 17 September 1864) was an English writer and poet. His best known works were the prose Imaginary Conversations, and the poem Rose Aylmer, but the critical acclaim he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched by public popularity. As remarkable as his work was, it was equalled by his rumbustious character and lively temperament.
Walter Savage Landor

Contents

1 Summary of his work
2 Summary of his life
3 Early life
4 South Wales and Gebir
5 Napoleonic Wars and Count Julian
6 Llanthony and marriage
7 Florence and Imaginary Conversations
8 England, Pericles and journalism
9 Final Tragedies and return to Italy
10 Review of Landor's work by Swinburne
11 In popular culture
12 See also
13 Further reading
14 References
15 External links

Summary of his work

In a long and active life of eighty-nine years Landor produced a considerable amount of work in various genres. This can perhaps be classified into four main areas—prose, lyric poetry, political writings including epigrams, and Latin. His prose and poetry have received most acclaim, but critics are divided in their preference between them and he is now often described as 'a poet's poet' and author of perhaps the greatest very short poems in English,[1] 'Some of the best poets, Yeats, Ezra Pound and Robert Frost among them, steered by his lights'.[2] Landor's prose is best represented by the Imaginary Conversations. He drew on a vast array of historical characters from Greek philosophers to contemporary writers and composed conversations between pairs of characters that covered areas of philosophy, politics, romance and many other topics. These exercises proved a more successful application of Landor's natural ability for writing dialogue than his plays. Although these have many quotable passages the overall effect suffered because he never learned the art of drama.

Landor wrote much sensitive and beautiful poetry. The love poems were inspired by a succession of female romantic ideals – Ione, Ianthe, Rose Aylmer and Rose Paynter. Equally sensitive are his "domestic" poems about his sister and his children.

In the course of his career Landor wrote for various journals on a range of topics that interested him from anti-Pitt politics to the unification of Italy. He was also a master of the epigram which he used to good effect and wrote satirically to avenge himself on politicians and other people who upset him.

Landor wrote over three hundred Latin poems, political tracts and essays, but these have generally been ignored in the collections of his work. Landor found Latin useful for expressing things that might otherwise have been "indecent or unattractive" as he put it and as a cover for libellous material. Fellow classical scholars of the time put Landor's Latin work on a par with his English writing.
Summary of his life

Landor's life is an catalogue of incidents and misfortunes, many of them self-inflicted but some no fault of his own. His headstrong nature and hot-headed temperament, combined with a complete contempt for authority, landed him in a great deal of trouble over the years. By a succession of bizarre actions, he was successively thrown out of Rugby school, Oxford and from time to time from the family home. In the course of his life he came into conflict deliberately with his political enemies – the supporters of Pitt – but inadvertently with a succession of Lord Lieutenants, Bishops, Lord Chancellors, Spanish officers, Italian Grand Dukes, nuncio legatos, lawyers and other minor officials. He usually gained the upper hand, if not with an immediate hilarious response, then possibly many years later with a biting epithet.

Landor's writing often landed him on the wrong side of the laws of libel, and even his refuge in Latin proved of no avail in Italy. Many times his friends had to come to his aid in smoothing the ruffled feathers of his opponents or in encouraging him to moderate his behaviour. His friends were equally active in the desperate attempts to get his work published, where he offended or felt cheated by a succession of publishers who found his work either unsellable or unpublishable. He was repeatedly involved in legal disputes with his neighbours whether in England or Italy and Dickens' characterisation of him in Bleak House revolves around such a dispute over a gate between Boythorn and Sir Leicester Dedlock. Fate dealt with him unfairly when he tried to put into practice his bold and generous ideas to improve the lot of man, or when he was mistaken at one time for an agent of the Prince of Wales and at another for a tramp. His stormy marriage with his long-suffering wife resulted in a long separation, and then when she had finally taken him back to a series of sad attempts to escape.

And yet Landor was described as "the kindest and gentlest of men". He collected a coterie of friends who went to great lengths to help him as "his loyalty and liberality of heart were as inexhaustible as his bounty and beneficence of hand". It was said that "praise and encouragement, deserved or undeserved, came more readily to his lips than challenge or defiance". The numerous accounts of those with whom he came in contact reveal that he was fascinating company and he dined out on his wit and knowledge for a great part of his life. Landor's powerful sense of humour, expressed in his tremendous and famous laughs no doubt contributed to and yet helped assuage the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. "His passionate compassion, his bitter and burning pity for all wrongs endured in all the world, found outlet in his lifelong defence of tyrannicide. His tender and ardent love of children, of animals and of flowers makes fragrant alike the pages of his writing and the records of his life".[3]
Early life
Walter Savage Landor ILN.jpg

Walter Savage Landor was born in Warwick, England, the eldest son of Dr Walter Landor, a physician, and his second wife, Elizabeth Savage. His birthplace, Eastgate House, is now occupied by The King's High School For Girls. His father inherited estates at Rugeley, Staffordshire and his mother was heiress to estates at Ipsley Court and Bishop's Tachbrook in Warwickshire. Landor as the eldest son was heir to these properties and looked forward to a life of prosperity. The family tradition was Whig in reaction to George III and Pitt, and although Landor's brother Robert was the only other member to achieve fame as a writer there was a strong literary tradition in the family.

After attending a school at Knowle, he was sent to Rugby School under Dr James, but took offence at the headmaster's review of his work and was removed at Dr James' request. Years later, Landor included references to James in Latin in Simonidea with a mixture of praise and criticism and was subsequently reconciled with him. He then studied privately with Rev. William Langley, vicar of Fenny Bentley and headmaster of Ashbourne Grammar School. Langley was later mentioned in the Imaginary Conversation of Isaak Walton. Landor's temperament and violent opinions caused embarrassment at home and he was usually asked to absent himself when guests were expected. On one occasion he netted and threw in the river a local farmer who objected to his fishing on his property. In 1793 he entered Trinity College, Oxford where he showed rebelliousness in his informal dress and was known as a "mad Jacobin" since he was taken with ideas of French republicanism. His tutor Dr Benwell was impressed by him, but unfortunately his stay was short-lived. In 1794 he fired a gun at the windows of a Tory whose late night revels disturbed him and for whom he had an aversion. He was rusticated for a year, and, although the authorities were willing to condone the offence, he refused to return. The affair led to a quarrel with his father in which Landor expressed his intention of leaving home for ever.[4]

Landor went to Tenby in Wales where he had a love affair with a local girl, Nancy Evans, for whom he wrote some of his earliest love poems referring to her as "Ione". Landor's father disapproved and he removed for a time to London, lodging near Portland Place. Ione subsequently had a child who died in infancy. In 1795 Landor brought out a small volume of English and Latin verse in three books entitled The Poems of Walter Savage Landor. Landor also wrote an anonymous Moral Epistle in pamphlet form of nineteen pages, respectfully dedicated to Earl Stanhope. It was a satire in heroic verse condemning Pitt for trying to suppress liberal influences. Although Landor subsequently disowned these "'prentice works", Swinburne wrote "No poet at the age of twenty ever had more vigour of style and fluency of verse; nor perhaps has any ever shown such masterly command of epigram and satire, made vivid and vital by the purest enthusiasm and most generous indignation."[5]

Landor was reconciled with his family through the efforts of his friend Dorothea Lyttelton. He later told Forster that he would have married Dorothea if he were financially independent. He did not enter a profession – he did not want the law, and no more did the army want him. His father allowed him £150 a year, and he was free to live at home or not, as he pleased.[4]
South Wales and Gebir

Landor settled in South Wales, returning home to Warwick for short visits. It was at Swansea that he became friendly with the family of Lord Aylmer, including his sister, Rose, whom Landor later immortalized in the poem, "Rose Aylmer". It was she who lent him "The Progress of Romance" by the Gothic author Clara Reeve.[4] In this he found the story "The History of Charoba, Queen of Egypt", which inspired his poem "Gebir". Rose Aylmer sailed to India with an aunt in 1798, and two years later died of cholera.

Ah, what avails the sceptred race,

Ah, what the form divine!

What every virtue, every grace!

Rose Aylmer, all were thine.

Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes

May weep, but never see,

A night of memories and of sighs

I consecrate to thee.

Robert Southey
Pitt facing Fox across St Stephen's Chapel

In 1798 Landor published "Gebir" the work which established his reputation. "Gebir" tells the story of a prince of Spain who falls in love with his enemy Queen Charoba of Egypt. Southey, reviewed "Gebir" calling it "some of the most exquisite poetry in the language" and was keen to discover the anonymous author. Sidney Colvin wrote "For loftiness of thought and language together, there are passages in Gebir that will bear comparison with Milton" and "nowhere in the works of Wordsworth or Coleridge do we find anything resembling Landor's peculiar qualities of haughty splendour and massive concentration".[6] John Forster wrote "Style and treatment constitute the charm of it. The vividness with which everything in it is presented to sight as well as through the wealth of its imagery, its moods of language – these are characteristics pre-eminent in Gebir".[7] Gifford, on the other hand, who was ever a harsh critic of Landor described it as A jumble of incomprehensible trash... the most vile and despicable effusion of a mad and muddy brain....[8]

For the next three years Landor led an unsettled life, spent mainly in London. He became a friend of the classics scholar Dr Samuel Parr who lived at Hatton near Warwick and who appreciated Landor as a person and a Latin writer.[4] Landor favoured Latin as a way of expressing playful material without exposing it to public view "Siquid forte iocosius cuivis in mentem veniat, id, vernacule, puderet, non-enim tantummodo in luce agitur sed etiam in publico."[9] Latin also had the advantage of being exempt from libel laws in England. Parr introduced Landor to Robert Adair, party organiser for Charles James Fox, who enlisted Landor to write in The Morning Post and The Courier against the ministry of Pitt. Landor published "Poems from the Arabic and Persian" in 1800 and a pamphlet of Latin verses. During this time he met Isaac Mocatta who stimulated his interest in art and exercised a moderating influence, but Mocatta died 1801. In 1802 Landor went to Paris where he saw Napoleon at close quarters, and this was enough to put him off the idea of French republicanism. In the same year he published "Poetry by the Author of Gebir" which included the narrative poems Crysaor and The Phocaeans. Colvin considered Crysaor Landor's finest piece of narrative in blank verse.

Landor's brother Robert helped with corrections and additions to "Gebir" and the second edition appeared in 1803. About the same time Landor published the whole poem in Latin, which did little to increase readership but appealed to Parr and was considered by Swinburne to be comparable with the English version in might and melody of line, and for power and perfection of language.

Landor travelled the country in constant debt, spending much time at Bath. Here he met Sophia Jane Swift, who was already engaged to her cousin Godwin Swifte, whom she married despite Landor's ardent entreaties in 1803. He called her Ianthe and wrote some of his most beautiful love poems to her. His father died in 1805, which put him in possession of an independent fortune and he settled in Bath, living in grand style.[4] In 1806 he published "Simonidea" which included poems to Ianthe and Ione. It also included "Gunlaug and Helga" a narrative poem from William Herbert's "Select Icelandic poems". At Bristol in 1808 he caught up with Southey, whom he had missed on a trip to the Lake District in the previous year, and the mutual appreciation of the two poets led to a warm friendship. He also wrote a work "The Dun Cow" which was written in defence of his friend Parr who had been attacked in an anonymous work "Guy's Porridge Pot", which Landor was fierce to deny was any work of his.
Napoleonic Wars and Count Julian

In 1808 he had an heroic impulse to take part in the Peninsular War. At the age of thirty-three, he left England for Spain as a volunteer to serve in the national army against Napoleon. He landed at Corunna, introduced himself to the British envoy, offered 10,000 reals for the relief of Venturada, and set out to join the army of General Joaquín Blake y Joyes. He was disappointed not to take part in any real action and found himself giving support at Bilbao where he was nearly captured. A couple of months later the Convention of Sintra brought an end to the campaign and Landor returned to England. The Spanish Government offered its thanks to him, and King Ferdinand appointed him a Colonel in the Spanish Army. However, when the King restored the Jesuits Landor returned his commission.[4] When he returned to England, he joined Wordsworth and Southey in denouncing the Convention of Sintra, which had excited general indignation. In 1809 Landor wrote "Three letters to Don Francisco Riquelme" giving him the benefit of his wisdom as a participant in the war. He wrote an ode in Latin to Gustavus IV of Sweden and wrote to press under various pseudonyms. In 1810 he wrote "a brave and good letter to Sir Francis Burdett."

The Spanish experience provided inspiration for the tragedy of Count Julian, based on Julian, count of Ceuta. Although this demonstrated Landor's distinctive style of writing, it suffered from his failure to study the art of drama and so made little impression. The plot is difficult to follow unless the story is previously known and concerns a complicated situation after the defeat of the last Visigoth King of Spain. It carries the moral tone of crime propagating crime. Southey undertook to arrange publication and eventually got it published by Murray in 1812, after an initial refusal by Longmans which led Landor to burn another tragedy "Ferranti and Giulio".[4] Thomas de Quincey later wrote of the work "Mr Landor is probably the one man in Europe that has adequately conceived the situation, the stern self-dependency and monumental misery of Count Julian". Swinburne described it as "the sublimest poem published in our language, between the last masterpiece of Milton (Samson Agonistes) and the first masterpiece of Shelley, (Prometheus Unbound) one equally worthy to stand unchallenged beside either for poetic perfection as well as moral majesty. The superhuman isolation of agony and endurance which encircles and exalts the hero is in each case expressed with equally appropriate magnificence of effect. The style of Count Julian, if somewhat deficient in dramatic ease and the fluency of natural dialogue, has such might and purity and majesty of speech as elsewhere we find only in Milton so long and so steadily sustained."
Llanthony and marriage
Llanthony—Landor's estate

Before going to Spain, he had been looking for a property and settled on Llanthony Abbey in Monmouthshire, a ruined Benedictine abbey. He sold the property at Rugeley which he inherited from his father, and persuaded his mother to sell her Tachbrook estate to contribute to the purchase cost. On his return from Spain he was busy finalising these matters. The previous owner had erected some buildings in the ruins of the ancient abbey, but an Act of Parliament, passed in 1809, was needed to allow Landor to pull down these buildings and construct a house, (which was never finished). He wanted to become a model country gentleman, planting trees, importing sheep from Spain, and improving the roads.[4] There is still an avenue of trees in the area known as "Landor's Larches" and many old chestnuts have been dated back to his time.[10]

In 1811 he went to a ball in Bath and seeing a pretty girl exclaimed "That's the nicest girl in the room, and I'll marry her". She was Julia Thuillier, the daughter of an impoverished Swiss banker who had an unsuccessful business at Banbury and had gone to Spain, leaving his family at Bath.[4] They married at St James Church Bath on 24 May 1811 and settled for a while at Llanthony Abbey. Landor had a visit from Southey, after he sent him a letter describing the idylls of country life, including nightingales and glow-worms. However the idyll was not to last long as for the next three years Landor was worried by the combined vexation of neighbours and tenants, lawyers and lords-lieutenant and even the Bishop of St David's, while at the same time he tried to publish an article on Fox, a response to a sycophantic piece by John Bernard Trotter, which was condemned by the prospective publisher John Murray as libellous and damned by Canning and Gifford.

His troubles with the neighbours stemmed from petty squabbles, many arising from his headstrong and impetuous nature. He employed a solicitor one Charles Gabell, who saw him as a client to be milked. His trees were uprooted and his timber stolen. A man against whom he had to swear the peace drank himself to death, and he was accused of causing the misfortune and when he prosecuted a man for theft he was insulted by the defendant's counsel (whom he later "chastised" in his Latin poetry). He was fond of revenge through his verse, Latin or otherwise and gave his opinion of his lawyers in the following piece of doggerel.

If the devil, a mighty old omnibus driver
Saw an omnibus driving downhill to a river
And saved any couple to share his own cab
I really do think t'would be Gabell & Gabb.

When the Bishop failed to reply to his letter offering to restore part of the priory Landor followed up saying "God alone is great enough for me to ask anything of twice". He wanted to become a magistrate and after a row with the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Beaufort, who was suspicious of his republican sympathies, he pursued the matter with the Lord Chancellor, Lord Eldon well known as a High Tory without success. He wasted much effort and money in noble attempts to improve the land, and to relieve the wretchedness and raise the condition of the poorer inhabitants. The final straw was when he let his farmland to one Betham who was incompetent and extravagant and paid no rent. After an expensive action to recover the debts from Betham he had had enough, and decided to leave the country, abandoning Llanthony to his creditors – which was principally his mother.[4]

In 1814 Landor left England for Jersey, where he had a quarrel with his wife and set off for France on his own. Eventually she joined him at Tours as did his brother Robert. At Tours he met Francis George Hare, father of Augustus Hare and brother of Julius Hare who was to be of great help to him. Landor soon became dissatisfied with Tours and after tremendous conflicts with his landlady set off in September 1815 with his wife and brother on a tempestuous journey to Italy.[4]
Florence and Imaginary Conversations
Walter Savage Landor by William Fisher[11]
Inner courtyard of Palazzo Medici-Riccardi
Marguerite, Countess of Blessington. Painted by Thomas Lawrence in 1822.

Landor and his wife finally settled at Como where they stayed for three years. Even here he had troubles for at the time Caroline of Brunswick, wife of the Prince Regent was living there and Landor was suspected of being an agent involved in watching her in case of divorce proceedings. In 1818 he insulted the authorities in a Latin poem directed against an Italian poet who had denounced England, not realising that the libel laws in Italy (unlike in England) applied to Latin writings as well as Italian. After threatening the regio delegato with a beating he was ordered to leave Como. In September he went to Genoa and Pisa. He finally settled at Florence in 1821. After two years in apartments in the Medici Palace, he settled with his wife and children at the Villa Castiglione. In this, the most important period in his literary career, he produced some of his best known works – the Imaginary Conversations.[4] It was at this time that Lady Blessington and her husband were living at Florence and became firm friends.

The first two volumes of his Imaginary Conversations appeared in 1824[12] with a second edition in 1826; a third volume was added in 1828; and in 1829 the fourth and fifth volumes were published. Not until 1846 was a fresh instalment added, in the second volume of his collected and selected works.

With these works, Landor acquired a high, but not wide literary reputation. He had various disputes with the authorities in Florence. The theft of some silver led to altercations with the police, whose interviews with tradesmen ended up defining him as a "dangerous man", and the eventual upshot was that the Grand Duke banished him from Florence. Subsequently, the Grand Duke took the matter good-naturedly, and ignored Landor's declaration that, as the authorities disliked his residence, he should reside there permanently. In 1829, Landor bought the Villa Gherardesca at Fiesole helped by a generous loan from Joseph Ablett of Llanbedr Hall, Denbighshire. Here he had a dispute with a neighbour about water rights, which led to a lawsuit and a challenge, although the English Consul Kirkup succeeded in arranging the point of honour satisfactorily. Landor was visited by William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt, and was on intimate terms with Charles Armitage Brown.[4] It was at this time he became acquainted with Edward John Trelawny who he included in volume IV of Imaginary Conversations. His mother, with whom he had always corresponded affectionately, died in October 1829 and his cousin Walter Landor of Rugeley took over the management of the estate in Wales. Landor was happy at Villa Gherardesca for several years, writing books, playing with his children whom he adored and with the nightingales, and planting his gardens. He had many visitors, most notably in 1829 Jane Swift (Ianthe) now a widow, who inspired him to write poetry again. Later came Henry Crabb Robinson with whom he got on extremely well. In 1831 he published a volume combining Gebir, Count Julian and Other Poems (including 31 to Ianthe). Although this sold only 40 copies, Landor was unconcerned as he was working on "High and Low Life in Italy". This last work he sent to Crabb Robinson for publication but he had difficulties with publishers and it did not appear until 1837.

In 1832 Ablett persuaded him visit England, where he met many old friends.[4] He saw Ianthe at Brighton and met Lord Wenlock. He also visited his family in Staffordshire – his brother Charles was rector of Colton, and his cousin Walter Landor of Rugeley was trying to deal with the complex business of Llanthony. He visited Charles Lamb at Enfield, Samuel Coleridge at Highgate, and Julius Hare at Cambridge. He went with Ablett to the Lake District and saw Southey and Coleridge.

