From my most recent poetry blog......

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

For, A Look Into Lesser Known Poets, A Series, (3rd.) Poet, Christina Rossetti
Blog Posted:3/21/2020 3:59:00 PM


For, A Look Into Lesser Known Poets, A Series, (3rd.) Poet, Christina Rossetti

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/christina-rossetti


Christina Rossetti
1830–1894
Image of Christina Rossetti.
Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo
Poet Christina Rossetti was born in 1830, the youngest child in an extraordinarily gifted family. Her father, the Italian poet and political exile Gabriele Rossetti, immigrated to England in 1824 and established a career as a Dante scholar and teacher of Italian in London. He married the half-English, half-Italian Frances Polidori in 1826, and they had four children in quick succession: Maria Francesca in 1827, Gabriel Charles Dante (famous under the name Dante Gabriel but always called Gabriel by family members) in 1828, William Michael in 1829, and Christina Georgina on 5 December 1830. In 1831 Gabriele Rossetti was appointed to the chair of Italian at the newly opened King’s College. The children received their earliest education, and Maria and Christina all of theirs, from their mother, who had been trained as a governess and was committed to cultivating intellectual excellence in her family. Certainly this ambition was satisfied: Maria was the author of a respected study of Dante, as well as books on religious instruction and Italian grammar and translation; Dante Gabriel distinguished himself as one of the foremost poets and painters of his era; and William was a prolific art and literary critic, editor, and memoirist of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Christina became one of the Victorian age’s finest poets. She was the author of numerous books of poetry, including Goblin Market and other Poems (1862), The Prince’s Progress (1866), A Pageant (1881), and The Face of the Deep (1882).

Rossetti’s poetry has never disappeared from view. Critical interest in Rossetti’s poetry swelled in the final decades of the twentieth century, a resurgence largely impelled by the emergence of feminist criticism; much of this commentary focuses on gender issues in her poetry and on Rossetti as a woman poet. In Rossetti’s lifetime opinion was divided over whether she or Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the greatest female poet of the era; in any case, after Browning’s death in 1861 readers and critics saw Rossetti as the older poet’s rightful successor. The two poets achieved different kinds of excellence, as is evident in Dante Gabriel Rossetti‘s comment on his sister, quoted by William Sharp in The Atlantic Monthly (June 1895): “She is the finest woman-poet since Mrs. Browning, by a long way; and in artless art, if not in intellectual impulse, is greatly Mrs. Browning’s superior.” Readers have generally considered Rossetti’s poetry less intellectual, less political, and less varied than Browning’s; conversely, they have acknowledged Rossetti as having the greater lyric gift, with her poetry displaying a perfection of diction, tone, and form under the guise of utter simplicity.

Rossetti’s childhood was exceptionally happy, characterized by affectionate parental care and the creative companionship of older siblings. In temperament she was most like her brother Dante Gabriel: their father called the pair the “two storms” of the family in comparison to the “two calms,” Maria and William. Christina was given to tantrums and fractious behavior, and she fought hard to subdue this passionate temper. Years later, counseling a niece subject to similar outbursts, the mature Christina looked back on the fire now stifled: “You must not imagine, my dear girl, that your Aunt was always the calm and sedate person you now behold. I, too, had a very passionate temper; but I learnt to control it. On one occasion, being rebuked by my dear Mother for some fault, I seized upon a pair of scissors, and ripped up my arm to vent my wrath. I have learnt since to control my feelings—and no doubt you will!” Self-control was, indeed, achieved—perhaps too much so. In his posthumous memoir of his sister that prefaces The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti (1904) William laments the thwarting of her high spirits: “In innate character she was vivacious, and open to pleasurable impressions; and, during her girlhood, one might readily have supposed that she would develop into a woman of expansive heart, fond of society and diversions, and taking a part in them of more than average brilliancy. What came to pass was of course quite the contrary.” As an adult Christina Rossetti was considered by many to be overscrupulous and excessively restrained.pleasures, renunciation, individual unworthiness, and the perfection of >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.....

much, much more at link given above...(RJL)
Three examples of her poetry given below...(RJL)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
https://allpoetry.com/A-Better-Ressurection

(1.)

A Better Resurrection
BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall—the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.
© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

(2.)
An Echo from Willowood
“Oh Ye, All Ye That Walk in Willowwood”


Two gaz’d into a pool, he gaz’d and she,
Not hand in hand, yet heart in heart, I think,
Pale and reluctant on the water’s brink
AS on the brink of parting which must be.
Each eyed the other’s aspect, she and he,
Each felt one hungering heart leap up and sink,
Each tasted bitterness which both must drink,
There on the brink of life’s dividing sea.
Lilies upon the surface, deep below
Two wistful faces craving each for each,
Resolute and reluctant without speech:—
A sudden ripple made the faces flow
One moment join’d, to vanish out of reach:
So these hearts join’d, and ah! were parted so.
© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

(3.)

Echo
BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
Remember
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.
© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3rd link on , CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

https://poets.org/poet/christina-rossetti

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I That Once Rose To Greet Dawn's Sweetest Voice

I that once rose to greet dawn's sweetest voice
and with joy of life, make loving my choice
as in searching for romance and its gems
fiery rites of passion, open rose stems.

Moonlit skies, quenching heavy gasping aches
Always searching, playing for higher stakes!

I that saw not blindness within my soul
felt only glory, saw not hurt's great toll
prisoner, bound by my unbreakable chains
as a ghost, denying my lonely pains.

Moonlit skies, quenching heavy gasping aches
Always searching, playing for higher stakes!

I that walked long crooked path with glee
did not admit harm done they or to me
yes a young rascal, seeking ever more
thus merciless as bloody holes I tore.

Moonlit skies, quenching heavy gasping aches
Always searching, playing for higher stakes!

I that thought life only for pleasure found
shut out truth's light and any crying sounds
lost soul, racing into that coming wrath
playing wicked odds, failing at math.

Moonlit skies, quenching heavy gasping aches
Always searching, playing for higher stakes!

I that finally paid my costly dues
was imprisoned in dark, hard hitting blues
victim of my own making, blinded sight
cast into darkest fields of blackest blight.

No longer skies, of heavy gasping aches
No more searching, playing for higher stakes!

Robert J. Lindley, 3-21-2020
Rhyme, ( How Oft Life Teaches Us Those Much Needed Lessons )
Tribute poem composed for third poet, ( Christina Rossetti )
in my, -- "Lesser Known Poets Series".

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

For, A Look Into Lesser Known Poets, A Series, ( 4th.) Poet, Elinor Wylie
Blog Posted:3/27/2020 7:35:00 AM
For, A Look Into Lesser Known Poets, A Series, ( 4th.) Poet, Elinor Wylie


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Wylie

Elinor Wylie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Elinor Wylie
Born Elinor Morton Hoyt
September 7, 1885
Somerville, New Jersey, U.S.
Died December 16, 1928 (aged 43)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation Writer, editor
Language English
Notable works Nets to Catch the Wind, Black Armor, Angels and Earthly Creatures
Notable awards Julia Ellsworth Ford Prize
Spouse Philip Simmons Hichborn
(m. 1906; died 1912)
Horace Wylie
(m. 1916–19??)
William Rose Benet
(m. 1923; died 1950)
Children Philip Simmons Hichborn, Jr.
Elinor Morton Wylie (September 7, 1885 – December 16, 1928) was an American poet and novelist popular in the 1920s and 1930s. "She was famous during her life almost as much for her ethereal beauty and personality as for her melodious, sensuous poetry."[1]

Life
Family and childhood
Elinor Wylie was born Elinor Morton Hoyt in Somerville, New Jersey, into a socially prominent family. Her grandfather, Henry M. Hoyt, was a governor of Pennsylvania. Her aunt was Helen Hoyt, a poet.[2] Her parents were Henry Martyn Hoyt, Jr., who would be United States Solicitor General from 1903 to 1909; and Anne Morton McMichael (born July 31, 1861 in Pa.). Their other children were:

Henry Martyn Hoyt (May 8, 1887, in Pa. – August 25, 1920 in New York City) who married Alice Gordon Parker (1885–1951)
Constance A. Hoyt (May 20, 1889, in Pa. – 1923 in Bavaria, Germany) who married Ferdinand von Stumm-Halberg on March 30, 1910, in Washington, D.C.
Morton McMichael Hoyt (April 4, 1899, in Washington, D.C. - August 21, 1949, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), three times married and divorced Eugenia Bankhead, known as "Sister" and sister of Tallulah Bankhead
Nancy McMichael Hoyt (born October 1, 1902, in Washington, D.C. - 1949) romance novelist who wrote Elinor Wylie: The Portrait of an Unknown Woman (1935). She married Edward Davison Curtis; they divorced in 1932.
Because of her father's political aspirations, Elinor spent much of her youth in Washington, DC.[3] She was educated at Miss Baldwin's School (1893–97), Mrs. Flint's School (1897–1901), and finally Holton-Arms School (1901–04).[4][failed verification] In particular, from age 12 to 20, she lived in Washington again where she made her debut in the midst of the "city's most prominent social élite,"[3] being "trained for the life of a debutante and a society wife".[5]

"As a girl she was already bookish—not in the languid or inactive sense but girded, embraced by books, between whose covers lay the word-perfect world she sought. She grew into a tall, dark beauty in the classic 1920s style. Some who knew her claimed she was the most striking woman they ever met."[6]

Marriages and scandal

After Elinor eloped with Horace Wylie, Philip Simmons Hichborn committed suicide in this building.
The future Elinor Wylie became notorious, during her lifetime, for her multiple affairs and marriages. On the rebound from an earlier romance she met her first husband, Harvard graduate Philip Simmons Hichborn[5] (1882–1912), the son of a rear-admiral. She eloped with him and they were married on December 13, 1906, when she was 20. She had a son by him, Philip Simmons Hichborn, Jr., born September 22, 1907 in Washington, D.C. However, "Hichborn, a would-be poet, was emotionally unstable",[5] and Elinor found herself in an unhappy marriage.

She also found herself being stalked by Horace Wylie, "a Washington lawyer with a wife and three children", who "was 17 years older than Elinor. He stalked her for years, appearing wherever she was."[7]

Following the death in November 1910 of Elinor's father, and unable to secure a divorce from Hichborn,[3] she left her husband and son, and eloped with Wylie.

"After being ostracized by their families and friends and mistreated in the press, the couple moved to England"[8] where they lived "under the assumed name of Waring; this event caused a scandal in the Washington, D.C., social circles Elinor Wylie had frequented".[5] Philip Simmons Hichborn Sr. committed suicide in 1912.

With Horace Wylie's encouragement, in 1912 Elinor anonymously published Incidental Number, a small book of poems she had written in the previous decade.[5]

Between 1914 and 1916, Elinor tried to have a second child, but "suffered several miscarriages ... as well as a stillbirth and ... a premature child who died after one week."[5]

After Horace Wylie's wife agreed to a divorce, the couple returned to the United States and lived in three different states "under the stress of social ostracism and Elinor's illness." Elinor and Horace Wylie officially married in 1916, after Elinor's first husband had committed suicide and Horace's first wife had divorced him. By then, however, the couple were drawing apart."[5]

Elinor began spending time in literary circles in New York City—"her friends there numbered John Peale Bishop, Edmund Wilson, John Dos Passos, Sinclair Lewis, Carl Van Vechten, and ... William Rose Benét."[5]

Her last marriage (in 1923)[9] was to William Rose Benét (February 2, 1886 – May 4, 1950), who was part of her literary circle and brother of Stephen Vincent Benét. By the time Wylie's third book of poetry, Trivial Breath in 1928 appeared, her marriage with Benét was also in trouble, and they had agreed to live apart. She moved to England and fell in love with the husband of a friend, Henry de Clifford Woodhouse, to whom she wrote a series of 19 sonnets which she published privately in 1928 as Angels and Earthly Creatures (also included in her 1929 book of the same name).[8]

Career

Vanity Fair magazine (cover by John Held, Jr.), where Wylie worked 1923-1925
Elinor Wylie's literary friends encouraged her to submit her verse to Poetry magazine. Poetry published four of her poems, including what became "her most widely anthologized poem, 'Velvet Shoes'", in May 1920. With Benét now acting as her informal literary agent,[5] "Wylie left her second husband and moved to New York in 1921".[8] The Dictionary of Literary Biography (DLB) says: "She captivated the literary world with her slender, tawny-haired beauty, personal elegance, acid wit, and technical virtuosity."[5]

In 1921, Wylie's first commercial book of poetry, Nets to Catch the Wind, was published. The book, "which many critics still consider to contain her best poems," was an immediate success. Edna St. Vincent Millay and Louis Untermeyer praised the work.[5] The Poetry Society awarded her its Julia Ellsworth Ford Prize.[4]

In 1923 she published Black Armor, which was "another successful volume of verse".[5] The New York Times enthused: "There is not a misplaced word or cadence in it. There is not an extra syllable."[10]

1923 also saw the publication of Wylie's first novel, Jennifer Lorn, to considerable fanfare. Van Vechten "organized a torchlight parade through Manhattan to celebrate its publication".[5] She would write "four historical novels widely admired when first published, although interest in them diminished in the masculine era of the 1940s and 50s".[6]

According to Carl Van Doren, Wylie had "as sure and strong an intelligence" as he has ever known. Her novels were "flowers with roots reaching down into unguessed deeps of erudition."[3]

She worked as the poetry editor of Vanity Fair magazine between 1923 and 1925. She was an editor of Literary Guild, and a contributing editor of The New Republic, from 1926 through 1928.[5]

Wylie was an "admirer of the British Romantic poets, and particularly of Shelley, to a degree that some critics have seen as abnormal".[5] "A friend claimed she was 'positively dotty' about Shelley, not just making him her model in art and life but on occasion actually 'seeing' the dead poet."[6] She wrote a 1926 novel, The Orphan Angel, in which "the great young poet is rescued from drowning off an Italian cape and travels to America, where he encounters the dangers of the frontier."[5]

By the time of Wylie's third book of poetry, Trivial Breath in 1928, her marriage with Benét was also in trouble, and they had agreed to live apart. She moved to England and fell in love with the husband of a friend, Henry de Clifford Woodhouse, to whom she wrote a series of 19 sonnets which she published privately in 1928 as Angels and Earthly Creatures (also included in her 1929 book of the same name).[8]

Elinor Wylie's literary output is impressive, given that her writing career lasted just eight years. In that brief period, she crowded four volumes of poems, four novels, and enough magazine articles to "make up an additional volume."[3]

Death
Wylie suffered from very high blood pressure all her adult life. As a result, she was prone to unbearable migraines and died of a stroke at Benét's New York apartment at the age of forty-three. At the time, they were both preparing for publication her Angels and Earthly Creatures.[5]


https://www.poemhunter.com/elinor-morton-wylie/poems/

Elinor Morton Wylie
Five Poems by Elinor Morton Wylie

(1.)
Escape

When foxes eat the last gold grape,
And the last white antelope is killed,
I shall stop fighting and escape
Into a little house I'll build.

But first I'll shrink to fairy size,
With a whisper no one understands,
Making blind moons of all your eyes,
And muddy roads of all your hands.

And you may grope for me in vain
In hollows under the mangrove root,
Or where, in apple-scented rain,
The silver wasp-nests hang like fruit.
Elinor Morton Wylie

(2.)
Fire And Sleet And Candlelight'

For this you've striven
Daring, to fail:
Your sky is riven
Like a tearing veil.

For this, you've wasted
Wings of your youth;
Divined, and tasted
Bitter springs of truth.

From sand unslakèd
Twisted strong cords,
And wandering naked
Among trysted swords.

There's a word unspoken,
A knot untied.
Whatever is broken
The earth may hide.

The road was jagged
Over sharp stones:
Your body's too ragged
To cover your bones.

The wind scatters
Tears upon dust;
Your soul's in tatters
Where the spears thrust.
Elinor Morton Wylie


(3.)
Incantation

A white well
In a black cave;
A bright shell
In a dark wave.

A white rose
Black brambles hood;
Smooth bright snows
In a dark wood.

A flung white glove
In a dark fight;
A white dove
On a wild black night.

A white door
In a dark lane;
A bright core
To bitter black pain.

A white hand
Waved from dark walls;
In a burnt black land
Bright waterfalls.

A bright spark
Where black ashes are;
In the smothering dark
One white star.
Elinor Morton Wylie

(4.)
Les Lauriers Sont Coupée

Ah, love, within the shadow of the wood
The laurels are cut down; some other brows
May bear the classic wreath which Fame allows
And find the burden honorable and good.
Have we not passed the laurels as they stood--
Soft in the veil with which Spring endows
The wintry glitter of their woven boughs--
Nor stopped to break the branches while we could?

Ah, love, for other brows they are cut down.
Thornless and scentless are their stems and flowers,
And cold as death their twisted coronal.
Sweeter to us the sharpness of this crown;
Sweeter the wildest roses which are ours;
Sweeter the petals, even when they fall.
Elinor Morton Wylie

(5.)
Little Joke - Poem by Elinor Morton Wylie

Stripping an almond tree in flower
The wise apothecary's skill
A single drop of lethal power
From perfect sweetness can distill

From bitterness in efflorescence,
With murderous poisons packed therein;
The poet draws pellucid essence
Pure as a drop of metheglin.
Elinor Morton Wylie

********************
These two poems composed to honor this truly great poet....

(1.)
Heaven Smiles And Its Light Awaits

Icy winds have died, winter fled
Hope has sung, Spring has sprung
Love and promise have wed
new life's radiant glow has brung
music to wake the dead.

Faded are snows that graced the trees
white colors that adorned
forest glens far from seas
Nature's gifts, its dear christened born
cast from Love's seeded pleas.

Icy winds have died, winter fled
Hope has sung, Spring has sprung
Love and promise have wed
new life's radiant glow has brung
music to wake the dead.

As Life and Love, partner with Fate.
Heaven smiles and its Light awaits.

Robert J. Lindley, 3-27-2020
Rhyme, Lin 86686 form
( Wherein Life And Spring This Dark Racing World Renews )
Syllables Per Line:8 6 6 8 6 0 8 6 6 8 6 0 8 6 6 8 6 0 8 8
Total # Syllables::118
Total # Words::::::96

Note- Tribute poem composed for fourth poet, ( Elinor Wylie )
in my, -- "Lesser Known Poets Series".
See my new blog on this majestically talented and amazing poet.....

(2.)
From Within Earth's Red Blooms Love Quickly Flew

Of those sweet tender kisses-- I recall
Images that set fiery flames a'leaping
Warming hearts in truest love did swiftly fall
While Cupid through keyhole was a'peeping
From within earth's red blooms love quickly flew
As both yellow moon, twinkling stars did glow
Our eager hearts and eyes meeting we knew
Chained in golden paradise sent to grow,
In romance wedded to be great treasure
Nights of bliss to be our glittering gems
Time setting pure joy well beyond measure
We to become intertwining rose stems,
Flowers shining in garden of true love
Two cast into one, by Heavens above.

Robert J. Lindley, 3-27-2020
Sonnet, ( Depths Of Love Those So Truly Blessed Know )
Syllables Per Line:10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10
Total # Syllables::140
Total # Words::::::100

Note-
Tribute poem composed for fourth poet, ( Elinor Wylie )
in my, -- "Lesser Known Poets Series".
See my new blog on this majestically talented and amazing poet...

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Words Of Light, Life, Promise And Absent Of Fear And Dread - Robert Lindley's Blog
About Robert Lindley(Show Details...)(Show Details...)





Home Past Blogs Poems Photos Fav Poems Fav Poets
Words Of Light, Life, Promise And Absent Of Fear And Dread
Blog Posted:4/8/2020 7:07:00 PM

NEW POEM:

Give Me The Chiming Of Morn's Sweetest Call,
Words Of Hope And Nature's Beauty


Give me the chiming of morn's sweetest call
And dawning of new light shining with glee
Those days of joy, peace and treasured recalls
Bountiful harvests, glorious fruit trees;

And that feeling of life will be alright
The rustling of Autumn's old fallen leaves
Geese flying overhead, O' what a sight
Beautiful starlings nested in the eaves.

That hum of bees in meadows of bright gold
Fields of wheat, blowing as an ocean wave
Life and Love, romantic stories retold
Those gems one must hold and savor to save.

Blessings of peace, of treasures of Love's touch.
Morn's Promise, Faith, Hope, and all other such!

Robert J. Lindley, 4-08-2020,
Sonnet, ( Words Of Light, Life, Promise And Absent Of Fear And Dread )


Note-- I have written 4 dark poems in these last 4 days.
Today I decided to purge that dark , that dread out of
me and write of Light, Life, Love, Nature, Promise,
Hope, Faith, Beauty and Nature.
The dark poems can always be presented later. This
one should be presented now. Hoping it gives others
a needed lift and a thought of how one day this too
shall pass.. God Bless...

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

I read this shown below in my recent research and it
inspired me to write today. To write with renewed hope, with new heart and without the fear
now being promoted worldwide at a horrendous, breakneck pace. Robert J. Lindley...

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

Opinion


The Gift of Poetry
Nov. 20, 2002

See the article in its original context from November 20, 2002, Section A, Page 22Buy Reprints
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Late last Friday Joseph Parisi, the editor of Poetry magazine, announced that Ruth Lilly, an aspiring poet and a granddaughter of Eli Lilly, had given the magazine $100 million. One imagines lots of things that might have made a difference to the state of poetry over the years, like someone handing Shelley updated weather advice as he left the dock, or talking Sylvia Plath into reconsidering at the last moment. But this bequest is pretty hard to beat.

It more or less frees Poetry, which is published by the Modern Poetry Association, from the kind of financial constraints that most magazines have to worry about. And it does so without ethical compromise, since the magazine has always rejected Ms. Lilly's poetry submissions in the past and will, no doubt, continue to judge them with its usual critical acuity.

One assumes that most people know that poets don't make a lot of money from publishing poems. If you're good enough to have a sonnet accepted and printed in Poetry, you make $2 a line, or $28 total. Making a sonnet is no accident, and making one good enough to stand in the company of the poets that appear in Poetry is indeed the art of a lifetime, whereas $28 is about half the hourly rate of a decent auto mechanic. It is unlikely that Poetry will use Ms. Lilly's gift to raise rates to a level that will be more than honorific, though they will go up some. Instead the money will help increase the staff at the magazine, give it a new home and, most important, expand its programs designed to encourage the writing of poetry and enlarge its audience.

This was not Ms. Lilly's first gift to Poetry and the Modern Poetry Association. Her name adorns the Ruth Lilly Fellowships and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, which amounts to $100,000 and was given this year to Lisel Mueller. At the moment the tendency is to gaze in wonder at the scale of Ms. Lilly's benefaction. But what will really matter, of course, is the effect her gift has over the years and years to come. Ms. Lilly, who is 87 and in ill health, may not have published her poems for posterity's benefit, but she has found a way to benefit posterity nonetheless.


https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/20/opinion/the-gift-of-poetry.html
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A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 20, 2002, Section A, Page 22 of the National edition with the headline: The Gift of Poetry. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

When Light Penetrates The Fog Of Fear And Darkness, subject faith, truth and poetry - Robert Lindley's Blog
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When Light Penetrates The Fog Of Fear And Darkness, subject faith, truth and poetry
Blog Posted:4/10/2020 6:38:00 AM

New Poem:


When Light Penetrates The Fog Of Fear And Darkness

When Light through the keyhole penetrates the malaise
And within that moment your soul gives sincere praise
For that divine gift that Life's sweet promise resets
Earth's clock to those times before this darkness beset
Know Truth and eternal Light never mankind fails
To conquer anything issued from pits of Hell.

Darkness fears not man but rather eternal Light.
On earth, we are in midst of that eternal fight.

When Light through the keyhole penetrates blackest Dark
And waking soul finds that Life is not just a lark
Path is made to from within the black walk away
Leave blinded fold and in earnest begin to pray.
World parades its great evils as the one true way
And sets foundation for man's greed to hold deepest sway.

Darkness fears not man but rather eternal Light.
On earth, we are in midst of that eternal fight.

When Light through the keyhole penetrates our sorrows
And we feel true fright and fear for our tomorrows
Truth reveals Light banishes that deep wicked fear
As echoes of paradise draws ever more near
Know eternal Light, Truth and Time is on our side
In that promise, certainty of man's saving tides.

Darkness fears not man but rather eternal Light.
On earth, we are in midst of that eternal fight.

Robert J. Lindley, 4-07-2020
Rhyme, ( When Eyes Are Opened To The Blessings Of True Light )

Syllables Per Line:
00 12 -(Title)
0 12 12 12 12 12 12 0 12 12
0 12 12 12 12 12 12 0 12 12
0 12 12 12 12 12 12 0 12 12
Total # Syllables: 300
Total # Words::::::224


Note: This is a revamping of an older poem.
One written four decades ago when I was a
mere twenty-six years old and then faced
a time of darkest dark in my life. I have
revamped it to modern times to address
this dark plague that the world faces now
and to yet again point out that the eternal
truth that mankind has a great purpose
than our time here on earth is a mere blink
of the eye. And nothing, nothing, nothing
can ever even come close to defeating that
our fated destiny.
Death and Darkness are only temporary,
while Light and Divine Promise is Eternal.

**********************************************
(1.)
http://inters.org/lumen-fidei-francis


The theological meaning of Light according to Lumen Fidei
The encyclical Lumen Fidei is the first document of Pope Francis’ pontificate. We suggest that our readers review numbers 1-4 (see below), which summarize the symbolism of light in reference to faith, as they appear in Sacred Scripture and are discussed in the patristic and theological Tradition (for interested visitors: the complete text is available on the Holy See web site). These paragraphs offer a short historical account of the evolution of the conception of faith as “light”, ranging from the novelty brought by Christianity in the pagan Roman world to modern thought’s critique of it, and conclude by affirming the value of the light of faith not only for Christians, but also for every man and woman.


1. The light of Faith: this is how the Church’s tradition speaks of the great gift brought by Jesus. In John’s Gospel, Christ says of himself: "I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness" (Jn 12:46). Saint Paul uses the same image: "God who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts" (2 Cor 4:6). The pagan world, which hungered for light, had seen the growth of the cult of the sun god, Sol Invictus, invoked each day at sunrise. Yet though the sun was born anew each morning, it was clearly incapable of casting its light on all of human existence. The sun does not illumine all reality; its rays cannot penetrate to the shadow of death, the place where men’s eyes are closed to its light. "No one — Saint Justin Martyr writes — has ever been ready to die for his faith in the sun".[1] Conscious of the immense horizon which their faith opened before them, Christians invoked Jesus as the true sun "whose rays bestow life". [2] To Martha, weeping for the death of her brother Lazarus, Jesus said: "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" (Jn 11:40). Those who believe, see; they see with a light that illumines their entire journey, for it comes from the risen Christ, the morning star which never sets.

2. Yet in speaking of the light of faith, we can almost hear the objections of many of our contemporaries. In modernity, that light might have been considered sufficient for societies of old, but was felt to be of no use for new times, for a humanity come of age, proud of its rationality and anxious to explore the future in novel ways. Faith thus appeared to some as an illusory light, preventing mankind from boldly setting out in quest of knowledge. The young Nietzsche encouraged his sister Elisabeth to take risks, to tread "new paths… with all the uncertainty of one who must find his own way", adding that "this is where humanity’s paths part: if you want peace of soul and happiness, then believe, but if you want to be a follower of truth, then seek".[3] Belief would be incompatible with seeking. From this starting point Nietzsche was to develop his critique of Christianity for diminishing the full meaning of human existence and stripping life of novelty and adventure. Faith would thus be the illusion of light, an illusion which blocks the path of a liberated humanity to its future.

3. In the process, faith came to be associated with darkness. There were those who tried to save faith by making room for it alongside the light of reason. Such room would open up wherever the light of reason could not penetrate, wherever certainty was no longer possible. Faith was thus understood either as a leap in the dark, to be taken in the absence of light, driven by blind emotion, or as a subjective light, capable perhaps of warming the heart and bringing personal consolation, but not something which could be proposed to others as an objective and shared light which points the way. Slowly but surely, however, it would become evident that the light of autonomous reason is not enough to illumine the future; ultimately the future remains shadowy and fraught with fear of the unknown. As a result, humanity renounced the search for a great light, Truth itself, in order to be content with smaller lights which illumine the fleeting moment yet prove incapable of showing the way. Yet in the absence of light everything becomes confused; it is impossible to tell good from evil, or the road to our destination from other roads which take us in endless circles, going nowhere.

4. There is an urgent need, then, to see once again that faith is a light, for once the flame of faith dies out, all other lights begin to dim. The light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence. A light this powerful cannot come from ourselves but from a more primordial source: in a word, it must come from God. Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love, a love which precedes us and upon which we can lean for security and for building our lives. Transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see; we realize that it contains a great promise of fulfilment, and that a vision of the future opens up before us. Faith, received from God as a supernatural gift, becomes a light for our way, guiding our journey through time. On the one hand, it is a light coming from the past, the light of the foundational memory of the life of Jesus which revealed his perfectly trustworthy love, a love capable of triumphing over death. Yet since Christ has risen and draws us beyond death, faith is also a light coming from the future and opening before us vast horizons which guide us beyond our isolated selves towards the breadth of communion. We come to see that faith does not dwell in shadow and gloom; it is a light for our darkness. Dante, in the Divine Comedy, after professing his faith to Saint Peter, describes that light as a "spark, which then becomes a burning flame and like a heavenly star within me glimmers".[4] It is this light of faith that I would now like to consider, so that it can grow and enlighten the present, becoming a star to brighten the horizon of our journey at a time when mankind is particularly in need of light.
from Franciscus, Encyclical Lumen Fidei, 2013, June 29, nn. 1-4.

[1] Dialogus cum Tryphone Iudaeo, 121, 2: PG 6, 758.

[2] Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus, IX: PG 8, 195.

[3] Brief an Elisabeth Nietzsche (11 June 1865), in: Werke in drei Bänden, München, 1954, 953ff.

[4] Paradiso XXIV, 145-147.


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(2.)

https://interestingliterature.com/2017/07/10-of-the-best-religious-poems-in-english-literature/


LITERATURE
10 of the Best Religious Poems in English Literature
The best religious poems selected by Dr Oliver Tearle

What are the best religious poems in English literature? Obviously religious faith – and, indeed, religious doubt – has loomed large in English poetry, whether it’s in the devotional lyrics of John Donne and George Herbert or the modern, secular musings of Philip Larkin in ‘Church Going’. We’ve excluded longer works such as John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost, although naturally that’s a must-read work of English religious poetry, just conceived on a different scale from what we have here.


Caedmon, Hymn. Perhaps the oldest poem written in English, Caedmon’s Hymn was composed in the 7th century by a goatherd and takes the form of a short hymn in praise of God. It was Bede, or ‘the Venerable Bede’ as he is often known, who ensured the survival of Caedmon’s Hymn, when he jotted it down in Latin translation in one of his books. An anonymous scribe then added the Anglo-Saxon form of the hymn in the margins of Bede’s book.

William Dunbar, ‘Done is a battell on the dragon blak’. This poem, by the medieval Scottish poet William Dunbar (c. 1465-c. 1530), boasts one of the finest opening lines in all medieval poetry. The rest of the poem is pretty good, too. It takes as its theme the Resurrection, and casts Christ as a crusading knight, so it’s a hugely exciting piece of sacred poetry.

John Donne, ‘A Hymn to God the Father’. We could easily have chosen one of Donne’s celebrated Holy Sonnets here, but his ‘Hymn to God the Father’ offers something nicely representative of Donne’s style in his best religious verse. Donne is not aiming to sing God’s praises uncritically: rather, he wishes to ask God about sin and forgiveness, among other things. The to-and-fro of the poem’s rhyme schemes, where its stanzas are rhymed ababab, reinforces this idea of question-and-answer. The poem is a sort of confessional, containing Donne’s trademark directness and honesty, and sees him seeking forgiveness from God for his sins, while also confessing that he will continue to sin (he cannot help it) and that he fears death – another sin to add to the list. Donne then seeks reassurance from God that he will be forgiven and will reach Heaven.


George Herbert, ‘The Collar’. George Herbert (1593-1633) is one of the greatest devotional poets in the English language, and ‘The Collar’ one of his finest poems. Herbert’s speaker seeks to reject belief in God, to cast off his ‘collar’ and be free. (The collar refers specifically to the ‘dog collar’ that denotes a Christian priest, with its connotations of ownership and restricted freedom, though it also suggests being bound or restricted more generally. Herbert, we should add, was a priest himself.) However, as he rants and raves, the speaker comes to realise that God appears to be calling him – and the speaker duly and dutifully replies, the implication being that he has recovered his faith and is happy to bear the ‘collar’ of faith again.

Henry Vaughan, ‘They Are All Gone into the World of Light’. The Welsh metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan (1621-95) is best known for his 1650 collection, Silex Scintillans (‘Sparks from the Flint’), which established him as one of the great devotional poets in English literature. ‘They Are All Gone into the World of Light’ is about death, God, and the afterlife, and the poet’s desire to pass over into the next life – the ‘World of Light’ – to join those whom he has lost.


Alfred, Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam. ‘There lives more faith in honest doubt, / Believe me, than in half the creeds’. These lines from this long 1850 elegy for Tennyson’s friend – perhaps his finest achievement – strike to the core of the greatness of Tennyson’s poem, which, as T. S. Eliot said, was a great religious poem not because of the quality of its faith, but because of the quality of its doubt. By the end of this long cycle of moving poems, Tennyson has conquered his doubts and his faith in God has been restored.

Christina Rossetti, ‘Good Friday’. This poem was published in Christina Rossetti’s 1866 collection The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems. The poem is about Rossetti’s struggle to feel close to Christ and the teachings of Christianity, and to weep for the sacrifice he made. Like Tennyson’s In Memoriam above, the poem reflects many Victorians’ difficulties in reconciling Christianity with the new worldview influenced by recent philosophy and scientific discoveries.

Thomas Hardy, ‘The Oxen’. Sometimes a great sacred poem is written by a poet who is not himself religious, and such as the case with ‘The Oxen’. Written in 1915 during WWI, this poem shows a yearning for childhood beliefs which the adult speaker can no longer hold. In other words, it highlights the yearning to believe, even – or perhaps especially – when we know that we cannot bring ourselves to entertain such beliefs. (Hardy had lost his religious faith early in life.)


T. S. Eliot, Ash-Wednesday. The first long poem Eliot composed after his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism in 1927, the six-part sequence Ash-Wednesday is about Eliot’s struggle to cleanse and purify himself so that he might be renewed and find deeper spiritual fulfilment. Using Dantean and Biblical tropes of stairwells, gardens, and bones being picked apart by leopards, the poem is at times frustratingly abstract (there is lots of wordplay around ‘the Word’, i.e. the Word of God) and at other times, marvellously vivid. Ash-Wednesday is the great modernist religious poem in English.

Philip Larkin, ‘Church Going’. A meditation on the role of the church in a secular age, written by a poet who described himself as an ‘Anglican agnostic’, ‘Church Going’ is one of Larkin’s most popular poems from The Less Deceived. In the poem, the speaker of the poem visits a church on one of his bicycle rides and stops to have a look inside – though he isn’t sure why he stopped. The title carries a double meaning: both going to church (if only to look around, rather than to worship there), and the going or disappearing of churches, and the Church, from British life.

For more classic poetry, see our pick of the best poems about heaven. If you’re in search of a good poetry collection, we recommend The Oxford Book of English Verse – perhaps the best poetry anthology on the market.


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]

I previously forgot to post this 5th blog in the lesser known poets series.--Tyr



For, A Look Into Lesser Known Poets, A Series, ( 5th.) Poet, Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Blog Posted:3/31/2020 9:57:00 AM
TO HONOR FIFTH POET- FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS
(1A.)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51935/to-wordsworth

Felicia Dorothea Hemans
1793–1835

Born in Liverpool, England, Romantic poet Felicia Dorothea Hemans was the daughter of a merchant and a granddaughter of the consul, and the fifth of seven children. The family relocated to Wales following a period of financial difficulty in 1800. A voracious and early reader, Hemans made use of an extensive home library and was instructed by her mother in several languages. She spent two winters in London as a child, and was captivated by the classical art she saw there.

Hemans published her first collection, Poems (1808), at the age of 14. She married Captain Alfred Hemans in 1812, and together they had five children. However, her husband did not return from a trip to Italy in 1818, and from then on Hemans had to support her family with the income from her poetry.

Influenced by William Wordsworth and Lord Byron, Hemans’s poetry was published in 19 volumes, including The Domestic Affections and other Poems (1812), Records of Woman: With Other Poems (1828), and Siege of Valencia (1823). Her metrically assured poems often explore domestic and romantic themes.


https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-hour-of-prayer/

1. Sonnet To Italy
- Poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans

FOR thee, Ansonia! Nature's bounteous hand,
Luxuriant spreads around her blooming stores;
Profusion laughs o'er all the glowing land,
And softest breezes from thy myrtle-shores.

Yet though for thee, unclouded suns diffuse
Their genial radiance o'er thy blushing plains;
Though in thy fragrant groves the sportive muse
Delights to pour her wild, enchanted strains;

Though airs that breathe of paradise are thine,
Sweet as the Indian, or Arabian gales;
Though fruitful olive and empurpling vine,
Enrich, fair Italy! thy Alpine vales;
Yet far from thee inspiring freedom flies,
To Albion's coast and ever-varying skies!
Felicia Dorothea Hemans


https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-hour-of-prayer/

2. The Hour Of Prayer - Poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Child, amidst the flowers at play,
While the red light fades away;
Mother, with thine earnest eye,
Ever following silently;
Father, by the breeze of eve,
Call'd thy harvest-work to leave -
Pray: ere yet the dark hours be,
Lift the heart, and bend the knee!

Traveller, in the stranger's land,
Far from thine own household band;
Mourner, haunted by the tone
Of a voice from this world gone;
Captive, in whose narrow cell
Sunshine hath not leave to dwell;
Sailor, on the dark'ning sea-
Lift the heart, and bend the knee!

Warrior, that from battle won,
Breathest now at set of sun;
Woman, o'er the lowly slain,
Weeping on his burial plain:
Ye that triumph, ye that sigh,
Kindred by one holy tie,
Heaven's first star alike ye see-
Lift the heart, and bend the knee!
Felicia Dorothea Hemans


https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-hour-of-prayer/

3.
To Wordsworth
BY FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS
There is a strain to read among the hills,
The old and full of voices — by the source
Of some free stream, whose gladdening presence fills
The solitude with sound; for in its course
Even such is thy deep song, that seems a part
Of those high scences, a fountain from the heart.

Or its calm spirit fitly may be taken
To the still breast in sunny garden bowers,
Where vernal winds each tree’s low tones awaken,
And bud and bell with changes mark the hours.
There let thy thoughts be with me, while the day
Sinks with a golden and serene decay.

Or by some hearth where happy faces meet,
When night hath hushed the woods, with all their birds,
There, from some gentle voice, that lay were sweet
As antique music, linked with household words;
While in pleased murmurs woman’s lip might move,
And the raised eye of childhood shine in love.

Or where the shadows of dark solemn yews
Brood silently o’er some lone burial-ground,
Thy verse hath power that brightly might diffuse
A breath, a kindling, as of spring, around;
From its own glow of hope and courage high,
And steadfast faith’s victorious constancy.

True bard and holy! — thou art e’en as one
Who, by some secret gift of soul or eye,
In every spot beneath the smiling sun,
Sees where the springs of living waters lie;
Unseen awhile they sleep — till, touched by thee,
Bright healthful waves flow forth, to each glad wanderer free.
BY FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS


https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-sword-of-the-tomb-a-northern-legend/

Read perhaps her greatest poem- Not shown here.
The Sword Of The Tomb : A Northern Legend - Poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans

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For Lesser Known Poets Series,
These poems composed to honor this truly great poet....

(1.)
Soothing Dream, Bathe Me In Her Light

Of lonely night and vivid dread
sad supper and large empty bed
denying wind, sets soul to stir
romantic memories of her
she, tender angel through and through
only true love I ever knew!

Soothing dream, bathe me in her light,
sail sweet passionate seas tonight!

Of our past days, beach sand and sun
cheers, smiles, and laughter, O' what fun
she a wonder, beauty that gave
her soul to love and love to save
gifting hope to a lonely man
set to dream all he ever can!

Soothing dream, bathe me in her light,
sail sweet passionate seas tonight!

Of dancing under soft moonlight
kissing so sweet holding so tight
her morning touch, treasure thus found
love's joyous, chains forever bound
begging time to wait, to stand still
I love her true and always will!

Soothing dream, bathe me in her light,
sail sweet passionate seas tonight!

Robert J. Lindley, 3-29-2020
Rhyme,
( Romantic Dreaming, A Star That Once Was,
Soothing Dream, Bathing Within Tender Light)

(2.)

For This Aching Love, I Feel In My Bones

For this Love, I feel in my bones
desires, wine pressed from fire-stones
pleasures set to music, and glee
rapture of freedoms, given me
for this my mind dwells, on dear life
for this I endure, world's dark knife!

For this Love, I shed sweat and blood
from far above, pours lively flood
within June's soft castle a smell
within heart's valiant truth, a spell
for this my soul, yearns true and cries
for this my eyes, search deep blue skies!

For this Love, I give my great all
from looming depths spirit recalls
tall mountains beyond sweetest dreams
there, wherein lies Hope's promised streams
for this- my journey, often bold
for this- my pledge, truth to be told!

For this Love, I feel in my bones
desires, wine pressed from fire-stones
pleasures set to music, and glee
rapture of freedoms, given me
for this my mind dwells, on dear life
for this I endure, world's dark knife!

Robert J. Lindley, 3-12-2020
Rhyme, ( For The Love Of Poetry I Dare To Splash Ink )

(3.)

Times At Heart, Romancing Opera, Else A Dying Clown

Old age is too often an aching feast of dreaded dreads
symphony of memories, prayers for those already dead
or gasping look back at youthful vigor blindly wasted
days of innocent searching for desserts not yet tasted
dashing into red-canyons, rock walls scaled far too steep
begging dreams paradise provided with much needed sleep!

Time, at heart a slow dancing opera, a dying clown,
Youth's bravado, that says, "To hell with it- bring it on down"!

Old age a contemptible thought to we carefree and young
oft groaning ballad, with violin playing, wrongly strung
or morns that demand we rise to shock, fight another day
defiance- wallowing onward as for more time we pray
a nightmare, as we realize life is sad, far too short
rocket ride, on an unknown mission, one can not abort!

Time, at heart a slow dancing opera, a dying clown,
Youth's bravado, that says, "To hell with it- bring it on down"!

Old age may be a gift golden, full of joy's sweetest sprees
a lark, sailing vacations on those blue colored seas
or swirling blackened pool, its eternally spinning drain
years of crying lonely, and cascading aches and deep pains
yet life, its years are so very precious to have lived through
for the alternative is that end, which is always due!

Time, at heart a slow dancing opera, a dying clown,
Youth's bravado, that says, "To hell with it- bring it on down"!

Robert J. Lindley, 3- 30 2020...
Rhyme,
Quote:
("Knowledge by suffering entereth, And life is perfected by death.")
by- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Vision of Poets (1844), last lines)...

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog- On The Brighter Side Of Life, Heaven, Faith, Poetry And Song - Robert Lindley's Blog


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Blog- On The Brighter Side Of Life, Heaven, Faith, Poetry And Song
Blog Posted:4/14/2020 6:47:00 AM
Blog- On The Brighter Side Of Life, Heaven, Faith, Poetry And Song


Beauty There, Sweeter Than Morn's Softest Calls

Lad, Heaven's bounty is treasure weighted
Its only entrance, gold and pearl gated
Angels guarding all that paradise gifts
Light, Love, Truth, Faith that so deeply uplifts.

Yes lad, all there is dearest and divine
Love so pure, gifted from Trinity's vine
Music that heart and soul forever hears
Voices singing that brings forth happy tears.

Believe lad, your faith is your salvation
Do not embrace this world's imitation
Walk a straight path, fear not your earthen death
His sacrifice, tells Heaven give new breath.

Know this my lad, from there lost soul was saved
From world's Dark that is wickedly depraved
Eternity and peace within its halls
Beauty there, sweeter than morn's softest calls.

Robert J. Lindley, 4-14-2020
Rhyme, ( When Truth And Faith Gift Heavenly Bliss )

Note- On the brighter side of life.........

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOGEyBeoBGM


(1.) youtube video link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm9coqlk8fY


(2.) youtube video link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxPj3GAYYZ0


(3.) youtube video link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55GAUgjpDQA


(4.)

https://interestingliterature.com/2018/04/10-of-the-best-poems-about-heaven/

LITERATURE
10 of the Best Poems about Heaven
What are the most heavenly poems in all of literature? Selected by Dr Oliver Tearle

Who deserves a place in heaven? And what is heaven like? Contemplating the former question and imagining an answer to the latter has occupied many a poet’s mind down the ages. Here are ten of the very best poems about heaven…

Dante, The Divine Comedy. Composed in the early fourteenth century, Dante’s Divine Comedy is a trilogy of poems charting the poet’s journey from hell (Inferno) through Purgatory (Purgatorio) to heaven (Paradiso), guided by his fellow poet, Virgil. Featuring lakes of filth and farting demons, it’s much more fun than its theological subject might suggest, and it influenced a whole raft of later poets, especially T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. It’s even been called the ‘fifth Gospel’, so clearly and effectively does Dante detail the medieval view of Christianity. Specifically, the final part of the trilogy, Paradiso, is of particular interest here, where the poet is guided by his muse, Beatrice, to heaven.



Edmund Spenser, from Amoretti. This poem, beginning ‘Oft when my spirit doth spread her bolder wings’, is part of Spenser’s sonnet sequence Amoretti. In summary, Spenser says that when he wishes to think of higher things, his mind is bogged down by thoughts of mortality; but he comes to the conclusion that the way to ensure happiness is to find heaven among earthly things.

Robert Herrick, ‘To Heaven’. What does it mean to be worthy of a place in heaven? Herrick (1591-1674), one of the most popular of the Cavalier poets, wrote this very short and pithy poem about heaven, in which he asks that the sinful be given mercy and allowed in. If he himself is not granted entry, he will ‘force the gate’…

Henry Vaughan, ‘The Retreat’. Henry Vaughan (1622-95) was a Welsh Metaphysical Poet, although his name is not quite so familiar as, say, Andrew Marvell. His poem ‘The Retreat’ (sometimes the original spelling, ‘The Retreate’, is preserved) is about the loss of heavenly innocence experienced during childhood, and a desire to regain this lost state of ‘angel infancy’.


Emily Dickinson, ‘“Heaven” – is what I cannot reach!’ One of a number of poems Emily Dickinson wrote about heaven, this poem is about how paradise is always just out of reach, like an apple hanging just a little too high up on the tree. It is an ‘interdicted land’ – one, perhaps, we are not meant to find yet…

Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘Heaven-Haven’. The Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89), who was a contemporary of Tennyson and Browning although his work seems to anticipate the modernists in its daring experimentation and unusual imagery, wrote this short eight-line meditation on heaven, which he envisions as a place where ‘no storms come’.

W. B. Yeats, ‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’. The gist of this poem, one of Yeats’s most popular poems, is straightforward: if I were a rich man, I’d give you the world and all its treasures. If I were a god, I could take the heavenly sky and make a blanket out of it for you. But I’m only a poor man, and obviously the idea of making the sky into a blanket is silly and out of the question, so all I have of any worth are my dreams. And dreams are delicate and vulnerable – hence ‘Tread softly’.


D. H. Lawrence, ‘New Heaven and Earth’. This 1917 poem is noteworthy because it is a longer modernist poem that responds to the First World War, and so prefigures a much more famous modernist poem, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. The poem’s speaker tells of his disillusionment with this world and its modern warfare and inventions and of his sense of release at having found a ‘new world’. But the poem has as much in common with Wilfred Owen’s poems highlighting the horrors of war as it has with Eliot’s later modernist poem.

Rupert Brooke, ‘Heaven’. Heaven was much on Brooke’s mind when he ended ‘The Soldier’ with its image of ‘hearts at peace, under an English heaven’. But this earlier poem, composed in 1913 before the outbreak of the War, is altogether more playful, even satirical, than the war sonnets. ‘Heaven’ uses fish to make a comment on human piety, and specifically the reasons mankind offers for a belief in something more than one’s immediate surroundings (e.g. an afterlife – hence the title of the poem). Witty and well-constructed, ‘Heaven’ is an overlooked poem in Brooke’s oeuvre, but we think it’s one of his best.

T. S. Eliot, ‘The Hippopotamus’. The premise of this poem is a comparison between the large African mammal and the Roman Catholic Church, which culminates with the hippopotamus being lifted up to heaven, surrounded by a choir of angels. Who is worthy of reaching heaven: someone who professes godliness but practises greed? Or the humble but ignorant hippo?


Discover more classic poetry with these birthday poems, these scary Gothic poems, these religious poems, these poems about various jobs, and these great beach poems. For more classic poetry, we recommend The Oxford Book of English Verse – perhaps the best poetry anthology on the market (we offer our pick of the best poetry anthologies here).

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.
************************************************** *

(1.)
Winter Heavens
by George Meredith
Sharp is the night, but stars with frost alive
Leap off the rim of earth across the dome.
It is a night to make the heavens our home
More than the nest whereto apace we strive.
Lengths down our road each fir-tree seems a hive,
In swarms outrushing from the golden comb.
They waken waves of thoughts that burst to foam:
The living throb in me, the dead revive.
Yon mantle clothes us: there, past mortal breath,
Life glistens on the river of the death.
It folds us, flesh and dust; and have we knelt,
Or never knelt, or eyed as kine the springs
Of radiance, the radiance enrings:
And this is the soul's haven to have felt.

(2.)
"Heavenly Father" -- take to thee
by Emily Dickinson

"Heavenly Father" -- take to thee
The supreme iniquity
Fashioned by thy candid Hand
In a moment contraband --
Though to trust us -- seems to us
More respectful -- "We are Dust" --
We apologize to thee
For thine own Duplicity --

(3.)
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]

Lesser Known Poets Series- continued, 6th poet chosen, James Thomson
Blog Posted:4/17/2020 5:40:00 AM
Lesser Known Poets Series- continued,
6th poet chosen, James Thomson

(1.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_Dreadful_Night

The City of Dreadful Night
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Find sources: "The City of Dreadful Night" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2015)
The City of Dreadful Night is a long poem by the Scottish poet James "B.V." Thomson, written between 1870 and 1873, and published in the National Reformer in 1874,[1] then in 1880 in a book entitled The City of Dreadful Night and Other Poems.

Thomson, who sometimes used the pseudonym "Bysshe Vanolis" — in honour of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Novalis — was a thorough pessimist, suffering from lifelong melancholia and clinical depression, as well as a wanderlust that took him to Colorado and to Spain, among other places.

The City of Dreadful Night that gave its title to this poem, however, was made in the image of London. The poem, despite its insistently bleak tone, won the praise of George Meredith, and also of George Saintsbury, who in A History of Nineteenth Century Literature wrote that "what saves Thomson is the perfection with which he expresses the negative and hopeless side of the sense of mystery ..."[citation needed]

References
Sullivan, Dick. ""Poison Mixed With Gall": James Thomson's The City of Dreadful Night — A Personal View". Retrieved 2008-09-29.
External links
Works related to The City of Dreadful Night at Wikisource
Quotations related to James Thomson (B.V.) at Wikiquote
The City of Dreadful Night at Project Gutenberg
The City of Dreadful Night public domain audiobook at LibriVox
Categories: British poemsScottish poemsFictional populated places in EnglandVictorian poetryWorks originally published in British magazinesWorks originally published in political magazines1874 poems

(2.)

https://inthedustiwrite.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/the-city-of-dreadful-night-james-thomson-laureate-of-pessimism-or-early-modernist/

The City of Dreadful Night. James Thomson: Laureate of Pessimism or Early Modernist?
FEBRUARY 20, 2012 / AKIRKWOOD
“It is a curious thing, do you know, Cranly said dispassionately, how your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve.”[1]

Thomson has been referred to by many critics as a poet striving to find a voice in amongst the chaos, pessimism and mental confusion that marked the Victorian era and has variously been described as a social outsider, religious apostate and atheistic pessimist. Many critical studies of The City of Dreadful Night (1874) have described Thomson as a ‘laureate of pessimism’, stuck in his alienation to whom Faith, Love and Hope are dead. It is evident that Thomson’s work, up until 1860, reveals an anxiety in completely denouncing religious orthodoxy but after 1861, when he became more associated with Higher Criticism of the Bible and Darwinism, Thomson’s poetry took a more atheistic turn, culminating in the complete repudiation of religion in The City. Thomson explored his existential suffering in his poetry and essays and was undoubtedly responding to the pervasive nineteenth-century trend of feeling in the Victorian era of doubt which was largely brought about by the breakdown of orthodox religion, the dissolution of idealism and the destructive forces of growing industrialism.

However, to simply read Thomson in this context; refusing to abandon the all too apparent limitations this proposes, becomes reductive. Too many tired critical tropes have boxed Thomson under the category ‘Victorian pessimist’, failing to see the “dialectic of light and darkness”[2] that permeates his poetry. I propose to argue that Thomson’s proclamation of atheism in The City helped to shape a modernist sensibility within his poetry, allowing him to present the themes of alienation and disillusionment in new and experimental ways. As Thomson became increasingly aware and critical of the aporias of dogmatic religion, he proclaimed his repudiation of Christianity and looked for something else to replace it. Thomson’s City is a canvass to explore the modern sensibility in which “Man is mired – take your choice – in the mass, in the machine, in the city, in a loss of faith, in the hopelessness of a life without anterior intention or terminal value.”[3] In The City, his proclamation of atheism is manifested in the attack and inversion of religious themes in order to emphasise the meaningless of existence in a world with no God or hope for salvation. However, these religious principles are in fact made more conspicuous through their absence, the result being that their form lingers and residues of meaning, which are nevertheless detached from their Christian source, are revealed and it is the poet’s task to re-attach this meaning to a different symbolic system.