On returning to Fiesole he found his children out of hand and obtained a German governess for them. Back in Italy he met Richard Monckton Milnes who later wrote about him.[13] He was visited by Ralph Waldo Emerson and worked on the conversations which led to the volumes upon "Shakespeare's Examinations for Deer Stealing", "Pericles and Aspasia", and the "Pentameron". Lady Blessington sold "Shakespeare" for him. In 1835 Ianthe visited again, and brought her half-sister, Mrs Paynter, with her. Landor's wife Julia became jealous, although she already had a younger lover, and their difference of opinion ended in a complete separation.
England, Pericles and journalism

Landor was 60 by now and went to Lucca where he finished "Pericles and Aspasia" and in September returned to England alone in the autumn. He had an income of about £600 per annum from properties in England, but when he left Italy he made over £400 of the share to his wife, and transferred the villa and farms at Fiesole to his son Arnold absolutely. His income was now £200 a year and he was in financial difficulties. He stayed with Ablett at Llanbedr for three months, spent winter at Clifton and returned to him afterwards, when Ablett persuaded him to write "Literary Hours" which was published the next year.[4] "Pericles and Aspasia", which was to become one of his most appreciated works was published in March 1836. It is in the form of an Imaginary Conversation and describes the development of Aspasia's romance with Pericles, who died in the Peloponnesian War, told in a series of letters to a friend Cleone. The work is one of Landor's most joyous works and is singled out by contemporary critics as an introduction to Landor at his best. On one occasion Landor was travelling to Clifton incognito and chatting to a fellow traveller when the traveller, John Sterling, observed that his strange paradoxical conversation sounded like one of Landor's Imaginary Conversations. Landor covered his retreat, but later became acquainted formally with Sterling.

Also in 1836, Landor met John Forster who became his biographer, having become friends after Forster's review of his "Shakespeare". Later that year went to Heidelberg in Germany hoping to meet his children, but was disappointed. He wrote more imaginary conversations including one between Lord Eldon and Escombe. When a lady friend rebuked him for this on the basis that Eldon was now over eighty, Landor replied unmoved with the quip "The devil is older". He had several other publications that year besides Pericles, including "Letter from a Conservative", "A Satire on Satirists" which included a criticism of Wordsworth's failure to appreciate Southey, Alabiadas the Young Man, and "Terry Hogan", a satire on Irish priests. He wintered again at Clifton where Southey visited him. It is possible that Ianthe was living at Bristol, but the evidence is not clear, and in 1837 she went to Austria, where she remained for some years. After leaving Clifton, Landor travelled around and visited Armitage Brown at Plymouth. He established many friendships including John Kenyon and Sir William Napier. At the end of the year he published "Death of Clytemnestra" and "The Pentalogia", containing five of his finest shorter studies in dramatic poetry. The last piece to be published was "Pentameron".[4] Although this had no financial success it was much admired by his friends including Kenyon, Julius Hare, Crabb Robinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning who said "some of the pages are too delicious to turn over", and Leigh Hunt who reckoned it Landor's masterpiece. In the spring of 1838 he took a house in Bath and wrote his three plays the "Andrea of Hungary", "Giovanna of Naples", and "Fra Rupert". These plays are in the form of a trilogy in the first of which Fra Rupert contrives the death of Andrea husband of Giovanna. Giovanna is suspected but acquitted in the second play. In the third play Fra Rupert is discovered. George Saintsbury described these as a historical novel thrown into conversational dramatic form. In 1839 Landor's attempts to publish the plays were caught up in a dispute between Bentley and Dickens and Forster which caused considerable delay. Again, although these plays, or "conversations in verse" did not succeed with the public, Landor gained warm admirers, many of whom were his personal friends. Southey's mind was giving way when he wrote a last letter to his friend in 1839, but he continued to mention Landor's name when generally incapable of mentioning any one. Landor wandered around the country again, frequently visiting London, where he usually stayed with Lady Blessington, whom he had known at Florence. Mrs Paynter, and her daughter Rose Paynter were at Bath and Landor's letters and verses to Rose are among his best works. Rose later married Charles Graves-Sawle of Restormel in Cornwall. Landor met Charles Dickens and they enjoyed each other's company despite the age difference. Landor greatly admired Dickens' works, and was especially moved by the character of Nell Trent (from The Old Curiosity Shop). Landor was affectionately adapted by Dickens as Lawrence Boythorn in Bleak House.[4] He was the godfather of Dickens's son Walter Landor Dickens. He also became introduced to Robert Browning who sent him a dedicated copy of his work.

Landor received a visit from his son Arnold in 1842 and in that year wrote a long essay on Catullus for Forster who was editor of "Foreign Quarterly Review" and followed it up with The Idylls of Theocritus. Super was critical of the essays claiming "A more thoroughly disorganised work never fell from his pen".[14] In 1843 he mourned the death of his friend Southey and dedicated a poem in the Examiner. Landor was visited by his children Walter and Julia and published a poem to Julia in Blackwood's magazine.

By that dejected city, Arno runs,
Where Ugolino claspt his famisht sons.
There wert thou born, my Julia! there thine eyes
Return'd as bright a blue to vernal skies.
And thence, my little wanderer! when the Spring
Advanced, thee, too, the hours on silent wing
Brought, while anemonies were quivering round,
And pointed tulips pierced the purple ground,
Where stood fair Florence: there thy voice first blest
My ear, and sank like balm into my breast:
For many griefs had wounded it, and more
Thy little hands could lighten were in store.
But why revert to griefs? Thy sculptured brow
Dispels from mine its darkest cloud even now.
And all that Rumour has announced of grace!
I urge, with fevered breast, the four-month day.
O! could I sleep to wake again in May."

In the following year his daughter Julia returned and gave him a dog Pomero, who was a faithful companion for a long time. In the same year, he published a poem to Browning in the Morning Chronicle.

Forster and Dickens used to visit Bath, to celebrate Landor's birthday and Charles I's execution on the same day. Forster helped Landor in publishing his plays and the 'Collected Works' in 1846, and was employed on The Examiner to which Landor frequently contributed on political and other subjects. Forster objected to the inclusion of some Latin poetry, and so Landor published his most important Latin work 'Poemata et Inscriptiones' separately in 1847.[4] This consisted of large additions to the main contents of two former volumes of idyllic, satiric, elegiac and lyric verse. One piece referred to George IV whose treatment of Caroline of Brunswick had been distasteful to Landor.

Heic jacet,
Qui ubique et semper jacebat
Familiae pessimae homo pessimus
Georgius Britanniae Rex ejus nominis IV
Arca ut decet ampla et opipare ornata est
Continet enim omnes Nerones.

(Here lies a person who was always laying about all over the place – the worst member of the worst family – George the fourth of that name of Britain. It is suitable that the vault be large and excessively decorated as it contains all the Neros). Landor's distaste for the House of Hanover is more famously displayed in the doggerel that many do not realise is his composition.

George the First was always reckoned
Vile, but viler George the Second.
And what mortal ever heard
Any good of George the Third,
But when from earth the Fourth descended
God be praised the Georges ended

In 1846 he also published the 'Hellenics', including the poems published under that title in the collected works, together with English translations of the Latin idyls. In this year he first met Eliza Lynn who was to become an outstanding novelist and journalist as Lynn Linton, and she became a regular companion in Bath. Now aged over seventy Landor was losing many of his old friends and becoming more frequently ill himself. On one occasion when staying with the Graves-Sawle he visited Exeter and sheltered in the rain on the doorstep of a local barrister James Jerwood. Jerwood mistook him for a tramp and drove him away. Landor's follow-up letter of abuse to the barrister is magnificent. In 1849 he wrote a well-known epitaph for himself on his 74th birthday.

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife.

Nature I loved, and, next to nature, Art;

I warm'd both hands before the fire of Life;

It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

However he was leading an active social life. Tennyson met him in 1850 and recorded how while another guest fell downstairs and broke his arm, "Old Landor went on eloquently discoursing of Catullus and other Latin poets as if nothing had happened".[15] Thomas Carlyle visited him and wrote "He was really stirring company: a proud irascible, trenchant, yet generous, veracious, and very dignified old man".[15] In 1851 Landor expressed interest in Church reform with a pamphlet "Popery, British and Foreign", and Letters to Cardinal Wiseman. He published various other articles in The Examiner, Fraser's Magazine and other journals. During the year he learnt of the death of his beloved Ianthe and wrote in tribute to her.

Sophia! whom I seldom call'd by name,
And trembled when I wrote it; O my friend
Severed so long from me! one morn I dreamt
That we were walking hand in hand thro' paths
Slippery with sunshine: after many years
Had flown away, and seas and realms been crost,
And much (alas how much!) by both endured
We joined our hands together and told our tale.
And now thy hand hath slipt away from mine,
And the cold marble cramps it; I dream one,
Dost thou dream too? and are our dreams the same?

In 1853 he published the collected "Imaginary Conversations of the Greeks and Romans" which he dedicated to Dickens. Dickens in this year published "Bleak House" which contained the amazingly realistic characterisation of Landor as Boythorn. He also published "The Last Fruit off an Old Tree", containing fresh conversations, critical and controversial essays, miscellaneous epigrams, lyrics and occasional poems of various kind and merit, closing with Five Scenes on the martyrdom of Beatrice Cenci. Swinburne described these as "unsurpassed even by their author himself for noble and heroic pathos, for subtle and genial, tragic and profound, ardent and compassionate insight into character, with consummate mastery of dramatic and spiritual truth."[16] At this time Landor was interesting himself in foreign affairs, in particular Czarist oppression as he saw it and Louis Napoleon. At the end of 1854 his beloved sister Elizabeth died and he wrote a touching memorial.

"Sharp crocus wakes the froward year;
In their old haunts birds reappear;
From yonder elm, yet black with rain,
The cushat looks deep down for grain
Thrown on the gravel-walk; here comes
The redbreast to the sill for crumbs.
Fly off! fly off! I can not wait
To welcome ye, as she of late.
The earliest of my friends is gone.
Alas! almost my only one!
The few as dear, long wafted o'er,
Await me on a sunnier shore."

In 1856 at the age of 81 he published Antony and Octavius: Scenes for the Study, twelve consecutive poems in dialogue, and "Letter to Emerson", as well as continuing Imaginary Conversations.
Final Tragedies and return to Italy
His tomb in English Cemetery at Florence

In the beginning of 1857, Landor's mind was becoming weakened and he found himself in some unpleasant situations. He became involved in a court case because he had published statements when the case was sub judice and was insulted by counsel as a poor old man brought in to talk twaddle. He then became embroiled in a miserable quarrel between two ladies he knew. He gave one of them, Geraldine Hooper £100, a legacy received from his friend Kenyon. Unknown to Landor she transferred half of it to the other lady a Mrs Yescombe. They then quarreled and the Mrs Yescombe accused Hooper of having obtained the money from Landor for dishonourable reasons. Landor in his fury wrote a pamphlet "Walter Savage Landor and the Honourable Mrs Yescombe" which was considered libellous. Forster persuaded Landor to apologise. Then in 1858 he produced a miscellaneous collection called "Dry Sticks Fagoted by W. S. Landor", which contained among other things some epigrammatic and satirical attacks which led to further libel actions.[4]

In July that year Landor returned to Italy for the last six years of his life. He was advised to make over his property to his family, on whom he now depended. He hoped to resume his life with his wife and children but found them living disreputably at the Villa Gherardesca and ill-disposed to welcome him. He spent a miserable ten months at his villa, and fled repeatedly to Florence, only to be brought back again. On the last occasion, he took refuge at a hotel in Florence, with next to nothing in his pocket, and was found by Robert Browning then living at the Casa Guidi. Browning managed to obtain an allowance for him from the family and settled him first at Siena and then at Florence.[4]

Landor busied himself with new editions of his works and interested himself in the unification of Italy. He wrote frequently to Eliza Lynn Linton and added to Imaginary Conversations devising any sale proceeds to the relief of Garibaldi's soldiers. Anthony Trollope visited Florence and brought with him an American girl Kate Field who became Landor's protege. He was still charming, venerable, and courteous, and full of literary interests. He taught Kate Field Latin, repeated poetry and composed some last conversations. In 1861, Browning left Italy after the death of his wife. Landor afterwards seldom left the house and remained petulant and uncomfortable, occasionally visited by his sons. He was much concerned about the fate of his picture collection, little of which had any merit, and about preparations for his grave as he hoped to be buried at Widcombe near Bath. He published some Imaginary Conversations in the 'Atheneum' in 1861-2 and in 1863 published a last volume of "Heroic Idyls, with Additional Poems, English and Latin", described by Swinburne as " the last fruit of a genius which after a life of eighty-eight years had lost nothing of its majestic and pathetic power, its exquisite and exalted". Forster's refusal to publish more about the libel case had interrupted their friendship, but they renewed their correspondence before his death. Almost the last event of his life was a visit in 1864 from the poet Swinburne, who visited Florence specifically to see him, and dedicated to him the 'Atlanta in Calydon'.[4] In 1864 on May Day Landor said to his landlady "I shall never write again. Put out the lights and draw the curtains". A few months later he died quietly in Florence at the age of 89. He was buried not after all at Widcombe but in the English Cemetery, Florence, near the tomb of his friend, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. A statue of his wife can also be found in the 'English' Cemetery, above the tomb of their son, Arnold Savage Landor. Later, his Villa Gherardesca in Fiesole would become the home of the American Icelandic scholar Daniel Willard Fiske, who renamed it the 'Villa Landor'. Landor's grandson was the writer explorer and adventurer Arnold Henry Savage Landor.

Landor was the close friend of Southey, and Coleridge. His relationship with Wordsworth changed over time from great praise to a certain resentment. Lord Byron tended to ridicule and revile him, and though Landor had little good to say in return during Byron's life he lamented and extolled him as a dead hero. He lavished sympathetic praise on the noble dramatic works of his brother Robert Eyres Landor.
Review of Landor's work by Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne, sketch by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Swinburne wrote in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica and later published in his Miscellanies of 1886 an appreciation which included the following passage[17] (here broken into paragraphs for easier reading):

"From nineteen almost to ninety his intellectual and literary activity was indefatigably incessant; but, herein at least like Charles Lamb, whose cordial admiration he so cordially returned, he could not write a note of three lines which did not bear the mark of his Roman hand in its matchless and inimitable command of a style at once the most powerful and the purest of his age.

"The one charge which can ever seriously be brought and maintained against it is that of such occasional obscurity or difficulty as may arise from excessive strictness in condensation of phrase and expurgation of matter not always superfluous, and sometimes almost indispensable. His English prose and his Latin verse are perhaps more frequently and more gravely liable to this charge than either his English verse or his Latin prose. At times it is well-nigh impossible for an eye less keen and swift, a scholarship less exquisite and ready than his own, to catch the precise direction and follow the perfect course of his rapid thought and radiant utterance.

"This apparently studious pursuit and preference of the most terse and elliptic expression which could be found for anything he might have to say could not but occasionally make even so sovereign a master of two great languages appear dark with excess of light; but from no former master of either tongue in prose or verse was ever the quality of real obscurity, of loose and nebulous incertitude, more utterly alien or more naturally remote. There is nothing of cloud or fog about the path on which he leads us; but we feel now and then the want of a bridge or a handrail; we have to leap from point to point of narrative or argument without the usual help of a connecting plank. Even in his dramatic works, where least of all it should have been found, this lack of visible connection or sequence in details of thought or action is too often a source of sensible perplexity. In his noble trilogy on the history of Giovanna queen of Naples it is sometimes actually difficult to realize on a first reading what has happened or is happening, or how, or why, or by what agency a defect alone sufficient, but unhappily sufficient in itself, to explain the too general ignorance of a work so rich in subtle and noble treatment of character, so sure and strong in its grasp and rendering of high actions and high passions, so rich in humour and in pathos, so royally serene in its commanding power upon the tragic mainsprings of terror and of pity.

"As a poet, he may be said on the whole to stand midway between Byron and Shelley—about as far above the former as below the latter. If we except Catullus and Simonides, it might be hard to match and it would be impossible to overmatch the flawless and blameless yet living and breathing beauty of his most perfect elegies, epigrams or epitaphs. As truly as prettily was he likened by Leigh Hunt to a stormy mountain pine which should produce lilies. He was a classic, and no formalist; the wide range of his admiration had room for a genius so far from classical as Blake's. Nor in his own highest mood or method of creative as of critical work was he a classic only, in any narrow or exclusive sense of the term. On either side, immediately or hardly below his mighty masterpiece of Pericles and Aspasia, stand the two scarcely less beautiful and vivid studies of medieval Italy and Shakespeare in England."
In popular culture

Landor's "I Strove with None" is widely mentioned and discussed. Somerset Maugham used it in "The Razor's Edge", as does Tom Wolfe in "A man in full" location 8,893 (Kindle). In Josephine Pullein-Thompson's Pony Club Team, the second novel in her West Barsetshire series of pony books, it is quoted by both Noel Kettering and Henry Thornton[18] The poem forms the chorus of the Zatopeks' song "Death and the Hobo" from their album, Damn Fool Music.

In an episode of Cheers "The Spy Who Came in For a Cold One," Ellis Rabb's guest character plagiarizes Landor's "She I Love (Alas in Vain!)" when reciting poetry to Diane. He also plagiarizes Christina Rossetti's "A Birthday."
See also

iconPoetry portal

List of Landor's Imaginary Conversations

Further reading

Titus Bicknell, Calamus Ense Potentior Est: Walter Savage Landor's Poetic War of Words, Romanticism On the Net 4 (November 1996) [1]
E.K. Chambers (ed.), Landor: Poetry and Prose (1946)
Sidney Colvin, Landor (1881, English Men of Letters series)
Sidney Colvin, Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor (1882, Golden Treasury series)
C. G. Crump (1891–1893), comprises Imaginary Conversations, Poems, Dialogues in Verse and Epigrams and The Longer Prose Works.*Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1852–53)
Malcolm Elwin, Landor: A Replevin (1958; reissued 1970)
Malcolm Elwin, "Introduction" to: Herbert van Thal (ed.), Landor: a biographical anthology (1973)
John Forster The Works and Life of Walter Savage Landor (8 vols., 1846)
Robert Pinsky, Landor's Poetry (1968)
Charles L. Proudfit (ed.), Landor as Critic (1979)
G. Rostrevor Hamilton, Walter Savage Landor (1960).
Iain Sinclair, Landor's Tower (2001)
R.H. Super, Walter Savage Landor (1954; reprinted 1977)
Herbert van Thal (ed.) Landor: a biographical anthology (1973, Allen & Unwin)
Stephen Wheeler (ed.) Letters and other Unpublished Writings (1897)
A bibliography of his works, many of which are very rare, is included in: Sir Leslie Stephen (1892). "Landor, Walter Savage". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 32. London: Smith, Elder & Co..[4]

References

Pinsky, Robert, on Landor, Poets on Poets, Carcanet Press , Manchester, 1997 ISBN 9781857543391.
Schmidt, Michael, Lives of the Poets , Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1998 ISBN 9780297840145
wording in quote marks is from Swinburne's Encyclopædia Britannica article 1882
"Landor, Walter Savage". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
Encyclopædia Britannica 1882 edition
Sidney Colvin Landor (1881) in the English Men of Letters series
John Forster "The Works and Life of Walter Savage Landor" (8 vols., 1846)
W Gifford Examinations of the Strictures of the Critical Reviewers on the Translations of Juvenal (1803) quoted by Robert Super Landor
Titus Bicknell, "Calamus Ense Potentior Est: Walter Savage Landor's Poetic War of Words." Romanticism On the Net Number 4
John Sansom "Note for Brecon Beacons Park Society
National Portrait Gallery, London
"Review of Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen by Walter Savage Landor, 2 vols., 1824". The Quarterly Review. 30: 508–519. January 1824.
Richard Monkton Milnes Monographs: Personal and Social (1873)
Robert Super Landor
Malcolm Elwin Landor
Encyclopædia Britannica 1882
Hyder, C K. Swinburne as Critic. Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1972

Pullein-Thompson, Josephine. Pony Club Team. Fidra Books, 2009, p. 109

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Landor, Walter Savage". Encyclopædia Britannica. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 161–162.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Walter Savage Landor.
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Walter Savage Landor
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Author:Walter Savage Landor

Works by Walter Savage Landor at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Walter Savage Landor at Internet Archive
Works by Walter Savage Landor at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Poems by Walter Savage Landor
Jean Field, 'Walter Savage Landor and Warwick'
Landor House entry on Building History
"Petition of the Thugs for Toleration" at Quotidiana.org
Audio: Robert Pinsky reads "On Seeing a Hair of Lucretia Borgia" by Walter Savage Landor (via poemsoutloud.net)
Archival material at Leeds University Library

Authority control

WorldCat Identities VIAF: 46796707 LCCN: n79093401 ISNI: 0000 0001 1026 1069 GND: 118778625 SUDOC: 029866448 BNF: cb121402527 (data) BIBSYS: 90740537 MusicBrainz: f16b8f29-88ae-4bfe-be9e-b196d579461b NLA: 35289916 NDL: 00620972 NKC: mub2012720296 IATH: w6s75f2j

Categories:

1775 births1864 deathsEnglish essayistsAlumni of Trinity College, OxfordPeople from WarwickPeople educated at Rugby SchoolMale essayistsEnglish male poets

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[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42987/patterns


patterns
------ by amy lowell
i walk down the garden paths,
and all the daffodils
are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden paths
in my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
i too am a rare
pattern. As i wander down
the garden paths.