*************
The City of Dreadful Night
BY JAMES THOMSON (BYSSHE VANOLIS)

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: All was black,
In heaven no single star, on earth no track;
A brooding hush without a stir or note,
The air so thick it clotted in my throat;
And thus for hours; then some enormous things
Swooped past with savage cries and clanking wings:
But I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Eyes of fire
Glared at me throbbing with a starved desire;
The hoarse and heavy and carnivorous breath
Was hot upon me from deep jaws of death;
Sharp claws, swift talons, fleshless fingers cold
Plucked at me from the bushes, tried to hold:
But I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Lo you, there,
That hillock burning with a brazen glare;
Those myriad dusky flames with points a-glow
Which writhed and hissed and darted to and fro;
A Sabbath of the Serpents, heaped pell-mell
For Devil's roll-call and some fête of Hell:
Yet I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Meteors ran
And crossed their javelins on the black sky-span;
The zenith opened to a gulf of flame,
The dreadful thunderbolts jarred earth's fixed frame:
The ground all heaved in waves of fire that surged
And weltered round me sole there unsubmerged:
Yet I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Air once more,
And I was close upon a wild sea-shore;
Enormous cliffs arose on either hand,
The deep tide thundered up a league-broad strand;
White foambelts seethed there, wan spray swept and flew;
The sky broke, moon and stars and clouds and blue:
And I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: On the left
The sun arose and crowned a broad crag-cleft;
There stopped and burned out black, except a rim,
A bleeding eyeless socket, red and dim;
Whereon the moon fell suddenly south-west,
And stood above the right-hand cliffs at rest:
Still I strode on austere;
No hope could have no fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: From the right
A shape came slowly with a ruddy light;
A woman with a red lamp in her hand,
Bareheaded and barefooted on that strand;
O desolation moving with such grace!
O anguish with such beauty in thy face.
I fell as on my bier,
Hope travailed with such fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: I was twain,
Two selves distinct that cannot join again;
One stood apart and knew but could not stir,
And watched the other stark in swoon and her;
And she came on, and never turned aside,
Between such sun and moon and roaring tide:
And as she came more near
My soul grew mad with fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: Hell is mild
And piteous matched with that accursèd wild;
A large black sign was on her breast that bowed,
A broad black band ran down her snow-white shroud;
That lamp she held was her own burning heart,
Whose blood-drops trickled step by step apart;
The mystery was clear;
Mad rage had swallowed fear.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: By the sea
She knelt and bent above that senseless me;
Those lamp-drops fell upon my white brow there,
She tried to cleanse them with her tears and hair;
She murmured words of pity, love, and woe,
She heeded not the level rushing flow:
And mad with rage and fear,
I stood stonebound so near.

As I came through the desert thus it was,
As I came through the desert: When the tide
Swept up to her there kneeling by my side,
She clasped that corpse-like me, and they were borne
Away, and this vile me was left forlorn;
I know the whole sea cannot quench that heart,
Or cleanse that brow, or wash those two apart:
They love; their doom is drear,
Yet they nor hope nor fear;
But I, what do I here?

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

Lesser Known Poets Series- continued,
two poems written, honoring sixth poet chosen James Thomson

(1.)

As That Dawning Hour, In Her Journey She Knew She Was Too Late

Beneath ashen skies and life's treasured ships - underneath deep tides,
ghosts, remorse, memories, all lost in yesteryear's breath abides.

She hurt, gone, life's truth that can never again be
blissful passions that burn swellings of singing seas
came aches, dreams lost, epic fluttering- heart's desires
broken sight of that ring, within massively raging fires
ghastly renderings of shattered hopes, faith without any gains
relentless moaning throughout night's aching and torturous pains!

Beneath ashen skies and life's treasured ships - underneath deep tides,
ghosts, remorse, memories, all lost in yesteryear's breath abides.

She found, old castle fallen down, in sad decay
remembering youth a'callin', knelt she to pray
amidst ruins that rumbled fiery flames in her soul
to consume shattered disappointments of life wearily droll
there within that moment, trepidation fanned sorrow's flames
with trembling lips, she cried, "All this, my weeping heart truly blames"!

Beneath ashen skies and life's treasured ships - underneath deep tides,
ghosts, remorse, memories, all lost in yesteryear's breath abides.

She knew, never more would sweetest of touch she feel
fiery embers that from loving heart none can steal
nights of love, ecstasy that seals desire's great need
and from that epic dying of love's loss, she never be freed
gasping as morbid thoughts delivered knowledge of Life and Fate
as that dawning hour, in her journey she knew she was too late!

Beneath ashen skies and life's treasured ships - underneath deep tides,
ghosts, remorse, memories, all lost in yesteryear's breath abides.

Robert J. Lindley, 4-17-2020
Narrative (sad romance), ( The Agony Of True Love Lost And Its Truly Unbearable Pains )

Quote:
(“Hell was not a pit of fire and brimstone. Hell was waking up alone, the sheets
wet with your tears and your seed, knowing the woman you had dreamed of would never
come back to you.”) ? Lisa Kleypas, Seduce Me at Sunrise )

Note: "Quote"
Epic Loss and Dark are not always wed
nor the calamity of dreaded dreads
as spinning world churns its wicked abyss
deepest of hurts is that true love we miss. (RJL- 1977)

Syllables Per Line:
0 15 15
0 12 12 12 15 15 15
0 15 15
0 12 12 12 15 15 15
0 15 15
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0 15 15
Total # Syllables:363
Total # Words: 248
******************
(2.)

Breaking, Those Invisible Chains Once Holding Me

waiting, until hurt yields its epic pains,
victim of no worries, no risks, no gains

wandering earthbound
pondering no sound
ghosting through life, as tormented lost soul
ripped heart begging, come please fill this hole

waiting, until hurt yields its epic pains,
victim of no worries, no risks, no gains

cascading earthbound
evading profound
fallen, into spirals of black despair
tipped into blackness of its darken lair

waiting, until hurt yields its epic pains,
victim of no worries, no risks, no gains

defending earthbound
pretending sane-bound
waking to gasps from life's abundant glee
breaking, invisible chains holding me

waiting, until light destroys dark remains,
victor, claiming new joyous treasured gains

Robert J. Lindley, 4-17-2020
Rhyme, ( Life, Hope And What Was So Fated To Be )
from- "a hard look back into speeding abyss of time"...

Syllables Per Line:
0 10 10
0 5 5 10 10
0 10 10
0 5 5 10 10
0 10 10
0 5 5 10 10
0 10 10
Total # Syllables:170
Total # Words:::::110

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

On Mythology And Heroes, Part One (Medusa, monster hideous beyond comprehension) - Robert Lindley's Blog
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On Mythology And Heroes, Part One (Medusa, monster hideous beyond comprehension)
Blog Posted:5/8/2020 6:02:00 PM


On Mythology And Heroes, Part One
(Medusa, monster hideous beyond comprehension)

All is there within Medusa's abhorrent gaze
hiding in black-realms wherein monsters daily graze
beyond that abyss, the roaring of aching screams
from there impossible to see sun's golden beams
pathways, hideous corridors painted with blood
where dead love and dying dreams may forever flood!

Eternal night, chambers of horror and wicked glee
gripping fears that causing its victims to flee
deeper into tangles of that consuming maze
'til desperation stones heart, gifting pain's lost craze
all blades of dark in her evil vicious stare
depths of unmerciful cold- of that icy stare!

Hopelessness, terrors searing into all within
casting stony shadows into hearts of lost men
warriors sent to slay that so cursed to monster be
set as solid stone as they look at her to see
Fate such victims into her monstrous abode cast
evil incarnate, beast that set men's souls aghast!

All is there within Medusa's abhorrent gaze
hiding in black-realms wherein monsters daily graze
beyond that abyss, the roaring of aching screams
from there impossible to see sun's golden beams
pathways, hideous corridors painted with blood
where dead love and dying dreams may forever flood!

Robert J. Lindley, Sept 9th , 2004
presented date- 5-08-2020
Rhyme, ( Part One Of )
(Medusa, monster hideous beyond comprehension)
Topic Greek Mythology and Its Magnificent Heroes.

Note:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa

Medusa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
For other uses, see Medusa (disambiguation).
Medusa
Gorgona pushkin.jpg
Classical Greek depiction of Medusa from the fourth century BC
Personal information
Parents Phorcys and Ceto
Siblings The Hesperides, Stheno, Euryale, The Graea, Thoosa, Scylla, and Ladon
Children Pegasus and Chrysaor
Greek mythology
Euboean amphora, c. 550 BCE, depicting the fight between Cadmus and a dragon
Deities
PrimordialTitansOlympiansNymphsSea-deitiesEarth-deities
Heroes and heroism
Heracles / Hercules LaborsAchillesHector Trojan WarOdysseus OdysseyJasonArgonauts Golden FleecePerseus MedusaGorgonOedipus SphinxOrpheus OrphismTheseus MinotaurBellerophon PegasusChimeraDaedalus LabyrinthAtalantaHippomenes Golden appleCadmus ThebesAeneas AeneidTriptolemus Eleusinian MysteriesPelops Ancient Olympic GamesPirithous CentauromachyAmphitryon Teumessian foxNarcissus NarcissismMeleager Calydonian BoarOtrera Amazons
Related
SatyrsCentaursDragonsDemogorgonReligion in Ancient GreeceMycenaean gods
Parthenon from west.jpg Ancient Greece portal
Draig.svg Myths portal
vte
In Greek mythology, Medusa (/m?'dju?z?, -s?/; Μ?δουσα "guardian, protectress")[1] also called Gorgo, was one of the three monstrous Gorgons, generally described as winged human females with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those who gazed into her eyes would turn to stone. Most sources describe her as the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto,[2] although the author Hyginus makes her the daughter of Gorgon and Ceto.[3] According to Hesiod and Aeschylus, she lived and died on an island named Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene. The 2nd-century BCE novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Libya, where Herodotus had said the Berbers originated her myth, as part of their religion.

Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon[4] until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. In classical antiquity the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the Gorgoneion.


The three Gorgon sisters—Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale—were all children of the ancient marine deities Phorcys (or "Phorkys") and his sister Ceto (or "Keto"), chthonic monsters from an archaic world. Their genealogy is shared with other sisters, the Graeae, as in Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound, which places both trinities of sisters far off "on Kisthene's dreadful plain":

Near them their sisters three, the Gorgons, winged
With snakes for hair— hatred of mortal man—

While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as having monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century began to envisage her as being beautiful as well as terrifying. In an ode written in 490 BC Pindar already speaks of "fair-cheeked Medusa".[5]

In a late version of the Medusa myth, related by the Roman poet Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.770), Medusa was originally a ravishingly beautiful maiden, "the jealous aspiration of many suitors," but because Poseidon had raped her in Athena's temple, the enraged Athena transformed Medusa's beautiful hair to serpents and made her face so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would turn onlookers to stone.[6] In Ovid's telling, Perseus describes Medusa's punishment by Minerva (Athena) as just and well earned.


Coins of the reign of Seleucus I Nicator of Syria, (312–280 BC)
In most versions of the story, she was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who was sent to fetch her head by King Polydectes of Seriphus because Polydectes wanted to marry Perseus's mother. The gods were well aware of this, and Perseus received help. He received a mirrored shield from Athena, gold, winged sandals from Hermes, a sword from Hephaestus and Hades's helm of invisibility. Since Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, Perseus was able to slay her while looking at the reflection from the mirrored shield he received from Athena. During that time, Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon. When Perseus beheaded her, Pegasus, a winged horse, and Chrysaor, a giant wielding a golden sword, sprang from her body.[7]

Jane Ellen Harrison argues that "her potency only begins when her head is severed, and that potency resides in the head; she is in a word a mask with a body later appended... the basis of the Gorgoneion is a cultus object, a ritual mask misunderstood."[8]

In the Odyssey xi, Homer does not specifically mention the Gorgon Medusa:

Lest for my daring Persephone the dread,
From Hades should send up an awful monster's grisly head.


The Medusa's head central to a mosaic floor in a tepidarium of the Roman era. Museum of Sousse, Tunisia
Harrison's translation states "the Gorgon was made out of the terror, not the terror out of the Gorgon."[8]

According to Ovid, in northwest Africa, Perseus flew past the Titan Atlas, who stood holding the sky aloft, and transformed him into stone when he tried to attack him.[9] In a similar manner, the corals of the Red Sea were said to have been formed of Medusa's blood spilled onto seaweed when Perseus laid down the petrifying head beside the shore during his short stay in Ethiopia where he saved and wed his future wife, the lovely princess Andromeda. Furthermore, the poisonous vipers of the Sahara, in the Argonautica 4.1515, Ovid's Metamorphoses 4.770 and Lucan's Pharsalia 9.820, were said to have grown from spilt drops of her blood. The blood of Medusa also spawned the Amphisbaena (a horned dragon-like creature with a snake-headed tail).

Perseus then flew to Seriphos, where his mother was being forced into marriage with the king, Polydectes, who was turned into stone by the head. Then Perseus gave the Gorgon's head to Athena, who placed it on her shield, the Aegis.[10]

Some classical references refer to three Gorgons; Harrison considered that the tripling of Medusa into a trio of sisters was a secondary feature in the myth:

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog: ( A Short Page From The Book Of Life, Love And Bitter Sorrows ) A Quartet Of Poems, composed in four days..
Blog Posted:5/13/2020 9:23:00 AM
Blog: ( A Short Page From The Book Of Life, Love And Bitter Sorrows )
A Quartet Of Poems, composed in four days...

(1.)

There Is A Dangerous Sun Now A'Rising

There is a dangerous sun now a'rising,
this world's blindness is a'surprising
far too many walk a dying road
far too many believe great lies told,
soon old truths they will be a'roasting
and in darken fog proudly a'toasting.

Danger and fear will come a'plenty
death will dance well in year a'twenty
far too many will life be a'wailing
far too many their lies be a'spelling
soon the shores will give away the sands
and tears ill wet fresh washed hands.

There is a dangerous tale in the telling
poison forests burnt after their felling
far too many moan out their lonely emotions
far too many selling their snake oil potions
soon freedoms once enjoyed will be overtaken
and our land will be truly God forsaken.

There is a dangerous sun now a'rising,
this world's blindness is a'surprising
far too many walk a dying road
far too many believe great lies told,
soon old truths they will be a'roasting
and in darken fog so proudly a'toasting.

Robert J. Lindley, posted 5-11-2020
Rhyme, ( In The Green Valley When The Invisible Rain Fell )
Written on the plague that has now so devastated the many..

Note:
I previously started this poem for The PoetrySoup Corona virus contest.
Created the outline and stopped, finished that and came back for 5 edits later.
After giving great thought I decided not to enter it. To hold it for later.
Many reasons for that decision, but truth is I think it lacks due to
its author's losing the needed inspiration- that which youth once did
in the bucketfuls "centuries ago" showered. Now my friends, do as I may,
due to that sad reality and its failing fruits I can no longer pretend.
A poet can only measure by looking back. At what was once wasted and
now those depths and beauty his pen and sword both too oft clearly lack.-RJL
Starting this project with this piece, admitting my faults...

(2.)

Bites As Hungry Shark, Yet I Am Still Here Writing

Words are coming, many are great, some are deep blue
I sit here humming, Lord something is overdue
Pen in hand, life, love, sorrows, tales to be told
Once a lad, seeking joy before getting too old.

This ole world deep dark, yet I am still here fighting.
Bites as hungry shark, yet I am still here writing!

Of mere mortal flesh, born to its ill fated doom
Into sunlit shadows, dappled shades in each room
Cannons of power, youth in most glorious haze
Distant hill-black towers, all a shimmering craze.

This ole world deep dark, yet I am still here fighting.
Bites as hungry shark, yet I am still here writing!

Amidst black canyons, clouds- separation and pain
Race into fleeing horizon, so little gain
Pen and paper moaning, lonesome that steals each breath
Poet atoning, into long cold hands of death!

This ole world deep dark, yet I am still here fighting.
Bites as hungry shark, yet I am still here writing!

Robert J. Lindley, 5-12-2020
Rhyme, ( When The Die Is Cast, Earthen Time Has Flown Away )

(3.)

Once A Revolutionary Serpent Came To My Door

Once a revolutionary serpent came to my door
saying-" hey man I damn sure don't like you anymore."
You have settled fast and hard, gotten too old,
destroyed all those lies that I so boldly told
Now your sad life you must accurately defend-
because to my darkness, my ire you are no damn friend!

I sat and into its evil granite gaze I then fell
pawn cast into the blackest of its unholy hell
holding tight to illusion and mirror image of me
there voluntarily chained never again to be free
waiting on chimes from a church-bell somewhere
or bowl of milk set to make dead cats low purr.

Centuries past and icy stabs into my soul beset
I was dying in the desert from being too, too wet
a repentant character from a tragic new play
minstrel of words that Life had refused to pay
crying in my sorrows and that unavoidable abyss
in dire straits waiting for serpent's poison kiss.

Once a revolutionary serpent came to my door
saying-" hey man I damn sure don't like you anymore".
You have settled fast and hard, gotten too old,
destroyed all those lies that I so boldly told
Now your sad life you must accurately defend-
because to my darkness, my ire you are no damn friend!

Robert J. Lindley, 5-13-2020
Rhyme -Dark- ( Gospel Of Self Identification, From A Poet's Muse )

(4.)

When Yesterday's Ghost Rises From Its Grave

When yesterday's ghost rises from its grave
telling your dastardly sins to behave
can that midnight hour your spirit then feel
poison arrows in your Achilles heel
slow melting marrows in your weeping bones
transcendence in your heartbreaking tones?

O'tell me that torture, how does it pain
Will your rebellion ever let you be sane?

In cold dark that your lost soul too oft plays
sorrows born 'neath Heaven's pleading stairways
can new Life and Love your agony heal
or with devil's oath you dare make a deal,
fast drying tears spat upon cracked sidewalks
crimes with Mother Nature you dare not talk!

O'tell me that torture, how does it pain
Will your rebellion ever let you be sane?

When yesterday's ghost rises from its grave
telling your dastardly sins to behave
can that midnight hour your spirit then feel
poison arrows in your Achilles heel
those melting marrows in your weeping bones
transcendence in your heartbreaking tones?

O'tell me that torture, how does it pain
Will your rebellion ever let you be sane?

Robert J. Lindley, 5-13-2020
Rhyme, Stepping From That Mountain,
Fleeing From That Cold, Dark Abyss.....

Syllables Per Line:
0 10 10 10 10 10 10 0 11 11
0 10 10 10 10 10 10 0 11 11
0 10 10 10 10 10 10 0 11 11
Total # Syllables:246
Total # Words:::::174

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog: ( A Short Page From The Book Of Life, Love And Bitter Sorrows ) A Quartet Of Poems, composed in four days..
Blog Posted:5/13/2020 9:23:00 AM
Blog: ( A Short Page From The Book Of Life, Love And Bitter Sorrows )
A Quartet Of Poems, composed in four days...

******

(Once A Revolutionary Serpent Came To My Door 3rd poem, From my blog, A Quartet Of Poems)


Once A Revolutionary Serpent Came To My Door
3rd poem, From my blog- " A Quartet Of Poems"

Once a revolutionary serpent came to my door
saying-" hey man I damn sure don't like you anymore."
You have settled fast and hard, gotten too old,
destroyed all those lies that I so boldly told
Now your sad life you must accurately defend-
because to my darkness, my ire you are no damn friend!

I sat and into its evil granite gaze I then fell
pawn cast into the blackest of its unholy hell
holding tight to illusion and mirror image of me
there voluntarily chained never again to be free
waiting on chimes from a church-bell somewhere
or bowl of milk set to make dead cats low purr.

Centuries past and icy stabs into my soul beset
I was dying in the desert from being too, too wet
a repentant character from a tragic new play
minstrel of words that Life had refused to pay
crying in my sorrows and that unavoidable abyss
in dire straits waiting for serpent's poison kiss.

Once a revolutionary serpent came to my door
saying-" hey man I damn sure don't like you anymore".
You have settled fast and hard, gotten too old,
destroyed all those lies that I so boldly told
Now your sad life you must accurately defend-
because to my darkness, my ire you are no damn friend!

Robert J. Lindley, 5-13-2020
Rhyme -Dark- ( Gospel Of Self Identification, From A Poet's Muse )

Copyright © Robert Lindley | Year Posted 2020

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Nightmares, Ravages Of A Prometheus, Free And Unchained
Blog Posted:5/17/2020 7:08:00 AM


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus

Prometheus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
For other uses, see Prometheus (disambiguation).
Prometheus
1623 Dirck van Baburen, Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.jpg
Personal information
Parents Iapetus and Asia or Clymene
Siblings Atlas, Epimetheus, Menoetius, Anchiale

Prometheus depicted in a sculpture by Nicolas-Sébastien Adam, 1762 (Louvre)
In Greek mythology, Prometheus (/pr?'mi?θi?s/; Ancient Greek: Προμηθε?ς, [prom??t?éu?s], possibly meaning "forethought")[1] is a Titan, culture hero, and trickster figure who is credited with the creation of humanity from clay, and who defies the gods by stealing fire and giving it to humanity as civilization. Prometheus is known for his intelligence and as a champion of mankind[2] and also seen as the author of the human arts and sciences generally. He is sometimes presented as the father of Deucalion, the hero of the flood story.

The punishment of Prometheus as a consequence of the theft is a major theme of his, and is a popular subject of both ancient and modern culture. Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, sentenced the Titan to eternal torment for his transgression. The immortal was bound to a rock, where each day an eagle, the emblem of Zeus, was sent to eat Prometheus' liver, which would then grow back overnight to be eaten again the next day (in ancient Greece, the liver was often thought to be the seat of human emotions).[3] Prometheus was eventually freed by the hero Heracles.

In another myth, Prometheus establishes the form of animal sacrifice practiced in ancient Greek religion.

Evidence of a cult to Prometheus himself is not widespread. He was a focus of religious activity mainly at Athens, where he was linked to Athena and Hephaestus, other Greek deities of creative skills and technology.[4]

In the Western classical tradition, Prometheus became a figure who represented human striving, particularly the quest for scientific knowledge, and the risk of overreaching or unintended consequences. In particular, he was regarded in the Romantic era as embodying the lone genius whose efforts to improve human existence could also result in tragedy: Mary Shelley, for instance, gave The Modern Prometheus as the subtitle to her novel Frankenstein (1818).


Contents
1 Etymology
2 Myths and legends
2.1 Possible Sources
2.2 Oldest legends
2.3 Athenian tradition
2.4 Other authors
3 Late Roman antiquity
4 Middle Ages
5 Renaissance
6 Post-Renaissance
6.1 Post-Renaissance literary arts
6.2 Post-Renaissance aesthetic tradition
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
Etymology
The etymology of the theonym prometheus is debated. The classical view is that it signifies "forethought," as that of his brother Epimetheus denotes "afterthought".[5] Hesychius of Alexandria gives Prometheus the variant name of Ithas, and adds "whom others call Ithax", and describes him as the Herald of the Titans.[6] Kerényi remarks that these names are "not transparent", and may be different readings of the same name, while the name "Prometheus" is descriptive.[7]

It has also been theorised that it derives from the Proto-Indo-European root that also produces the Vedic pra math, "to steal", hence pramathyu-s, "thief", cognate with "Prometheus", the thief of fire. The Vedic myth of fire's theft by Matarisvan is an analogue to the Greek account.[8] Pramantha was the fire-drill, the tool used to create fire.[9] The suggestion that Prometheus was in origin the human "inventor of the fire-sticks, from which fire is kindled" goes back to Diodorus Siculus in the first century BC. The reference is again to the "fire-drill", a worldwide primitive method of fire making using a vertical and a horizontal piece of wood to produce fire by friction.[10]

Myths and legends
Possible Sources

The Torture of Prometheus, painting by Salvator Rosa (1646-1648).
The oldest record of Prometheus is in Hesiod, but stories of theft of fire by a trickster figure are widespread around the world. Some other aspects of the story resemble the Sumerian myth of Enki (or Ea in later Babylonian mythology), who was also a bringer of civilisation who protected humanity against the other gods.[11] That Prometheus descends from the Vedic fire bringer Matarisvan was suggested in the 19th century, lost favour in the 20th century, but is still supported by some.[12][failed verification]

Oldest legends
Hesiod's Theogony and Works of the Days
Theogony
The first recorded account of the Prometheus myth appeared in the late 8th-century BC Greek epic poet Hesiod's Theogony (507–616). He was a son of the Titan Iapetus by Clymene, one of the Oceanids. He was brother to Menoetius, Atlas, and Epimetheus. Hesiod, in Theogony, introduces Prometheus as a lowly challenger to Zeus's omniscience and omnipotence.

In the trick at Mecone (535–544), a sacrificial meal marking the "settling of accounts" between mortals and immortals, Prometheus played a trick against Zeus. He placed two sacrificial offerings before the Olympian: a selection of beef hidden inside an ox's stomach (nourishment hidden inside a displeasing exterior), and the bull's bones wrapped completely in "glistening fat" (something inedible hidden inside a pleasing exterior). Zeus chose the latter, setting a precedent for future sacrifices (556–557). Henceforth, humans would keep that meat for themselves and burn the bones wrapped in fat as an offering to the gods. This angered Zeus, who hid fire from humans in retribution. In this version of the myth, the use of fire was already known to humans, but withdrawn by Zeus.[13]

Prometheus stole fire back from Zeus in a giant fennel-stalk and restored it to humanity (565–566). This further enraged Zeus, who sent the first woman to live with humanity (Pandora, not explicitly mentioned). The woman, a "shy maiden", was fashioned by Hephaestus out of clay and Athena helped to adorn her properly (571–574). Hesiod writes, "From her is the race of women and female kind: of her is the deadly race and tribe of women who live amongst mortal men to their great trouble, no helpmeets in hateful poverty, but only in wealth" (590–594). For his crimes, Prometheus is punished by Zeus who bound him with chains, and sent an eagle to eat Prometheus' immortal liver every day, which then grew back every night. Years later, the Greek hero Heracles, with Zeus' permission, killed the eagle and freed Prometheus from this torment (521–529).


Prometheus Brings Fire by Heinrich Friedrich Füger. Prometheus brings fire to mankind as told by Hesiod, with its having been hidden as revenge for the trick at Mecone.
Works and Days
Hesiod revisits the story of Prometheus and the theft of fire in Works and Days (42–105). In it the poet expands upon Zeus's reaction to Prometheus' deception. Not only does Zeus withhold fire from humanity, but "the means of life" as well (42). Had Prometheus not provoked Zeus's wrath, "you would easily do work enough in a day to supply you for a full year even without working; soon would you put away your rudder over the smoke, and the fields worked by ox and sturdy mule would run to waste" (44–47).