My dress is richly figured,
and the train
makes a pink and silver stain
on the gravel, and the thrift
of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
only whale-bone and brocade.
And i sink on a seat in the shade
of a lime tree. For my passion
wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
flutter in the breeze
as they please.
And i weep;
for the lime tree is in blossom
and one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.

And the splashing of waterdrops
in the marble fountain
comes down the garden paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
a basin in the midst of hedges grown
so thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
but she guesses he is near,
and the sliding of the water
seems the stroking of a dear
hand upon her.
What is summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.

I would be the pink and silver as i ran along the paths,
and he would stumble after,
bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes.
I would choose
to lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
a bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover,
till he caught me in the shade,
and the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
and the plopping of the waterdrops,
all about us in the open afternoon
i am very like to swoon
with the weight of this brocade,
for the sun sifts through the shade.

Underneath the fallen blossom
in my bosom,
is a letter i have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the duke.
“madam, we regret to inform you that lord hartwell
died in action thursday sen’night.”
as i read it in the white, morning sunlight,
the letters squirmed like snakes.
“any answer, madam,” said my footman.
“no,” l told him.
“see that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer.”
and i walked into the garden,
up and down the patterned paths,
in my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
each one.
I stood upright too,
held rigid to the pattern
by the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down i walked,
up and down.

In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
we would have broke the pattern;
he for me, and i for him,
he as colonel, i as lady,
on this shady seat.
He had a whim
that sunlight carried blessing.
And i answered, “it shall be as you have said.”
now he is dead.

In summer and in winter i shall walk
up and down
the patterned garden paths
in my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
up and down,
in my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
by each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
fighting with the duke in flanders,
in a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?

Amy lowell, “patterns” from the complete poetical works of amy lowell. Copyright © 1955 by houghton mifflin company. Copyright © renewed 1983 by houghton mifflin company, brinton p. Roberts, and g. D'andelot, esquire. Reprinted with the permission of houghton mifflin company. All rights reserved.
Source: Selected poems of amy lowell (houghton mifflin harcourt, 2002)





http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-patterns/#gsc.tab=0

this study guide consists of approximately 17 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of patterns.

patterns summary & study guide description

patterns summary & study guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:

Introduction
author biography
plot summary

themes
historical context
critical overview

this detailed literature summary also contains bibliography on patterns by amy lowell.

Amy lowell's poem "patterns" was first published in a monthly magazine called the little review in august 1915. The little review had a small circulation, but it attracted the attention of many notable writers of the time. By the time "patterns" was published, lowell herself had already become known as a poetic innovator with her second book, sword blades and poppy seeds (1914). She included "patterns" in her third book, men, women, and ghosts, an immediate bestseller published in october 1916. In spite of her popularity during her lifetime, most of lowell's work was not republished after her death. However, a posthumous collection published in 1926—one year after her death—entitled what's o'clock received the pulitzer prize. "patterns" is one of her best-known poems, probably because it appeared in anthologies throughout the twentieth century. It is included in the most recent volume of lowell's selected poems.

"patterns" tells the deceptively simple story of a woman walking through a formal garden just after she has learned that her fiancé has been killed in combat. Lowell describes the woman's formal dress and the formal paths of the garden in vivid detail and in short, occasionally rhyming, lines. However, the formal patterns that encircle this woman's life take on new significance in the light of her lover's death. This poem exemplifies lowell's adherence to the principles of imagism—expression through the use of vivid images—even though it does not conform to the original ideas of this early twentieth-century literary movement. In 1913 and 1914, lowell traveled in england and met american expatriate poets ezra pound and hilda doolittle (known as h. D.). Pound and his fellow imagists wrote poetry composed of short, deliberately musical lines. They tried to describe visual images with firm, clear precise language rather than treating them as symbols for abstract ideas or feelings. These ideas influenced lowell throughout her life and particularly in her second and third books of poetry. Lowell says in the preface to men, women, and ghosts that she is trying to use "the movement of poetry in somewhat the same way that the musician uses the movement of music." she also used poetry to comment on current events, particularly world war i, which was underway by the time she published "patterns."

in "patterns," lowell presents a woman's perspective on war and on social conventions that keep her parading in her "stiff, brocaded gown" while her lover is on the battlefield. The woman in lowell's poem has been robbed of her future marriage by the death of her lover, but she speaks most frankly about missing her lover's embraces. Lowell departed from poetic tradition by writing openly as a woman about the physical experience of being in love. By the end of the poem, the woman's frustrated passion has turned into equal frustration with this "pattern called a war." the idea of a pattern is to make something unified and structured, with expected and predictable outcomes. Both she and her fiancé are subject to patterns, though they do not know it until it is too late. Both of their patterns lead to death: His to a physical death, and hers to an emotional one.

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i have always thought this to be a great poem and a fine display of this great poet's talent!-tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45559/three-years-she-grew


Three Years She Grew
------ By William Wordsworth
Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

"Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse: and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle or restrain.

"She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.

"The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the Storm
Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form
By silent sympathy.

"The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.

"And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell;
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live
Here in this happy dell."

Thus Nature spake—The work was done—
How soon my Lucy's race was run!
She died, and left to me
This heath, this calm and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,
And never more will be.

************************************************** **************



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_years_she_grew_in_sun_and_shower

Three years she grew in sun and shower
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Three years she grew in sun and shower" is a poem composed in 1798 by the English poet William Wordsworth, and first published in the Lyrical Ballads anthology which was co-written with his friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. As one of the five poems that make up the "Lucy series", the work describes the relationship between Lucy and nature using words and sentiments. The author creates an indifference of nature as the poem progresses. The care in which Nature had sculpted Lucy, and then casually let her "race end," depicts Wordworths' view upon the harsh reality of life. Although Nature is indifferent, it also cares for Lucy enough to both sculpt and mould her into its own. Wordsworth valued connections to nature above all else. The poem thus contains both epithalamic and elegiac characteristics; the marriage described is between Lucy and nature, while her human lover is left to mourn in the knowledge that death has separated her from mankind, and she will forever now be with nature.[1]
Notes

Grob 1973, 202–203

Bibliography

Eilenberg, Susan. Strange Power of Speech: Wordsworth, Coleridge and Literary Possession. Oxford University Press USA, 1992. ISBN 0-19-506856-4
Grob, Alan. The Philosophic Mind: A Study of Wordsworth's Poetry and Thought 1797–1805. Columbus: Ohio State University, 1973. ISBN 0-8142-0178-4
Jones, Mark. The 'Lucy Poems': A Case Study in Literary Knowledge. Toronto:The University of Toronto Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8020-0434-2

External links
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower

Biography and Works of William Wordsworth

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Excerpted from Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff, poem LXII in
A Shropshire Lad (1896), by A.E. Housman (1859-1936)

Why, if ’tis dancing you would be,
There’s brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world’s not.
And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past:
The mischief is that ’twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I’ve lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

*******************************

Lines on Ale (1848), by Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)

Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain.
Quaintest thoughts, queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away.
What care I how time advances;
I am drinking ale today.

************************************

A Glass of Beer, by David O’Bruadair (1625-1698)

The lanky hank of a she in the inn over there
Nearly killed me for asking the loan of a glass of beer;
May the devil grip the whey-faced slut by the hair,
And beat bad manners out of her skin for a year.

That parboiled ape, with the toughest jaw you will see
On virtue’s path, and a voice that would rasp the dead,
Came roaring and raging the minute she looked at me,
And threw me out of the house on the back of my head!

If I asked her master he’d give me a cask a day;
But she, with the beer at hand, not a gill would arrange!
May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten, and may
The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange.

*************************************************


Beer, by Charles Bukowski,
from Love is A Mad Dog From Hell (1920-1994)

I don’t know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I don’t know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women—
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
“what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!”

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows it’s bad for the figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horny cowboys.

well, there’s beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up
the bottle fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sack
rolling
clanking
spilling gray wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.

beer
rivers and seas of beer
the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
and beer is all there is.
------------------------------------------------------------------

I HESITATED ON POSTING THE ONE BY BUKOWSKI BECAUSE OF THE VULGARITY IN IT, BUT--
THAT WAS HE AS A POET, SO OFT POSTING THE THE RAW, THE RUDE, THE NAKED, THE BRUTAL REALITY OF LIFE AND FOIBLES OF MEN.
Once long ago, I despised him as a poet but now I realize he was true to himself as his poems on drinking, whoring, fighting , etc were the life he too lived!!
And many of his poems are true and deep gems.. Thus I decided to post this in respect for his honesty and his not bending to the will/demands of others in regards to his poetic writings. I admire those than would rather die than bend to the demands of others, as that rests within me as well. Always has.. Which is why this world has punished me me so oft as it always does those that tell it to ffkk off and truly do not give a damn how it reacts to that.--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

This is why I like Bukowski more and more as years pass, the cold, hard and brutal(or should that be- brutish?) truth he slung with utter contempt of those that always try to suppress it!--Tyr



https://www.artvilla.com/man-in-the-sun-poem-by-charles-bukowski/

man in the sun
by Charles Bukowski

she reads to me from the New Yorker
which I don’t buy, don’t know
how they get in here, but it’s
something about the Mafia
one of the heads of the Mafia
who ate too much and had it too easy
too many fine women patting his
walnuts, and he got fat sucking at good
cigars and young breasts and he
has these heart attacks – and so
one day somebody is driving him
in his big car along the road
and he doesn’t feel so good
and he asks the boy to stop and let
him out and the boy lays him out
along the road in the fine sunshine
and before he dies he says:
how beautiful life can be, and
then he’s gone.

sometimes you’ve got to kill 4 or 5
thousand men before you somehow
get to believe that the sparrow
is immortal, money is piss and
that you have been wasting
your time.

—————————————————————

From Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame
Selected poems 1955 – 1973
Black Sparrow Press, 1986.
First published in:
Crucifix in a Deathhand, 1965.

***********************************************

Will add more later, forgot where I put that damn book and its interesting poetry concepts...-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

ONE FOOT IN EDEN
by Edwin Muir

One foot in Eden still, I stand

And look across the other land.

The world’s great day is growing late,

Yet strange these fields that we have planted

So long with crops of love and hate.

Time’s handiworks by time are haunted,

And nothing now can separate

The corn and tares compactly grown.

The armorial weed in stillness bound

Above the stalk; these are our own.

Evil and good stand thick around

In the fields of charity and sin

Where we shall lead our harvest in.

Yet still from Eden springs the root

As clean as on the starting day.

Times takes the foliage and the fruit

And burns the archetypal leaf

To shapes of terror and of grief

Scattered along the winter way.

But famished field and blackened tree

Bear flowers in Eden never known.

Blossoms of grief and charity

Bloom in these darkened fields alone.

What had Eden ever to say

Of hope and faith and pity and love

Until was buried all its day

And memory found its treasure trove?

Strange blessings never in Paradise

Fall from these beclouded skies.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug3m8FHHheo

Richard Burton reads Dylan Thomas's poem, 'The force that through the green fuse drives the flower'.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug3m8FHHheo

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poemhunter.com/poems/death/page-2/36340/

Death The Leveller
- Poem by James Shirley



The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against Fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Sceptre and Crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crookèd scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill:
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds!
Upon Death's purple altar now
See where the victor-victim bleeds.
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb:
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.
Death The Leveller
James Shirley

*************************


https://www.poemhunter.com/poems/death/page-2/36340/

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The City of Sleep
By Rudyard Kipling
Over the edge of the purple down,
Where the single lamplight gleams,
Know ye the road to the Merciful Town
That is hard by the Sea of Dreams –
Where the poor may lay their wrongs away,
And the sick may forget to weep?
But we – pity us! Oh, pity us!
We wakeful; ah, pity us! –
We must go back with Policeman Day –
Back from the City of Sleep!

Weary they turn from the scroll and crown,
Fetter and prayer and plough –
They that go up to the Merciful Town,
For her gates are closing now.
It is their right in the Baths of Night
Body and soul to steep,
But we – pity us! ah, pity us!
We wakeful; oh, pity us! –
We must go back with Policeman Day –
Back from the City of Sleep!

Over the edge of the purple down,
Ere the tender dreams begin,
Look – we may look – at the Merciful Town,
But we may not enter in!
Outcasts all, from her guarded wall
Back to our watch we creep:
We – pity us! ah, pity us!
We wakeful; ah, pity us! –
We that go back with Policeman Day –
Back from the City of Sleep!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Village: Book I
By George Crabbe
The village life, and every care that reigns
O'er youthful peasants and declining swains;
What labour yields, and what, that labour past,
Age, in its hour of languor, finds at last;
What forms the real picture of the poor,
Demands a song—the Muse can give no more.
Fled are those times, if e'er such times were seen,
When rustic poets praised their native green;
No shepherds now, in smooth alternate verse,
Their country's beauty or their nymphs' rehearse;
Yet still for these we frame the tender strain,
Still in our lays fond Corydons complain,
And shepherds' boys their amorous pains reveal,
The only pains, alas! they never feel.
On Mincio's banks, in Caesar's bounteous reign,
If Tityrus found the Golden Age again,
Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong,
Mechanic echoes of the Mantuan song?
From truth and nature shall we widely stray,
Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way?
Yes, thus the Muses sing of happy swains,
Because the Muses never knew their pains.
They boast their peasants' pipes, but peasants now
Resign their pipes and plod behind the plough;
And few amid the rural tribe have time
To number syllables and play with rhyme;
Save honest Duck, what son of verse could share
The poet's rapture and the peasant's care?
Or the great labours of the field degrade
With the new peril of a poorer trade?
From one chief cause these idle praises spring,
That themes so easy few forbear to sing;
They ask no thought, require no deep design,
But swell the song and liquefy the line;
The gentle lover takes the rural strain,
A nymph his mistress and himself a swain;
With no sad scenes he clouds his tuneful prayer,
But all, to look like her, is painted fair.
I grant indeed that fields and flocks have charms
For him that gazes or for him that farms;
But when amid such pleasing scenes I trace
The poor laborious natives of the place,
And see the mid-day sun, with fervid ray,
On their bare heads and dewy temples play;
While some, with feebler heads and fainter hearts,
Deplore their fortune, yet sustain their parts:
Then shall I dare these real ills to hide
In tinsel trappings of poetic pride?
No, cast by Fortune on a frowning coast,
Which can no groves nor happy valleys boast;
Where other cares than those the Muse relates,
And other shepherds dwell with other mates;
By such examples taught, I paint the cot,
As truth will paint it, and as bards will not:
Nor you, ye poor, of lettered scorn complain,
To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain;
O'ercome by labour and bowed down by time,
Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme?
Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread,
By winding myrtles round your ruined shed?
Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower,
Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?
Lo! where the heath, with withering brake grown o'er,
Lends the light turf that warms the neighboring poor;
From thence a length of burning sand appears,
Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears;
Rank weeds, that every art and care defy,
Reign o'er the land and rob the blighted rye:
There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar,
And to the ragged infant threaten war;
There poppies, nodding, mock the hope of toil,
There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil;
Hardy and high, above the slender sheaf,
The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf;
O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade,
And the wild tare clings round the sickly blade;
With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound,
And a sad splendor vainly shines around.
So looks the nymph whom wretched arts adorn,
Betrayed by man, then left for man to scorn;
Whose cheek in vain assumes the mimic rose
While her sad eyes the troubled breast disclose;
Whose outward splendour is but folly's dress,
Exposing most, when most it gilds distress.
Here joyless roam a wild amphibious race,
With sullen woe displayed in every face;
Who far from civil arts and social fly,
And scowl at strangers with suspicious eye.
Here too the lawless merchant of the main
Draws from his plough th' intoxicated swain;
Want only claimed the labor of the day,
But vice now steals his nightly rest away.
Where are the swains, who, daily labor done,
With rural games played down the setting sun;
Who struck with matchless force the bounding ball,
Or made the pond'rous quoit obliquely fall;
While some huge Ajax, terrible and strong,
Engaged some artful stripling of the throng,
And, foiled, beneath the young Ulysses fell,
When peals of praise the merry mischief tell?
Where now are these?—Beneath yon cliff they stand,
To show the freighted pinnace where to land;
To load the ready steed with guilty haste;
To fly in terror o'er the pathless waste,
Or, when detected in their straggling course,
To foil their foes by cunning or by force;
Or, yielding part (when equal knaves contest),
To gain a lawless passport for the rest.
Here, wand'ring long amid these frowning fields,
I sought the simple life that Nature yields;
Rapine and Wrong and Fear usurped her place,
And a bold, artful, surly, savage race;
Who, only skilled to take the finny tribe,
The yearly dinner, or septennial bribe
Wait on the shore and, as the waves run high,
On the tossed vessel bend their eager eye,
Which to their coast directs its vent'rous way,
Theirs, or the ocean's, miserable prey.
As on their neighbouring beach yon swallows stand,
And wait for favoring winds to leave the land;
While still for flight the ready wing is spread:
So waited I the favouring hour, and fled;
Fled from these shores where guilt and famine reign,
And cried, Ah! hapless they who still remain;
Who still remain to hear the ocean roar,
Whose greedy waves devour the lessening shore;
Till some fierce tide, with more imperious sway,
Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away;
When the sad tenant weeps from door to door,
And begs a poor protection from the poor!
But these are scenes where Nature's niggard hand
Gave a spare portion to the famished land;
Hers is the fault, if here mankind complain
Of fruitless toil and labor spent in vain;
But yet in other scenes, more fair in view,
Where Plenty smiles—alas! she smiles for few
And those who taste not, yet behold her store,
Are as the slaves that dig the golden ore,
The wealth around them makes them doubly poor.
Or will you deem them amply paid in health,
Labor's fair child, that languishes with wealth?
Go then! and see them rising with the sun,
Through a long course of daily toil to run;
Like him to make the plenteous harvest grow,
And yet not shard the plenty they bestow;
See them beneath the dog-star's raging heat,
When the knees tremble and the temples beat;
Behold them, leaning on their scythes, look o'er
The labour past, and toils to come explore;
See them alternate suns and showers engage,
And hoard up aches and anguish for their age;
Through fens and marshy moors their steps pursue,
When their warm pores imbibe the evening dew;
Then own that labour may as fatal be
To these thy slaves, as luxury to thee.
Amid this tribe too oft a manly pride
Strives in strong toil the fainting heart to hide;
There may you see the youth of slender frame
Contend with weakness, weariness, and shame:
Yet urged along, and proudly loth to yield,
He strives to join his fellows of the field;
Till long-contending nature droops at last,
Declining health rejects his poor repast,
His cheerless spouse the coming danger sees,
And mutual murmurs urge the slow disease.
Yet grant them health, 'tis not for us to tell,
Though the head droops not, that the heart is well;
Or will you urge their homely, plenteous fare,
Healthy and plain and still the poor man's share!
Oh! trifle not with wants you cannot feel,
Nor mock the misery of a stinted meal;
Homely not wholesome, plain not plenteous, such
As you who envy would disdain to touch.
Ye gentle souls, who dream of rural ease,
Whom the smooth stream and smoother sonnet please;
Go! if the peaceful cot your praises share,
Go, look within, and ask if peace be there:
If peace be his—that drooping weary sire,
Or theirs, that offspring round their feeble fire,
Or hers, that matron pale, whose trembling hand
Turns on the wretched hearth th' expiring brand.
Nor yet can time itself obtain for these
Life's latest comforts, due respect and ease;
For yonder see that hoary swain, whose age
Can with no cares except his own engage;
Who, propped on that rude staff, looks up to see
The bare arms broken from the withering tree,
On which, a boy, he climbed the loftiest bough,
Then his first joy, but his sad emblem now.
He once was chief in all the rustic trade,
His steady hand the straightest furrow made;
Full many a prize he won, and still is proud
To find the triumphs of his youth allowed.
A transient pleasure sparkles in his eyes,
He hears and smiles, then thinks again and sighs:
For now he journeys to his grave in pain;
The rich disdain him, nay, the poor disdain;
Alternate masters now their slave command,
And urge the efforts of his feeble hand;
Who, when his age attempts its task in vain,
With ruthless taunts of lazy poor complain.
Oft may you see him, when he tends the sheep,
His winter-charge, beneath the hillock weep;
Oft hear him murmur to the winds that blow
O'er his white locks and bury them in snow;
When, roused by rage and muttering in the morn,
He mends the broken hedge with icy thorn:
"Why do I live, when I desire to be
At once from life and life's long labour free?
Like leaves in spring, the young are blown away,
Without the sorrows of a slow decay;
I, like yon withered leaf, remain behind,
Nipped by the frost, and shivering in the wind;
There it abides till younger buds come on,
As I, now all my fellow-swains are gone;
Then, from the rising generation thrust,
It falls, like me, unnoticed to the dust.
"These fruitful fields, these numerous flocks I see,
Are others' gain, but killing cares to me;
To me the children of my youth are lords,
Slow in their gifts but hasty in their words:
Wants of their own demand their care, and who
Feels his own want and succors others too?
A lonely, wretched man, in pain I go,
None need my help and none relieve my woe;
Then let my bones beneath the turf be laid,
And men forget the wretch they would not aid."
Thus groan the old, till, by disease oppressed,
They taste a final woe, and then they rest.
Theirs is yon house that holds the parish poor,
Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapours, flagging, play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;
There children dwell, who know no parents' care,
Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there;
Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,
Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed;
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,
And crippled age with more than childhood-fears;
The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they!
The moping idiot and the madman gay.
Here too the sick their final doom receive,
Here brought, amid the scenes of grief, to grieve,
Where the loud groans from some sad chamber flow,
Mixed with the clamors of the crowd below;
Here, sorrowing, they each kindred sorrow scan,
And the cold charities of man to man:
Whose laws indeed for ruined age provide,
And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from pride;
But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh,
And pride embitters what it can't deny.
Say ye, oppressed by some fantastic woes,
Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose;
Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance
With timid eye to read the distant glance;
Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease
To name the nameless ever-new disease;
Who with mock patience dire complaints endure,
Which real pain, and that alone, can cure;
How would ye bear in real pain to lie,
Despised, neglected, left alone to die?
How would ye bear to draw your latest breath,
Where all that's wretched paves the way for death?
Such is that room which one rude beam divides,
And naked rafters form the sloping sides;
Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen,
And lath and mud is all that lie between;
Save one dull pane, that, coarsely patched, gives way
To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day.
Here, on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread,
The drooping wretch reclines his languid head;
For him no hand the cordial cup applies,
Nor wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes;
No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile,
Nor promise hope till sickness wears a smile.
But soon a loud and hasty summons calls,
Shakes the thin roof, and echoes round the walls.
Anon, a figure enters, quaintly neat,
All pride and business, bustle and conceit;
With looks unaltered by these scenes of woe,
With speed that, entering, speaks his haste to go,
He bids the gazing throng around him fly,
And carries fate and physic in his eye;
A potent quack, long versed in human ills,
Who first insults the victim whom he kills;
Whose murd'rous hand a drowsy bench protect,
And whose most tender mercy is neglect.
Paid by the parish for attendance here,
He wears contempt upon his sapient sneer;
In haste he seeks the bed where misery lies,
Impatience marked in his averted eyes;
And, some habitual queries hurried o'er,
Without reply, he rushes on the door:
His drooping patient, long inured to pain,
And long unheeded, knows remonstrance vain;
He ceases now the feeble help to crave
Of man, and mutely hastens to the grave.
But ere his death some pious doubts arise,
Some simple fears, which "bold bad" men despise;
Fain would he ask the parish priest to prove
His title certain to the joys above;
For this he sends the murmuring nurse, who calls
The holy stranger to these dismal walls;
And doth not he, the pious man, appear,
He, "passing rich with forty pounds a year"?
Ah! no; a shepherd of a different stock,
And far unlike him, feeds this little flock:
A jovial youth, who thinks his Sunday's task
As much as God or man can fairly ask;
The rest he gives to loves and labors light,
To fields the morning and to feasts the night;
None better skilled the noisy pack to guide,
To urge their chase, to cheer them or to chide;
Sure in his shot, his game he seldom missed,
And seldom failed to win his game at whist;
Then, while such honors bloom around his head,
Shall he sit sadly by the sick man's bed
To raise the hope he feels not, or with zeal
To combat fears that ev'n the pious feel
Now once again the gloomy scene explore,
Less gloomy now; the bitter hour is o'er,
The man of many sorrows sighs no more.
Up yonder hill, behold how sadly slow
The bier moves winding from the vale below;
There lie the happy dead, from trouble free,
And the glad parish pays the frugal fee.
No more, oh Death! thy victim starts to hear
Churchwarden stern, or kingly overseer;
No more the farmer gets his humble bow,
Thou art his lord, the best of tyrants thou!
Now to the church behold the mourners come,
Sedately torpid and devoutly dumb;
The village children now their games suspend,
To see the bier that bears their ancient friend:
For he was one in all their idle sport,
And like a monarch ruled their little court;
The pliant bow he formed, the flying ball,
The bat, the wicket, were his labours all;
Him now they follow to his grave, and stand
Silent and sad, and gazing, hand in hand;
While bending low, their eager eyes explore
The mingled relics of the parish poor.
The bell tolls late, the moping owl flies round,
Fear marks the flight and magnifies the sound;
The busy priest, detained by weightier care,
Defers his duty till the day of prayer;
And, waiting long, the crowd retire distressed,
To think a poor man's bones should lie unblessed.