Hesiod also adds more information to Theogony's story of the first woman, a maiden crafted from earth and water by Hephaestus now explicitly called Pandora ("all gifts") (82). Zeus in this case gets the help of Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, the Graces and the Hours (59–76). After Prometheus steals the fire, Zeus sends Pandora in retaliation. Despite Prometheus' warning, Epimetheus accepts this "gift" from the gods (89). Pandora carried a jar with her from which were released mischief and sorrow, plague and diseases (94–100). Pandora shuts the lid of the jar too late to contain all the evil plights that escaped, but Hope is left trapped in the jar because Zeus forces Pandora to seal it up before Hope can escape (96–99).

Interpretation
Angelo Casanova,[14] professor of Greek literature at the University of Florence, finds in Prometheus a reflection of an ancient, pre-Hesiodic trickster-figure, who served to account for the mixture of good and bad in human life, and whose fashioning of humanity from clay was an Eastern motif familiar in Enuma Elish. As an opponent of Zeus he was an analogue of the Titans and, like them, was punished. As an advocate for humanity he gains semi-divine status at Athens, where the episode in Theogony in which he is liberated[15] is interpreted by Casanova as a post-Hesiodic interpolation.[16]

According to the German classicist Karl-Martin Dietz, in Hesiod's scriptures, Prometheus represents the "descent of mankind from the communion with the gods into the present troublesome life".[17]

The Lost Titanomachy
The Titanomachy is a lost epic of the cosmological struggle between the Greek gods and their parents, the Titans, and is a probable source of the Prometheus myth.[18] along with the works of Hesiod. Its reputed author was anciently supposed to have lived in the 8th century BC, but M. L. West has argued that it can't be earlier than the late 7th century BC.[19] Presumably included in the Titanomachy is the story of Prometheus, himself a Titan, who managed to avoid being in the direct confrontational cosmic battle between Zeus and the other Olympians against Cronus and the other Titans[20] (although there is no direct evidence of Prometheus' inclusion in the epic).[21] M. L. West notes that surviving references suggest that there may have been significant differences between the Titanomachy epic and the account of events in Hesiod; and that the Titanomachy may be the source of later variants of the Prometheus myth not found in Hesiod, notably the non-Hesiodic material found in the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus.[22]

Athenian tradition
The two major authors to have an influence on the development of the myths and legends surrounding the Titan Prometheus during the Socratic era of greater Athens were Aeschylus and Plato. The two men wrote in highly distinctive forms of expression which for Aeschylus centered on his mastery of the literary form of Greek tragedy, while for Plato this centered on the philosophical expression of his thought in the form of the various dialogues he wrote or recorded during his lifetime.

Aeschylus and the ancient literary tradition
Prometheus Bound, perhaps the most famous treatment of the myth to be found among the Greek tragedies, is traditionally attributed to the 5th-century BC Greek tragedian Aeschylus.[23] At the centre of the drama are the results of Prometheus' theft of fire and his current punishment by Zeus. The playwright's dependence on the Hesiodic source material is clear, though Prometheus Bound also includes a number of changes to the received tradition.[24] It has been suggested by M.L. West that these changes may derive from the now lost epic Titanomachy[25]

Before his theft of fire, Prometheus played a decisive role in the Titanomachy, securing victory for Zeus and the other Olympians. Zeus' torture of Prometheus thus becomes a particularly harsh betrayal. The scope and character of Prometheus' transgressions against Zeus are also widened. In addition to giving humanity fire, Prometheus claims to have taught them the arts of civilisation, such as writing, mathematics, agriculture, medicine, and science. The Titan's greatest benefaction for humanity seems to have been saving them from complete destruction. In an apparent twist on the myth of the so-called Five Ages of Man found in Hesiod's Works and Days (wherein Cronus and, later, Zeus created and destroyed five successive races of humanity), Prometheus asserts that Zeus had wanted to obliterate the human race, but that he somehow stopped him.[citation needed]


Heracles freeing Prometheus from his torment by the eagle (Attic black-figure cup, c. 500 BC)
Moreover, Aeschylus anachronistically and artificially injects Io, another victim of Zeus's violence and ancestor of Heracles, into Prometheus' story. Finally, just as Aeschylus gave Prometheus a key role in bringing Zeus to power, he also attributed to him secret knowledge that could lead to Zeus's downfall: Prometheus had been told by his mother Themis, who in the play is identified with Gaia (Earth), of a potential marriage that would produce a son who would overthrow Zeus. Fragmentary evidence indicates that Heracles, as in Hesiod, frees the Titan in the trilogy's second play, Prometheus Unbound. It is apparently not until Prometheus reveals this secret of Zeus's potential downfall that the two reconcile in the final play, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer or Prometheus Pyrphoros, a lost tragedy by Aeschylus.

Prometheus Bound also includes two mythic innovations of omission. The first is the absence of Pandora's story in connection with Prometheus' own. Instead, Aeschylus includes this one oblique allusion to Pandora and her jar that contained Hope (252): "[Prometheus] caused blind hopes to live in the hearts of men." Second, Aeschylus makes no mention of the sacrifice-trick played against Zeus in the Theogony.[23] The four tragedies of Prometheus attributed to Aeschylus, most of which are lost to the passages of time into antiquity, are Prometheus Bound (Prometheus Desmotes), Prometheus Unbound (Lyomenos), Prometheus the Fire Bringer (Pyrphoros), and Prometheus the Fire Kindler (Pyrkaeus).

The larger scope of Aeschylus as a dramatist revisiting the myth of Prometheus in the age of Athenian prominence has been discussed by William Lynch.[26] Lynch's general thesis concerns the rise of humanist and secular tendencies in Athenian culture and society which required the growth and expansion of the mythological and religious tradition as acquired from the most ancient sources of the myth stemming from Hesiod. For Lynch, modern scholarship is hampered by not having the full trilogy of Prometheus by Aeschylus, the last two parts of which have been lost to antiquity. Significantly, Lynch further comments that although the Prometheus trilogy is not available, that the Orestia trilogy by Aeschylus remains available and may be assumed to provide significant insight into the overall structural intentions which may be ascribed to the Prometheus trilogy by Aeschylus as an author of significant consistency and exemplary dramatic erudition.[27]

Harold Bloom, in his research guide for Aeschylus, has summarised some of the critical attention that has been applied to Aeschylus concerning his general philosophical import in Athens.[28] As Bloom states, "Much critical attention has been paid to the question of theodicy in Aeschylus. For generations, scholars warred incessantly over 'the justice of Zeus,' unintentionally blurring it with a monotheism imported from Judeo-Christian thought. The playwright undoubtedly had religious concerns; for instance, Jacqueline de Romilly[29] suggests that his treatment of time flows directly out of his belief in divine justice. But it would be an error to think of Aeschylus as sermonising. His Zeus does not arrive at decisions which he then enacts in the mortal world; rather, human events are themselves an enactment of divine will."[30]

According to Thomas Rosenmeyer, regarding the religious import of Aeschylus, "In Aeschylus, as in Homer, the two levels of causation, the supernatural and the human, are co-existent and simultaneous, two ways of describing the same event." Rosenmeyer insists that ascribing portrayed characters in Aeschylus should not conclude them to be either victims or agents of theological or religious activity too quickly. As Rosenmeyer states: "[T]he text defines their being. For a critic to construct an Aeschylean theology would be as quixotic as designing a typology of Aeschylean man. The needs of the drama prevail."[31]

In a rare comparison of Prometheus in Aeschylus with Oedipus in Sophocles, Harold Bloom states that "Freud called Oedipus an 'immoral play,' since the gods ordained incest and parricide. Oedipus therefore participates in our universal unconscious sense of guilt, but on this reading so do the gods" [...] "I sometimes wish that Freud had turned to Aeschylus instead, and given us the Prometheus complex rather than the Oedipus complex."[32]

Karl-Martin Dietz states that in contrast to Hesiod's, in Aeschylus' oeuvre, Prometheus stands for the "Ascent of humanity from primitive beginnings to the present level of civilisation."[17]

Plato and philosophy
Olga Raggio, in her study "The Myth of Prometheus", attributes Plato in the Protagoras as an important contributor to the early development of the Prometheus myth.[33] Raggio indicates that many of the more challenging and dramatic assertions which Aeschylean tragedy explores are absent from Plato's writings about Prometheus.[34]

As summarised by Raggio,
After the gods have moulded men and other living creatures with a mixture of clay and fire, the two brothers Epimetheus and Prometheus are called to complete the task and distribute among the newly born creatures all sorts of natural qualities. Epimetheus sets to work but, being unwise, distributes all the gifts of nature among the animals, leaving men naked and unprotected, unable to defend themselves and to survive in a hostile world. Prometheus then steals the fire of creative power from the workshop of Athena and Hephaistos and gives it to mankind.

Raggio then goes on to point out Plato's distinction of creative power (techne), which is presented as superior to merely natural instincts (physis).

For Plato, only the virtues of "reverence and justice can provide for the maintenance of a civilised society – and these virtues are the highest gift finally bestowed on men in equal measure."[35] The ancients by way of Plato believed that the name Prometheus derived from the Greek prefix pro- (before) + manthano (intelligence) and the agent suffix -eus, thus meaning "Forethinker".

In his dialogue titled Protagoras, Plato contrasts Prometheus with his dull-witted brother Epimetheus, "Afterthinker".[36][37] In Plato's dialogue Protagoras, Protagoras asserts that the gods created humans and all the other animals, but it was left to Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus to give defining attributes to each. As no physical traits were left when the pair came to humans, Prometheus decided to give them fire and other civilising arts.[38]

Athenian religious dedication and observance
It is understandable that since Prometheus was considered a Titan and not one of the Olympian gods that there would be an absence of evidence, with the exception of Athens, for the direct religious devotion to his worship. Despite his importance to the myths and imaginative literature of ancient Greece, the religious cult of Prometheus during the Archaic and Classical periods seems to have been limited.[39] Writing in the 2nd century AD, the satirist Lucian points out that while temples to the major Olympians were everywhere, none to Prometheus is to be seen.[40]


Heracles freeing Prometheus, relief from the Temple of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias
Athens was the exception, here Prometheus was worshipped alongside Athene and Hephaistos.[41] The altar of Prometheus in the grove of the Academy was the point of origin for several significant processions and other events regularly observed on the Athenian calendar. For the Panathenaic festival, arguably the most important civic festival at Athens, a torch race began at the altar, which was located outside the sacred boundary of the city, and passed through the Kerameikos, the district inhabited by potters and other artisans who regarded Prometheus and Hephaestus as patrons.[42] The race then travelled to the heart of the city, where it kindled the sacrificial fire on the altar of Athena on the Acropolis to conclude the festival.[43] These footraces took the form of relays in which teams of runners passed off a flaming torch. According to Pausanias (2nd century AD), the torch relay, called lampadedromia or lampadephoria, was first instituted at Athens in honour of Prometheus.[44]

By the Classical period, the races were run by ephebes also in honour of Hephaestus and Athena.[45] Prometheus' association with fire is the key to his religious significance[39] and to the alignment with Athena and Hephaestus that was specific to Athens and its "unique degree of cultic emphasis" on honouring technology.[46] The festival of Prometheus was the Prometheia. The wreaths worn symbolised the chains of Prometheus.[47] There is a pattern of resemblances between Hephaistos and Prometheus. Although the classical tradition is that Hephaistos split Zeus's head to allow Athene's birth, that story has also been told of Prometheus. A variant tradition makes Prometheus the son of Hera like Hephaistos.[48] Ancient artists depict Prometheus wearing the pointed cap of an artist or artisan, like Hephaistos, and also the crafty hero Odysseus. The artisan's cap was also depicted as worn by the Cabeiri,[49] supernatural craftsmen associated with a mystery cult known in Athens in classical times, and who were associated with both Hephaistos and Prometheus. Kerényi suggests that Hephaistos may in fact be the "successor" of Prometheus, despite Hephaistos being himself of archaic origin.[50]

Pausanias recorded a few other religious sites in Greece devoted to Prometheus. Both Argos and Opous claimed to be Prometheus' final resting place, each erecting a tomb in his honour. The Greek city of Panopeus had a cult statue that was supposed to honour Prometheus for having created the human race there.[38]

Aesthetic tradition in Athenian art
Prometheus' torment by the eagle and his rescue by Heracles were popular subjects in vase paintings of the 6th to 4th centuries BC. He also sometimes appears in depictions of Athena's birth from Zeus' forehead. There was a relief sculpture of Prometheus with Pandora on the base of Athena's cult statue in the Athenian Parthenon of the 5th century BC. A similar rendering is also found at the great altar of Zeus at Pergamon from the second century BC.

The event of the release of Prometheus from captivity was frequently revisited on Attic and Etruscan vases between the sixth and fifth centuries BC. In the depiction on display at the Museum of Karlsruhe and in Berlin, the depiction is that of Prometheus confronted by a menacing large bird (assumed to be the eagle) with Hercules approaching from behind shooting his arrows at it.[51] In the fourth century this imagery was modified to depicting Prometheus bound in a cruciform manner, possibly reflecting an Aeschylus-inspired manner of influence, again with an eagle and with Hercules approaching from the side.[52]

Other authors

Creation of humanity by Prometheus as Athena looks on (Roman-era relief, 3rd century AD)

Prometheus watches Athena endow his creation with reason (painting by Christian Griepenkerl, 1877)
Some two dozen other Greek and Roman authors retold and further embellished the Prometheus myth from as early as the 5th century BC (Diodorus, Herodorus) into the 4th century AD. The most significant detail added to the myth found in, e.g., Sappho, Aesop and Ovid[53] was the central role of Prometheus in the creation of the human race. According to these sources, Prometheus fashioned humans out of clay.

Although perhaps made explicit in the Prometheia, later authors such as Hyginus, the Bibliotheca, and Quintus of Smyrna would confirm that Prometheus warned Zeus not to marry the sea nymph Thetis. She is consequently married off to the mortal Peleus, and bears him a son greater than the father – Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. Pseudo-Apollodorus moreover clarifies a cryptic statement (1026–29) made by Hermes in Prometheus Bound, identifying the centaur Chiron as the one who would take on Prometheus' suffering and die in his place.[38] Reflecting a myth attested in Greek vase paintings from the Classical period, Pseudo-Apollodorus places the Titan (armed with an axe) at the birth of Athena, thus explaining how the goddess sprang forth from the forehead of Zeus.[38]

Other minor details attached to the myth include: the duration of Prometheus' torment;[54][55] the origin of the eagle that ate the Titan's liver (found in Pseudo-Apollodorus and Hyginus); Pandora's marriage to Epimetheus (found in Pseudo-Apollodorus); myths surrounding the life of Prometheus' son, Deucalion (found in Ovid and Apollonius of Rhodes); and Prometheus' marginal role in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (found in Apollonius of Rhodes and Valerius Flaccus).[38]

"Variants of legends containing the Prometheus motif are widespread in the Caucasus" region, reports Hunt,[56] who gave ten stories related to Prometheus from ethno-linguistic groups in the region.

Zahhak, an evil figure in Iranian mythology, also ends up eternally chained on a mountainside – though the rest of his career is dissimilar to that of Prometheus.

Late Roman antiquity
The three most prominent aspects of the Prometheus myth have parallels within the beliefs of many cultures throughout the world (see creation of man from clay, theft of fire, and references for eternal punishment). It is the first of these three which has drawn attention to parallels with the biblical creation account related in the religious symbolism expressed in the book of Genesis.

As stated by Olga Raggio,[57] "The Prometheus myth of creation as a visual symbol of the Neoplatonic concept of human nature, illustrated in (many) sarcophagi, was evidently a contradiction of the Christian teaching of the unique and simultaneous act of creation by the Trinity." This Neoplatonism of late Roman antiquity was especially stressed by Tertullian[58] who recognised both difference and similarity of the biblical deity with the mythological figure of Prometheus.

The imagery of Prometheus and the creation of man used for the purposes of the representation of the creation of Adam in biblical symbolism is also a recurrent theme in the artistic expression of late Roman antiquity. Of the relatively rare expressions found of the creation of Adam in those centuries of late Roman antiquity, one can single out the so-called "Dogma sarcophagus" of the Lateran Museum where three figures are seen (in representation of the theological trinity) in making a benediction to the new man. Another example is found where the prototype of Prometheus is also recognisable in the early Christian era of late Roman antiquity. This can be found upon a sarcophagus of the Church at Mas d'Aire[59] as well, and in an even more direct comparison to what Raggio refers to as "a coursely carved relief from Campli (Teramo)[60] (where) the Lord sits on a throne and models the body of Adam, exactly like Prometheus." Still another such similarity is found in the example found on a Hellenistic relief presently in the Louvre in which the Lord gives life to Eve through the imposition of his two fingers on her eyes recalling the same gesture found in earlier representations of Prometheus.[57] .......
************************************************** **********
Nightmares, Ravages Of A Prometheus, Free And Unchained

(I.)

What of life, mortality and blessings of virgin ground
Philosophy, religion and *Prometheus unbound
Of Mother Nature, illuminations and transcendence
Science, and vanity of weakened mortal dependence
Light keeping darkness, destruction, life has now earth so stained
From horrors of gifting new god, Prometheus unchained?

(II.)

Should we, of flesh and bones, such magnificent heights aspire
As did Prometheus, myth tells stole Olympus's fires
Titan of old, that sought to make mortals into dark Gods
Giving humans that which evil gifts with sly winks and nods
Temptation, powers and greed sent to we of mortal flesh
To further ensnare and our weaken souls deeply enmesh!

(III.)

What of Light, warmth and beauty of a glowing sunny day
That heart endearing enchantment of morn's first call to pray
Was there not enough to satisfy man's lustful desires
Without need for that of creation gifted by fires
Or dark truth, perhaps Prometheus did correctly see
Search to expand into evil, mortals lusts to be free!

(IV.)

Are we so weak that evil, its darkness always remains
Unbreakable bindings, of ours and Prometheus's chains
Or can we ever through enlightenment, seeking hearts find
That merciful key, that both hope and divine light reminds
Will award salvation and blessings that every soul needs
Vanquishing inherent savagery from our altered seeds?

(V.)

What of arrogance that humanity has now embraced
That audacity of our thought, science has God replaced
Or Prometheus was hero- savior of all mankind
When instead flame given us was to our mortal souls bind
Into abyss of growing pride and shallow vanity
A curse upon earth and in turn, all of humanity!

(VI.)

Was Prometheus's gift a curse, poisonous Trojan horse
A black scourge, that sets man on a most calamitous course
Into gaping jaws of turmoil, blight of horrendous might
Race into dark and darker, black echoes of a lost night
Or shall we wake to this truth of truths to joyously find
Only divine light, God's love and light will heal eyes so blind!

Robert J. Lindley, from fragment- Oct12th, 1978
renewed,edited,expanded and finished, May17th,2020

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Total # Words::::330

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog, Part Two - From, The Heroes And Monsters Of Greek Mythology Series
Blog Posted:5/29/2020 1:05:00 PM
Blog, Part Two - From, The Heroes And Monsters Of Greek Mythology Series


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_Scylla_and_Charybdis


Between Scylla and Charybdis
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"Scylla and Charybdis" redirects here. For other uses, see Scylla and Charybdis (disambiguation).

Henry Fuseli's painting of Odysseus facing the choice between Scylla and Charybdis, 1794/6
Being between Scylla and Charybdis is an idiom deriving from Greek mythology, which has been associated with the proverbial advice "to choose the lesser of two evils".[1] Several other idioms, such as "on the horns of a dilemma", "between the devil and the deep blue sea", and "between a rock and a hard place" express similar meanings.[2] The mythical situation also developed a proverbial use in which seeking to choose between equally dangerous extremes is seen as leading inevitably to disaster.


Contents
1 The myth and its proverbial use
2 Cultural references
3 See also
4 References
5 External links
The myth and its proverbial use

Top, each of Scylla's heads plucks a mariner from the deck; bottom right, Charybdis tries to swallow the whole vessel
Scylla and Charybdis were mythical sea monsters noted by Homer; Greek mythology sited them on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Calabria, on the Italian mainland. Scylla was rationalized as a rock shoal (described as a six-headed sea monster) on the Calabrian side of the strait and Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. They were regarded as maritime hazards located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. According to Homer's account, Odysseus was advised to pass by Scylla and lose only a few sailors, rather than risk the loss of his entire ship in the whirlpool.[3]

Because of such stories, the bad result of having to navigate between the two hazards eventually entered proverbial use. Erasmus recorded it in his Adagia (1515) under the Latin form of evitata Charybdi in Scyllam incidi (having escaped Charybdis I fell into Scylla) and also provided a Greek equivalent. After relating the Homeric account and reviewing other connected uses, he went on to explain that the proverb could be applied in three different ways. In circumstances where there is no escape without some cost, the correct course is to "choose the lesser of two evils". Alternatively it may signify that the risks are equally great, whatever one does. A third use is in circumstances where a person has gone too far in avoiding one extreme and has tumbled into its opposite. In this context Erasmus quoted another line that had become proverbial, incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdem (into Scylla he fell, wishing to avoid Charybdis).[4] This final example was a line from the Alexandreis, a 12th-century Latin epic poem by Walter of Châtillon.[5]

The myth was later given an allegorical interpretation by the French poet Barthélemy Aneau in his emblem book Picta Poesis (1552). There one is advised, much in the spirit of the commentary of Erasmus, that the risk of being envied for wealth or reputation is preferable to being swallowed by the Charybdis of poverty: "Choose the lesser of these evils. A wise man would rather be envied than miserable." [6] Erasmus too had associated the proverb about choosing the lesser of two evils, as well as Walter of Châtillon’s line, with the Classical adage. A later English translation glossed the adage's meaning with a third proverb, that of "falling, as we say, out of the frying pan into the fire, in which form the proverb has been adopted by the French, the Italians and the Spanish."[7] Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable also treated the English proverb as an established equivalent of the allusion to falling from Scylla into Charybdis.[8]

Cultural references

James Gillray, Britannia between Scylla and Charybdis (1793)
The story was often applied to political situations at a later date. In James Gillray's cartoon, Britannia between Scylla and Charybdis (3 June 1793),[9] 'William Pitt helms the ship Constitution, containing an alarmed Britannia, between the rock of democracy (with the liberty cap on its summit) and the whirlpool of arbitrary power (in the shape of an inverted crown), to the distant haven of liberty'.[10] This was in the context of the effect of the French Revolution on politics in Britain. That the dilemma had still to be resolved in the aftermath of the revolution is suggested by Percy Bysshe Shelley's returning to the idiom in his 1820 essay A Defence of Poetry: "The rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer; and the vessel of the state is driven between the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and despotism."[11]

A later Punch caricature by John Tenniel, dated 10 October 1863, pictures the Prime Minister Lord Palmerston carefully steering the British ship of state between the perils of Scylla, a craggy rock in the form of a grim-visaged Abraham Lincoln, and Charybdis, a whirlpool which foams and froths into a likeness of Jefferson Davis. A shield emblazoned "Neutrality" hangs on the ship's thwarts, referring to how Palmerston tried to maintain a strict impartiality towards both combatants in the American Civil War.[12] American satirical magazine Puck also used the myth in a caricature by F. Graetz, dated November 26, 1884, in which the unmarried President-elect Grover Cleveland rows desperately between snarling monsters captioned "Mother-in-law" and "Office Seekers".[13]

Victor Hugo uses the equivalent French idiom (tomber de Charybde en Scylla) in his novel Les Miserables (1862), again in a political context, as a metaphor for the staging of two rebel barricades during the climactic uprising in Paris, around which the final events of the book culminate. The first chapter of the final volume is entitled "The Charybdis of the Faubourg Saint Antoine and the Scylla of the Faubourg du Temple".

By the time of Nicholas Monsarrat's 1951 war novel, The Cruel Sea, however, the upper-class junior officer, Morell, is teased by his middle-class peer, Lockhart, for using such a phrase.[14] Nevertheless, the idiom has since taken on new life in pop lyrics. In The Police's 1983 single "Wrapped Around Your Finger", the second line uses it as a metaphor for being in a dangerous relationship; this is reinforced by a later mention of the similar idiom of "the devil and the deep blue sea".[15][16] American heavy metal band Trivium also referenced the idiom in "Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis", a track from their 2008 album Shogun, in which the lyrics are about having to choose "between death and doom".[17]

In 2014 Graham Waterhouse composed a piano quartet, Skylla and Charybdis, premiered at the Gasteig in Munich. According to his programme note, though its four movements "do not refer specifically to the protagonists or to events connected with the famous legend", their dynamic is linked subjectively to images connected with it "conjoured up in the composer's mind during the writing".[18]

See also
Catch-22 (logic)
Dilemma
Hobson's choice
Morton's fork
References
Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, OUP 2015, p.99
"The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms" by Christine Ammer. 2003, 1997. The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust, retrieved 26 Aug. 2019
Odyssey Book 12, lines 108-11, Translated by Ian Johnston, Vancouver Island University, Revised Edition 2019
The Adages of Erasmus (selected by William Barker), University of Toronto 2001, pp.83-6
The Alexandreis: A Twelfth-Century Epic, a verse translation by David Townsend, Broadview Editions 2007, p.120, line 350. A footnote in this translation identifies the line as becoming proverbial in Europe.
French Emblems at Glasgow
Robert Bland, Proverbs, chiefly taken from the Adagia of Erasmus, with explanations, London 1814, pp.95-7
**************

Scylla and Charybdis were mythical sea monsters noted by Homer; Greek mythology sited them on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and Calabria, on the Italian mainland. Scylla was rationalized as a rock shoal (described as a six-headed sea monster) on the Calabrian side of the strait and Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. They were regarded as maritime hazards located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. According to Homer's account, Odysseus was advised to pass by Scylla and lose only a few sailors, rather than risk the loss of his entire ship in the whirlpool.[3]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~

Of Fate And The Choosing Between Scylla and Charybdis
(From Continued Greek Heroes And Mythology Series)
referenced,
*Scylla and Charybdis, *Homer, *Iliad and The Odyssey, *Hades, *Heaven

Of Fate And The Choosing Between Scylla and Charybdis

(I.)

Evil forces choice, either flee or choose another path
choosing between Scylla and Charybdis, that of twin wraths
mankind feeble pawn, turbulent vessel of flesh and bones
set between rock and a hard place, Hades black undertones
or walk onward into blindness as a casualty
chained and bound, victim of evil's great ingenuity.

(II.)

A quandary, such as Odysseus once had to face
either battling six-headed beast or drowning in disgrace
Time ever offers up this agonizing, sadden choice
for fallen man, cursed to answer with ill fated voice
deciding, life and death- battle bravely or try to flee
from living nightmare between the devil and deep blue sea.

(III.)

Homer's Iliad And The Odyssey, tells such travails
as a Greek hero battles Dark's many ravenous Hells
with Hope and Love in his magnificent, courageous heart
his salvation, only looking to Heaven can impart
yet with wit and faith he later his destination made
while never honor, love of family had he betrayed.

(IV.)

What of world and its cacophony of screaming bandits
living without honor, with its insidious gambits
too often begging Lady Luck make every gamble pay
instead of placing faith in Truth and kneeling down to pray
with Scylla and Charybdis, each echoing vicious threats
only by divine light, one avoids such destructive nets.

(V.)

Such in malevolent world, often rears its ugly head
we seek treasure, when one should embrace Love and Light instead
and in our feastings, selfish desires, our new Fated road
we must face accursed bounty of treasures we were sold
slaves living blinded by ambitions, in world full of chains
ships in distress, sinking from tons of our ill gotten gains.

(VI.)

Shall we choose wisely, seeking serenity in the Light
reaping harvest that comforts even in darkest of nights
sail upon bluer seas, watching gleaming heavens soft glow
riding peaceful waves, praying our loving families grow
knowing goodness and mercy will be our blessed rewards
or else continue playing on with, world's stacked deck of cards?

Robert J. Lindley, 5-29-2020
Rhyme, ( In A Judgment On Mankind's Repetitive And Historic Blindness )

Robert J. Lindley, from fragment- March 22nd, 1979
renewed,edited,expanded and finished, May 26th thru 29th,2020
companion piece to previously presented,

(Nightmares, Ravages Of A Prometheus, Free And Unchained,
from fragment- Oct12th, 1978
renewed,edited,expanded and finished, May17th,2020)
Both poems are completed versions of the Greek Mythology Series
started many decades ago..

Stats:
2nd poem- May 26th thru 29th,2020
(Of Fate And The Choosing Between Scylla and Charybdis)
0 14 14 14 14 14 14 0 14 14 14 14 14 14 0 14 14 14 14 14 14
0 14 14 14 14 14 14 0 14 14 14 14 14 14 0 14 14 14 14 14 14
Total # Syllables:504
Total # Words:::::330

Stats:
1st poem- previously posted, and finished, May17th,2020
(Nightmares, Ravages Of A Prometheus, Free And Unchained)
0 14 14 14 14 14 14 0 14 14 14 14 14 14 0 14 14 14 14 14 14
0 14 14 14 14 14 14 0 14 14 14 14 14 14 0 14 14 14 14 14 14
Total # Syllables:504
Total # Words:::::330

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog Part Three, On Greek Heroes And Monsters.. - Robert Lindley's Blog
About Robert Lindley(Show Details...)(Show Details...)


Blog Part Three, On Greek Heroes And Monsters..
Blog Posted:6/4/2020 8:48:00 AM

Classical Greek culture

The Greeks made important contributions to philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine.
Literature and theatre was an important aspect of Greek culture and influenced modern drama.
The Greeks were known for their sophisticated sculpture and architecture.
Greek culture influenced the Roman Empire and many other civilizations, and it continues to influence modern cultures today.
Philosophy and science
Building on the discoveries and knowledge of civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia, among others, the Ancient Greeks developed a sophisticated philosophical and scientific culture. One of the key points of Ancient Greek philosophy was the role of reason and inquiry. It emphasized logic and championed the idea of impartial, rational observation of the natural world.
The Greeks made major contributions to math and science. We owe our basic ideas about geometry and the concept of mathematical proofs to ancient Greek mathematicians such as Pythagoras, Euclid, and Archimedes. Some of the first astronomical models were developed by Ancient Greeks trying to describe planetary movement, the Earth’s axis, and the heliocentric system—a model that places the Sun at the center of the solar system. Hippocrates, another ancient Greek, is the most famous physician in antiquity. He established a medical school, wrote many medical treatises, and is— because of his systematic and empirical investigation of diseases and remedies—credited with being the founder of modern medicine. The Hippocratic oath, a medical standard for doctors, is named after him.
Greek philosophical culture is exemplified in the dialogues of Plato, who turned the questioning style of Socrates into written form. Aristotle, Plato's student, wrote about topics as varied as biology and drama.
Why did Greek philosophers value logic so highly?

Picture of the painting _School of Athens_ by Raphael.
Picture of the painting School of Athens by Raphael.
School of Athens by Raphael. Image credit: Wikimedia
Art, literature, and theatre
Literature and theatre, which were very intertwined, were important in ancient Greek society. Greek theatre began in the sixth century BCE in Athens with the performance of tragedy plays at religious festivals. These, in turn, inspired the genre of Greek comedy plays.
These two types of Greek drama became hugely popular, and performances spread around the Mediterranean and influenced Hellenistic and Roman theatre. The works of playwrights like Sophocles and Aristophanes formed the foundation upon which all modern theatre is based. In fact, while it may seem like dialogue was always a part of literature, it was rare before a playwright named Aeschylus introduced the idea of characters interacting with dialogue. Other theatrical devices, like irony, were exemplified in works like Sophocles’ Oedipus the King.
In addition to written forms of theater and literature, oral traditions were important, especially in early Greek history. It wasn’t until around 670 BCE that Homer’s epic poems, The Iliad and Odyssey, were compiled into text form.
Greek art, particularly sculpture and architecture, was also incredibly influential on other societies. Greek sculpture from 800 to 300 BCE took inspiration from Egyptian and Near Eastern monumental art and, over centuries, evolved into a uniquely Greek vision of the art form.
Greek artists reached a peak of excellence which captured the human form in a way never before seen and much copied. Greek sculptors were particularly concerned with proportion, poise, and the idealized perfection of the human body; their figures in stone and bronze have become some of the most recognizable pieces of art ever produced by any civilization.

This statue of Eirene, peace, bearing Plutus, wealth is a Roman copy of a Greek votive statue by Kephisodotos which stood on the agora in Athens, Wealth ca. 370 BCE.
This statue of Eirene, peace, bearing Plutus, wealth is a Roman copy of a Greek votive statue by Kephisodotos which stood on the agora in Athens, Wealth ca. 370 BCE.
This statue of Eirene, peace, bearing Plutus, wealth is a Roman copy of a Greek votive statue by Kephisodotos which stood on the agora in Athens, Wealth ca. 370 BCE. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
Greek architects provided some of the finest and most distinctive buildings in the entire Ancient World and some of their structures— including temples, theatres, and stadia—would become staple features of towns and cities from antiquity onwards.
In addition, the Greek concern with simplicity, proportion, perspective, and harmony in their buildings would go on to greatly influence architects in the Roman world and provide the foundation for the classical architectural orders which would dominate the western world from the Renaissance to the present day.
The legacy of Greek culture
The civilization of ancient Greece was immensely influential in many spheres: language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, science, and the arts. It had major effects on the Roman Empire which ultimately ruled it. As Horace put it, "Captive Greece took captive her fierce conqueror and instilled her arts in rustic Latium."
Via the Roman Empire, Greek culture came to be foundational to Western culture in general. The Byzantine Empire inherited Classical Greek culture directly, without Latin intermediation, and the preservation of classical Greek learning in medieval Byzantine tradition exerted strong influence on the Slavs and later on the Islamic Golden Age and the Western European Renaissance. A modern revival of Classical Greek learning took place in the Neoclassicism movement in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe and the Americas.
Can you think of modern-day art, architecture, or theater that may have been influenced by Greek culture?
[Notes and attributions]


https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/ancient-medieval/classical-greece/a/greek-culture

************************************************** ************
Blog- Part Three, Greek mythology series..
The following two sonnets represent a past foray into The Heroes And Monsters Of Greek Mythology.
As they both were inspired by the Thoreau poem cited below...

The Summer Rain
Poem by Henry David Thoreau

My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read,
'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large
Down in the meadow, where is richer feed,
And will not mind to hit their proper targe.

Plutarch was good, and so was Homer too,
Our Shakespeare's life were rich to live again,
What Plutarch read, that was not good nor true,
Nor Shakespeare's books, unless his books were men.

Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough,
What care I for the Greeks or for Troy town,
If juster battles are enacted now
Between the ants upon this hummock's crown?

Bid Homer wait till I the issue learn,
If red or black the gods will favor most,
Or yonder Ajax will the phalanx turn,
Struggling to heave some rock against the host.

Tell Shakespeare to attend some leisure hour,
For now I've business with this drop of dew,
And see you not, the clouds prepare a shower--
I'll meet him shortly when the sky is blue.

This bed of herd's grass and wild oats was spread
Last year with nicer skill than monarchs use.
A clover tuft is pillow for my head,
And violets quite overtop my shoes.

And now the cordial clouds have shut all in,
And gently swells the wind to say all's well;
The scattered drops are falling fast and thin,
Some in the pool, some in the flower-bell.

I am well drenched upon my bed of oats;
But see that globe come rolling down its stem,
Now like a lonely planet there it floats,
And now it sinks into my garment's hem.

Drip drip the trees for all the country round,
And richness rare distills from every bough;
The wind alone it is makes every sound,
Shaking down crystals on the leaves below.

For shame the sun will never show himself,
Who could not with his beams e'er melt me so;
My dripping locks--they would become an elf,
Who in a beaded coat does gaily go.
BY-- Henry David Thoreau
**************************************************
My two offerings...

Upon Battlefields Fallen True, Their Bloody Dead
( Part One )

For Greek pride the courageous Greeks warriors bled
Upon battlefields fallen true, their bloody dead
Thus many, from Greek mothers loving hearts were torn
Raised to be Greek heroes from day they were born.

Those giants brave and true as Homer did so write
Marching, fighting both by weary day and dark night
Shields held firm, plunging deep-red sharp sword and long spears
As fighting machines bereft of concerns and fears!

Achilles and Ajax mighty killers born to be
Destined as heroes, of valiant Greek tree
Godlike power in limbs of Herculean might
As was told by Homer's tale of Troy's last great fight!

For Greek pride the courageous Greeks warriors bled
Upon battlefields fallen true, their bloody dead!

Robert J. Lindley, 6-26-2019
Sonnet, ( What my muse just demanded of me )


Upon Battlefields Fallen True, Their Bloody Dead
( Part Two )

Fallen, courageous souls fleeing blood soaked soils
Battles no longer fought, long dark veil coming down.
Cessation of Life its pleasures, its daily toils
Small tis the reward of fame and hero's renown.

Yet such better than oblivion's return to dust
As life's ending, oft the payment for warring deeds.
Sacrifices for others power, greed and lusts
War torn ground soaked from brave warriors that bleed.

What of Greek pride or mighty heroic defense
Were not some deeds worthy, justified?
Are we more than just raging savages with no sense
Was heroic sacrifice true of those that died?

Were not some deeds worthy, justified
Was heroic sacrifice true of those that died?

Robert J. Lindley, 7-2-2019
Sonnet, ( What my muse just demanded of me )

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog, Tales From The Dark Book Of Poe, Oct 23rd,1977 as was written, after midnight clock struck its blackest hour.
Blog Posted:6/11/2020 2:30:00 PM
Blog, Tales From The Dark Book Of Poe, Oct 23rd,1977
as was written, after midnight clock struck its blackest hour.


Night Of Shadow, Poe, House Of Usher's Bloody Dust

Midnight hour when an horrendous silence then struck
magical its great power, in it I was stuck
cast into a dream, one of whispering delays
set aloft on a beam, passing clouds dark and gray
into realm with a clear mission given to me
find the one true answer and grab the golden key!

Down a dark word path I so courageously trod
started black as hell, along its trail I did plod
into land of black, such great markers of the dead
time I lost track, divergence in my aching head
then came that recall, a faithful mission commanded
to get it all, and dare not leave empty handed!

From distant bell, came rhyming music to my ears
I was not feeling well, as heart felt its deep fears
next a shadow came, and begged to tag along
inquiring my name and then sang a mourning song
led me past stones, of those fallen in darkest sin
snakes crawling on their bones, all had a wicked grin!

Then I horror thus I knew, this a nightmare black
within its course I must pursue, grab and get back
you will find your treasure beyond those rusty gates
bravery's measure, there the golden tomb awaits
hold on there my good friend, shadow screamed with a shout
near the end, duty bound, dare you not turn about!

Tho' I may die, I entered ancient musty crypt
aghast was I, as all its contents had been stripped
yet dried blood on the gloomy red walls, showed a fight
from outside I heard wailing calls, you die tonight
seeking to flee, yet I knew grab something I must
fear grabbing me, I left there only bloody dust!

As I fled, screamed my fears, hearing those distant words
faster I went switching gears, I flew like a bird
far away on distant hill, I heard a new call
its words sent a cold chill, it cried soon you will fall
your are captive in a garden plot, and will stay
Poe lives here, tho' House of Usher is in decay!

Morning call rang out, rooster sounded its alarm
I woke praise God with a shout, thanking God no harm
Rising from bed, I saw a shadow fly away
its eyes glowing red, wailing "soon, soon you will pay"
I screamed with all my might, God's help is now a must
more fright, for at bed's foot was, piles of bloody dust!

R.J. Lindley, Oct23rd, 1977
Dark Rhyme, ( When The Raven Sent A Vivid Dream And Chilling Message )

Syllables Per Line:
0 12 12 12 12 12 12 0 12 12 12 12 12 12
0 12 12 12 12 12 12 0 12 12 12 12 12 12
0 12 12 12 12 12 12 0 12 12 12 12 12 12
0 12 12 12 12 12 12
Total # Syllables:504
Total # Words: 406

************************************************** **
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_the_House_of_Usher

The Fall of the House of Usher
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For other uses, see The Fall of the House of Usher (disambiguation).
"The Fall of the House of Usher"
House-of-Usher-1839.jpg
First appearance in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine (September 1839)
Author Edgar Allan Poe
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Horror, Gothic, Detective Fiction
Published in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine
Publication date September 1839
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, then included in the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. The short story, a work of Gothic fiction, includes themes of madness, family, isolation, and metaphysical identities.

Contents
1 Plot
2 Character descriptions
2.1 Narrator
2.2 Roderick Usher
2.3 Madeline Usher
3 Publication history
4 Sources of inspiration
5 Analysis
5.1 Allusions and references
6 Literary significance and criticism
7 In other media
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links
Plot
The story begins with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country complaining of an illness and asking for his help. As he arrives, the narrator notes a thin crack extending from the roof, down the front of the building and into the adjacent lake.

It is revealed that Roderick's twin sister, Madeline, is also ill and falls into cataleptic, deathlike trances. Roderick and Madeline are the only remaining members of the Usher family.

The narrator is impressed with Roderick's paintings and attempts to cheer him by reading with him and listening to his improvised musical compositions on the guitar. Roderick sings "The Haunted Palace", then tells the narrator that he believes the house he lives in to be alive, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement of the masonry and vegetation surrounding it. Further, Roderick believes that his fate is connected to the family mansion.

Roderick later informs the narrator that his sister has died and insists that she be entombed for two weeks in the family tomb located in the house before being permanently buried. The narrator helps Roderick put the body in the tomb, and notes that Madeline has rosy cheeks, as some do after death. They inter her, but over the next week both Roderick and the narrator find themselves becoming increasingly agitated for no apparent reason. A storm begins. Roderick comes to the narrator's bedroom, which is situated directly above the vault, and throws open his window to the storm. He notices that the tarn surrounding the house seems to glow in the dark as it glowed in Roderick Usher's paintings, but there is no lightning.

The narrator attempts to calm Roderick by reading aloud The Mad Trist, a novel involving a knight named Ethelred who breaks into a hermit's dwelling in an attempt to escape an approaching storm, only to find a palace of gold guarded by a dragon. He also finds, hanging on the wall, a shield of shining brass on which is written a legend:

Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin;
Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win;[1]
With a stroke of his mace, Ethelred kills the dragon, who dies with a piercing shriek, and proceeds to take the shield, which falls to the floor with an unnerving clatter.

As the narrator reads of the knight's forcible entry into the dwelling, cracking and ripping sounds are heard somewhere in the house. When the dragon is described as shrieking as it dies, a shriek is heard, again within the house. As he relates the shield falling from off the wall, a reverberation, metallic and hollow, can be heard. Roderick becomes increasingly hysterical, and eventually exclaims that these sounds are being made by his sister, who was in fact alive when she was entombed.

Additionally, Roderick somehow knew that she was alive. The bedroom door is then blown open to reveal Madeline standing there. She falls on her brother and both land on the floor as corpses. The narrator then flees the house, and, as he does so, notices a flash of moonlight behind him which causes him to turn back, in time to see the moon shining through the suddenly widened crack. As he watches, the House of Usher splits in two and the fragments sink into the tarn.

Character descriptions

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Narrator
In "The Fall of the House of Usher", Poe's unnamed narrator is called to visit the House of Usher by Roderick Usher. As his "best and only friend",[2] Roderick tells of his illness and asks that he visit. He is persuaded by Roderick's desperation for companionship. Though sympathetic and helpful, the narrator continually is made to be an outsider. From his perspective, the cautionary tale unfolds. The narrator also exists as Roderick's audience as the men are not very well-acquainted, and Roderick is convinced of his impending demise. The narrator gradually is drawn into Roderick's belief after being brought forth to witness the horrors and hauntings of the House of Usher.[3]

From his arrival, he notes the family's isolationist tendencies as well as the cryptic and special connection between Madeline and Roderick. Throughout the tale and her varying states of consciousness, Madeline ignores the Narrator's presence. After Roderick Usher claims that Madeline has died, he helps Usher place her in the underground vault despite noticing Madeline's flushed appearance.

During one sleepless night, the Narrator reads aloud to Usher as sounds are heard throughout the mansion. He witnesses Madeline's reemergence and the subsequent death of the twins, Madeline and Roderick. The narrator is the only character to escape the House of Usher, which he views as it cracks and sinks into the tarn or mountain lake.

Roderick Usher
Roderick Usher is the twin of Madeline Usher and one of the last living Ushers. Usher writes to the narrator, his boyhood friend, about his illness.[2] When the narrator arrives, he is startled to see Roderick's appearance is eerie and off-putting. He is described by the narrator:

gray-white skin; eyes large and full of light; lips not bright in color, but of a beautiful shape; a well-shaped nose; hair of great softness — a face that was not easy to forget. And now the increase in this strangeness of his face had caused so great a change that I almost did not know him. The horrible white of his skin, and the strange light in his eyes, surprised me and even made me afraid. His hair had been allowed to grow, and in its softness it did not fall around his face but seemed to lie upon the air. I could not, even with an effort, see in my friend the appearance of a simple human being.[4]

Roderick Usher is a recluse.[2] He is unwell both physically and mentally. In addition to his constant fear and trepidation, Madeline's catalepsy is a cause of his decay. He is tormented by the sorrow of watching his sibling die. The narrator states: "He admitted [that] much of the peculiar gloom which thus affected him could be traced [to] the evidently approaching dissolution [of] his sole companion".[2] According to Terry W. Thompson, he meticulously plans for her burial to prevent "resurrection men" from stealing his beloved sister's corpse for experimentation as was common in the 18th and 19th centuries for medical schools and physicians in need of cadavers.[5]

As his twin, the two share an incommunicable connection that critics conclude may be either incestuous or metaphysical,[6] as two individuals in an extra-sensory relationship embodying a single entity. To that end, Roderick's deteriorating condition speeds up his own torment and eventual death. Like his sister, Roderick Usher is connected to the mansion. He believes the mansion is sentient and responsible, in part, for his deteriorating mental health and melancholy. Despite this admission, Usher remains in the mansion and composes art containing the Usher mansion or similar haunted mansions. His mental health deteriorates faster as he begins to hear Madeline's attempts to escape the underground vault she was buried in, and he eventually meets his death out of fear in a manner similar to the House of Usher's cracking and sinking.

Madeline Usher
Madeline Usher is the twin sister and doppelgänger of Roderick Usher. She is deathly ill and cataleptic. She appears before the narrator, but never acknowledges his presence. She returns to her bedroom where Roderick claims she has died. She is entombed despite her flushed appearance. In the tale's conclusion, Madeline escapes her tomb and returns to Roderick, only to scare him to death.

According to Poe's detective methodology in literature, Madeline Usher may be the physical embodiment of the supernatural and metaphysical worlds. Her limited presence is explained as a personification of Roderick's torment and fear. Madeline does not appear until she is summoned through her brother's fear, foreshadowed in the epigraph, with a quote from French poet Pierre-Jean de Béranger: "Son cœur est un luth suspendu; / Sitôt qu'on le touche il résonne", meaning "His heart is a tightened lute; as soon as one touches it, it echoes".[1]

Publication history
"The Fall of the House of Usher" was first published in September 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. It was revised slightly in 1840 for the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. It contains Poe's poem "The Haunted Palace", which earlierwas published separately in the April 1839 issue of Baltimore Museum.

In 1928, Éditions Narcisse, predecessor to the Black Sun Press, published a limited edition of 300 numbered copies with illustrations by Alastair.

Sources of inspiration

Home of Hezekiah Usher's son, Hezekiah
Poe's inspiration for the story may be based upon events of the Hezekiah Usher House, which was located on the Usher estate that is now a three-block area in modern Boston, Massachusetts adjacent to Boston Common and bound by Tremont Street to the northwest, Washington Street to the southeast, Avery Street to the south and Winter Street to the north. The house was constructed in 1684 and either torn down or relocated in 1830.[7] Other sources indicate that a sailor and the young wife of the older owner were caught and entombed in their trysting spot by her husband. When the Usher House was torn down in 1830, two bodies were found embraced in a cavity in the cellar.[8]

Another source of inspiration may be from an actual couple by the name Mr. and Mrs. Luke Usher, the friends and fellow actors of his mother Eliza Poe.[9] The couple took care of Eliza's three children (including Poe) during her time of illness and eventual death.[citation needed]

German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, who was a role model and inspiration for Poe, published the story "Das Majorat" in 1819. There are many similarities between the two stories, like the breaking in two of a house, eerie sounds in the night, the story within a story and the house owner's being called Roderich. Because Poe was familiar with Hoffmann's works, he knew the story and cleverly drew from it using the elements for his own purposes.[10]

Another German author, Heinrich Clauren's, 1812 story The Robber's Castle, as translated into English by John Hardman and published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1828 as "The Robber's Tower", may have served as an inspiration according to Arno Schmidt and Thomas Hansen.[11] As well as common elements, such as a young woman with a fear of premature burial interred in a sepulchre directly beneath the protagonist's chamber, stringed instruments and the living twin of the buried girl, Diane Hoeveler identifies textual evidence of Poe's use of the story, and concludes that the inclusion of Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae (Vigils for the Dead according to the Use of the Church of Mainz) is drawn from the use of a similarly obscure book in "The Robber's Tower".[12][13]

The theme of the crumbling, haunted castle is a key feature of Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto (1764), which largely contributed in defining the Gothic genre. [14]

Analysis

1894 illustration by Aubrey Beardsley
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is considered the best example of Poe's "totality", wherein every element and detail is related and relevant.[15]

The presence of a capacious, disintegrating house symbolizing the destruction of the human body is a characteristic element in Poe's later work.[16]

"The Fall of the House of Usher" shows Poe's ability to create an emotional tone in his work, specifically feelings of fear, doom, and guilt.[17] These emotions center on Roderick Usher, who, like many Poe characters, suffers from an unnamed disease. Like the narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart", his disease inflames his hyperactive senses. The illness manifests physically but is based in Roderick's mental or even moral state. He is sick, it is suggested, because he expects to be sick based on his family's history of illness and is, therefore, essentially a hypochondriac.[18] Similarly, he buries his sister alive because he expects to bury her alive, creating his own self-fulfilling prophecy.[citation needed]

The House of Usher, itself doubly referring both to the actual structure and the family, plays a significant role in the story. It is the first "character" that the narrator introduces to the reader, presented with a humanized description: Its windows are described as "eye-like" twice in the first paragraph. The fissure that develops in its side is symbolic of the decay of the Usher family and the house "dies" along with the two Usher siblings. This connection was emphasized in Roderick's poem "The Haunted Palace", which seems to be a direct reference to the house that foreshadows doom.[19]

L. Sprague de Camp in his Lovecraft: A Biography wrote that "[a]ccording to the late [Poe expert] Thomas O. Mabbott, [[H.P. Lovecraft], in 'Supernatural Horror', solved a problem in the interpretation of Poe" by arguing that "Roderick Usher, his sister Madeline, and the house all shared one common soul".[20]

The plot of this tale has prompted many critics to analyze it as a description of the human psyche, comparing, for instance, the House to the unconscious, and its central crack to a split personality. An incestuous relationship between Roderick and Madeline never is explicitly stated, but seems implied by the strange attachment between the two.[21]

Opium, which Poe mentions several times in both his prose and poems, is mentioned twice in the tale. The gloomy sensation occasioned by the dreary landscape around the Usher mansion is compared by the narrator to the sickness caused by the withdrawal symptoms of an opiate-addict. The narrator also describes Roderick Usher's appearance as that of an "irreclaimable eater of opium."[22]

Allusions and references
The opening epigraph quotes "Le Refus" (1831) by the French songwriter Pierre-Jean de Béranger, translated to English as "his heart is a suspended lute, as soon as it is touched, it resounds". Béranger's original text reads "Mon cœur" (my heart) and not "Son cœur" (his/her heart).
The narrator describes one of Usher's musical compositions as a "singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber". Poe here refers to a popular piano work of his time — which, though going by the title "Weber's Last Waltz" was actually composed by Carl Gottlieb Reissiger.[23] A manuscript copy of the music was found among Weber's papers upon his death in 1826 and the work was mistakenly attributed to him.
Usher's painting reminds the narrator of the Swiss-born British painter Henry Fuseli.
Literary significance and criticism

"The Fall of the House of Usher" first appeared in Burton's.
Along with "The Tell-Tale Heart", "The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Fall of the House of Usher" is considered among Poe's more famous works of prose.[24]

This highly unsettling macabre work is recognized as a masterpiece of American Gothic literature. Indeed, as in many of his tales, Poe borrows much from the already developed Gothic tradition. Still, as G.R. Thomson writes in his introduction to Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe, "the tale has long been hailed as a masterpiece of Gothic horror; it is also a masterpiece of dramatic irony and structural symbolism."[25]

"The Fall of the House of Usher" has been criticized for being too formulaic. Poe was criticized for following his own patterns established in works like "Morella" and "Ligeia", using stock characters in stock scenes and stock situations. Repetitive themes like an unidentifiable disease, madness and resurrection are also criticized.[26] Washington Irving explained to Poe in a letter dated November 6, 1839: "You have been too anxious to present your pictures vividly to the eye, or too distrustful of your effect, and had laid on too much colouring. It is erring on the best side – the side of luxuriance."[27]

John McAleer maintained that Herman Melville's idea for "objectifying Ahab's flawed character" in Moby-Dick came from the "evocative force" of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher". In both Ahab and the house of Usher, the appearance of fundamental soundness is visibly flawed – by Ahab's livid scar, and by the fissure in the masonry of Usher.[28]

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog- A tribute to mothers, acknowledgment of their love, sacrifice and perseverance
Blog Posted:7/29/2020 7:04:00 AM

A Mother's Love, Steels Her To Infinite Faith And Sacrifice

She cooked breakfast, got her kids off to school
took a brief rest on her favorite stool,
watched through front window as life flew on by
always and always, asking herself why,
dreams came but were rarely ever fulfilled
even hot summer days, her soul was chilled.

She prepared lunch, so delicious for two
even tho' where he was she had no clue,
out that window she saw sun beaming bright
he had gone so far away, out of sight,
dreams came, but his needed return did not
still a prayer said for what she has got.