Source: The Longman Anthology of Poetry (2006)

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2008/07/in-memoriam-alvin-feinman-1929-2008

I love all of Alvin’s poems, but this one in particular, the first poem of his I ever read, is one of my favorites.

November Sunday Morning

And the light, a wakened heyday of air
Tuned low and clear and wide,
A radiance now that would emblaze
And veil the most golden horn
Or any entering of a sudden clearing
To a standing, astonished, revealed…
That the actual streets I loitered in
Lay lit like fields, or narrow channels
About to open to a burning river;
All brick and window vivid and calm
As though composed in a rigid water
No random traffic would dispel…
As now through the park, and across
The chill nailed colors of the roofs,
And on near trees stripped bare,
Corrected in the scant remaining leaf
To their severe essential elegance,
Light is the all-exacting good,
That dry, forever virile stream
That wipes each thing to what it is,
The whole, collage and stone, cleansed
To its proper pastoral…
I sit
And smoke, and linger out desire.

ALVIN FEINMAN
Originally Published: July 14th, 2008


A TRULY MAGNIFICENT POET, ONE DEDICATED TO HIS CRAFT.--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

His Last Sonnet
- Poem by John Keats

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art! -
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -
No -yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever -or else swoon to death.
John Keats

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-lecture-upon-the-shadow/


A Lecture Upon The Shadow
- Poem by John Donne


Stand still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, love, in love's philosophy.
These three hours that we have spent,
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produc'd.
But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,
And to brave clearness all things are reduc'd.
So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us, and our cares; but now 'tis not so.
That love has not attain'd the high'st degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see.

Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Others, these which come behind
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our loves faint, and westwardly decline,
To me thou, falsely, thine,
And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day;
But oh, love's day is short, if love decay.
Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his first minute, after noon, is night.
John Donne

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Monimia. An Ode


In weeds of sorrow wildly 'dight,
Alone beneath the gloom of night,
Monimia went to mourn;
She left a mother's fond alarms;
Ah! never to return!

The bell had struck the midnight hour,
Disastrous planets now had power,
And evil spirits resign'd;
The lone owl, from the cloister'd isle,
O'er falling fragments of the pile,
Ill-boding prophet, plain'd

While down her devious footsteps stray,
She tore the willows by the way,
And gazed upon the wave;
Then raising wild to Heaven her eyes,
With sobs and broken accent, cries,
'I'll meet thee in the grave.'

Bright o'er the border of the stream,
Illumined by a transient beam,
She knew the wonted grove;
Her lover's hand had deck'd it fine,
And roses mix'd with myrtles twine
To form the bower of love.

The tuneful Philomela rose,
And, sweetly mournful, sung her woes,
Enamour'd of the tree;
Touch'd with the melody of wo,
More tender tears began to flow:
'She mourns her mate like me.

'I loved my lover from a child,
And sweet the youthful cherub smiles,
And wanton'd o'er the green;
He train'd my nightingale to sing,
He spoil'd the gardens of the spring
To crown me rural queen.

'My brother died before his day;
Sad, through the church-yard's dreary way,
We wont to walk at eve:
And bending o'er th' untimely urn,
Long at the monument to mourn,
And look upon his grave.

'Like forms funereal while we stand,
In tender mood he held my hand,
And laid his cheek to mine;
My bosom beat unknown alarms,
We wept in one another's arms,
And mingled tears divine.

'From sweet compassion love arose,
Our hearts were wedded by our woes,
And pair'd upon the tomb;
Attesting all the Powers above,
A fond romance of fancied love
We vowed our days to come.

'A wealthy lord from Indian skies,
Illustrious in my parent's eyes,
Implored a mutual mind;
Sad to my chamber I withdrew,
But Harry's footsteps never flew
The wonted scene to find.

'Three nights in dire suspense I sat
Alone; the fourth convey'd my fate,
Sent from a foreign shore;—
"Go, where thy wandering wishes tend
Go, and embrace thy father's friend,
You never see me more!"—

'Despair! distraction! I obey'd,
And one disordered moment made
An ever-wretched wife:
Ah! in the circuit of one Sun,
Heaven! I was wedded and undone,
And desolate for life!

'A part my wedding robes I tore,
And guarded tears now gushing o'er
Distain'd the bridal bed:
Wild I invoked the funeral yell,
And sought devoted now to dwell
For ever with the dead.

'My lord to India climates went,
A letter from my lover sent
Renew'd eternal woes;—
Before my love my last words greet,
Wrapp'd in the weary winding sheet,
I in the dust repose!

'Perhaps your parents have deceived,
Perhaps too rashly I believed
A tale of treacherous art;
Monimia! could you now behold
The youth you loved in sorrows old,
Oh! it would break my heart!

'Now in the grave for ever laid,
A constant solitary shade,
The Harry hangs o'er thee!
For you I fled my native sky:
Loaded with life, for you I die;
My love, remember me!

'Of all the promises of youth,
The tears of tenderness and truth,
The throbs that lovers send;
The vows in one another's arms,
The secret sympathy of charms;
My God! is this the end!

She said, and rushing from the bower,
Devoted sought in evil hour
The promontory steep;
Hung o'er the margin of the main,
Her fix'd and earnest eyeballs strain
The dashing of the deep.

'Waves that resound from shore to shore!
Rocks loud rebellowing to the roar
Of ocean, storm, and wing!
Your elemental war is tame,
To that which rages in my frame,
The battle of the mind!'

With downcast eye and musing mood,
A lurid interval she stood,
The victim of despair;
Her arms then tossing to the skies,
She pour'd in nature's ear her cries,
'My God! my father! where!'—

Wild on the summit of the steep
She ruminated long the deep,
And felt her freezing blood;
Approaching feet she heard behind,
Then swifter than the winged wind
She plunged into the flood.

Her form emerging from the wave,
Both parents saw, but could not save;
The shriek of death arose!
At once she sunk to rise no more;
And sadly sounding to the shore,
The parted billows close!

*******************
John Logan
1748-1788
John Logan (1748 - 1788), author of "Runnamede," was born in Midlothian, Scotland. Logan's character as a poet is easily conceived. Simplicity, elegance, and taste, are the genuine features of his compsition. His style, peculiarly chaste and delicate, is finely suited to natural, tender, or pathetic description, in which principally he excels.
Read More
John Logan, like many others of the same rank, was probably intended by his parents for the ministry, before he discovered either capacity for learning, or inclination for that sacred employment. Whether he received the first rudiments of his education at home, or in the parochial school, hast not hitherto been ascertained; but it is certain that some time before 1762, his father had removed from Soutra to Gosford Mains in East Lothian, and that the son was sent to Musselburgh school, then under the care of Mr. Jeffray. While there, instead of being boarded with the master, he was placed with an old woman of the same religious persuasion with his parents. By her he was made to read the scriptures every evening with a whining tone, which seldom failed to lull her into a profound sleep. Upon his removal to the University of Edinburgh in November 1762, where he attended the first Greek and second Latin classes, he discovered an uncommon proficiency in the learned languages,and was one of the few whom Mr. Hunter, then Professor of Greek, examined before Principal Robertson upon his first visitation after being installed.

As a student of philosophy his appearances were less brilliant than they had been with language. The abstract demonstrations of Euclid, the confused jargon of scholastic logic, and the abstruse doctrines of metaphysics, wanted charms to arrest and captivate his glowing and vigorous imagination.

The end of Logan was truly Christian. When he became too weak to hold a book, he employed his time hearing such young persons as visited him read the Scriptures. His conversation turned chiefly on serious subjects, and was most affecting and instructive. He foresaw, and prepared for the approach of death, gave directions about his funeral with the utmost composure, and dictated a distinct and judicious will, appointing Dr. Donald Grant, and his ancient steady friend Dr. Robertson, his executors; and bequething to them his property, books, and MSS. to be converted into money, for the payment of legacies, to those relations and friends, who had the strongest claims upon his affectionate remembrance in his dying moments. He died upon the 28th day of December, 1788.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://allpoetry.com/Returning,-We-Hear-the-Larks


Returning, We Hear the Larks

BY Isaac Rosenberg


Sombre the night is.
And though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lies there.

Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know
This poison-blasted track opens on our camp -
On a little safe sleep.

But hark! joy - joy - strange joy.
Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks.
Music showering our upturned list’ning faces.

Death could drop from the dark
As easily as song -
But song only dropped,
Like a blind man’s dreams on the sand
By dangerous tides,
Like a girl’s dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there,
Or her kisses where a serpent hides.
***************************

BRIEF BIO-
Isaac Rosenberg

Born in Bristol, England on 25th November 1890 to Russian-Jewish parents, Isaac Rosenberg grew up in the East End of London and became an apprentice engraver until he went to the Slade School to study. He was in South Africa when the First World War broke out recuperating from illness, but despite poor health, in 1915 he enlisted as a private in the Army and served in the ranks on the Western Front from 1916 until he was killed in action on April 1st 1918. He was 27 years old. Isaac Rosenberg, Charles Sorley and Wilfred Owen, were considered to be the three greatest Great War poets, and Rosenberg's poem, "Break of Day in The Trenches" is generally considered to be t ..........

************************************************** ************************************************** ***********


https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/isaac-rosenberg


Isaac Rosenberg
1890–1918

Isaac Rosenberg may be remembered as a Jewish-English poet, or a poet of war, but his poetry stretches beyond those narrow categories. Since Rosenberg was only twenty-eight when he died, most critics have tended to treat his corpus as a promising but flawed start, and they wonder if he would have become a great poet had he lived. Rosenberg's status as an English poet is thus still debated: he was a Jewish poet, he was an English poet; he was a war poet, he was a painter-poet; he was a young poet; he was a great poet and a minor poet. In his brief career, Rosenberg created a small selection of poems and a great many questions.

Rosenberg was born on November 25, 1890 in Bristol. His parents, Dovber "Barnett" Rosenberg and Hacha "Hannah" Davidov Rosenberg, were Jewish immigrants from Russia. During Rosenberg's childhood, they moved into the squalid streets of London's Jewish ghetto, and there set up a butcher's shop. The shop was soon confiscated, however, and Rosenberg's parents were forced to work as itinerants during the rest of his life. Rosenberg himself was only able to attend school briefly; at age fourteen, he began to work as an engraver's apprentice, spending his spare time practicing painting. He eventually showed so much promise in the visual arts that he was granted funds to attend the Slade Art School, a significant center of aesthetic theory. The school—which trained artists of various stripes, including Rosenberg's friend Mark Gertler—prized originality above all, and rewarded students with vision above those with labored skill.

Rosenberg ultimately developed "infinity of suggestion," particularly in his poetry. But his early works seem too deeply influenced by the romantics to reveal much of Rosenberg's own voice. In Night and Day (1912), for example, Rosenberg's poems tend to ring with "poetical" sounding words, lending the verse a self-conscious, antique air. As Thomas Staley remarked in Dictionary of Literary Biography: "The poems in this thin volume are much like his early paintings in that they lacked originality, a distinctive voice. The influence of Shelley and Keats, especially Keats's 'Endymion,' is clear, and even the imagery is suffused with Keatsian diction. But the subject matter seems to probe beyond this influence to go backward in search of a more comprehensive vision of the world." Rosenberg produced one more volume of poetry, Youth (1915), before enlisting in a battalion to fight in World War I. Francine Ringold, writing for the Encyclopedia of World Literature, noted that Youth follows the general pattern of Night and Day: "all of these self-published works [Rosenberg's first volumes of poetry] demonstrate the moral earnestness and predilection for sonorous language that give R[osenberg]'s work its richness yet, when in excess, detract from its effectiveness." Irving Howe comments, similarly: "The early Rosenberg is always driving himself to say more than he has to say, because he thinks poets must speak to large matters. Later he learns that in a poppy in the trenches or a louse in a soldier's shirt, there is enough matter for poetry."

Rosenberg fought in World War I between 1915 and 1918, dying in the battle of Arras on April 1. During this period, his work reached a kind of early maturity; in this period he found a truly distinctive voice, one particularly indebted to the Old Testament and his sidelined Jewish identity. Many critics see Rosenberg strictly through his war poems. Others, however, insist that the war was only a subject for Rosenberg, or perhaps a challenge for which he was eminently suited. In many ways, Rosenberg's vision of the human relationship with God depends on his Jewish heritage—it depends on the metaphors of the Old Testament, at least. Rosenberg's Judaism is perhaps most apparent in his dramatic fragments, Moses and The Unicorn. "Had Rosenberg lived to develop further along the lines on which he had already moved," wrote David Daiches in Commentary, "he might have changed the course of modern English poetry, producing side by side with the poetry of Eliot and his school a richer and more monumental kind of verse, opposing a new romantic poetry to the new metaphysical brand."

Ultimately, critics tend to dismiss Rosenberg based on his brief career and his thin contribution to English letters. But in his final poems, Rosenberg offers something more than war poetry or Jewish English poetry. "The tragedy of war gave [his] affinities full expression in his later poems," Staley concluded, "and as war became the universe of his poetry, the power of his Jewish roots and the classical themes became the sources of his moral vision as well as his poetic achievement."

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Far Above The Shaken Tree
- Poem by Digby Mackworth Dolben

Far above the shaken trees,
In the pale blue palaces,
Laugh the high gods at their ease:
We with tossèd incense woo them,
We with all abasement sue them,
But shall never climb unto them,
Nor see their faces.


Sweet my sister, Queen of Hades,
Where the quiet and the shade is,
Of the cruel deathless ladies
Thou art pitiful alone.
Unto thee I make my moan,
Who the ways of earth hast known
And her green places.


Feed me with thy lotus-flowers,
Lay me in thy sunless bowers,
Whither shall the heavy hours
Never trail their hated feet,
Making bitter all things sweet;
Nevermore shall creep to meet
The perished dead.


There 'mid shades innumerable,
There in meads of asphodel,
Sleeping ever, sleeping well,
They who toiled and who aspired,
They, the lovely and desired,
With the nations of the tired
Have made their bed.


There is neither fast nor feast,
None is greatest, none is least;
Times and orders all have ceased.
There the bay-leaf is not seen;
Clean is foul and foul is clean;
Shame and glory, these have been
But shall not be.


When we pass away in fire,
What is found beyond the pyre?
Sleep, the end of all desire.
Lo, for this the heroes fought;
This the gem the merchant bought,
This the seal of laboured thought
And subtilty.
Digby Mackworth Dolben

***************************************

From Sappho
- Poem by Digby Mackworth Dolben

Thou liest dead,-lie on: of thee
No sweet remembrances shall be,
Who never plucked Pierian rose,
Who never chanced on Anterôs.
Unknown, unnoticed, there below
Through Aides' houses shalt thou go
Alone,-for never a flitting ghost
Shall find in thee a lover lost.
Digby Mackworth Dolben
************************************************** ***************


http://www.thehypertexts.com/Digby%20Dolben%20Best%20Poems%20Poet%20Poetry%20Pi cture%20Bio.htm


The HyperTexts

The Best Poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben

On a warm summer afternoon in 1867, Digby Mackworth Dolben drowned at age nineteen. The poems he left behind were said by future English poet laureate Robert Bridges to equal "anything that was ever written by any English poet at his age." According to Simon Edge, author of The Hopkins Conundrum, Gerard Manley Hopkins was "so captivated by a brief meeting [with Dolben] that he spent the rest of his life mourning him." In a letter to Bridges after Dolben’s death, Hopkins said "there can very seldom have happened the loss of so much beauty (in body and mind and life) and of the promise of still more as there has been in his case." Hopkins also asked Bridges whether Dolben's family had considered publishing his poems. Fortunately, the independently wealthy Bridges later published books of poems by both Dolben and Hopkins, or their poetry might have been lost to the world forever.

Is Dolben merely a literary curiosity today because he attracted the attention of two famous poets―with possible homoerotic undertones on Hopkins' part―then died so young and so tragically? Or does he merit consideration as a poet in his own right? After his discovery of the prodigy's work thanks to Simon's novel, THT advisory editor Tom Merrill emailed Simon that "Dolben's precocity surprised me―how beyond his years he was. I hope people know about him. He was a deeply sensitive person, maybe comparable to Shelley." Another poet to whom Dolben may be compared is Thomas Chatterton, the "marvellous boy" who died at age seventeen and yet was so highly esteemed by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Shelley.

Dolben's poems were published in a single volume by Bridges in 1911; the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says that his work stands "among the best of the poetry of the Oxford Movement." Dolben's death, it adds, "was the end of a life of exceptional poetic promise." I agree and see no reason that such exceptional poetry―all the more tantalizing because it was written at such a young age―should not be read today. Toward that end, here are the poems of Digby Dolben that strike me as his best, followed by three more that, according to Bridges, exhibit "complete mastery." The fourth such poem, in Bridges' opinion, is the first poem below.
―Michael R. Burch, editor, The HyperTexts

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Sun Rising
------ by John Donne

Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

She’s all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.

*****************************************

The Good-Morrow
----by John Donne

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/laurence-binyon-for-the-fallen.htm

For the Fallen

Poem by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in The Times newspaper on 21st September 1914.

For the Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.



Inspiration for “For the Fallen”
Plaque unveiled in 2003 at Polzeath to commemorate the place where For the Fallen is believed to have been composed.
Plaque for For the Fallen poem.
Laurence Binyon composed his best known poem while sitting on the cliff-top looking out to sea from the dramatic scenery of the north Cornish coastline. A plaque marks the location at Pentire Point, north of Polzeath. However, there is also a small plaque on the East Cliff north of Portreath, further south on the same north Cornwall coast, which also claims to be the place where the poem was written.

The poem was written in mid September 1914, a few weeks after the outbreak of the First World War. During these weeks the
British Expediti ....................
******************************

Gets me every time I read it, much the same way as John MacCrae's world famous poem, "In Flander's Field", does..-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

When I Have Fears
- Poem by John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; - then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
John Keats

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Grief
BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy dead in silence like to death—
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Dylan-Thomas-And-Death-Shall-Have-No-Dominion


Introduction and Text of "And Death Shall Have No Dominion"
From the King James Version of the Judeo-Christian scripture, Romans 6:9, "Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him" (my emphasis).

In Dylan Thomas' poem, "And Death Shall Have No Dominion," the speaker employs that sentiment in his title and five other repetitions as a refrain. The three novtets—9-line stanzas—seek to demonstrate the efficacy of that a claim that death shall not have any control over the human soul. While the quotation from Romans specifically focused on the advanced state of consciousness of the Christ, Who rose above death's grasp, the speaker of Thomas' poem muses on the possibilities of the human soul as it conquers death.

And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

Dylan Thomas' poem

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Fidelis
- Poem by Adelaide Anne Procter


You have taken back the promise
That you spoke so long ago;
Taken back the heart you gave me-
I must even let it go.
Where Love once has breathed, Pride dieth,
So I struggled, but in vain,
First to keep the links together,
Then to piece the broken chain.

But it might not be-so freely
All your friendship I restore,
And the heart that I had taken
As my own forevermore.
No shade of reproach shall touch you,
Dread no more a claim from me-
But I will not have you fancy
That I count myself as free.

I am bound by the old promise;
What can break that golden chain?
Not even the words that you have spoken,
Or the sharpness of my pain:
Do you think, because you fail me
And draw back your hand today,
That from out the heart I gave you
My strong love can fade away?

It will live. No eyes may see it;
In my soul it will lie deep,
Hidden from all; but I shall feel it
Often stirring in its sleep.
So remember that the friendship
Which you now think poor and vain,
Will endure in hope and patience,
Till you ask for it again.

Perhaps in some long twilight hour,
Like those we have known of old,
When past shadows gather round you,
And your present friends grow cold,
You may stretch your hands out towards me-
Ahl You will-I know not when-
I shall nurse my love and keep it
Faithfully, for you, till then.

Adelaide Anne Procter

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

1.

The Bait
BY JOHN DONNE
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.

There will the river whispering run
Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun;
And there the 'enamour'd fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,
By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both,
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowy net.

Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest;
Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.

For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait:
That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
Alas, is wiser far than I.
BY JOHN DONNE
******************************************

2.

The Man with the Hoe
BY EDWIN MARKHAM
Written after seeing Millet’s World-Famous Painting

God made man in His own image,
in the image of God made He him. —Genesis.

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this—
More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed—
More filled with signs and portents for the soul—
More fraught with danger to the universe.

What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time’s tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Judges of the World,
A protest that is also prophecy.

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched ?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb Terror shall reply to God
After the silence of the centuries?
BY EDWIN MARKHAM

[LongTermGuy]

~ "For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait"~

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Black Messengers
(Translation of Los Heraldos Negros)
-- poem by César Vallejo


There are in life such hard blows . . . I don't know!
Blows seemingly from God's wrath; as if before them
the undertow of all our sufferings
is embedded in our souls . . . I don't know!

There are few; but are . . . opening dark furrows
in the fiercest of faces and the strongest of loins,
They are perhaps the colts of barbaric Attilas
or the dark heralds Death sends us.


They are the deep falls of the Christ of the soul,
of some adorable one that Destiny Blasphemes.
Those bloody blows are the crepitation
of some bread getting burned on us by the oven's door

And the man . . . poor . . . poor!
He turns his eyes around, like
when patting calls us upon our shoulder;
he turns his crazed maddened eyes,
and all of life's experiences become stagnant, like a puddle of guilt, in a daze.

There are such hard blows in life. I don't know.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

THE SONG OF A SUMMER.

I PLUCKED an apple from off a tree,
Golden and rosy and fair to see,—
The sunshine had fed it with warmth and light,
The dews had freshened it night by night,
And high on the topmost bough it grew,
Where the winds of Heaven about it blew;
And while the mornings were soft and young
The wild birds circled, and soared, and sung,—
There, in the storm and calm and shine,
It ripened and brightened, this apple of mine,
Till the day I plucked it from off the tree,
Golden and rosy and fair to see.

How could I guess 'neath that daintiest rind
That the core of sweetness I hoped to find—
The innermost, hidden heart of the bliss,
Which dews and winds and the sunshine's kiss
Had tended and fostered by day and night—
Was black with mildew, and bitter with blight;
Golden and rosy and fair of skin,
Nothing but ashes and ruin within?
Ah, never again, with toil and pain,
Will I strive the topmost bough to gain,—
Though its wind-swung apples are fair to see,
On a lower branch is the fruit for me.
By Louise Chandler Moulton
************************************************** ***************
THE HOUSE OF DEATH.

NOT a hand has lifted the latchet
Since she went out of the door,—
No footstep shall cross the threshold,
Since she can come in no more.
There is rust upon locks and hinges,
And mold and blight on the walls,
And silence faints in the chambers,
And darkness waits in the halls,—
Waits, as all things have waited,
Since she went, that day of spring,
Borne in her pallid splendor,
To dwell in the Court of the King:
With lilies on brow and bosom,
With robes of silken sheen,
And her wonderful frozen beauty
The lilies and silk between.
Red roses she left behind her,
But they died long, long ago,—
'Twas the odorous ghost of a blossom
That seemed through the dusk to glow.

The garments she left mock the shadows
With hints of womanly grace,
And her image swims in the mirror
That was so used to her face.
The birds make insolent music
Where the sunshine riots outside;
And the winds are merry and wanton,
With the summer's pomp and pride.
But into this desolate mansion,
Where Love has closed the door,
Nor sunshine nor summer shall enter,
Since she can come in no more.
By Louise Chandler Moulton

************************************************** *****************************

######
I recently found and bought a book of this magnificent poet's poetry.
This poet was quite famous in her time and now that I've read several dozen of her poems, I see she was a true poet
and a genius at verse, and a very, very intelligent lady.--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Sonnet (1928)
By Elizabeth Bishop


I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
By Elizabeth Bishop
© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes


*************************************************

Love Lies Sleeping
By Elizabeth Bishop

Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
that cross the sky from cinder star to star,
coupling the ends of streets
to trains of light.

now draw us into daylight in our beds;
and clear away what presses on the brain:
put out the neon shapes
that float and swell and glare

down the gray avenue between the eyes
in pinks and yellows, letters and twitching signs.
Hang-over moons, wane, wane!
From the window I see

an immense city, carefully revealed,
made delicate by over-workmanship,
detail upon detail,
cornice upon facade,

reaching up so languidly up into
a weak white sky, it seems to waver there.
(Where it has slowly grown
in skies of water-glass

from fused beads of iron and copper crystals,
the little chemical "garden" in a jar
trembles and stands again,
pale blue, blue-green, and brick.)

The sparrows hurriedly begin their play.
Then, in the West, "Boom!" and a cloud of smoke.
"Boom!" and the exploding ball
of blossom blooms again.

(And all the employees who work in a plants
where such a sound says "Danger," or once said "Death,"
turn in their sleep and feel
the short hairs bristling

on backs of necks.) The cloud of smoke moves off.
A shirt is taken of a threadlike clothes-line.
Along the street below
the water-wagon comes

throwing its hissing, snowy fan across
peelings and newspapers. The water dries
light-dry, dark-wet, the pattern
of the cool watermelon.

I hear the day-springs of the morning strike
from stony walls and halls and iron beds,
scattered or grouped cascades,
alarms for the expected:

queer cupids of all persons getting up,
whose evening meal they will prepare all day,
you will dine well
on his heart, on his, and his,

so send them about your business affectionately,
dragging in the streets their unique loves.
Scourge them with roses only,
be light as helium,

for always to one, or several, morning comes
whose head has fallen over the edge of his bed,
whose face is turned
so that the image of

the city grows down into his open eyes
inverted and distorted. No. I mean
distorted and revealed,
if he sees it at all.
By Elizabeth Bishop
© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

************************************************** *************


Song for the Rainy Season
By Elizabeth Bishop

Hidden, oh hidden
in the high fog
the house we live in,
beneath the magnetic rock,
rain-, rainbow-ridden,
where blood-black
bromelias, lichens,
owls, and the lint
of the waterfalls cling,
familiar, unbidden.

In a dim age
of water
the brook sings loud
from a rib cage
of giant fern; vapor
climbs up the thick growth
effortlessly, turns back,
holding them both,
house and rock,
in a private cloud.

At night, on the roof,
blind drops crawl
and the ordinary brown
owl gives us proof
he can count:
five times—always five—
he stamps and takes off
after the fat frogs that,
shrilling for love,
clamber and mount.

House, open house
to the white dew
and the milk-white sunrise
kind to the eyes,
to membership
of silver fish, mouse,
bookworms,
big moths; with a wall
for the mildew's
ignorant map;

darkened and tarnished
by the warm touch
of the warm breath,
maculate, cherished;
rejoice! For a later
era will differ.
(O difference that kills
or intimidates, much
of all our small shadowy
life!) Without water

the great rock will stare
unmagnetized, bare,
no longer wearing
rainbows or rain,
the forgiving air
and the high fog gone;
the owls will move on
and the several
waterfalls shrivel
in the steady sun.
By Elizabeth Bishop

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Edit - poem removed.
Now presented in the correct thread, The Sonnet thread .
I should never post until after I have had my morning coffee.
Seems I was not awake enough to post in the correct thread here. -Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Heartbroken I Stand Here So Strong

Heaven has demanded your return
I've only ashes in this urn
From golden halls, flies our love song
Heartbroken I stand here so strong.

You were my angel, love divine
In those flown yesterdays, so fine
I was lost, singing my sad song,
Heartbroken I stand here so strong.

Your loving heart gave mine soft beat
The world became tender and sweet
I left life's weeping morose throng
Heartbroken I stand here so strong.

You came, darkness melted away
An angel that taught me to pray
In hope's purest joy we belong
Heartbroken I stand here so strong.

Syllables Per Line:0 8 8 8 8 0 8 8 8 8 0 8 8 8 8 0 8 8 8 8
Total # Syllables: 128
Total # Words: 98

July 9, 2019
Writing Challenge 1, July 2019 - Repeating Refrain Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Dear Heart

Contest results, 7-16-2019
2nd place finish

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Great Love Lost, Truth Only Then Found


Where was I, journeying when I lost her heart,
a stranger to tragedy and great pain!
She that once healed me has now torn me apart,
wading wastelands of despair almost insane.

Where was I, when walking stone path so blind,
traveler seeking waste of lust and greed!
A damn fool devoid of care and looking to find,
that which I so stupidly thought I need.

While her faithful love battled to stay alive,
my desires raced onward into dark deeds!
She that gave all her love to help me survive,
watched me in error sow my wild seeds.

When did I, wake to this hell, long nightmare,
a cut beast all set to moan and bleed!
Crying out in misery how my life is so unfair,
still forgetting her pain and need.

When will, my soul lead me from my sad plight,
a victim of my own lusts and dark acts!
A beast screaming out for help in plain sight,
only now getting truth and the facts.

Where was I, journeying when I lost her heart,
a stranger to tragedy and great pain!
She that once healed me has now torn me apart,
wading wastelands of despair almost insane.

R.J. Lindley
April 9th, 1975

********************************************

A Song That Lives On Just To Thrive


Cling like the wild wind to a stormy night
as a child to a sweet mother's hem
Dare to step from safety , from the Light
into shadows dancing free but dim
Be bold in the whispers of a cooing dove
a song that lives on just to thrive
Willing angel flying down from far above
to find the meaning of being alive!

Ride the wild wind into a realm of delight
across broad waters sail or skim
Seeking promised land far from your sight
land of beauty, so sleek and trim
The perfect fit , like a custom made glove
loving grace in a swan-like dive
Sweet spirit of great magic of newfound Love
greatest music any man can contrive!

Cling like the wild wind to a stormy night
as a child to a sweet mother's hem
Dare to step from safety , from the Light
into shadows dancing free but dim
Be bold in the whispers of a cooing dove
a song that lives on just to thrive
Willing angel flying down from far above
to find the meaning of being alive!


Robert J. Lindley, March, 1984


Note: Written long ago , revised for another poetry contest.
28 lines or less, subject love and dreams.
Must be any form of rhyme. No names, must
be new poem , list date.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/siegfried-sassoon

Dreamers
BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON
Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.

************************************

Attack
BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON
At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
In the wild purple of the glow'ring sun,
Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,
Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire.
The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed
With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear,
Men jostle and climb to, meet the bristling fire.
Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,
They leave their trenches, going over the top,
While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists,
And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists,
Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop!
**************************************

The Humbled Heart
BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON
Go your seeking, soul.
Mine the proven path of time’s foretelling.
Yours accordance with some mysteried whole.
I am but your passion-haunted dwelling.

Bring what news you can,
Stranger, loved of body’s humbled heart.
Say one whispered word to mortal man
From that peace whereof he claims you part.

Hither-hence, my guest,
Blood and bone befriend, where you abide
Till withdrawn to share some timeless quest.
I am but the brain that dreamed and died.

Sigfried Sassoon, “The Humbled Heart” from Collected Poems 1908-1956.
Copyright Siegfried Sassoon. Reprinted by kind permission of George Sassoon.

************************************************** ************

The Death Bed
BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON
He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep.
Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

Someone was holding water to his mouth.
He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot
The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
Water—calm, sliding green above the weir;
Water—a sky-lit alley for his boat,
Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers
And shaken hues of summer: drifting down,
He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,
Blowing the curtain to a gummering curve.
Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars
Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;
Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,
Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.

Rain—he could hear it rustling through the dark;
Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;
Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers
That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps
Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace,
Gently and slowly washing life away.

He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain
Leaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore
His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.
But someone was beside him; soon he lay
Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.
And death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.

Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He's young; he hated war; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?

But death replied: “I choose him.” So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

Source: The Old Huntsman and Other Poems (1917)

*********************************************

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/siegfried-sassoon


Siegfried Sassoon
1886–1967
Black and white photograph of Siegfried Sassoon.
Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
Siegfried Sassoon is best remembered for his angry and compassionate poems of the First World War, which brought him public and critical acclaim. Avoiding the sentimentality and jingoism of many war poets, Sassoon wrote of the horror and brutality of trench warfare and contemptuously satirized generals, politicians, and churchmen for their incompetence and blind support of the war. His later poems, often concerned with religious themes, were less appreciated, but the autobiographical trilogy The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston won him two major awards.

Born into a wealthy Jewish family, sometimes called the "Rothschilds of the East" because the family fortune was made in India, Sassoon lived the leisurely life of a cultivated country gentleman before the First World War, pursuing his two major interests, poetry and fox hunting. His early work, which was privately printed in several slim volumes between 1906 and 1916, is considered minor and imitative, heavily influenced by John Masefield (of whose work The Daffodil Murderer is a parody).

Following the outbreak of the First World War, Sassoon served with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, seeing action in France in late 1915. He received a Military Cross for bringing back a wounded soldier during heavy fire. After being wounded in action, Sassoon wrote an open letter of protest to the war department, refusing to fight any more. "I believe that this War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it," he wrote in the letter. At the urging of Bertrand Russell, the letter was read in the House of Commons. Sassoon expected to be court-martialed for his protest, but poet Robert Graves intervened on his behalf, arguing that Sassoon was suffering from shell-shock and needed medical treatment. In 1917, Sassoon was hospitalized.

Counter-Attack and Other Poems collects some of Sassoon's best war poems, all of which are "harshly realistic laments or satires," according to Margaret B. McDowell in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. The later collection The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon included 64 poems of the war, most written while Sassoon was in hospital recovering from his injuries. Public reaction to Sassoon's poetry was fierce. Some readers complained that the poet displayed little patriotism, while others found his shockingly realistic depiction of war to be too extreme. Even pacifist friends complained about the violence and graphic detail in his work. But the British public bought the books because, in his best poems, Sassoon captured the feeling of trench warfare and the weariness of British soldiers for a war that seemed never to end. "The dynamic quality of his war poems," according to a critic for the Times Literary Supplement, "was due to the intensity of feeling which underlay their cynicism." "In the history of British poetry," McDowell wrote, "[Sassoon] will be remembered primarily for some one hundred poems ... in which he protested the continuation of World War I."

After the war, Sassoon became involved in Labour Party politics, lectured on pacifism, and continued to write. His most successful works of this period were his trilogy of autobiographical novels, The Memoirs of George Sherston. In these, he gave a thinly-fictionalized account, with little changed except names, of his wartime experiences, contrasting them with his nostalgic memories of country life before the war and recounting the growth of his pacifist feelings. Some have maintained that Sassoon's best work is his prose, particularly the first two Sherston novels. Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man was described by a critic for the Springfield Republican as "a novel of wholly fresh and delightful content," and Robert Littrell of Bookman called it "a singular and a strangely beautiful book."

That book's sequel was also well received. The New Statesman critic called Memoirs of an Infantry Officer "a document of intense and sensitive humanity." In a review for the Times Literary Supplement, after Sassoon's death, one critic wrote: "His one real masterpiece, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer ... is consistently fresh. His self scrutiny is candid, critical, and humourous.... If Sassoon had written as well as this consistently, he would have been a figure of real stature. As it is, English literature has one great work from him almost by accident."