She cooked another meal, kids must be fed
her heart crying, is he alive or dead,
not knowing, was a deep ache of its own
hurts eating ever deeper in her bones,
dreams they came, washing deep with lonesome night
she felt the weariness of her sad plight.

She saw the bus stop, her kids piling out
her daughter beautiful, her son so stout,
racing home, they both laughing all the way
she thanking God for yet another day,
her dreams came, her spirit asked yet again
why did he leave them, please God do explain.

Days chores done, all over her body ached
pray she with her deep faith, none of it faked
a quick shower then off to get some rest
in bed wondering, have I done my best
her dreams sang softly, this shall one day end
then your blessings, divine mercy will send.

Robert J. Lindley,
Rhyme, ( In Tribute )
( A Mother's Sacrifice, Her Love, Brave And So True )
Syllables Per Line:
0 10 10 10 10 10 10 0 10 10 10 10 10 10
0 10 10 10 10 10 10 0 10 10 10 10 10 10
0 10 10 10 10 10 10
Total # Syllables:300
Total # Words::::244

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

Note- (1.)

https://interestingliterature.com/2018/02/a-short-analysis-of-john-greenleaf-whittiers-tribute-to-mother/

LITERATURE
A Short Analysis of John Greenleaf Whittier’s ‘Tribute to Mother’
A delightful little paean to the poet’s mother

‘Tribute to Mother’ is a short poem in which the American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92) recalls the time when he was a small child and sat beside his mother’s knee. The poet’s mother restrained his ‘selfish moods’ and taught him a ‘chastening love’:

Tribute to Mother

A picture memory brings to me;
I look across the years and see
Myself beside my mother’s knee.
I feel her gentle hand restrain
My selfish moods, and know again
A child’s blind sense of wrong and pain.
But wiser now, a man gray grown,
My childhood’s needs are better known.
My mother’s chastening love I own.

In three sets of rhyming triplets, John Greenleaf Whittier looks back on his mother from the vantage point of his own old age (‘a man gray grown’). His mother was gentle but firm, inspiring in him a sense of right and wrong, and knowing what’s best for her son (‘My childhood’s needs’). The love a mother has for her child is ‘chastening’ not just because it is designed to chasten or subdue the child’s wilder or more unacceptable impulses, instilling a strong moral sense into the child, but also because Whittier, now older and wilder, feels chastened by the love and patience his mother had for her son.

John Greenleaf Whittier is a curious figure: associated with the group of American writers known as the Fireside Poets, who hailed from New England (Whittier himself was from Massachusetts) and wrote moral poems on domestic themes, he was inspired by the great Bard of Ayrshire, Robert Burns. (They were called the Fireside Poets because their work was often read aloud by families gathered around the fire at home; Longfellow, one of their number, even published a poetry volume titled The Seaside and the Fireside in 1850.)

Whittier’s ‘Tribute to Mother’ embodies these two aspects of Whittier’s work, and that of the Fireside Poets more widely: the domestic and the moral. His Quaker upbringing – and the values instilled in him from a young age by his mother – probably also had a hand in making him the poet he became. So it is fitting that he penned this short tribute to his mother, acknowledging the part she played in the poet – and man – he grew up to be.

Note (2.)

https://interestingliterature.com/2018/02/a-short-analysis-of-edgar-allan-poes-to-my-mother/

LITERATURE
A Short Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘To My Mother’
A charming sonnet by Poe about mothers

Edgar Allan Poe’s mother died in 1811, when Poe was only two years old. His father had walked out the year before, so Poe became an orphan with his mother’s death. He was taken in by John and Frances Allan of Richmond, Virginia, and would live with them until he had reached adulthood, although the Allans never formally adopted him. His middle name (really a second surname) was derived from his ‘adopted’ parents. He was probably named Edgar, by the way, after Edgar in King Lear: his (biological) parents were both actors, who were starring in a production of Shakespeare’s play when their son was born. Poe wrote ‘To My Mother’ in 18

To My Mother

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of ‘Mother,’
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you –
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
In setting my Virginia’s spirit free.
My mother – my own mother, who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
By that infinity with which my wife
Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

With a title like ‘To My Mother’, surely we can confidently identify the subject of Poe’s poem. But in fact the poem was not written about Poe’s biological mother who died when he was still an infant. Nor, though, was it written about his adopted mother, Mrs Allan. Instead, the subject of ‘To My Mother’ is in fact Poe’s mother-in-law, Maria Clemm – the mother of Poe’s wife (and cousin), Virginia Clemm, whom he married in 1836. Virginia died in 1847, two years before Poe wrote this touching tribute to both Virginia and her mother.

Not only this, but Poe is somewhat dismissive of his biological mother – whom, having died when he was so young, he can hardly be expected to remember – but he combines such dismissiveness with a touch of modesty and self-effacement:

My mother – my own mother, who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly

In other words, ‘I value the woman who brought little me into the world far less than I value you, mother-in-law, because you have acted like a mother to me and you gave birth to the wonderful woman who became my wife.’ Viewed this way, ‘To My Mother’ becomes a more intriguing poem negotiating a complex nexus of family relationships in Poe’s life: a poem called ‘To My Mother’ which is not about his own mother (either of them), and in fact mentions his biological mother only to highlight how much closer he is to someone else; and a poem which (contrary to all those old jokes throughout history about the wife’s mother) actually praises the mother-in-law, and becomes as much a poem about the love for a wife (an uxorious poem, if you like) as it is a poem about a mother.

‘To My Mother’ was published in July 1849, only months before Poe’s untimely death, aged just 40. The poem is a Shakespearean sonnet, rhymed ababcdcdefefgg, and shows that Poe retained his literary skills right up until shortly before he died, not long after he was found delirious and wearing somebody else’s clothes on the streets of Baltimore.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog- In Tribute to Samuel Johnson, reference, drury-lane-prologue-spoken-by-mr-garrick-at-the-opening-of-the-theatre-in-drury-lane-1747
Blog Posted:8/7/2020 8:16:00 AM
Blog- Tribute to Samuel Johnson

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44447/drury-lane-prologue-spoken-by-mr-garrick-at-the-opening-of-the-theatre-in-drury-lane-1747


Drury-lane Prologue Spoken, by Mr. Garrick at the Opening of the Theatre in Drury-Lane, 1747
BY SAMUEL JOHNSON

When Learning’s triumph o’er her barb’rous foes
First rear’d the stage, immortal Shakespear rose;
Each change of many-colour’d life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagin’d new:
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time toil’d after him in vain:
His pow’rful strokes presiding Truth impress’d,
And unresisted Passion storm’d the breast.

Then Jonson came, instructed from the school,
To please in method, and invent by rule;
His studious patience, and laborious art,
By regular approach essay’d the heart;
Cold Approbation gave the ling’ring bays,
For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise.
A mortal born he met the general doom,
But left, like Egypt’s kings, a lasting tomb.

The Wits of Charles found easier ways to fame,
Nor wish’d for Jonson’s art, or Shakespear’s flame,
Themselves they studied, as they felt, they writ,
Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit.
Vice always found a sympathetic friend;
They pleas’d their age, and did not aim to mend.
Yet bards like these aspir’d to lasting praise,
And proudly hop’d to pimp in future days.
Their cause was gen’ral, their supports were strong,
Their slaves were willing, and their reign was long;
Till Shame regain’d the post that Sense betray’d,
And Virtue call’d Oblivion to her aid.

Then crush’d by rules, and weaken’d as refin’d,
For years the pow’r of tragedy declin’d;
From bard, to bard, the frigid caution crept,
Till Declamation roar’d, while Passion slept.
Yet still did Virtue deign the stage to tread,
Philosophy remain’d, though Nature fled.
But forc’d at length her ancient reign to quit,
She saw great Faustus lay the ghost of wit:
Exulting Folly hail’d the joyful day,
And pantomime, and song, confirm’d her sway.

But who the coming changes can presage,
And mark the future periods of the stage?—
Perhaps if skill could distant times explore,
New Behns, new Durfoys, yet remain in store.
Perhaps, where Lear has rav’d, and Hamlet died,
On flying cars new sorcerers may ride.
Perhaps, for who can guess th’ effects of chance?
Here Hunt may box, or Mahomet may dance.

Hard is his lot, that here by Fortune plac’d,
Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste;
With ev’ry meteor of caprice must play,
And chase the new-blown bubbles of the day.
Ah! let not censure term our fate our choice,
The stage but echoes back the public voice.
The drama’s laws the drama’s patrons give,
For we that live to please, must please to live.

Then prompt no more the follies you decry,
As tyrants doom their tools of guilt to die;
’Tis yours this night to bid the reign commence
Of rescu’d Nature, and reviving Sense;
To chase the charms of Sound, the pomp of Show,
For useful Mirth, and salutary Woe;
Bid scenic Virtue form the rising age,
And Truth diffuse her radiance from the stage.
------ BY SAMUEL JOHNSON

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

Illuminations, Temptations, Life's Travails Endured

Weep for Truth that man's inherent evil betrayed
Zeus hurled lightning bolts, paradise dreams delayed;
Intriguing words, those tales of mythological beasts
Sirens tempt, alluring songs, dark orgasmic feasts:
Man that so blindly eats, stirring to walk upright,
Consuming illusions of life's selfish delights:
No more than mere cannibals of impish degrees
Born of midnight madness and seed from dying trees.

Man in darkened lusts seeking illicit spoils
Raping with greed, as seas of sewage churns and boils
Flying through phantasms of barbaric hate
Rising as a charred Phoenix of dooming Fate
Unto dawn's fiery breath, its unfulfilled dreams
While harbinger of death, drowns with malignant streams
Gasping from a multitude of overwhelming lust
Avoiding light, truth of one day turning back to dust.

From the beginnings of aspirations and greed
First wailing cry, signifying an evil seed
Crawling as a mere babe down in well trodden dirt
Yet unacquainted, to life's many flesh-born hurts
Weak, ever needful under mother's tender cloak
Destined to serve, slave under temptation's yoke
Taught to seek, what sensual pleasures thus abound
Ecstasy's whispers, allures that truly astound.

Born of flesh, a searing flame too oft set to rage
Whether a pauper or prince, each coming of age
Reaching that mature stage when new blacken chart sets
Course of life, and all, whatever future begets
Letting dark to sully and run its wicked course
Rampaging, destroying, without fear or remorse
A Caesar in power, born of demonic ways
God of deceit, creator of a dancing malaise.

Standing aloft, contemptuous of good and light
Evolving monster, lurking into darker nights
Beset by arrogance, stand of a know it all
An Achilles well before his sad fated fall
Ignorant of Time, ill winds of eternal wrath
Prancing, before a tumble from a crumbling path
Left behind as humanity's cycles repeat
Death touched, final blow, mankind's greatest defeat.

Cast into oblivion, reduced to bleached bones
Memory, marked by a plot, one white headstone
Perhaps some tears that time too will one day erase
Fruit of iniquity, sad harvests, a disgrace
Ending, befit for one that embraced the dark
Reduced to dust and sorrows, a stained mark
Alas! To in error, such futile life so choose
Playing with a marked deck, destined to lose!

Robert J. Lindley, started 2-03- 2020.
completed to post 8-06-2020
A tribute to Samuel Johnson...

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog on - Elysium, Greek mythology- AJAX - Robert Lindley's Blog
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Blog on - Elysium, Greek mythology- AJAX
Blog Posted:8/18/2020 4:53:00 AM
Elysium
Greek mythology
WRITTEN BY The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
See Article History
Alternative Titles: Elysian Fields, Elysian Plain
Elysium, also called Elysian Fields or Elysian Plain, in Greek mythology, originally the paradise to which heroes on whom the gods conferred immortality were sent. It probably was retained from Minoan religion. In Homer’s writings the Elysian Plain was a land of perfect happiness at the end of the Earth, on the banks of the Oceanus. A similar description was given by Hesiod of the Isles of the Blessed. In the earlier authors, only those specially favoured by the gods entered Elysium and were made immortal. By the time of Hesiod, however, Elysium was a place for the blessed dead, and, from Pindar on, entrance was gained by a righteous life. Later writers made it a particular part of Hades, as in Virgil, Aeneid, Book VI.


************************************************** ********
My Tribute poem

With Promise Of Entry, Elysium

Childhood, seeing from afar, candle burning bright
with courage, imagination seeing life through
always and forever the promise, heard each night-
walk a brave path, receive entry, as is your due,
heaven searching, whispers of two stars gazing back
honor true, never shall a God's power you lack.

Elysium- open gates, paradise awaits.
on battlefields- glory, set by "Hands of the Fates".

Ajax, blessed child and great warrior born to be
father- war god, mother a nymph of the blue seas
as a child roaming forests, with sword and long spear
a hero born and one totally without fear,
star gazing- seeing death would come, Elysian fields
his destiny, gifting all of its golden yields.

Elysium- open gates, paradise awaits.
On battlefields- glory, set by "Hands of the Fates".

Ajax, scarred and toughened, many battles fought
never surrendering, ever giving his all
a warrior true, there within Olympic feuds caught
steady and ever mindful of his final fall,
sky hunting, watching universe's resplendent glow
as decreed by the Gods- set to put on a show.

Elysium- open gates, paradise awaits.
On battlefields- glory, set by "Hands of the Fates".

Ajax, courageous warrior of Greek legend's fame
gifted with prowess of strength and courage to match
of Homer's Troy, that Greek hero, one and the same
always fated, for a Trojan war death to catch,
there on bloody soil, as Olympus had decreed
death claimed he, born of true and heroic Greek seed.

Elysium- open gates, paradise awaits.
On battlefields- glory, set by "Hands of the Fates".

R.J. Lindley, original version, May 9th, 1972
Rhyme, ( On Homer, Greek Mythology, Greek Warriors )
edited, and updated with link.. 8-18-2020

Syllables Per Line:
12 12 12 12 12 12 0 12 12
12 12 12 12 12 12 0 12 12
12 12 12 12 12 12 0 12 12
12 12 12 12 12 12 0 12 12
Total # Syllables:384
Total # Words:256
Notes:

1. Elysium

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Elysium-Greek-mythology

Elysium
Greek mythology
WRITTEN BY
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
See Article History
Alternative Titles: Elysian Fields, Elysian Plain
Elysium, also called Elysian Fields or Elysian Plain, in Greek mythology, originally the paradise to which heroes on whom the gods conferred immortality were sent. It probably was retained from Minoan religion. In Homer’s writings the Elysian Plain was a land of perfect happiness at the end of the Earth, on the banks of the Oceanus. A similar description was given by Hesiod of the Isles of the Blessed. In the earlier authors, only those specially favoured by the gods entered Elysium and were made immortal. By the time of Hesiod, however, Elysium was a place for the blessed dead, and, from Pindar on, entrance was gained by a righteous life. Later writers made it a particular part of Hades, as in Virgil, Aeneid, Book VI.

2. Ajax

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_the_Great


Ajax the Great
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ajax (/'e?d?æks/) or Aias (/'a?.?s/; Ancient Greek: Α?ας, romanized: Aías [aí?.a?s], gen. Α?αντος Aíantos; archaic ΑΣ?Α? [aí?.wa?s])[a] is a Greek mythological hero, the son of King Telamon and Periboea, and the half-brother of Teucer.[1] He plays an important role, and is portrayed as a towering figure and a warrior of great courage in Homer's Iliad and in the Epic Cycle, a series of epic poems about the Trojan War. He is also referred to as "Telamonian Ajax" (Α?ας ? Τελαμ?νιος, in Etruscan recorded as Aivas Tlamunus), "Greater Ajax", or "Ajax the Great", which distinguishes him from Ajax, son of Oileus (Ajax the Lesser).
Ajax is the son of Telamon, who was the son of Aeacus and grandson of Zeus, and his first wife Periboea. He is the cousin of Achilles, and is the elder half-brother of Teucer. His given name is derived from the root of α??ζω "to lament", translating to "one who laments; mourner". Hesiod, however, includes a story in "The Great Eoiae" that indicates Ajax received his name when Heracles prayed to Zeus that a son might be born to Telemon and Eriboea. Zeus sent an eagle (aietos - αετ?ς) as a sign. Heracles then bade the parents call their son Ajax after the eagle. Many illustrious Athenians, including Cimon, Miltiades, Alcibiades and the historian Thucydides, traced their descent from Ajax. On an Etruscan tomb dedicated to Racvi Satlnei in Bologna (5th century BC) there is an inscription that says aivastelmunsl, which means "[family] of Telamonian Ajax".[2]

Description

The Belvedere Torso, a marble sculpture carved in the first Century BC depicting Ajax.
In Homer's Iliad he is described as of great stature, colossal frame and strongest of all the Achaeans. Known as the "bulwark of the Achaeans",[3] he was trained by the centaur Chiron (who had trained Ajax's father Telamon and Achilles's father Peleus and would later die of an accidental wound inflicted by Heracles, whom he was at the time training) at the same time as Achilles. He was described as fearless, strong and powerful but also with a very high level of combat intelligence. Ajax commands his army wielding a huge shield made of seven cow-hides with a layer of bronze. Most notably, Ajax is not wounded in any of the battles described in the Iliad, and he is the only principal character on either side who does not receive substantial assistance from any of the gods (except for Agamemnon) who take part in the battles, although, in book 13, Poseidon strikes Ajax with his staff, renewing his strength. Unlike Diomedes, Agamemnon, and Achilles, Ajax appears as a mainly defensive warrior, instrumental in the defense of the Greek camp and ships and that of Patroclus' body. When the Trojans are on the offensive, he is often seen covering the retreat of the Achaeans. Significantly, while one of the deadliest heroes in the whole poem, Ajax has no aristeia depicting him on the offensive.


3. Olympus
(A.)
https://mythology.net/greek/greek-concepts/mount-olympus/#:~:text=Inhabitants,visit%20the%20great%20mount%2 0often.


What Is Mount Olympus?
Mount Olympus is the mythical home of the gods in Greek mythology. According to authors, the mountain was created after the Titanomachy, the epic battle between the young gods, the Olympians and the older gods, the Titans. As a result of this battle, the Olympian victors created their new majestic home – Mount Olympus. It was shrouded from human eyes by clouds which constantly obscured its peaks. In Greece, you will also find a Mount Olympus, the tallest mountain in the country.

Description
The sacred mount was believed to have a temperate climate all year round, and mountain gorges lush with forests. The gods did not always reside in their paradise, however, and would depart or return from there via a gate of clouds guarded by the Horae, the goddesses of the seasons. Authors claim the tables in Zeus’ palace on Olympus were made of gold and were actually automatons, created by Hephaestus! They moved in and out of the rooms as required by the gods. Zeus’ throne was situated in the Pantheon, the meeting hall of the gods. It was also designed by Hephaestus and was constructed from black marble, inlaid with gold. Each of the gods had their own palace on the mountain, usually constructed of gold and marble, and situated in a gorge in the mountain peaks.

Inhabitants
All 12 Olympian gods resided at Mount Olympus: Zeus and his wife Hera, Athena, Poseidon, Artemis, Apollo, Demeter, Hester, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hephaestus and Ares. Since Hades resided in the underworld, he was not considered an Olympian god and did not visit the great mount often.

The nine muses, the daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, resided at the foot of the mountain. According to some sources, the goddesses were water nymphs and were responsible for the following: Clio – history; Calliope – epic poetry; Thalia – comedy; Euterpe – lyric poetry; Terpsichore – dance; Melpomene – tragedy; Erato – love poetry; Urania – astronomy; and Polyhymnia – sacred poetry.

The Olympians ruled Olympus until the monster Typhon attacked their stronghold. Typhon was allegedly a 100-headed fire-breathing dragon. When he attacked Olympus, the majority of the gods chose to flee, except for Zeus, Athena and Dionysus. Zeus was able to eventually defeat the giant monster with 100 lightning bolts, and banished him to Tartarus.

************
(B.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Olympus

Name and mythological associations

Muses' Plateau, with Stefani (the throne of Zeus) in the background
The origin of the name ?λυμπος Olumpos is unknown and usually considered of "pre-Greek" origin. In Homeric Greek (Odyssey 6.42), the variant Ο?λυμπος Oulumpos occurs, conceived of as the seat of the gods (and not identified with any specific peak). Homer (Iliad 5.754, Odyssey 20.103) also appears to be using ο?λυμπος as a common noun, as a synonym of ο?ραν?ς ouranos "sky". Mount Olympus was historically also known as Mount Belus, after Iliad 1.591, where the seat of the gods is referred to as βηλ[?ς] θεσπεσ?ο[ς] "heavenly threshold".[a]

In Ancient Greek religion and mythology, "Olympus" was the name of the home of the Twelve Olympian gods.[11] This was conceived of as a lofty mountaintop, and in all regions settled by Greek tribes, the highest local elevation tended to be so named; among the numerous peaks called Olumpos in antiquity are mountains in Mysia, Laconia, Lycia, Cyprus, Attica, Euboea, Ionia and Lesbos, and others. Thessalian Olympus is the highest peak in any territory with Greek settlement and came to be seen as the "Pan-Hellenic" representative of the mythological seat of the gods, by at least the 5th century BC, as Herodotus (1.56) identifies Olympus as the peak in Thessaly.

In Pieria, at Olympus's northern foot, the mythological tradition had placed the nine Muses, patrons of the Fine Arts, daughters of Zeus and the Titanide Mnemosyne.[12]

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I just re-found this from long ago..
A tribute given my poetry from Canadian poet- Arthur Vaso's blog.......... -Tyr


http://arthurvaso.weebly.com/guests2016.html

Click link scroll down.
I think my friend Arthur, did a truly wonderful job choosing the imagery to be presented with each poem.-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Blog On- A vision as seen from a forty-year span...
Blog Posted:9/5/2020 6:43:00 PM
A Blog On- A vision as seen from a forty-year span...

The Vision, The Reality, The Great Love Once Lost
(First phase, looking at a past reality)

She, an angel came in to buy a coke,
through din of dancing noise, ghastly thick smoke
a dream vision with a rose in her hair
I looked in deeply, with a longing stare
she gave me, her best million dollar smile
that cried out, my new love, lets talk a while,
she with those skin-tight shorts, her hippie style
all her sexy beauty set to beguile.

Then I knew she was surely Heaven sent,
to free me, from my dark life so hellbent
blessing so true, with her soft flowing glows
so beautiful, as hope's paradise shows
I thought, me with her, a miracle feat
can love be born beyond mortal defeat,
our first kiss, both eager hearts skipped a beat
love's dessert given, we began to eat.

Spring and summer's blessings, away they flew,
this was our nirvana, as we both knew
a love so deep something just had to give
tho' without her loving, I could not live
fate's wicked plan then began to unfold
she believed those dark lies, others had told,
venom thus born, her heart turned freezing cold
casting me into heartbreak's dark stronghold.

From that hell-born pit, I could see her tears,
time raced onward through all those crying years
she had moved on, so very far away
while I in my new prison had to stay
old and gray, so firmly chained in that cell
this pleading soul, living torturous hell,
on some nights, her sweet perfume I did smell
yet against fate's black curse, I still rebel.

She, an angel came in to buy a coke,
through din of dancing noise, ghastly thick smoke
a dream vision with a rose in her hair
I looked in deeply, with a longing stare
she gave me, her best million dollar smile
that cried out, my new love, lets talk a while,
she with those skin-tight shorts, her hippie style
all her sexy beauty set to beguile.

R.J. Lindley, May 2nd, 1980
Narrative, ( Imprisoned, And Still Dreaming Of Her )

Note:
Poem is based upon a real encounter, a very beautiful
girl. A loss and a romantic scar thus born....

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tribute Paid To,
"The Vision, The Reality, The Great Love Once Lost"
(Second phase, poet's aged eyes looking at past reality)

Dawn came, sandy seaside beach came alive,
seeking a new romance to soul revive
poet's heart begging that true love renew
joy, former life, that away I once threw
sun was beaming, as new world seemed to sing
heart was dancing, begging life again bring,
beautiful angel not a one-night fling
for this sad soul had once lost everything.

Seagulls overhead, sky was dancing too,
I marveling at its fantastic blues
white beach sands, were bare feet satisfying
gone away, days of moaning and crying
looking for a future of hope and love
left behind evil world of push and shove,
past sorrows, I no longer a part of
a new man on quest for deeper, truelove.

At water's edge dipping in toes to feel,
saw a vision coming, could not be real
yes she, that beauty of desirous dreams
an angel sent to prove new love redeems
I froze as thought came, this can not be so
surely if I blink away this will go
for she is dream goddess my love-dreams show
dare I blink to see, to really know?

Courage summoned, heart was all a flutter
with gasping breath, prayer I did mutter
dear Lord, please, please, let this be my reward
you know my life has been so very hard
from sky above a tender voice then spoke
mercy cometh, love's promise is no joke
now by faith, your spirit has again woke
blessings come when faithful vows you invoke.

Dawn came, sandy seaside beach came alive,
seeking out a new romance to revive
poet's heart begging that true love renew
joy, former life, that away I once threw
sun was beaming, as new world seemed to sing
heart was dancing, begging life again bring,
beautiful angel not a one-night fling
for this sad soul had once lost everything.

Robert J. Lindley, Sept.03-2020
Narrative, ( Imprisoned, And Poetically Still Dreaming Of Her )

Note:
This second poem is based upon a real encounter, a very beautiful
girl. A loss and a romantic scar thus born....
as seen through a poet's aged eyes...

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Blog on, "The Dying Indian" Philip Freneau - 1752-1832
Blog Posted:9/7/2020 11:12:00 AM
A Blog on, "The Dying Indian"
Philip Freneau - 1752-1832
https://poets.org/poem/dying-indian

The Dying Indian
Philip Freneau - 1752-1832

“On yonder lake I spread the sail no more!
Vigour, and youth, and active days are past—
Relentless demons urge me to that shore
On whose black forests all the dead are cast:—
Ye solemn train, prepare the funeral song,
For I must go to shades below,
Where all is strange and all is new;
Companion to the airy throng!—
What solitary streams,
In dull and dreary dreams,
All melancholy, must I rove along!

To what strange lands must Chequi take his way!
Groves of the dead departed mortals trace:
No deer along those gloomy forests stray,
No huntsmen there take pleasure in the chace,
But all are empty unsubstantial shades,
That ramble through those visionary glades;
No spongy fruits from verdant trees depend,
But sickly orchards there
Do fruits as sickly bear,
And apples a consumptive visage shew,
And withered hangs the hurtle-berry blue.

Ah me! what mischiefs on the dead attend!
Wandering a stranger to the shores below,
Where shall I brook or real fountain find?
Lazy and sad deluding waters flow—
Such is the picture in my boding mind!
Fine tales, indeed, they tell
Of shades and purling rills,
Where our dead fathers dwell
Beyond the western hills,
But when did ghost return his state to shew;
Or who can promise half the tale is true?

I too must be a fleeting ghost!—no more—
None, none but shadows to those mansions go;
I leave my woods, I leave the Huron shore,
For emptier groves below!
Ye charming solitudes,
Ye tall ascending woods,
Ye glassy lakes and prattling streams,
Whose aspect still was sweet,
Whether the sun did greet,
Or the pale moon embraced you with her beams—
Adieu to all!