Sassoon's critical biography of Victorian novelist and poet George Meredith was also well received. In this volume, he recounted numerous anecdotes about Meredith, portraying him vividly as a person as well as an author: "The reader lays the book down with the feeling that a great author has become one of his close neighbors," wrote G. F. Whicher in the New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review. The critical portions of the book were also praised, though some found the writing careless. But the New Yorker critic noted Sassoon's "fresh and lively literary criticism," and the reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement declared that "Mr. Sassoon gives us a poet's estimate, considered with intensity of insight, skilfully shaped as biography, and written with certainty of style."

In 1957 Sassoon became a convert to Catholicism, though for some time before his conversion, his spiritual concerns had been the predominant subject of his writing. These later religious poems are usually considered markedly inferior to those written between 1917 and 1920. Yet Sequences (published shortly before his conversion) has been praised by some critics. Derek Stanford, in Books and Bookmen, claimed that "the poems in Sequences constitute some of the most impressive religious poetry of this century."

Speaking of Sassoon's war poetry in a 1981 issue of the Spectator, P. J. Kavanagh claimed that "today they ring as true as they ever did; it is difficult to see how they could be better." Looking back over Sassoon's long literary career, Peter Levi wrote in Poetry Review: "One can experience in his poetry the slow, restless ripening of a very great talent; its magnitude has not yet been recognised.... He is one of the few poets of his generation we are really unable to do without."
*****************************************

By any true standard, definitely one of the top five greatest war poets that has ever inked a verse, IMHO..-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

By Starlight-20 Titles From 20 Friends

By Connie Marcum Wong.



By Starlight

How proud stands the willow
in silhouette of twilight skies.
The willow never weeps alone,
tears of joy stream down cheeks
at the footbridge where she
touched the water, where
Moonbeams dance
In the land beneath falling stars,**
In the land of purple thunder as
Lightning strikes in an interlude to a
Fleeting rainstorm revealing
Hidden beauty in moon glow.

O, how heavenly!

A Rendezvous, echoing of ethereal eyes
In a magical stairway to the stars...
Whisper me a song, my love, a soul song.
She dreams of sentient stars forged by fire
In universal streams of light as she
Gazes wistfully heaven bound.

7-19-19

*Names of the poets whose titles are
incorporated into my poem:

Proud Stands the Willow by CayCay Jennings
Silhouette by Paul Callus
The Willow Never Weeps Alone by Sandra Adams
At the Footbridge by Jan Allison
She Touched the Water by Richard Lamoureux
Moon Beams Dance by Gershon Wolf
In the Land Beneath Falling Stars by Robert Lindley
The Land of Purple Thunder by Mike Gentile
Lightning Strikes by Kim Rodrigues
Fleeting Rainstorm by Vijay Pandit
Hidden Beauty By John Fleming
In Moon Glow by Andrea Dietrich
O, how heavenly by Dear Heart
A Rendezvous by Kurt Ravidas
Echoing of Ethereal Eyes by Winged Warrior
Stairway to the Stars by Carolyn Devonshire
Whisper Me a Song, My Love by Victor Buhagiar
Soul Song by Greg Barden
Forged by Fire by Eve Roper
Streams of Light by Caren Krutsinger

20 titles from 20 friends Poetry Contest ~Second Place~
Sponsored by: Richard Lamoureux

***************************************

This poem composed by my dear friend Connie won 2nd place in the contest..
I wished I had entered my poem but the things we miss in life due to our decisions are legion..---Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Below is new poem by my great friend Winged Warrior-
A 360 Reversible.... And a very , very good one I might add.
I am humbly honored that in addition to giving tribute to Master Poe, he also gave creds to both my dear friend Victor and myself, along with our dark poetry......--Tyr


By Winged Warrior

Ravens and Castles


Listen to poem:
...inspired by and in dedication to ~ Victor Buhagiar, Robert Lindley (my mentors) and the rest of the PoetrySoup Family...thank you for your kindness and support...

A Tribute To Edgar Allan Poe... by ^WW^ Winged Warrior
July.30.2019


A Winged Warrior 360 Reversible...


-Ravens and Castles-

Morbid castles cobwebbed upon haunting hills,
Horrid crawling cadavers of blood bring spills…
Ravens cawing carousingly amidst nocturnal nights,
Cravens surrounding lunatics of fanatical frights…

Wizards and wands wandering of sunken dungeons,
Lizards lashing longing of fecal flies flying luncheons…
Spiders savoring creatures cocooning of appetites,
Writers writing of winding roads amongst candlelights…

Ghostly apparitions attending of masters chambered,
Mostly hauntings of dead relatives dismembered…
Thunder & lightening resonating through humid halls,
Under feeling of spells and incantations bouncing walls…

Pivoting pendulums balancing upon lethal life and death,
Riveting raging rivers calming anticipating final breath…
Wearing witches and warlocks of demons delirious dancing,
Swearing sentinels before crimson maddening moon trancing.

Background music by...
Dark Magic Music-'Salems Secrets'
Peter Gundry Composer




Backward read...


-Castles and Ravens-

Hills haunting upon cobwebbed castles morbid,
Spills bring blood of cadavers crawling horrid…
Nights nocturnal amidst carousingly cawing ravens,
Frights fanatical of lunatics surrounding cravens…

Dungeons sunken of wandering wands and Wizards,
Luncheons flying flies fecal of longing lashing lizards…
Appetites of cocooning creatures savoring spiders,
Candlelights amongst roads winding of writing writers…

Chambered masters of attending apparitions ghostly,
Dismembered relative’s dead of hauntings mostly…
Halls humid through resonating lightening & thunder,
Walls bouncing incantations and spells of feeling under…

Death and life lethal upon balancing pendulums pivoting,
Breath final anticipating calming rivers raging riveting…
Dancing delirious demons of warlocks and witches wearing,
Trancing moon maddening crimson before sentinels swearing.


Background music by...
'The Sealed Kingdom'
Adrian Von Ziegler Composer


(((THANK YOU, DEAR FRIENDS)))...To all who commented and to help make these verses, poem of the day...Thank you for your kindness and support...ps more to come lol...Winged Warrior ^WW^ :o)


Copyright © Winged Warrior | Year Posted 2019

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Waradgery Tribe
by Dame Mary Gilmore

Harried we were, and spent,
broken and falling,
ere as the cranes we went,
crying and calling.

Summer shall see the bird
backward returning;
never shall there be heard
those, who went yearning.

Emptied of us the land;
ghostly our going;
fallen like spears the hand
dropped in the throwing.

We are the lost who went,
like the cranes, crying;
hunted, lonely and spent
broken and dying.

**********************

The First Thrush
by Dame Mary Gilmore


Though leaves have fallen long since,
The wagtails flirt and flit,
Glad in the morning sun;
While, on the knotted quince,
The dewdrops, pearled on it,
Bead to a little run. . . .

Soft as a breathing air
There came a lovely sound
Out of the branches bare;
So rich it was, and round,
Sense stood, in listening bound,
Stilled to its sweetness there!
It was the thrush's note,

That seemed as though his heart
On some loved thing did dote;
As though he yearned apart,
Knowing some hidden smart,
Pain in the long sweet rote.

There, as the spider hung
Grey-breasted 'gainst the brown
Skin of the quince, he sung
A song that o'er the town,
Rose up as though to crown
The tree-tops whence it sprung.

And now, it seems to me,
That long full breath he drew,
Like perfume shed on air,
Still dwells within the tree,
Though long ago he flew,
And left it naked there.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Valley of Unrest

by Edgar Allan Poe
(published 1845)


Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sun-light lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley's restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless --
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye --
Over the lilies there that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave: -- from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops.
They weep: -- from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46789/in-exile


In Exile

BY EMMA LAZARUS

“Since that day till now our life is one unbroken paradise. We live a true brotherly life. Every evening after supper we take a seat under the mighty oak and sing our songs.”—Extract from a letter of a Russian refugee in Texas.


Twilight is here, soft breezes bow the grass,
Day's sounds of various toil break slowly off.
The yoke-freed oxen low, the patient ass
Dips his dry nostril in the cool, deep trough.
Up from the prairie the tanned herdsmen pass
With frothy pails, guiding with voices rough
Their udder-lightened kine. Fresh smells of earth,
The rich, black furrows of the glebe send forth.

After the Southern day of heavy toil,
How good to lie, with limbs relaxed, brows bare
To evening's fan, and watch the smoke-wreaths coil
Up from one's pipe-stem through the rayless air.
So deem these unused tillers of the soil,
Who stretched beneath the shadowing oak tree, stare
Peacefully on the star-unfolding skies,
And name their life unbroken paradise.

The hounded stag that has escaped the pack,
And pants at ease within a thick-leaved dell;
The unimprisoned bird that finds the track
Through sun-bathed space, to where his fellows dwell;
The martyr, granted respite from the rack,
The death-doomed victim pardoned from his cell,—
Such only know the joy these exiles gain,—
Life's sharpest rapture is surcease of pain.

Strange faces theirs, wherethrough the Orient sun
Gleams from the eyes and glows athwart the skin.
Grave lines of studious thought and purpose run
From curl-crowned forehead to dark-bearded chin.
And over all the seal is stamped thereon
Of anguish branded by a world of sin,
In fire and blood through ages on their name,
Their seal of glory and the Gentiles' shame.

Freedom to love the law that Moses brought,
To sing the songs of David, and to think
The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught,
Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink
The universal air—for this they sought
Refuge o'er wave and continent, to link
Egypt with Texas in their mystic chain,
And truth's perpetual lamp forbid to wane.

Hark! through the quiet evening air, their song
Floats forth with wild sweet rhythm and glad refrain.
They sing the conquest of the spirit strong,
The soul that wrests the victory from pain;
The noble joys of manhood that belong
To comrades and to brothers. In their strain
Rustle of palms and Eastern streams one hears,
And the broad prairie melts in mist of tears.


Source: Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems and Other Writings (2002)
************************************************** ***

A truly talented and awe inspiring poet.....-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Invictus: The Unconquerable
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.



This oft anthologised, oft quoted, oft hated poem is
sometimes published with the first line as title and so it is listed here in that fashion.
It is also sometimes known as I. T. R M. Hamilton Bruce since, after Bruce's death, Henley had those words added to subsequent publications of this poem.
'Invicitus' is sweeping; passionate; larger than life in a way that few modern poems can get away with. It is also an oft quoted poem, lines of it having almost passed into the language. While these are invariably the ones that involve hurling defiance into the teeth of the storm, note that the poem itself hinges just as strongly on the 'storm' itself. It is the tension between the strongly contrastive elements that raises 'Invicitus' from a series of platitudes to a great poem.
© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Chetan Patil, Poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen !


The impossible Dream
---The Poem Of La Mancha

To dream the impossible dream..
To fight the unbeatable foe..
To bear the unbearable sorrow..
To run where the brave dare not to go..
To love the pure and chest from a far..
To right the unforgivable wrong..
To try when your arms are too weary..
To reach that unreachable star..

This is my quest.. to follow that star..
No matter how place.. no matter how far..
To fight for the right..
without questions.. without pause..

To be willing to march into hell..
For heavenly cause....

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

De Profundis
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning


I

The face, which, duly as the sun,
Rose up for me with life begun,
To mark all bright hours of the day
With hourly love, is dimmed away—
And yet my days go on, go on.


II

The tongue which, like a stream, could run
Smooth music from the roughest stone,
And every morning with ' Good day'
Make each day good, is hushed away,
And yet my days go on, go on.


III

The heart which, like a staff, was one
For mine to lean and rest upon,
The strongest on the longest day
With steadfast love, is caught away,
And yet my days go on, go on.


IV

And cold before my summer's done,
And deaf in Nature's general tune,
And fallen too low for special fear,
And here, with hope no longer here,
While the tears drop, my days go on.


V

The world goes whispering to its own,
‘This anguish pierces to the bone;’
And tender friends go sighing round,
‘What love can ever cure this wound ?'
My days go on, my days go on.


VI

The past rolls forward on the sun
And makes all night.
O dreams begun,
Not to be ended! Ended bliss,
And life that will not end in this!
My days go on, my days go on.


VII

Breath freezes on my lips to moan:
As one alone, once not alone,
I sit and knock at Nature's door,
Heart-bare, heart-hungry, very poor,
Whose desolated days go on.


VIII

I knock and cry, —Undone, undone!
Is there no help, no comfort, —none?
No gleaning in the wide wheat plains
Where others drive their loaded wains?
My vacant days go on, go on.


IX

This Nature, though the snows be down,
Thinks kindly of the bird of June:
The little red hip on the tree
Is ripe for such.
What is for me,
Whose days so winterly go on?

X

No bird am I, to sing in June,
And dare not ask an equal boon.

Good nests and berries red are Nature's
To give away to better creatures, —
And yet my days go on, go on.


XI

I ask less kindness to be done, —
Only to loose these pilgrim shoon,
(Too early worn and grimed) with sweet
Cool deadly touch to these tired feet.

Till days go out which now go on.


XII

Only to lift the turf unmown
From off the earth where it has grown,
Some cubit-space, and say ‘Behold,
Creep in, poor Heart, beneath that fold,
Forgetting how the days go on.
’


XIII

What harm would that do? Green anon
The sward would quicken, overshone
By skies as blue; and crickets might
Have leave to chirp there day and night
While my new rest went on, went on.


XIV

From gracious Nature have I won
Such liberal bounty? may I run
So, lizard-like, within her side,
And there be safe, who now am tried
By days that painfully go on?

XV

—A Voice reproves me thereupon,
More sweet than Nature's when the drone
Of bees is sweetest, and more deep
Than when the rivers overleap
The shuddering pines, and thunder on.


XVI

God's Voice, not Nature's! Night and noon
He sits upon the great white throne
And listens for the creatures' praise.

What babble we of days and days?
The Day-spring He, whose days go on.


XVII

He reigns above, He reigns alone;
Systems burn out and have his throne;
Fair mists of seraphs melt and fall
Around Him, changeless amid all,
Ancient of Days, whose days go on.


XVIII

He reigns below, He reigns alone,
And, having life in love forgone
Beneath the crown of sovran thorns,
He reigns the Jealous God.
Who mourns
Or rules with Him, while days go on?

XIX

By anguish which made pale the sun,
I hear Him charge his saints that none
Among his creatures anywhere
Blaspheme against Him with despair,
However darkly days go on.


XX

Take from my head the thorn-wreath brown!
No mortal grief deserves that crown.

O supreme Love, chief misery,
The sharp regalia are for Thee
Whose days eternally go on!

XXI

For us, —whatever's undergone,
Thou knowest, willest what is done,
Grief may be joy misunderstood;
Only the Good discerns the good.

I trust Thee while my days go on.


XXII

Whatever's lost, it first was won;
We will not struggle nor impugn.

Perhaps the cup was broken here,
That Heaven's new wine might show more clear.

I praise Thee while my days go on.


XXIII

I praise Thee while my days go on;
I love Thee while my days go on:
Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost,
With emptied arms and treasure lost,
I thank Thee while my days go on.


XXIV

And having in thy life-depth thrown
Being and suffering (which are one),
As a child drops his pebble small
Down some deep well, and hears it fall
Smiling—so I.
THY DAYS GO ON.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46787/the-south



The South
BY EMMA LAZARUS
Night, and beneath star-blazoned summer skies
Behold the Spirit of the musky South,
A creole with still-burning, languid eyes,
Voluptuous limbs and incense-breathing mouth:
Swathed in spun gauze is she,
From fibres of her own anana tree.

Within these sumptuous woods she lies at ease,
By rich night-breezes, dewy cool, caressed:
’Twixt cypresses and slim palmetto trees,
Like to the golden oriole’s hanging nest,
Her airy hammock swings,
And through the dark her mocking-bird yet sings.

How beautiful she is! A tulip-wreath
Twines round her shadowy, free-floating hair:
Young, weary, passionate, and sad as death,
Dark visions haunt for her the vacant air,
While noiselessly she lies
With lithe, lax, folded hands and heavy eyes.

Full well knows she how wide and fair extend
Her groves bright flowered, her tangled everglades,
Majestic streams that indolently wend
Through lush savanna or dense forest shades,
Where the brown buzzard flies
To broad bayous ’neath hazy-golden skies.

Hers is the savage splendor of the swamp,
With pomp of scarlet and of purple bloom,
Where blow warm, furtive breezes faint and damp,
Strange insects whir, and stalking bitterns boom—
Where from stale waters dead
Oft looms the great jawed alligator’s head.

Her wealth, her beauty, and the blight on these,—
Of all she is aware: luxuriant woods,
Fresh, living, sunlit, in her dream she sees;
And ever midst those verdant solitudes
The soldier’s wooden cross,
O’ergrown by creeping tendrils and rank moss.

Was hers a dream of empire? was it sin?
And is it well that all was borne in vain?
She knows no more than one who slow doth win,
After fierce fever, conscious life again,
Too tired, too weak, too sad,
By the new light to be or stirred or glad.

From rich sea-islands fringing her green shore,
From broad plantations where swart freemen bend
Bronzed backs in willing labor, from her store
Of golden fruit, from stream, from town, ascend
Life-currents of pure health:
Her aims shall be subserved with boundless wealth.

Yet now how listless and how still she lies,
Like some half-savage, dusky Indian queen,
Rocked in her hammock ’neath her native skies,
With the pathetic, passive, broken mien
Of one who, sorely proved,
Great-souled, hath suffered much and much hath loved!

But look! along the wide-branched, dewy glade
Glimmers the dawn: the light palmetto trees
And cypresses reissue from the shade,
And she hath wakened. Through clear air she sees
The pledge, the brightening ray,
And leaps from dreams to hail the coming day.

Source: Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems and Other Writings (2002)

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetseers.org/poets/19th-century-poets/

Poets at Poetseers » 19th Century Poets
19th Century Poets
” I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die. “

– Percy Shelley From: “The Cloud” 1820

The early 19th Century saw the blossoming of the great Romantic poets such as Keats, Shelley and William Wordsworth. In America there was also a powerful movement of poets, loosely termed “Early American Poets” these included Emily Dickinson, Ralph Emerson and Walt Whitman. After the great Romantic poets the next generation of British Poets became associated with the Victorian age. To some extent they offered greater conformity of vision and were more likely to use Christian imagery but they were still influenced by powerful undercurrents of the Romantic movement. In fact the influence of Romanticism can be seen even in modern poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins. Later poets of the twentieth century also acknowledged the influence of this creative period in poetry.

In India Swami Vivekananda epitomised the revitalisation of Hindu culture. After centuries of decline under Muslim and then British rule Vivekananda powerfully called his countrymen to invoke the ancient universal and eternal ideals of Sanatana Dharma.

British Poets in the 19th Century

Emily Bronte(1818 – 1848)
Elizabeth Browning (1806 – 1861)
Robert Browning(1812-1889)
John Clare (1793 – 1864)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)
John Keats (1795 -1821)
Rudyard Kipling
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 – 1889)
Christina Rossetti (1830 -1894)
Percy Shelley ( 1792 – 1822)
Lord Tennyson (1809 -1892)
William Wordsworth(1770 – 1850)
American Poets in the 19th Century

William Bryant (1794 – 1878 )
Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)
Henry Wordsworth Longfellow (1807 -1882)
Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862)
Walt Whitman(1819 – 1892)
Robert Frost (1874-1963
Indian Poets in the 19th Century

Ramakrishna (1836 – 1886)
Swami Vivekananda (1863 – 1902)
Sarojini Naidu (1879 – 1949)
Michael Madhusuda Dutt (b. 1824)
Fikirchand
Sufi Poets in the 19th Century

Bibi Hayati (19th Century)
European Poets

St Teresa of Lisieux (1873-1896)
Romain Rolland (1866-1944)
W.B.Yeats (1865 – 1939)
Oscar Wilde (1855 – 1900)

~

19th Century Poets at Amazon.com

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British Poets
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The Romantic Poets
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(Poetseers – Poem of the Day)

19th Century Poets at About

************************************************** **********
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)


Forbearance

(Beareth all things.—1 Cor. xiii. 7.)
Gently I took that which ungently came,
And without scorn forgave :–Do thou the same.
A wrong done to thee think a cat’s-eye spark
Thou wouldst not see, were not thine own heart dark.
Thine own keen sense of wrong that thirsts for sin,
Fear that–the spark self-kindled from within,
Which blown upon will blind thee with its glare,
Or smother’d stifle thee with noisome air.
Clap on the extinguisher, pull up the blinds,
And soon the ventilated spirit finds
Its natural daylight. If a foe have kenn’d,
Or worse than foe, an alienated friend,
A rib of dry rot in thy ship’s stout side,
Think it God’s message, and in humble pride
With heart of oak replace it ;–thine the gains–
Give him the rotten timber for his pains !
By: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

*************************************

To Nature

It may indeed be phantasy, when I
Essay to draw from all created things
Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings ;
And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie
Lessons of love and earnest piety.
So let it be ; and if the wide world rings
In mock of this belief, it brings
Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.
So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
Thee only God ! and thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice

By: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

THE LOON
by Lew Sarett


A lonely lake, a lonely shore,
A lone pine leaning on the moon;
All night the water-beating wings
Of a solitary loon.

With mournful wail from dusk to dawn
He gibbered at the taunting stars, —
A hermit-soul gone raving mad,
And beating at his bars.

**************************************

A Chippewa Love Song
by Lew Sarett

Ai-yee! my Yellow-Bird-Woman,
My ne-ne -- moosh, ai-yee! my Loved-One,
Be not afraid of my eyes!
Beat against me no longer;
Come! Come with a yielding of limbs.
Ai-yee! woman, woman,
Trembling there in the teepee
Like the doe in the season of rutting,
Why foolishly fearest thou me?
Beat against me no longer!
Be not afraid of my eyes!
Cast the strange doubts from thy bosom!
Be not as the flat-breasted squaw-sich
Who feels the first womanly yearnings
And hides, by the law of our people,
Alone three sleeps in the forest;
Be not as that brooding young maiden
Who wanders forlorn in the cedars,
And slumbers with troubled dreams,
To awaken suddenly, fearing
The hot throbbing blood in her bosom,
The strange eager life in her limbs.
Ai-yee! foolish one, woman,
Cast the strange fears from thy heart!
Wash the red shame from thy face!
Be not afraid of my glances!

Be as the young silver birch
In the Moon-of-the-Green-Growing-Grasses --
Who sings with the thrill of the sap
As it leaps to the south wind's caresses;
Who yields her rain-swollen buds
To the kiss of the sun with glad dancing.
Be as the cool tranquil moon
Who flings off her silver-blue blanket
To bare her white breast to the pine;
Who walks through the many-eyed night
In her gleaming white nudeness
With proud eyes that will not look down.
Be as the sun in her glory,
Who dances across the blue day,
And flings her red soul, fierce-burning,
Into the arms of the twilight.
Ai-yee! foolish one, woman,
Be as the sun and the moon!
Cast the strange doubts from thy bosom!
Wash the red shame from thy face!
Thou art a woman, a woman!
Beat against me no longer!
Be not afraid of my eyes!
*********************************************


THE POET OF THE WILDERNESS - Lew Sarett
I really enjoy working on this blog. I love doing the research - digging through old records looking for information or reading old newspaper and magazine articles trying to "flesh out" the subjects of my stories. But most I all I love working on this blog because it brings me in contact with people who I never would have encountered otherwise. This week's subject is a perfect example of that. His name is Lew Sarett (1888-1954) and he was called "the poet of the wilderness." It is highly doubtful that I would have ever encountered Lew Sarett in the normal course of my life but with this article of all that has changed. So let's sit back and relax and see what we can "dig up" about the man who wrote these lines:

Lew Sarett was born Lewis Zaratzsky on May 16, 1888 in Chicago. He was the only child of Rudolph Zaratzsky (1865-1925) and Jeanette, nee Bloch (1871-1948). His parents had immigrated to the US about 1880 - Rudolph from Poland and Jeanette from Lithuania. Rudolph was a clothing cutter by trade.

The family moved in 1895 to Marquette, Michigan, where young Lew Sarett first began to acquire his knowledge and love of the outdoors and of wild animals. Around 1900 Sarett and his mother returned to Chicago while his father continued to look for work. In 1902 the family was reunited and moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan, where Sarett graduated from Benton Harbor High School in 1907 as a champion orator, debater, athlete and scholar.

The 1910 US Census (April 28, 1910) finds "Lewis Seratsky" living in Chicago as a "Boarder" at 4347 West Congress Street. (That address is now a vacant lot.) He was living with Aron Jacobus and family. Lewis listed his occupation as "Cutter in the Tailoring Business," (same occupation as his father Rudolph). Surprisingly, Lewis told the census taker that he had been born in Russia, and that he came to the US in 1898.

Sarett started his higher education at the University of Michigan in Benton Harbor (1907-1908). In 1909 he was a sophomore transfer to Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin. During a colorful campus career there he was known as Lew R. Saretsky.


At Beloit he was a member of Delta Sigma Rho, honorary speech fraternity, and of the Turtle Mound, senior men's group. He was outstanding as a cheerleader in the days when sports were having a big revival of interest on the Beloit campus. As a cheerleader, he participated in Beloit's first homecoming ceremonies of 1910.

Lew Saretsky, Cheerleader

During these years, known as 'Swat,' Sarett participated in athletics and won honors in oratory. He won the Rice Prize for extemporaneous speaking at the 1910 commencement, and he won the Wisconsin State Oratorical Championship in two successive years. His prize-wining orations were “The Slavonic Offering to the American” in 1910 and “Poland's Offering to the American” in 1911. Around 1911, he formally changed his surname to Sarett.

After graduating from Beloit (Class of 1911), he attended Harvard Law School (1911-1912) and the University of Illinois Law School (LL.B. 1916).

In 1913 Lew Sarett accepted a position on the faculty of the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois. He was an Assistant Professor of Public Speaking for the 1913-1914 academic year and an Assistant Professor of English starting in 1914. During this period, Sarett lived at 504 E. Chalmers Street in Champaign. A parking lot occupies that space today.

For a time he lived among the Chippewa Indians of the Lake Superior region, was adopted by them and given the name "Lone Caribou." When Sarett was not teaching, he served as a part-time ranger in National Parks in Montana and Wyoming and as a wilderness guide in northern Minnesota and Canada.

On June 17, 1914 Lew R. Sarett married Margaret H. Minen (1893-1941) in St. Joseph, Michigan. Margaret H. Minen was born Margaret Helen Husted on June 17, 1893 in Marengo, Illinois to Harry Brooks Husted (1865-1931) and Helen Bryan, nee Osgood (1869-1910). Harry Husted was a bookkeeper by trade who went on to own a paint factory in Chicago.

Before she married Lew Sarett, Margaret had been married to George Edgar Mizen (1889-1942). They were married July 24, 1911 in Kane County, Illinois. The marriage ended in divorce.

Lew and Margaret Sarett were blessed with two children: Lewis Hastings Sarett (1917-1999), and Helen Osgood Sarett (1926-2007). Lewis H. Sarett became quite famous in his own right. He was the first chemist to synthesize cortisone. It was a feat of remarkable complexity involving nearly 40 chemical steps from desoxycholic acid and was achieved during World War II as a chemist in the Merck Research Laboratories. This synthesis and subsequent improvements of it ultimately led to cortisone’s use in treating rheumatoid arthritis and was the first of Sarett’s many contributions to medicine during a 40-year career at Merck. When he retired in 1982 he was senior vice-president for science and technology. He had been a key contributor to Merck’s growth, and in later years Sarett was an influential industry spokesman for U.S. science policy.

Sarett the elder has always dabbled with poetry, but he took it a step further in 1918 by starting to have some of his poems published. "Beat Against Me No Longer" was published in Others - a Magazine of the New Verse, "The Last Portage" in Argosy of May 24, 1919, and "The Granite Mountain" in Reedy's Mirror. Here is "Beat Against Me No Longer":

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Swan
Poem by Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin

I'll leave the mortal world behind,
Take wing in an flight fantastical,
With singing, my eternal soul
Will rise up swan-like in the air.

Possessing two immortal traits,
In Purgatory I won't not linger,
But rising over jealousy
I'll leave behind me kingdoms' shine.

'Tis so! Though not renowned by birth,
I am the muses favorite,
From other notables a world apart-
I'll be preferred by death itself.

The tomb will not confine me,
I will not turn to dust among the stars,
But like a heavenly set of pipes,
My voice will ring out from the sky.

And now I see that feathered skin
My figure covers all around.
My breast is downy and my back is winged,
I shine with pearly swan-like white.

I fly, I soar-and see below
The world entire-- oceans, woods.
Like mountains they lift up their heads
To hear my lofty hymn to God.

From Kuril Islands to the river Bug,
From White Sea to the Caspian,
Peoples from half the world
Of whom the Russian race's comprised,

Will hear of me in time:
Slavs, Huns, the Scythians, and Finns,
And others locked today in battle,
Will point at me and they'll pronounce:

"There flies the one who tuned his lyre
To speak the language of the heart,
And preaching peace to the whole world,
Enjoyed the happiness of all."

Forget a big and stately funeral,
My friends! Cease singing, muses' choir!
My wife! With patience gird yourself!
Don't keen upon what seems a corpse.
by Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

My Heart And I
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
In this poem, Elizabeth Barrett Browning refers to her friend and Italian statesman promoting unification, Count Cavour, who had recently died. She and her husband, poet Robert Browning, had just spent fifteen happy and relatively healthy years in Italy with friends. Elizabeth was no stranger to facing death, given her prolonged sickness throughout her life. Browning's expressive verses of compassion and loss have been praised as a fresh, strange music. In 1861, shortly after her death, Robert Browning published it, along with a collection of her later works, with this dedication: "I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett."


My Heart And I
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I.
Enough! we're tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason's knife,
As heaven's sweet life renews earth's life
With which we're tired, my heart and I.

II.
You see we're tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colours could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune's end,
We loved too true to keep a friend;
At last we're tired, my heart and I.

III.
How tired we feel, my heart and I!
We seem of no use in the world;
Our fancies hang grey and uncurled
About men's eyes indifferently;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet:
What do we here, my heart and I?

IV.
So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
It was not thus in that old time
When Ralph sat with me 'neath the lime
To watch the sunset from the sky.
Dear love, you're looking tired,' he said;
I, smiling at him, shook my head:
'Tis now we're tired, my heart and I.

V.
So tired, so tired, my heart and I!
Though now none takes me on his arm
To fold me close and kiss me warm
Till each quick breath end in a sigh
Of happy languor. Now, alone,
We lean upon this graveyard stone,
Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.

VI.
Tired out we are, my heart and I.
Suppose the world brought diadems
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems
Of powers and pleasures? Let it try.
We scarcely care to look at even
A pretty child, or God's blue heaven,
We feel so tired, my heart and I.

VII.
Yet who complains? My heart and I?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out:
Disdain them, break them, throw them by
And if before the days grew rough
We once were loved, used, well enough,
I think, we've fared, my heart and I.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[Russ]

Clever idea :clap:


Below is new poem by my great friend Winged Warrior-
A 360 Reversible.... And a very , very good one I might add.
I am humbly honored that in addition to giving tribute to Master Poe, he also gave creds to both my dear friend Victor and myself, along with our dark poetry......--Tyr


By Winged Warrior

Ravens and Castles


Listen to poem:
...inspired by and in dedication to ~ Victor Buhagiar, Robert Lindley (my mentors) and the rest of the PoetrySoup Family...thank you for your kindness and support...

A Tribute To Edgar Allan Poe... by ^WW^ Winged Warrior
July.30.2019


A Winged Warrior 360 Reversible...


-Ravens and Castles-

Morbid castles cobwebbed upon haunting hills,
Horrid crawling cadavers of blood bring spills…
Ravens cawing carousingly amidst nocturnal nights,
Cravens surrounding lunatics of fanatical frights…

Wizards and wands wandering of sunken dungeons,
Lizards lashing longing of fecal flies flying luncheons…
Spiders savoring creatures cocooning of appetites,
Writers writing of winding roads amongst candlelights…

Ghostly apparitions attending of masters chambered,
Mostly hauntings of dead relatives dismembered…
Thunder & lightening resonating through humid halls,
Under feeling of spells and incantations bouncing walls…

Pivoting pendulums balancing upon lethal life and death,
Riveting raging rivers calming anticipating final breath…
Wearing witches and warlocks of demons delirious dancing,
Swearing sentinels before crimson maddening moon trancing.

Background music by...
Dark Magic Music-'Salems Secrets'
Peter Gundry Composer




Backward read...


-Castles and Ravens-

Hills haunting upon cobwebbed castles morbid,
Spills bring blood of cadavers crawling horrid…
Nights nocturnal amidst carousingly cawing ravens,
Frights fanatical of lunatics surrounding cravens…

Dungeons sunken of wandering wands and Wizards,
Luncheons flying flies fecal of longing lashing lizards…
Appetites of cocooning creatures savoring spiders,
Candlelights amongst roads winding of writing writers…

Chambered masters of attending apparitions ghostly,
Dismembered relative’s dead of hauntings mostly…
Halls humid through resonating lightening & thunder,
Walls bouncing incantations and spells of feeling under…

Death and life lethal upon balancing pendulums pivoting,
Breath final anticipating calming rivers raging riveting…
Dancing delirious demons of warlocks and witches wearing,
Trancing moon maddening crimson before sentinels swearing.


Background music by...
'The Sealed Kingdom'
Adrian Von Ziegler Composer


(((THANK YOU, DEAR FRIENDS)))...To all who commented and to help make these verses, poem of the day...Thank you for your kindness and support...ps more to come lol...Winged Warrior ^WW^ :o)


Copyright © Winged Warrior | Year Posted 2019

Sad to have to report that our great friend Winged Warrior died many months ago....
Another very talented poet, kind and truly honorable person Heaven bound...--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Beginning of Wisdom
------ by Raymond A. Foss
In the beginning, we were afraid
we knew our nakedness
biting into the flesh of the fruit
of the forbidden tree

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
the psalmist wrote, oh so long ago
We forget so often
forget He is a jealous God
forget our weakness without him
walk in our own paths
for a separate false idol
graven images and temporal pleasures
Opportunities of epiphany lost
in our self-reliance

Cleave to the Lord
follow his commands
love one another
share in the Good News
Hear His still voice
burning within you now


July 1, 2006 7:50am
Psalm 111:10

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Tides
BY HELEN HUNT JACKSON
O patient shore, that canst not go to meet
Thy love, the restless sea, how comfortest
Thou all thy loneliness? Art thou at rest,
When, loosing his strong arms from round thy feet,
He turns away? Know’st thou, however sweet
That other shore may be, that to thy breast
He must return? And when in sterner test
He folds thee to a heart which does not beat,
Wraps thee in ice, and gives no smile, no kiss,
To break long wintry days, still dost thou miss
Naught from thy trust? Still, wait, unfaltering,
The higher, warmer waves which leap in spring?
O sweet, wise shore, to be so satisfied!
O heart, learn from the shore! Love has a tide!


**********************************


Opportunity
BY HELEN HUNT JACKSON
I do not know if, climbing some steep hill,
Through fragrant wooded pass, this glimpse I bought,
Or whether in some mid-day I was caught
To upper air, where visions of God’s will
In pictures to our quickened sense fulfil
His word. But this I saw.
A path I sought
Through wall of rock. No human fingers wrought
The golden gates which opened sudden, still,
And wide. My fear was hushed by my delight.
Surpassing fair the lands; my path lay plain;
Alas, so spell-bound, feasting on the sight,
I paused, that I but reached the threshold bright,
When, swinging swift, the golden gates again
Were rocky wall, by which I wept in vain.

Source: She Wields a Pen: American Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century (University of Iowa Press, 1997)

*************************************

Poppies on the Wheat
BY HELEN HUNT JACKSON
Along Ancona’s hills the shimmering heat,
A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow
Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow
Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat
Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet
Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro
To mark the shore.
The farmer does not know
That they are there. He walks with heavy feet,
Counting the bread and wine by autumn’s gain,
But I,—I smile to think that days remain
Perhaps to me in which, though bread be sweet
No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain,
I shall be glad remembering how the fleet,
Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat.

Source: The Longman Anthology of Poetry (Pearson, 2006)


***********************************************


https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/helen-hunt-jackson#tab-poems

Helen Hunt Jackson
1830–1885
Black and white portrait of Helen Hunt Jackson sitting, hands clasped.
Online Archive of California
Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to academic Calvinist parents, poet, author, and Native American rights activist Helen Hunt Jackson (born Helen Maria Fiske) was orphaned as a child and raised by her aunt. Jackson was sent to private schools and formed a lasting childhood friendship with Emily Dickinson. At the age of 21, Jackson married Lieutenant Edward Bissell Hunt and together they had two sons. Jackson began writing poetry only after the early deaths of her husband and both sons.

Jackson published five collections of poetry, including Verses (1870) and Easter Bells (1884), as well as children’s literature and travel books, often using the pseudonyms “H.H.,” “Rip van Winkle,” or “Saxe Holm.” Frequently in poor health, she moved to Colorado on her physician’s recommendation and married William Sharpless Jackson there in 1875.

Moved by an 1879 speech given by Chief Standing Bear, Jackson wrote A Century of Dishonor (1881), an exposé of the rampant crimes against Native Americans, which led to the founding of the Indian Rights Association. In 1884 she published Ramona, a fictionalized account of the plight of Southern California’s dispossessed Mission Indians, inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Jackson was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame in 1985.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Peking Dust, a poem by Wade Oliver, 1934

A short poem published in 1934….



Peking Dust


Of camphor wood and carved jade

The shy wings of this song are made.

*

Over the grey walls of Peking

They swoop and dart and soar and sing,

*

Leaving behind the dusty fret

Of hands that toil, and hearts that sweat

*

Their crimson drops of living blood

To carve from lifeless stone and wood

The lean flesh of their livelihood.

*

Wade Oliver

Though published in American newspapers in 1934 the poem’s origins may be earlier as, from what I can glean online, Oliver was at his most prolific in the 1920s and early 1930s. Poetry Quarterly magazine described Oliver as an ‘authentic’ whose work had a ‘high level of lyricism and imagery’.

I’m not sure if Oliver ever wrote another poem about China but he was seemingly favoured as a contributor to Harriet Monroe’s journal Poetry. Monroe’s interest in China combined with her professional relationships with Amy Lowell and Ezra Pound on Chinese poetry have been well documented and noted before on this blog via the work of various academics including Anne Witchard of Westminster University.

****************

A truly magnificent poet. Poems that truly stir the soul..-Tyr


*******************




Poetry Explorer
HOME ABOUT CONTEMPORARY POETS SUBJECT DISCOVERY TOP POETS CONTACT

BY AN INDIAN GRAVE, by MILDRED PLEW MEIGS MERRYMAN

First Line: Sleep on, dead seminole - your bones are chalk
Last Line: And we two dream together, seminole.
Alternate Author Name(s): Meigs, Mildred Plew
Subject(s): Death; Dreams; Native Americans; Dead, The; Nightmares; Indians Of America; American Indians; Indians Of South America


BY AN INDIAN GRAVE
, by MILDRED PLEW MEIGS MERRYMAN

Sleep on, dead Seminole -- your bones are chalk;
The red urn cracks beneath its heaping shell;
This is your spring to slumber, mine to walk
And hear the slow surf booming like a bell.
My spring to hear the limpid quail-song lift
Where jasmine and magnolia cup their cream,
And wind and sun forever shade and shift
Over the shrunken hearts of them that dream.
Your spring to sleep where shore pines, blunted, bleak,
Rock darkly on the night like dim sunk spars;
My own to wait beside the moon-torn creek
And watch the quiet crumbling of old stars.
Then pouf! -- one dusk a moon shall rise and roll,
And we two dream together, Seminole.


Another truly magnificent poet!-- Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://www.poetseers.org/nobel-prize-for-literature/romain-rolland/

Poet Seers


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The Poet-Seers
Nobel Prize Poets » Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland Romain Rolland (29 January 1866 – 30 December 1944) was a French writer, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.
“Every man who is truly a man must learn to be alone in the midst of all others, and if need be against all others.”

– Romain Rolland

Romain Rolland Bio
Romain Rolland the great French savant, novelist, dramatist, essayist, and mystic—Romain Rolland (1866 – 1944) was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.

He was born in Clamecy, Nièvre, France. His family was of mixed stock including both wealthy townspeople and poorer labourers.

Romain Rolland went to University in 1886 where he studied philosophy, however he didn’t enjoy the rigid nature of the philosophy syllabus and so left before he had finished his course. Instead he received a degree in history. After university he spent a couple of years in Italy, greatly admiring Italian art and the great masterpieces.