To all, that charmed me where I strayed,
The winding stream, the dark sequestered shade;
Adieu all triumphs here!
Adieu the mountain’s lofty swell,
Adieu, thou little verdant hill,
And seas, and stars, and skies—farewell,
For some remoter sphere!

Perplexed with doubts, and tortured with despair,
Why so dejected at this hopeless sleep?
Nature at last these ruins may repair,
When fate’s long dream is o’er, and she forgets to weep
Some real world once more may be assigned,
Some new born mansion for the immortal mind!
Farewell, sweet lake; farewell surrounding woods,
To other groves, through midnight glooms, I stray,
Beyond the mountains, and beyond the floods,
Beyond the Huron bay!
Prepare the hollow tomb, and place me low,
My trusty bow and arrows by my side,
The cheerful bottle and the venison store;
For long the journey is that I must go,
Without a partner, and without a guide.”
He spoke, and bid the attending mourners weep,
Then closed his eyes, and sunk to endless sleep!

This poem is in the public domain.
************************************************** *

https://paulreuben.website/pal/chap2/freneau.html

Chapter 2: Early American Literature 1700-1800

Philip Morin Freneau
1752-1832

© Paul P. Reuben

September 10, 2019

E-Mail
|
Page Links: | Primary Works | Selected Bibliography 1980-Present | Leader of 18th Century Naturalism | Four Aspects of Freneau | Study Questions | MLA Style Citation of this Web Page |
| A Brief Biography |

Site Links: | Chap 2 - Index | Alphabetical List | Table Of Contents | Home Page |

Primary Works

Poems. Edited with a critical introd. by Harry Hayden Clark. NY: Hafner Pub. Co., 1960, 1929. PS755 .A5 C6
The poems of Philip Freneau, poet of the American Revolution. (1902) Edited for the Princeton Historical Association by Fred Lewis Pattee. NY: Russell & Russell, 1963. 3 vols. PS755 .A2

Father Bombo's pilgrimage to Mecca, 1770. by Hugh Henry Brackenridge and Philip Freneau; edited, with an introd., by Michael Davitt Bell. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton U Library, 1975. PS708 B5 F3

Selected Bibliography 1980-Present

Blakemore, Steven. Literature, Intertextuality, and the American Revolution: From Common Sense to 'Rip Van Winkle'. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2012.

Goudie, Sean X. Creole America: The West Indies and the Formation of Literature and Culture in the New Republic. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2006.

Hollander, John. ed. American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, I: Philip Freneau to Walt Whitman. NY: Library of America, 1993.

I. Freneau as Leader of 18th Century Naturalism

1. Fresh interest in nature.
2. The belief that nature is a revelation of God.

3. Humanitarian sympathy for the humble and oppressed.

4. The faith that people are naturally good.

5. That they lived idyllic and benevolent lives in a primitive past before the advent of civilization.

6. The radical doctrine that the golden age will dawn again when social institutions are modified, since they are responsible for existing evil.

II. Aspects of Freneau

1. Poet of American Independence: Freneau provides incentive and inspiration to the revolution by writing such poems as "The Rising Glory of America" and "Pictures of Columbus."
2. Journalist: Freneau was editor and contributor of The Freeman's Journal (Philadelphia) from 1781-1784. In his writings, he advocated the essence of what is known as Jeffersonian democracy - decentralization of government, equality for the masses, etc.

3. Freneau's Religion: Freneau is described as a deist - a believer in nature and humanity but not a pantheist. In deism, religion becomes an attitude of intellectual belief, not a matter of emotional of spiritual ecstasy. Freneau shows interest and sympathy for the humble and the oppressed.

4. Freneau as Father of American Poetry: His major themes are death, nature, transition, and the human in nature. All of these themes become important in 19th century writing. His famous poems are "The Wild Honey-Suckle" (1786), "The Indian Burying Ground" (1787), "The Dying Indian: Tomo Chequi" (1784), "The Millennium" (1797), "On a Honey Bee" (1809), "To a Caty-Did" (1815), "On the Universality and Other Attributes of the God of Nature," "On the Uniformity and Perfection of Nature," and "On the Religion of Nature" (the last three written in 1815).

| Top | Philip Freneau (1752-1832): A Brief Biography
A Student Project by Nicholas von Teck

Philip Freneau: Voice of Revolution
In 1598 King Henry IV of France issued the Edict of Nantes, promising to protect the rights of his Huguenot (Protestant) subjects and allowing them to worship in their own churches. The Bourbon King Louis XIV rescinded the Edict of Nantes with the Act of Revocation of 1685, condemning the Protestant Huguenots to trials of heresy by the Roman Church; those who were not massacred fled to any place that would take them. Two large communities of Huguenots settled in the colonies of North America: one in the area around Charleston, South Carolina and the other, larger colony in the city of Nieuw Amsterdam. Shortly after the arrival of the Huguenots in Nieuw Holland, that colony was forfeited to the United Kingdom and renamed New York. In the early but nonetheless cosmopolitan environs of New York Town, these French Protestants found themselves with Dutch colonists, English colonial administrators, Jewish-German merchants, African slaves, and Native American converts. One of these Huguenot families was the Fresneaus from La Rochelle, France (Austin 50). They arrived there from England in 1709 (Leary 5).

After a few generations, the Fresneaus who fought for space with the other New Yorkers in the small area of the city bounded by the Hudson and East rivers and Wall Street became the Freneaus who owned a prosperous plantation called Mount Pleasant in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and had a thousand slaves ( Clark xiv). Some traditions remain in families: Mont Plaisant was the name of the residence of the Fresneaus in La Rochelle, France (Austin 65). Despite being gentlemen farmers, each successive generation of Fresneaus carried on the family trade in wine, begun long before the Edict of Nantes, and Philip Freneau made many voyages to bring back port wines and madeiras (Clark xiv).

Philip Morin Freneau was born at Mount Pleasant on 2 January 1752 (Old Style: the United Kingdom and its colonies had yet to convert to the Julian calendar and still used the Gregorian at this time &emdash; as a result, an Englishman traveling to the Continent had to set his calendar ahead twelve days after crossing the Channel). Philip was the eldest of the five children of Pierre Freneau and Agnes Watson (Austin 65), and the first to use the spelling Freneau (Bowden 15).

Philip was schooled at Mount Pleasant until he was boarded with the Reverend William Tennent of Tennent's Church, New Jersey for his preparatory education in his tenth year in 1762 (Austin 72). His first known poem, "The Wild Honeysuckle," was penned about this time; the actual date of inscription is unknown, but tradition has Freneau writing it shortly before arriving at Tennent's Church (Austin 70). A little over three years later, in February, 1766, he was enrolled in the Penlopen Latin School in Monmouth under the tutelage of the Reverend Alexander Mitchell; he remained there until he was admitted to Nassau Hall at Princeton College, Princeton, New Jersey in 1768. During his time at Penlopen Latin, Philip's father died (Austin 73). Philip's mother, however, decided that Philip should continue his education and sent him along to Nassau Hall in due course, but with a tacit understanding between mother and son that he was to seek a degree in Divinity. He didn't (Leary 50).

The roster of Philip's classmates reads like a litany of the American Pantheon: the Honorable Justices Hugh Brackenridge and Brockholst Livingston of the Supreme Court of the United States; Gunning Bedford, a framer of the Constitution; Aaron Burr, Vice-President of the United States; Colonel Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee of Virginia; and James Madison, Fourth President of the United States of America; and several others, in addition to having as the president of his college the Reverend Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration of Independence (Austin 74). Seldom has such a small group of students achieved such enduring legacy for Freneau's graduating class of 1770 held but ten students (Austin 75).

| Top | During his sophomore year he wrote "The Poetical History of the Prophet Jonah," a "rhythymical (sic) poem, or 'versified paraphrase' to use his own expression." (Austin 76) At one-hundred-thirty-five lines it was considered remarkable for so young a poet and much commented on at the time, both at Princeton and at rival colleges such as Kings in New York, Harvard in Boston, and William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia (Austin 78). For graduation in 1771, he collaborated with (later Mr. Justice) Brackenridge on a poem they recited, "The Rising Glory of America," a blank verse dialogue (Austin 78). Brackenridge had earlier collaborated with Freneau on the mock epic "Father Bombo's Pilgrimage" (Bowden 22). Freneau also immortalizes Witherspoon in the poem "Caledonian Sage" and praised the "liberal education" he gained under Witherspoon's administration (Bowden 17). Among other activities, Witherspoon instituted student orations as a form of entertainment, and even allowed the students to chose their subjects for discourse, which Freneau satirizes in "The Distrest Orator." (Bowden 19) Interestingly, despite being a prodigal and prodigious student, Freneau did not attend his own graduation from Princeton; the fact that his mother remarried may have had something to do with it, but this period of Freneau's life is vague (Bowden 28).

Freneau's first occupation was as a school teacher in Flatbush, Bruecklin (Brooklyn) County on Nassau (Long) Island. He lasted thirteen days with "the youth of that detested place" and "finally bid adieu" to "that brainless crew, … devoid of reason and grace." (Austin 80) He said his employers were "gentlemen of New York: bullies, merchants, and scoundrels." (Austin 80) In the same letter to a classmate, he also mentions that he had just written and published a poem of "some four-hundred-and-fifty lines … called 'The American Village' and a few short pieces as well." (Austin 80) However, he was soon forced to accept another teaching position, this one at Somerset Academy near Baltimore, Maryland, where he stayed until the end of term, 1773.

Freneau had evidently collected his year's salary from Flatbush in advance, "some forty pounds," and expected his ex-employers to "trounce" him if they should find him (Austin 80). A Jamaican planter named Hanson invited Freneau to pay a prolonged visit to Hanson's plantation. As Hanson was also master of his own ship and was preparing to ship on the next tide, Freneau thought it behooved himself to clamber on board (Austin 83). During the passage, the first mate died and Freneau found himself learning the art of navigation by the "trial-by-fire" method (Austin 83). He discovered that he enjoyed it and eventually took master's papers (Austin 83).

During his prolonged stay in Jamaica, he developed a dislike for slavery. This is interesting because, like most large farmers of the era, the Freneaus had both house and field slaves at Mount Pleasant, although they also had tenant farmers as well on their fairly large holdings (Austin 60). Freneau obviously villianized Hanson by creating the character of Sir Tobey the slave-owner in the poem "To Sir Tobey" (Austin 83). During the next few years, Freneau sailed as master around the Caribbean and visited the Bermudas, the Danish Virgin Islands, and the Gulf of Mexico (Austin 83). These travels were the inspiration for such poems as "House of Night" and "The Beauties of Santa Cruz"(Austin 85). In 1775 he also publishes "American Liberty" (Bowden 13).

While Freneau sailed to and fro between the balmy Carib and the Delaware Bay, hostilities between Mother England and her colonies were growing to a fighting pitch. As soon as Freneau learned of the outbreak of revolution, he sailed back to New Jersey in the bark Amanda (it may not have actually been his, for he was recorded as being only the master of it) (Austin 105). Interestingly, the name for the "beauty" for whom his sings praises in his poem of the Caribbean poems is "Amanda" (Austin 86).

Freneau arrives at Mount Pleasant to find it burned, and his mother and younger siblings living elsewhere; the Battle of Monmouth had been fought on Mount Pleasant (Austin 103). Freneau arranges for "lettres of marque," authorizing him to be a privateer and attack English shipping in order to seize cargo and vessels (Austin 104). While the bark Amanda sails under another master with him as the recorded owner, Freneau orders a new sloop built at Philadelphia; he names her Aurora (Austin 104).

| Top | On 25 May 1778, Aurora left the ways at Philadelphia and stood out into Delaware Bay for Cape Henlopen and the Atlantic Ocean. Less than six hours later, Aurora had been chased and run aground by the English Captain Sir George Collier in HMS Iris (which before her own capture was ex-USS Hancock) and Freneau was captured (Austin 110). Lacking gallantry usually expected in a ship's master, Freneau at first denies he is the master when confronted by the prize-captain of HMS Iris (Leary 82). After he is handcuffed below decks with the "stench of seamen," Freneau finds a Tory aboard the frigate who knows him and begs recognition (Leary 82). Freneau was transported to the prison ship HMS Scorpion in New York Harbor, and later transferred again to the prison hospital ship HMS Hunter (Austin 113). This internment of nearly eighteen months was the genesis for the poem "The Prison Ship" (650 lines; published in 1780) in which he "compares the flight of [the] Aurora to the flight of Hector pursued by Achilles." (Austin 109) During this time, however, he does manage to contribute to Brackenridge's United States Magazine (Bowden 13). Freneau never recovered from the financial loss of Aurora (Clark xxiii).

He was paroled on condition that he not resume arms against the King, and he evidently kept his word, but Freneau must have reckoned the old saw about the pen being mightier than the sword had some verisimilitude for he continued to raise his quill in rebellion for the rest of the Revolution (Austin 121). He found work as a printer and editor with the Freeman's Journal in Philadelphia (Bowden 13). Freneau wrote poems on various patriotic subjects such as the departure of the traitor Benedict Arnold, the Battle of Temple Hill, the melting by the printer Isaac Sears of his type into bullets, etc … (Austin 133). By 1786, he was master of the brig Washington and making round-trips to the Madeiras (Austin 138). He left behind a newly published volume, The Poems of Philip Freneau (Bowden 13). The next year, 1787, he returned long enough to publish a second volume, A Journey from Philadelphia to New York before again standing out to sea (Bowden 13). 1788 saw the publication of a third volume, The Miscellaneous Works of Mr. Philip Freneau (Bowden 13).

In 1789 Freneau married Helen Forman of New Jersey, a sister of General David Forman, one of the founders of the Order of the Cincinnati (Austin 147). Helen Freneau is recorded as having a pleasant and "poetic" personality, and was a gracious hostess (Austin 149).

Freneau was offered the position of editor of the Philadelphia Daily Advertiser, but before he could assume that position he was induced to become editor of the National Gazette instead at the paltry salary of $250 per annum (Austin 152). Freneau had never financially recovered from the loss of Aurora, and was still trying to run his family's estate at Mount Pleasant, and maintain all who depended on him: "family and slaves." (Austin 152) Despite writing "To Sir Tobey" nearly twenty years before, Freneau was still a slaveholder himself.

| Top | The Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, offered Freneau the clerkship of "Interpreter of the French language for the Department of State" in 1793 (Austin 153). This raised a hue-and-cry of such proportions, and the appointment was so loudly denounced, that the offer was withdrawn; for some reason, many Philadephians at that time suspected Jefferson and Freneau of collusion and intrigue (Austin 156). Since Philadelphia was the seat of government at the time, and since Benjamin Franklin was then opposing Jefferson as to which form of government the foundling United States should adopt, Freneau was likely just a handy target for the pro-Franklin faction in their bid to undermine the Jeffersonian Republican-Democrats (Austin 156). The idea seems to have been that a clerk under Jefferson who just happened to be the editor of a major newspaper would give the Jeffersonians a propaganda leverage that would be nearly impossible to undermine if it were not stopped immediately (Austin 156). Austin qoutes a Mr. Benjamin as saying, "What Tyrtaeus was to the Spartans, was Freneau to the Republicans or anti-Federalists." (160) The allusion is that the National Gazette was, with Freneau as editor, a "powerful political paper." (Austin 160)

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

My dedication poem below . RJL

(**Are We Not Brothers, Made From The Same Dirt,
(Tribute to Philip Freneau and his poem,
The Dying Indian)**)


Are We Not Brothers, Made From The Same Dirt


I welcome you sweet dawn, soft break of day
As your vibrant voice sounds, seeming to say
Lad, I bid you relief from dark and gray
Feel my coming golden rays and rejoice
So precious life's gift, giving love free voice
Embrace your honor, honor that wise choice-
You are of braver heart, red is your blood
You are red-man, Native pride your soul floods
You hunt ancestral lands, wade tidal muds,
There amidst tall trees, beauty of the glades
You young lad, were of pure Native bloods made
Spirit must stay strong, as your time soon fades
In your dreams, you sail to paradise isles
You race through countryside for miles and miles
Live, soon your tribes will become sad exiles-
As you dare the great beast to your soul fight
Search mysteries that hide truth out of sight
Know that same hungry beast, will your race smite!

Alas! Fate's wicked hands, its evil sends.
Stopping mercy, from which Heaven descends.

I beg mother earth, this carnage avert
Heal dark souls of men, stop such coming hurts
Are we not brothers, made from the same dirt
Do we all not cry, and same red blood bleed
Are we all not sprung from weak mortal seeds
In pain, do we not, to same Father plead-
Will violence and death, your greed absolve
Can we seek to our differences solve
Must destruction serve as means to evolve,
Is what will be gained, great treasure to you
Shall we learn to love same sky's glowing blues
Share life's blessings, paying brotherly dues
Walk lit paths, love flowering meadows too-
Live serving peace and discover anew
Enjoy a rainbow's hope, its many hues?

Alas! Fate's wicked hands, its evil sends.
Stopping mercy, from which Heaven descends.

Robert J. Lindley, 9-07-2020
Rhyme, Phhillip Freneau,Tribute poem,

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog- An experiment in attempting to stir my muse this morning...
Blog Posted:9/10/2020 7:38:00 AM
Going to try an experiment. I will now post a poem that was written by Edgar Allan Poe.
And then start to compose a tribute poem, with that poem in mind and the thoughts it inspired.
Point is to see how fast I can finish one that is by my standards good enough to pass muster.

Poe's poem--one that is not dark....

To The River

by Edgar Allan Poe
(published 1829)

Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow
Of beauty -- the unhidden heart --
The playful maziness of art
In old Alberto's daughter;

But when within thy wave she looks --
Which glistens then, and trembles --
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
Her worshipper resembles;
For in my heart, as in thy stream,
Her image deeply lies --
The heart which trembles at the beam
Of her soul-searching eyes.

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

My tribute offering,
Times started composing, 8:58am
finished 9:24am
This went far faster and came out far better than
i ever thought it could or would.--Tyr

O'Bright Star, Thy Bright Gleamings True Hearts See

O'Bright star! may thy gleam our sad hearts sate
with splendor of glow, quench our dying thirsts
Thy exquisite beauty, mankind debates
as well, bold shining depths of thy starbursts.

Why gift that grin, that Chesire cat-eye glow.
As riddle we are never meant to know?

O'Bright star! will thy eternal gaze blink
a galactic voice thy wisdom imparts
Are thy infinite gleamings - wine to drink,
as a soothing balm to heal broken hearts,
Shall ever thy distant voice our souls hear
or will we destroy earth with hate and fear?

May we in our pitifully sad state.
Reach, touch thy heart's glow, to truly relate?

Robert J. Lindley, 9/10/2020
Sonnet, A tribute poem,
To Poe's, poem, titled,
"To The River"..

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


https://www.chino.k12.ca.us/cms/lib/CA01902308/Centricity/Domain/3749/8.2.1_The%20Genius%20of%20Poe.pdf

The Genius of “The Tell-Tale Heart” BY STEPHEN KING
When I do public appearances, I’m often-no, always-asked what scares
me. The answer is almost everything, from express elevators in very tall
buildings to the idea of a zealot1 loose with a suitcase nuke in one of the great
cities of the world. But if the question is refined to “What works of fiction have
scared you?” two always leap immediately to mind: Lord of the Flies by William
Golding and “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe.
Most people know that Poe invented the modern detective story (Conan
Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is in many ways the same detective as Poe’s C.
Auguste Dupin), but few are aware that he also created the first work of
criminal sociopathy2 in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a story originally published in
1843. Many great crime writers of the twentieth century, from Jim Thompson
and John D. MacDonald to Thomas Harris (who in Hannibal Lecter may have
created the greatest sociopath of them all), are the children of Poe.
The details of the story are still gruesome enough to produce nightmares
(the cutting up of the victim’s body, for instance, or the old man’s one dying
shriek), but the terror that lingers-and the story’s genius-lies in the superficially
reasonable voice of the narrator. He is never named, and that is fitting,
because we have no idea how he picked his victim, or what drove him to the
crime. Oh, we know what he says: it was the old man’s gruesomely veiled eye.
But of course, Jeffrey Dahmer said he wanted to create zombies, and the Son
of Sam at one point claimed his dog told him to do it. We understand, I think,
that psychopaths3 offer such wacky motivations because they are as helpless
as the rest of us to explain their terrible acts.
This is, above all, a persuasive story of lunacy, and Poe never offers any
real explanations. Nor has to. The narrator’s cheerful laughter (“A tub had
caught… all [the blood]-ha! ha!”) tells us all we need to know. Here is a
creature who looks like a man but who really belongs to another species.
That’s scary. What elevates this story beyond merely scary and into the realm
of genius, though, is that Poe foresaw the darkness of generations far beyond
his own.
Ours, for instance.
1: zealot- fanatic, enthusiast
2: sociopathy- having antisocial behavior
3: pychopaths- persons suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent
social behavior.
B
its founder, Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco and alcohol, but
these rules were generally ignored. Jefferson had enacted a system of student self-government, allowing
students to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, and report all wrongdoing
to the faculty. The unique system was still in chaos, and there was a high dropout rate. During his time there,
Poe lost touch with Royster and also became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts. Poe
claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for classes, purchase texts, and procure
and furnish a dormitory. Allan did send additional money and clothes, but Poe's debts increased. Poe gave
up on the university after a year, and, not feeling welcome in Richmond, especially when he learned that his
sweetheart Royster had married Alexander Shelton, he traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself
with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer. At some point he started using the pseudonym Henri Le
Rennet.
Death
On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore delirious, "in great distress, and... in need of
immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker. He was taken to the
Washington College Hospital, where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the morning. Poe was
never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition, and, oddly, was wearing
clothes that were not his own. Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night
before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. Some sources say Poe's final words were
"Lord help my poor soul." All medical records, including his death certificate, have been lost. Newspapers at
the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms
for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism. The actual cause of death remains a mystery; from
as early as 1872, cooping was commonly believed to have been the cause, and speculation has included
delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation, cholera and rabies.
Griswold's "Memoir"
The day Edgar Allan Poe was buried, a long obituary appeared in the New York Tribune signed "Ludwig". It
was soon published throughout the country. The piece began, "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in
Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it."
"Ludwig" was soon identified as Rufus Wilmot Griswold, an editor, critic and anthologist who had borne a
grudge against Poe since 1842. Griswold somehow became Poe's literary executor and attempted to
destroy his enemy's reputation after his death.
Rufus Griswold wrote a biographical article of Poe called "Memoir of the Author", which he included in an
1850 volume of the collected works. Griswold depicted Poe as a depraved, drunk, drug-addled madman and
included Poe's letters as evidence. Many of his claims were either lies or distorted half-truths. For example,
it is now known that Poe was not a drug addict. Griswold's book was denounced by those who knew Poe
well, but it became a popularly accepted one. This occurred in part because it was the only full biography
available and was widely reprinted and in part because readers thrilled at the thought of reading works by an
"evil" man. Letters that Griswold presented as proof of this depiction of Poe were later revealed as forgeries.
Literary Style and Themes
Genres
Poe's best known fiction works are Gothic, a genre he followed to appease the public taste. His most
recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition,
concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning. Many of his works are generally
considered part of the dark romanticism genre, a literary reaction to transcendentalism, which Poe strongly
disliked. He referred to followers of the movement as "Frogpondians" after the pond on Boston Common and
ridiculed their writings as "metaphor-run mad," lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "mysticism for
mysticism's sake." Poe once wrote in a letter to Thomas Holley Chivers that he did not dislike
Transcendentalists, "only the pretenders and sophists among them."
Beyond horror, Poe also wrote satires, humor tales, and hoaxes. For comic effect, he used irony and
ludicrous extravagance, often in an attempt to liberate the reader from cultural conformity. In fact,
"Metzengerstein", the first story that Poe is known to have published, and his first foray into horror, was
originally intended as a burlesque satirizing the popular genre. Poe also reinvented science fiction,
responding in his writing to emerging technologies such as hot air balloons in "The Balloon-Hoax".
Poe wrote much of his work using themes specifically catered for mass market tastes. To that end, his fiction
often included elements of popular pseudosciences such as phrenology and physiognomy.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog Title , Blog on- Thomas Gray's , " Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
Blog Posted:9/19/2020 7:36:00 AM
Note:
My inspired interpretations received after reading several times
this truly wonderful and very deep poem by Thomas Grays.
A gift he gave to this world and one that is so widely recognized
for its depths, truth, insight and lament about this dark world
and its harsh, heavy cruel blows laid upon the common man. RJL

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


Inspiration, Revelation, Adaptation, With Poetic Verse

Sonnet I

I saw morn's soft hands stretching to touch bright moonlight
Tis but a fleeting blink betwixt man's death and birth
Dark unknowing is why we so oft fear the night
In that abject blindness, fail to see life's true worth
Alas! Such are sorrows of mankind's constant plight
That feeds malignant swellings of darkness on earth;
Those of ancient times, of distant long dead yesterdays
Will one day from that deepest of slumbers arise
Long hidden from flown days and nights, world's weeping grays
Be reborn with no thoughts of world's previous lies.
As earth spins, sounding its constant evolving beats
We blind to light's truth, continue our foolish acts
Racing onward counting our coins and useless feats
Life came from light's truth, not so-called man-made facts.

Sonnet II

I that thought to profit, see beyond mortal veil
Having never measured truest rectitude of life
In my epic quest, the highest of mountains scale
In youth, blind to sad flowing storms of mortal strife
Alas! We that in our darkness refuse to see
Oft face raging storms that seem to forever swirl
Not realizing, Love's blessings are given free
To counter lightning bolts world's malevolence hurls.
I that foolishly thought to defeat that we die
Later learned truth that our vanity denies
We are lost because we believe world's greatest lie
That we were once roaming beasts beneath earthen skies
By our own greatness became gods of divine might
Free to do as we please, revel in our delights.

Sonnet III

In June, when wondering winds our hearts so lighten
I have found eager bubbling brooks streaming along
Summer's morn setting up to day gaily brighten
Nature gifting beauty, songbirds gifting sweet song
Across flowering meadows, busy bees flying
Life many treasures so beautifully sharing
Time to live, not sadly ponder mortal dying
For truest of joy depends on our loving caring
There rests much more happiness in sincere kindness
And sweeter breath within Love's soft touch inspiring
Eyes to truly see, welcome defeat of blindness
Rather than worldly conflicts and daily sparring
To satisfy our fleshly dreams and deep desires
Lets embrace light's divine truth that never expires.

Robert J. Lindley, 9/15, 9/16, 9/17
Sonnet trilogy,
( When Blessed Gifts Are Suddenly Given To One Pleading )

Note -- This new creation, was composed in three days of
each day my reading of Thomas Gray's magnificent poem,
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, that was first
published in 1751....

********


(1.)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44299/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyard


Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
BY THOMAS GRAY

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

"The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.

******************************************
(2.)
https://www.supersummary.com/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyard/summary/


Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard Summary


Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Plot Summary of “Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics.