On returning to France he took up a posts teaching at various university’s including the Sorbonne. However his heart was never in teaching, he preferred to be a writer. Therefore he quit his teaching post to dedicate his time to writing.

Rolland was my nature introverted he didn’t make close friendships but absorbed himself in his writing. During the German occupation of France from 1940 he led a life of isolation and was very much a loner.

“The sages, who discovered the law of non-violence in the midst of violence, were greater geniuses than Newton, greater warriors than Wellington. Non-violence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute.”

– Romain Rolland

Romain Rolland was a lifelong pacifist. He was a great admirer of Gandhi and in 1924 wrote a book on Gandhi. This book was important for both himself and for Gandhi’s reputation in Europe. The two men were able to meet in 1931. Throughout his life Romain Rolland retained a keen interest in India and Indian spirituality.

If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India. … For more than 30 centuries, the tree of vision, with all its thousand branches and their millions of twigs, has sprung from this torrid land, the burning womb of the Gods. It renews itself tirelessly showing no signs of decay.

– Romain Rolland, Life of Ramakrishna (1929)

He also wrote a biography of the great Hindu Saint Sri Ramakrishna. Romain Rolland was also a keen admirer of Sri Aurobindo a leading Indian nationalist and later a teacher of Yoga.

Romain Rolland died on Dec 30,1944 in Vezelay.

-Richard

Links:
Romain Rolland Quotes
Nobel Prize for Literature

*************************
*************************


https://brucespoems.blogspot.com/2019/11/credo-romain-rolland-and-edmond.html


A Collection of Poems
A diverse collection of poems I like.

HomeIndex of PoemsPoetry World Map

Venice masks
Sunday, 10 November 2019
Credo - Romain Rolland and Edmond Bordeaux Szekely
We believe that our most precious possession is Life.
We believe we shall mobilize all the forces of Life against the forces of death.
We believe that mutual understanding leads toward mutual cooperation:
that mutual cooperation leads toward Peace;
and that Peace is the only way of survival for mankind.
We believe that we shall preserve instead of waste our natural resources,
which are the heritage of our children.
We believe that we shall avoid pollution of our air, water, and soil,
the basic preconditions of life.
We believe we shall preserve the vegetation of our planet:
the humble grass which came fifty million years ago,
and the majestic trees which came twenty million years ago,
to prepare our planet for mankind.
We believe we shall eat only fresh, natural, pure, whole foods,
without chemicals and artificial processing.
We believe we shall live a simple, natural, creative life,
absorbing all the sources of energy, harmony and knowledge, in and around us.
We believe that the improvement of life and mankind on our planet
must start with individual efforts, as the whole depends on the atoms composing it.
We believe in
the Fatherhood of God,
the Motherhood of Nature,
and the Brotherhood of Man.
Romain Rolland (1866 - 1944), France and Edmond Bordeaux Szekely (1905 - 1979) Hungary
Source: The Gospel of Love and Peace: Essene, Books 1-4, edited by Jörg Berchem, Books on Demand, 2016
Credo of the International Biogenic Society
Posted by Bruce-the-Sheep at 14:20


************************************************** **

We Are The Ones Destroying Without A Prudent Thought

Nature delivers but mankind seeks to destroy
that which the majestic bounty of earth provides
man is taught to take anything to then employ
in order to always be on the winning side
yet truth is there are costs to any sacrifice
mortals weak and so blinded simply fail to see
in the end we as a group shall pay that high price
for that black darkness born into both you and me.

R.J. Lindley, 2-17- 1980
Rhyme,-- (Waking Up To Finally A Darken Truth See)

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://poets.org/poem/refusal-mourn-death-fire-child-london




A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London
Dylan Thomas - 1914-1953


Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child's death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.

****************

Dylan Thomas , a poet's poet! Recognized for the true greatness in him and his work.--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Three great poems by -- Harriet Monroe



The Blue Ridge

STILL and calm,
In purple robes of kings,
The low-lying mountains sleep at the edge of the world.
The forests cover them like mantles;
Day and night
Rise and fall over them like the wash of waves.

Asleep, they reign.
Silent, they say all.
Hush me, O slumbering mountains —
Send me dreams.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes


*********

With A Copy Of Shelley


BEHOLD, I send thee to the heights of song,
My brother! Let thine eyes awake as clear
As morning dew, within whose glowing sphere
Is mirrored half a world; and listen long,
Till in thine ears, famished to keenness, throng
The bugles of the soul, till far and near
Silence grows populous, and wind and mere
Are phantom-choked with voices. Then be strong—
Then halt not till thou seest the beacons flare
Souls mad for truth have lit from peak to peak.
Haste on to breathe the intoxicating air—
Wine to the brave and poison to the weak—
Far in the blue where angels' feet have trod,
Where earth is one with heaven and man with God.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

*********

Rubens
Here you are, grand old sensualist!
And here are the three goddesses
displaying their charms to Paris.
It was all one to you &mdash goddesses, saints, court ladies &mdash
Your world was all curves of flesh
rolling curves repeated like a shell.
Mary Magdalen was almost as good copy as Venus,
Angels might be voluptuous as nymphs.

It was a rich old gorgeous world you painted &mdash
For kinds or prelates, what mattered! &mdash palace or church!
You had a wonderful, glorious time! &mdash
And no doubt the ladies loved you.


© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Recollection
--- by John Peale Bishop


Famously she descended, her red hair
Unbound and bronzed by sea-reflections, caught
Crinkled with sea-pearls. The fine slender taut
Knees that let down her feet upon the air,

Young breasts, slim flanks and golden quarries were
Odder than when the young distraught
Unknown Venetian, painting her portrait, thought
He'd not imagined what he painted there.

And I too commerced with that golden cloud:
Lipped her delicious hands and had my ease
Faring fantastically, perversely proud.

All loveliness demands our courtesies.
Since she was dead I praised her as I could
Silently, among the Barberini bees.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes


*********

The Return
-- by John Peale Bishop

NIGHT and we heard heavy cadenced hoofbeats
Of troops departing; the last cohorts left
By the North Gate. That night some listened late
Leaning their eyelids toward Septentrion.

Morning blared and the young tore down the trophies
And warring ornaments: arches were strong
And in the sun but stone; no longer conquest
Circled our columns; all our state was down

In fragments. In the dust, old men with tufted
Eyebrows whiter than sunbaked faces gulped
As it fell. But they no more than we remembered
The old sea-fights, the soldiers' names and sculptors'.

We did not know the end was coming: nor why
It came; only that long before the end
Were many wanted to die. Then vultures starved
And sailed more slowly in the sky.

We still had taxes. Salt was high. The soldiers
Gone. Now there was much drinking and lewd
Houses all night loud with riot. But only
For a time. Soon the taverns had no roofs.

Strangely it was the young, the almost boys,
Who first abandoned hope; the old still lived
A little, at last a little lived in eyes.
It was the young whose child did not survive.

Some slept beneath the simulacra, until
The gods' faces froze. Then was fear.
Some had response in dreams, but morning restored
Interrogation. Then O then, O ruins!

Temples of Neptune invaded by the sea
And dolphins streaked like streams sportive
As sunlight rode and over the rushing floors
The sea unfurled and what was blue raced silver.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

**********

Fiametta
-- by John Peale Bishop


FIAMETTA walks under the quincebuds
In a gown the color of flowers;
Her small breasts shine through the silken stuff
Like raindrops after showers.
The green hem of her dress is silk, but duller
Than her eye's green color.

Her shadow restores the grass's green
Where the sun had gilded it;
The air has given her copper hair
The sanguine that was requisite.
Whatever her flaws, my lady
Has no fault in her young body.

She leans with her long slender arms
To pull down morning upon her
Fragrance of quince, white light and falling cloud.
The day shall have lacked due honor
Until I shall have rightly praised
Her standing thus with slight arms upraised.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes


***

John Peale Bishop
1892-1944

John Peale Bishop, born May 21, 1892, in Charles Town, West Virginia: poet, novelist, and critic, a member of the lost generation and a close associate of the American expatriate writers in Paris in the 1920s. At Princeton University, from which he graduated in 1917, Bishop formed a lifelong friendship with the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, who depicted Bishop as the highbrow writer Tom D'Invilliers in This Side of Paradise. Bishop published his first volume of verse, Green Fruit, in 1917. During the war, he served with the 84th Division, and served in the Ardonne. After the war he was an editor at Vanity Fair magazine in New York City from 1920 to 1922. He married into wealth and travelled throughout Europe. From 1926 to 1933, he lived in France and acquired a deep admiration for French culture. His collection of stories about his native South, Many Thousands Gone (1931), was followed with a volume of poetry, Now with His Love (1933). Act of Darkness, a novel tracing the coming of age of a young man, and Minute Particulars, a collection of verse, both appeared in 1935. He became chief poetry reviewer for The Nation magazine in 1940. That year he published perhaps his finest poem, "The Hours," an elegy on the death of F. Scott Fitzgerald.


****************

A great poet, I agree that his finest poem was, an elegy on the death of F. Scott Fitzgerald , titled "The Hours".
But he had many other great poems...--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Coal
___ BY AUDRE LORDE


I
Is the total black, being spoken
From the earth's inside.
There are many kinds of open.
How a diamond comes into a knot of flame
How a sound comes into a word, coloured
By who pays what for speaking.

Some words are open
Like a diamond on glass windows
Singing out within the crash of passing sun
Then there are words like stapled wagers
In a perforated book—buy and sign and tear apart—
And come whatever wills all chances
The stub remains
An ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge.
Some words live in my throat
Breeding like adders. Others know sun
Seeking like gypsies over my tongue
To explode through my lips
Like young sparrows bursting from shell.
Some words
Bedevil me.

Love is a word another kind of open—
As a diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am black because I come from the earth's inside
Take my word for jewel in your open light.



Audre Lorde, “Coal” from The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. Copyright © 1997 by Audre Lorde. Reprinted with the permission of Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency and W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., www.nortonpoets.com.
Source: The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1997)

**************


Waking To New Dawn, Its Deafening Roar Of Silence

Then there are words that we fear to ever openly say
Like how our past view of life-this evil world, sets our paths askew
Like icicles crashing down into a bottomless gray
And those things we fear to face because they are new-
A move from peace and comfort into a faraway place
Or valleys, one so rightly would fear to ever tread
And death's unwelcomed blow with its monstrously wicked face
Or perhaps even greater, when we face - lonely silence instead.

Robert J. Lindley, 3-16-2022
( Facing The Infinite Depths Of The Void )

[SassyLady]

**************


Waking To New Dawn, Its Deafening Roar Of Silence

Then there are words that we fear to ever openly say
Like how our past view of life-this evil world, sets our paths askew
Like icicles crashing down into a bottomless gray
And those things we fear to face because they are new-
A move from peace and comfort into a faraway place
Or valleys, one so rightly would fear to ever tread
And death's unwelcomed blow with its monstrously wicked face
Or perhaps even greater, when we face - lonely silence instead.

Robert J. Lindley, 3-16-2022
( Facing The Infinite Depths Of The Void )

It's good to hear you again Robert.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Oak In Autumn
-- Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney

Old oak! old oak! the chosen one,
Round whkh my poet's mesh I twine,
When rosy wakes the joyous sun,
Or, wearied, sinks at day's decline,
I see the frost-king here and there,
Claim some brown leaflet for his own,
Or point in cold derision where
He soon shall rear the usurper's throne.
Too soon! too soon! in crimson bright,
Vain mockery of thy woe, he'll flout,
And proudly climb thy topmost height,
To hang his flaunting signal out;
While thou, as round thine honours fall,
Shalt stand with seam'd and naked bark,
Like banner-staff, so lone and tall,
His ruthless victory to mark.
1, too, old friend, when thou art gone,
Must pensive to my casement go,
Or 1ike the shuddering Druid, moan
The withering of his mistletoe;
But when young Spring, with matin clear,
Awakes the bird, the stream, the tree,
Fain would I at her call appear,
And hang my slender wreath on thee.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

******************


Indian Names
-- BY LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY
‘How can the red men be forgotten, while so many of our states and territories, bays, lakes, and rivers, are indelibly stamped by names of their giving?’
Ye say they all have passed away,
That noble race and brave,
That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave;
That ’mid the forests where they roamed
There rings no hunter shout,
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out.

’Tis where Ontario’s billow
Like Ocean’s surge is curled,
Where strong Niagara’s thunders wake
The echo of the world.
Where red Missouri bringeth
Rich tribute from the west,
And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps
On green Virginia’s breast.

Ye say their cone-like cabins,
That clustered o’er the vale,
Have fled away like withered leaves
Before the autumn gale,
But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore,
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore.

Old Massachusetts wears it,
Within her lordly crown,
And broad Ohio bears it,
Amid his young renown;
Connecticut hath wreathed it
Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathed it hoarse
Through all her ancient caves.

Wachuset hides its lingering voice
Within his rocky heart,
And Alleghany graves its tone
Throughout his lofty chart;
Monadnock on his forehead hoar
Doth seal the sacred trust,
Your mountains build their monument,
Though ye destroy their dust.

Ye call these red-browned brethren
The insects of an hour,
Crushed like the noteless worm amid
The regions of their power;
Ye drive them from their father’s lands,
Ye break of faith the seal,
But can ye from the court of Heaven
Exclude their last appeal?

Ye see their unresisting tribes,
With toilsome step and slow,
On through the trackless desert pass
A caravan of woe;
Think ye the Eternal’s ear is deaf?
His sleepless vision dim?
Think ye the soul’s blood may not cry
From that far land to him?

Source: She Wields a Pen: American Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century (University of Iowa Press, 1997)

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://interestingliterature.com/2018/04/a-short-analysis-of-emily-dickinsons-i-started-early-took-my-dog/

LITERATURE
A Short Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s ‘I started Early – Took my Dog’

By Dr Oliver Tearle


‘I started Early – Took my Dog’ is one of those Emily Dickinson poems that repay careful consideration of not only its literal meaning but the symbolic, other meaning which its images and double meanings appear to gesture towards. The poem requires a bit of close analysis to tease out this other interpretation, however, so here goes…

I started Early – Took my Dog –
And visited the Sea –
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me –


And Frigates – in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands –
Presuming Me to be a Mouse –
Aground – upon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe –
And past my Apron – and my Belt
And past my Bodice – too –


And made as He would eat me up –
As wholly as a Dew
Upon a Dandelion’s Sleeve –
And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind –
I felt His Silver Heel
Upon my Ankle – Then My Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl –


Until We met the Solid Town –
No One He seemed to know –
And bowing – with a Mighty look –
At me – The Sea withdrew –



When is the sea not the sea? When it’s a symbol for sex, of course! Is this what we get here with ‘I started Early – Took my Dog’? The poem begins with words which could almost be a banally literal description of the poem itself: ‘I started’. So the poem starts. There follows an account of this morning stroll (‘I started Early’) which the poem’s speaker undertook along the beach, until – having presumably waded some way into the water – the tide rises, engulfing more and more of the speaker’s body, until it’s above her waist. She then retreats to the town.


But this might make for a rather unremarkable poem if it weren’t for the symbolic richness of this oceanic encounter. And the poem can be analysed on several levels, the most intriguing of which, perhaps, is that Dickinson is using the sea as a metaphor for the (female) speaker’s sexual awakening. We have already seen this foreshadowed in the phantasmagorical reference to the mermaids, which came out from the basement (the sea’s bed, or the subconscious?) to look at the speaker, suggesting that stage of one’s own sexual maturation when the sexual object is simultaneously other (the mermaids as female symbols of sexuality) and internalised (these mermaids have come to look at the speaker in all her glory).


The juxtaposition of ‘Man’ and ‘Tide’ in the third stanza hint at the poem’s symbolic meaning, inviting us to analyse the sea as a force which – as in a poem by another female American poet, ‘Oread’ by H. D. – is male, overpowering, literally smothering the female speaker as it engulfs her very body:

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe –
And past my Apron – and my Belt
And past my Bodice – too –

This creeping possession of the female speaker’s body implies a sexual possession, but also a sexual awakening, as though Dickinson’s speaker is beginning to come to terms with adulthood, with the development of herself as a sexual being:

And made as He would eat me up –
As wholly as a Dew
Upon a Dandelion’s Sleeve –
And then – I started – too –

‘I started’, of course, takes us back to the first two words of the poem. ‘I started Early’: an early developer? Has puberty arrived while the speaker is still a young girl? The end of the poem, where the ‘Solid Town’ forces the sea to back off, invites us to consider the clash, so pronounced in nineteenth-century conservative New England, between the social expectations and mores for young women (embodied by the town as a symbol for civilisation and society) and the boundless freedom and energy of the individual (encoded in the sea). It’s as if the speaker, having come to terms with her own sexuality, has retreated to the safety of society with its norms and rules.

Discover more of Dickinson’s poetry with ‘Because I could not stop for Death‘, ‘My Life had stood – a loaded Gun‘, ‘This World is not Conclusion‘, and ‘My Life closed twice before its Close‘. We’d also recommend her wonderful Complete Poems.

The author of this article, Dr Oliver Tearle, is a literary critic and lecturer in English at Loughborough University. He is the author of, among others, The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History and The Great War, The Waste Land and the Modernist Long Poem.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Poison Tree
BY WILLIAM BLAKE

I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.[/B][/SIZE]

****

Auguries of Innocence
BY WILLIAM BLAKE

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage
A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons
Shudders Hell thr' all its regions
A dog starvd at his Masters Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State
A Horse misusd upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fibre from the Brain does tear
A Skylark wounded in the wing
A Cherubim does cease to sing
The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight
Does the Rising Sun affright
Every Wolfs & Lions howl
Raises from Hell a Human Soul
The wild deer, wandring here & there
Keeps the Human Soul from Care
The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife
And yet forgives the Butchers knife
The Bat that flits at close of Eve
Has left the Brain that wont Believe
The Owl that calls upon the Night
Speaks the Unbelievers fright
He who shall hurt the little Wren
Shall never be belovd by Men
He who the Ox to wrath has movd
Shall never be by Woman lovd
The wanton Boy that kills the Fly
Shall feel the Spiders enmity
He who torments the Chafers Sprite
Weaves a Bower in endless Night
The Catterpiller on the Leaf
Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief
Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh
He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar
The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat
Feed them & thou wilt grow fat
The Gnat that sings his Summers Song
Poison gets from Slanders tongue
The poison of the Snake & Newt
Is the sweat of Envys Foot
The poison of the Honey Bee
Is the Artists Jealousy
The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags
Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags
A Truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent
It is right it should be so
Man was made for Joy & Woe
And when this we rightly know
Thro the World we safely go
Joy & Woe are woven fine
A Clothing for the soul divine
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine
The Babe is more than swadling Bands
Throughout all these Human Lands
Tools were made & Born were hands
Every Farmer Understands
Every Tear from Every Eye
Becomes a Babe in Eternity
This is caught by Females bright
And returnd to its own delight
The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar
Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore
The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath
Writes Revenge in realms of Death
The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air
Does to Rags the Heavens tear
The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun
Palsied strikes the Summers Sun
The poor Mans Farthing is worth more
Than all the Gold on Africs Shore
One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands
Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands
Or if protected from on high
Does that whole Nation sell & buy
He who mocks the Infants Faith
Shall be mockd in Age & Death
He who shall teach the Child to Doubt
The rotting Grave shall neer get out
He who respects the Infants faith
Triumphs over Hell & Death
The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons
Are the Fruits of the Two seasons
The Questioner who sits so sly
Shall never know how to Reply
He who replies to words of Doubt
Doth put the Light of Knowledge out
The Strongest Poison ever known
Came from Caesars Laurel Crown
Nought can Deform the Human Race
Like to the Armours iron brace
When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow
To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow
A Riddle or the Crickets Cry
Is to Doubt a fit Reply
The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile
Make Lame Philosophy to smile
He who Doubts from what he sees
Will neer Believe do what you Please
If the Sun & Moon should Doubt
Theyd immediately Go out
To be in a Passion you Good may Do
But no Good if a Passion is in you
The Whore & Gambler by the State
Licencd build that Nations Fate
The Harlots cry from Street to Street
Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet
The Winners Shout the Losers Curse
Dance before dead Englands Hearse
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day


Source: Poets of the English Language (Viking Press, 1950)