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is a Restoration Period poem by Thomas Gray. An elegy, by strict definition, is usually a lament for the dead. Gray’s version of an elegy is slightly different—he writes about the inevitability and hollowness of death in general, instead of mourning one person. At first, the poem reflects on death in a mostly detached way, as someone who is resigned to death’s outcome. Yet, the epitaph he writes for himself at the end of the poem, reflects a fear of death. Elegy is a renowned English poem, regarded as one of the best of the time, and arguably of all time. It was popular when it was first written and was reprinted many times.

The speaker begins the poem by saying he is in a churchyard with a bell tolling for the end of the day, he uses this image as a metaphor for life and death. He describes the scenery around him, speaking of the sun setting, the church tower covered in ivy, and an owl hooting. He then focuses on the graveyard around him. He speaks of the men who are in the graves and how they were probably simple village folk. They’re dead and nothing will wake these villagers, not a rooster’s call in the morning, not twittering birds, and not the smell of the morning breeze. The speaker also laments that life’s pleasures will no longer be felt by those buried in the graveyard, especially emphasizing the joys of family life.

The dead villagers probably were farmers, and the speaker discusses how they probably enjoyed farming. He warns that although it sounds like a simple life, no one should mock a good honest working life as these men once had. No one should mock these men because in death, these arbitrary ideas of being wealthy or high-born do not matter. Fancy grave markers will not bring someone back to life, and neither will the honor of being well born.


The speaker then wonders about those in the graveyard who are buried in unmarked graves. He wonders if they were full of passion, or if they were potential world leaders who left the world too soon. He wonders if one was a beautiful lyre player, whose music could bring the lyre to life—literally. He laments for the poor villagers, as they were never able to learn much about the world. He uses metaphors to describe their lack of education, that knowledge as a book was never open to them, and that poverty froze their souls.

He speaks of those in the graveyard as unsung heroes, comparing them to gems that are never found, or flowers that bloom and are never seen. He wonders if some of the residents of the graveyard could have been historically relevant, but unable to shine. One could have been a mute Milton, the author of Paradise Lost; or one could have been like John Hampden, a politician who openly opposed the policies of King Charles. Alas, the speaker mourns again that these villagers were poor and unable to make their mark on the world.

But because they were poor, they were also innocent. They were not capable of regicide or being merciless. They were also incapable of hiding the truth, meaning they were honest with the world. The speaker notes that these people, because they were poor, will not even be remembered negatively. They lived far from cities and lived in the quiet. At least their graves are protected by simple grave markers, so people do not desecrate their burial places by accident. And the graves have enough meaning to the speaker that he will stop and reflect on their lives. The speaker wonders who leaves earth in death without wondering what they are leaving behind. Even the poor leave behind loved ones, and they need someone in their life who is pious to close their eyes upon death.

The speaker begins to wonder about himself in relation to these graveyard inhabitants. Even if these deceased villagers were poor, at least the speaker is elegizing them now. The speaker wonders who will elegize him. Maybe it will be someone like him, a kindred spirit, who wandered into the same graveyard. Possibly some grey-haired farmer, who would remark on having seen the speaker rush through the dew covered grass to watch the sun set on the meadow. The speaker continues to think of the imagined farmer, who would remember the speaker luxuriating on the strangely grown roots of a tree, while he watched the babbling brook. Maybe the farmer would think of how the speaker wandered through the woods looking pale with scorn and sorrow. Possibly the speaker was anxious, or was a victim of unrequited love. The speaker wonders if the farmer will notice he’s gone one day, that the farmer did not see him by his favorite tree, near the meadow, or by the woods. He speaks of his own funeral dirges and finally of his own epitaph.

In the speaker’s own epitaph, he remarks that he has died, unknown to both fame and fortune, as in he never became famous and was not well-born. But at least he was full of knowledge—he was a scholar and a poet. Yet oftentimes, the speaker could become depressed. But he was bighearted and sincere, so heaven paid him back for his good qualities by giving him a friend. His other good and bad qualities do not matter anymore, so he instructs people not to go looking for them since he hopes for a good life in heaven with God.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog: How Poets Gift Hope To This All Too Dark World
Blog Posted:10/19/2020 5:19:00 PM
Blog: How Poets Gift Hope To This All Too Dark World

***
(1.)
https://poets.org/poem/ulysses
Ulysses
Alfred Lord Tennyson - 1809-1892

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known—cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all,—
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle,
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me,
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

This poem is in the public domain.

***
(2.)

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - (314)
---- BY EMILY DICKINSON

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

***

This Truth, All Must Find Dear Hope They Embrace

This Earth, this accumulation of life
a great mass of air, water, rock, and soil
a dark world, where danger cuts like a knife
man gets bread and water by daily toil.

O' but those pleasures of heart-sweet dreams cast.
Calm, peaceful sea, ship sailing at full mast.

This World, its beauty that rivals its dark
a great mass of people, buildings and cars
a cauldron of darkness violently stark
all made from explosions of long-dead stars.

O' but those pleasures of heart-sweet dreams cast.
Calm, peaceful sea, ship sailing at full mast.

This Life, its joys heartaches, and epic pains
a mystery, a climb, race against time
a harvest of precious golden grains
romance, verses born of sweet rhythmic rhyme.

O' but those pleasures of heart-sweet dreams cast.
Calm, peaceful sea, ship sailing at full mast.

This Truth, all must find dear hope they embrace
a revelation, a desire, love
a newfound world of divinely sent grace
giftings of manna from Heaven above.

O' but those pleasures of heart-sweet dreams cast.
Calm, peaceful sea, ship sailing at full mast.

Robert J. Lindley, 10-14-2020
Rhyme( When The Days Have Flown, Into That Mystical Mist )

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog:
Of Byron, Keats And Shelley, A Few Words

(1.)

Of Byron And A Visit I Once Had

Alas! Youth and its joy away has flown
I wake at the break of day with a groan
the smooth mirror no lies dares to tell
truth seen by these eyes rings loud sorrow's bell
vanity's praise to break illusion's spell
embedding with red-hot fires of hell
life gifted then sets black to steal away
from morn's breath, dawning beauty each new day.

What would Byron think, sit to write of this
would he ink. 'tis not a true poet's kiss"
or with flowing quill cast a prudent doubt
and see it as dishwater to toss out
with utter contempt, write a ballad true
of his hate of modern poetry too
how love and life are joy and so much more
with wisdom our souls, sweeter verse implore?

Once his ghost came to my writing station
grand it was, birthing sweet jubilation
begged I for its golden verse to give
pleading to sift my verses through its sieve
Aghast the ghost eyed me with deep contempt
asking why should my poor state it exempt
I was then rebuked with the harshest scorn
noting I had never its sad death mourn!

Alas! Youth and its joy away has flown
I wake at the break of day with a groan
the smooth mirror no lies dares to tell
truth seen by these eyes rings loud sorrow's bell
vanity's praise to break illusion's spell
embedding with red-hot fires of hell
life gifted then sets black to steal away
from morn's breath, dawning beauty each new day.

(2.)

Of Keats And A Vivid Dream I Once Had

I unmask this monster invading me
the horrific horrors sent, ten times three
that vanishes the sweet breath of her kiss
pains, denying even love's greatest bliss
with its eyeless guile and quick blackened bite
conquering sun's glow, gifting dread of night
closing the chasm between dear life and death
stealing away my last gasping of breath.

I gaze at its immense power and girth
and how it roams so freely about earth
with its dagger claws and sharp fangs to match
and what ease it had this sad soul to catch
now it sought to toss me like a small boy
as a child does its newest little toy
and I helpless to its dark-might withstand
while hitting with my hard clenching left hand!

O to dream this dark nightmare ever ends
with hope, cherish my family and friends
yet in this gloom darkness tightens its grip
farther into the black-pit this soul slips
begging light's glow, I pray for a reprieve
from wicked beast sent to slay and deceive
my last hope, her true love will see me through
and the thought of good fortune I am due.

I unmask this monster invading me
the horrific horrors sent, ten times three
by light's divine glow cast from far above
her smiling face beaming down its deep love!

(3.)
Of Shelley And Bright Light Once Set Aglow

Mankind, immortality as its goal
yet sadly blind to that much-needed light
of weakening flesh, intemperate soul
bold feaster of sinful darkened delights
as a flood crushes in its raging wake
and oft buries deeply it's new-drowned dead
man moralizes how to everything take
claiming no wrongs in their soft-laden-heads!

Of life, its tribulations, and its pains
and the stealing of whatever one may
bad means nothing if great enough the gains
of wealth and pleasure, he takes anyway
for what is a man but creature low born
made of earth and both feet of oozing mud
from God's light far as a heart can be torn
and with deep blackened venom in his blood!

Alas! Dare man pleads for mercy divine
while seeking happiness and golden gifts
as it stomps virgin grapes ripe on the vine
always crying this and that shall be mine!

Robert J. Lindley, 10-21-2020
Rhyme, ( What An Eager Quill And A Fine Muse Once Gifted )
Three poems in tribute to three golden poets of old...

1.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/lord-byron

2.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-keats

3.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/percy-bysshe-shelley

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog, - Whispers From The Past, A Poet's Lost Songs
Blog Posted:1/13/2021 3:55:00 AM
Blog, - Whispers From The Past, A Poet's Lost Songs



When The Darkness, Its Destructive Song Sings



In the hours of lonely despair

The angry clock striking sad tones,

Erosion of life, stale salt air

There the graveyard of bleached bones

Fleeing whispers of the lost loss

In the distance a dying moon

A swamp of red decaying moss

Reality- end comes too soon.



A dreamscape of terrors and pain

Trees that eat the welcomed host,

Heart and legs bound by rusty chains

Joy fled with yesterday's pale ghost

My hands that decapitate me

Soul that cries to dawn's coming breath

A desert of abhorrent seas

Reality- dark tides of death.



In the hours of lonely despair

The angry clock striking sad tones,

Erosion of life, stale salt air

There the graveyard of bleached bones

Fleeing whispers of the lost loss

In the distance a dying moon

A swamp of red decaying moss

Reality- end comes too soon.



R J Lindley, Dec 3rd 1973

Rhyme, ( Wherein The Sad Reality Paints With Its Sister Fate )

Poem- One

Note-

In the shadows the Raven calls

Its blacken voice a chilling breeze

Whispers emerge from bloody walls

My heart and soul begins to freeze

That call, a hard bone-chilling dirge

There I hanging from a cliff fall

Into the dark bottomless sea surge

Raven repeats, its ceaseless calls



**********



Dark Melody Sung By The Old Wizen Poet



Behind the walls, in caverns deep,

Down empty halls, innocence sleeps,

Hungry so begs, for life's true bread,

But Fate must first birth its dark dread.



Dreading and shedding, future sings,

Of life, love and infinite things,

While weeping soul cries for its rest,

Dark world sets its usual tests.



Therein the old wicked rub lies,

Seeding hope under dying skies,

Hunger weds its undying thirst,

As Fate cries, but I must drink first.



Behind the walls, in caverns deep,

Down empty halls, innocence sleeps,

Hungry so begs, for life's true bread,

But Fate must first birth its dark dread.



R J Lindley, Dec 4th, 1973

Rhyme, ( Wherein The Sad Reality Paints With Its Sister Fate )

Poem- Two

Note-

In the shadows the Raven calls

Its blacken voice a chilling breeze

Whispers emerge from bloody walls

My heart and soul begins to freeze

That call, a hard bone-chilling dirge

There I hanging from a cliff fall

Into the dark bottomless sea surge

Raven repeats, its ceaseless calls



**********



The Poet, Dark Verses Long Ago Sung



There lies within the dreaded black,

Life derailed on broken track,

A little sorrow if you will,

That which mere wishing cannot kill.



Time and life echoes the same song,

World controls the fast racing throng,

Bob and Jane found true wedded bliss,

Then Fate gifted its fatal kiss.



The eternal past cannot change,

Universe is an open range,

Dare frost to glisten all the more,

And hope to soon find joyful shores.



There lies within the dreaded black,

Life derailed on broken track,

A little sorrow if you will,

That which mere wishing cannot kill.



R J Lindley, Dec 5th, 1973

Rhyme, ( Wherein The Sad Reality Paints With Its Sister Fate )

Poem- Three

Note-

In the shadows the Raven calls

Its blacken voice a chilling breeze

Whispers emerge from bloody walls

My heart and soul begins to freeze

That call, a hard bone-chilling dirge

There I hanging from a cliff fall

Into the dark bottomless sea surge

Raven repeats, its ceaseless calls

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog, I Was Once The Man Locked In The Box, ( Tribute Given To Alice In Chains, "Layne Stayley" )
Blog Posted:1/24/2021 6:56:00 AM
Blog,

I Was Once The Man Locked In The Box,

( Tribute Given To Alice In Chains, "Layne Stayley" )

*******

I Was Once The Man Locked In The Box

( Tribute Given To Alice In Chains, "Layne Stayley" )



I was, once a man locked in a box

Begging for a savior smart as a fox

Even better, should my hero be a she

For it was Love that imprisoned me

I need a hero to gift my heart to

A warm loving angel to start life anew



A rare soul to bring out the best in me

For only by true love can I be free.



Pray I, now within these cold metal walls

For sweet forgiveness with my sincere calls

I a prisoner without any chains

Condemned to live heart-broke with my pains

In this mind-made steel cavern all alone

With this empty chill shattering my bones



Need I, a rare beauty to rescue me

For only by true love can I be free.



I was, once a man locked in a box

Begging for a savior smart as a fox

Even better, should my hero be a she

For it was Love that imprisoned me.



Beg I, an angel to come rescue me

For only by true love can I be free.



R.J. Lindley, August 2nd 1993,

Presented. 1-24-2021

Rhyme,

( When so lost, the mind becomes chained in a dark abyss )



Tribute given to the band - Alice In Chains, the song

Titled-- " Man In The Box", singer Layne Stayley



Note:

Once the darkness held me in iron chains

So fiercely that I felt not the Spring rains

I was blinded and sealed in my own tomb

Prisoner in a soul breaking black room

My cries came back as waves on poison seas

Useless were my first angry cursing pleas

Only when heart and soul found the true light

Could I start to begin my freedom fight

Beg I, an angel to come rescue me

For only with true love can I be free.







Note:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_the_Box



Man in the Box

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

"Man in the Box"

Man in the Box by Alice in Chains US commercial cassette.jpg

US commercial cassette single

Single by Alice in Chains

from the album Facelift

Released January 1991[1]

Recorded December 1989 – April 1990

Studio

London Bridge, Seattle

Capitol Recording, Hollywood

Genre

Grunge[2][3]alternative metal[4]hard rock[5][6]alternative rock[7]

Length 4:46

Label Columbia

Composer(s) Jerry Cantrell

Lyricist(s) Layne Staley

Producer(s) Dave Jerden

Alice in Chains singles chronology

"We Die Young"

(1990) "Man in the Box"

(1991) "Bleed the Freak"

(1991)

Audio sample

MENU0:00

filehelp

Music video

"Man in the Box" on YouTube

"Man in the Box" is a song by the American rock band Alice in Chains. It was released as a single in January 1991 after being featured on the group's debut studio album Facelift (1990). It peaked at No. 18 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1992. The song was included on the compilation albums Nothing Safe: Best of the Box (1999), Music Bank (1999), Greatest Hits (2001), and The Essential Alice in Chains (2006). "Man in the Box" was the second most-played song of the decade on mainstream rock radio between 2010 and 2019.





Contents

1 Origin and recording

2 Composition

3 Lyrics

4 Release and reception

5 Music video

6 Live performances

7 Personnel

8 Chart positions

8.1 Weekly charts

8.2 Decade-end charts

9 Cover versions

10 In popular culture

11 References

12 External links

Origin and recording

In the liner notes of 1999's Music Bank box set collection, guitarist Jerry Cantrell said of the song; "That whole beat and grind of that is when we started to find ourselves; it helped Alice become what it was."[8]



The song makes use of a talk box to create the guitar effect. The idea of using a talk box came from producer Dave Jerden, who was driving to the studio one day when Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" started playing on the radio.[9]



The original Facelift track listing credited only vocalist Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell with writing the song.[10] All post-Facelift compilations credited the entire band. It is unclear as to why the songwriter credits were changed.



Composition

"Man in the Box" is widely recognized for its distinctive "wordless opening melody, where Layne Staley's peculiar, tensed-throat vocals are matched in unison with an effects-laden guitar" followed by "portentous lines like: 'Feed my eyes, can you sew them shut?', 'Jesus Christ, deny your maker' and 'He who tries, will be wasted' with Cantrell's drier, less-urgent voice," along with harmonies provided by both Staley and Cantrell in the lines 'Won't you come and save me'.[11]



Lyrics

In a 1992 interview with Rolling Stone, Layne Staley explained the origins of the song's lyrics:



I started writing about censorship. Around the same time, we went out for dinner with some Columbia Records people who were vegetarians. They told me how veal was made from calves raised in these small boxes, and that image stuck in my head. So I went home and wrote about government censorship and eating meat as seen through the eyes of a doomed calf.[12]



Jerry Cantrell said of the song:



But what it's basically about is, is how government and media control the public's perception of events in the world or whatever, and they build you into a box by feeding it to you in your home, ya know. And it's just about breaking out of that box and looking outside of that box that has been built for you.[13]



In a recorded interview with MuchMusic in 1991, Staley stated that the lyrics are loosely based on media censorship, and "I was really really stoned when I wrote it, so it meant something different then", he said laughing.[14]



Release and reception

"Man in the Box" was released as a single in 1991. "Man in the Box" is widely considered to be one of the band's signature songs, reaching number 18 on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart at the time of its release. According to Nielsen Music's year-end report for 2019, "Man in the Box" was the second most-played song of the decade on mainstream rock radio with 142,000 spins.[15]



The song was number 19 on VH1's "40 Greatest Metal Songs", and its solo was rated the 77th greatest guitar solo by Guitar World in 2008.[16] It was number 50 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 90s" in 2007.[17] The song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1992.[5]



Steve Huey of AllMusic called the song "an often overlooked but important building block in grunge's ascent to dominance" and "a meeting of metal theatrics and introspective hopelessness."[11]



Music video

The MTV music video for the track was released in 1991 and was directed by Paul Rachman, who later directed the first version of the "Sea of Sorrow" music video for the band and the 2006 feature documentary American Hardcore. The music video was nominated for Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards.[18] The video is available on the home video releases Live Facelift and Music Bank: The Videos. The video shows the band performing in what is supposedly a barn, where throughout the video, a mysterious man wearing a black hooded cloak is shown roaming around the barn. Then, after the unknown hooded figure is shown, he is shown again looking around inside a stable where many animals live where he suddenly discovers and shines his flashlight on a man (Layne Staley) that he finds sitting in the corner of the barnhouse. At the end of the video, the hooded man finally pulls his hood down off of his head, only to reveal that his eyelids were sewn together with stitches the whole time. This part of the video depicts on the line of the song, "Feed my eyes, now you've sewn them shut". The man with his eyes sewn shut was played by a friend of director Paul Rachman, Rezin,[19] who worked in a bar parking lot in Los Angeles called Small's.[20]



The music video was shot on 16mm film and transferred to tape using a FDL 60 telecine. At the time this was the only device that could sync sound to picture at film rates as low as 6FPS. This is how the surreal motion was obtained. The sepia look was done by Claudius Neal using a daVinci color corrector.[citation needed]



Layne Staley tattooed on his back the Jesus character depicted in the video with his eyes sewn shut.[21][22]



Live performances

At Alice in Chains' last concert with Staley on July 3, 1996, they closed with "Man in the Box". Live performances of "Man in the Box" can be found on the "Heaven Beside You" and "Get Born Again" singles and the live album Live. A performance of the song is also included on the home video release Live Facelift and is a staple of the band's live show due to the song's popularity.



Personnel

Layne Staley – lead vocals

Jerry Cantrell – guitar, talkbox, backing vocals

Mike Starr – bass

Sean Kinney – drums

Chart positions

Weekly charts

Facelift version

Chart (1991) Peak

position

US Mainstream Rock (Billboard)[23] 18

Live version

Chart (2000) Peak

position

US Mainstream Rock (Billboard)[23] 39

Decade-end charts

Chart (2010–2019) Position

US Mainstream Rock (Nielsen Music)[15] 2

Cover versions

Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine covered "Man in the Box" in a lounge style on their 2005 album Aperitif for Destruction. Platinum-selling recording artist David Cook covered the song during his 2009 Declaration Tour. Angie Aparo recorded a cover version for his album Weapons of Mass Construction. Apologetix parodied the song as "Man on the Cross" on their 2013 album Hot Potato Soup. Metal artist Chris Senter released a parody titled "Cat in the Box" in March 2015, featuring a music video by animator Joey Siler.[24] Les Claypool's bluegrass project Duo de Twang covered the song on their debut album Four Foot Shack.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog- On An Introduction To British Romanticism
Blog Posted:2/7/2021 7:44:00 PM


(1.)

Loving You, Midnight Moon, Your Sultry Eyes


Mountain cabin, our special loving place

Midnight moon radiant glow on your face

Surging passion, gleam in your sultry eyes

Never enough time, my how fast time flies.



This the stuff of dreams, and romantic truth.

As we both in love deep-danced in our youth.



Those cool early morns, you rising from bed

The night before true, sincere love vows said

No thinking of what hand of fate may bring

As we let love hot-fires, burn everything.



This the stuff of dreams, and romantic truth.

As we both in love deep-danced in our youth.



Mountain cabin, our special loving place.

Midnight moon radiant glow on your face.



Robert J. Lindley, 2-07-2021

Sonnet, Romanticism

( The Depths Of Love's Hot Raging Fires In Youth )

Tribute to those great poets of Brit Romanticism

From new blog

(2.)

On Love's Delicious Feast We Both Were Fed



Your soft, sexy curves so enchanted me

My heart and soul lost into eternity

How I wish that spell had forever last

Such was the treasure, kisses of our past.



In those moments, both our hearts were wed.

On love's delicious feast we both were fed.



Darling, memories- I wish to recall

The magnificent depths of love that Fall

Knew such heavenly bliss could never last

As each gasping moment flew by too fast.



In those moments, both our hearts were wed.

On love's delicious feast we both were fed.



Now the years, they shout--that was long ago

She remembers you not, that you should know

I then reject such darkness, such sad lies

As I see again- true love in your eyes.



In those moments, both our hearts were wed.

On love's delicious feast we both were fed.



Robert J. Lindley, 2-07-2021

Romanticism, ( Youth, beauty, passion and your kiss )

Tribute to those great poets of Brit Romanticism

From new blog

(3.)

I Kiss Your Lush Full Lips, Your Raven Hair



Your soft, sexy curves so enchanted me

My heart and soul lost into eternity

As I was blessed to such an angel love

From our tent we watch gleaming stars above

Under soft moonlit skies and cool June breeze

We fell into love's fever with such ease.



In my sweet dreams, again silk beds we share.

I kiss your lush full lips, your raven hair.



Within the ardor awaits surging heat

For soft kisses and love desserts to eat

And that caress of your passionate touch

Expectation as you lay down the brush

Your bare-naked body as you undress

Moans of pleasures as true love we confess.



In my sweet dreams, again silk beds we share.

I kiss your lush full lips, your raven hair.



Your soft, sexy curves so enchanted me.

My heart and soul lost into eternity.



Robert J. Lindley, 2-07-2021

Romanticism, ( Treasures: Passionate Encounters Of Youth )

Tribute to those great poets of Brit Romanticism

From new blog

Blog- On An Introduction To British Romanticism



https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/152982/an-introduction-to-british-romanticism

COLLECTION

An Introduction to British Romanticism

The poetic revolution that brought common people to literature’s highest peaks.



Excerpt from "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" (1818), by ‎Caspar David Friedrich

“[I]f Poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all,” proposed John Keats in an 1818 letter, at the age of 22. This could be called romantic in sentiment, lowercase r, meaning fanciful, impractical, unachievably ambitious. But Keats’s axiom could also be taken as a one-sentence distillation of British Romanticism—with its all-or-nothing stance on the spontaneity of the highest art, its conviction of the sympathetic connections between nature’s organic growth and human creativity, and its passion for individual imagination as an originating force. This period is generally mapped from the first political and poetic tremors of the 1780s to the 1832 Reform Act. No major period in English-language literary history is shorter than that half-century of the Romantic era, but few other eras have ever proved as consequential. Romanticism was nothing short of a revolution in how poets understood their art, its provenance, and its powers: ever since, English-language poets have furthered that revolution or formulated reactions against it.



In Britain, Romanticism was not a single unified movement, consolidated around any one person, place, moment, or manifesto, and the various schools, styles, and stances we now label capital-R Romantic would resist being lumped into one clear category. Yet all of Romanticism’s products exploded out of the same set of contexts: some were a century in the making; others were overnight upheavals. Ushered in by revolutions in the United States (1776) and France (1789), the Romantic period coincides with the societal transformations of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of liberal movements and the state’s counterrevolutionary measures, and the voicing of radical ideas—Parliamentary reform, expanded suffrage, abolitionism, atheism—in pamphlets and public demonstrations. Though Britain avoided an actual revolution, political tensions sporadically broke out into traumatizing violence, as in the Peterloo massacre of 1819, in which state cavalry killed at least 10 peaceful demonstrators and wounded hundreds more.



Emboldened by the era’s revolutionary spirit, Romantic poets invented new literary forms to match. Romantic poetry can argue radical ideas explicitly and vehemently (as in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “England in 1819,” a sonnet in protest of Peterloo) or allegorically and ambivalently (as in William Blake’s “The Tyger,” from Songs of Innocence and of Experience). To quote from William Wordsworth’s preface to Lyrical Ballads, the groundbreaking collection he wrote with fellow poet-critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Romantic poets could “choose incidents and situations from common life” as its subjects, describing them not in polished or high-flown diction but instead in everyday speech, “a selection of language really used by men.” Romanticism can do justice to the disadvantaged, to those marginalized or forgotten by an increasingly urban and commercial culture—rural workers, children, the poor, the elderly, or the disabled—or it can testify to individuality simply by foregrounding the poet’s own subjectivity at its most idiosyncratic or experimental.



Alongside prevailing political and social ideas, Romantic poets put into practice new aesthetic theories, cobbled from British and German philosophy, which opposed the neoclassicism and rigid decorum of 18th-century poetry. To borrow the central dichotomy of critic M.H. Abrams’s influential book The Mirror and the Lamp (1953), Romantic poets broke from the past by no longer producing artistic works that merely mirrored or reflected nature faithfully; instead, they fashioned poems that served as lamps illuminating truths through self-expression, casting the poets’ subjective, even impressionistic, experiences onto the world. From philosophers such as Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, the Romantics inherited a distinction between two aesthetic categories, the beautiful and the sublime—in which beautiful suggests smallness, clarity, and painless pleasure, and sublime suggests boundlessness, obscurity, and imagination-stretching grandeur. From the German critic A.W. Schlegel, Coleridge developed his ideal of “organic form,” the unity found in artworks whose parts are interdependent and integral to the whole—grown, like a natural organism, according to innate processes, not externally mandated formulas.



The most self-conscious and self-critical British poets to date, the Romantics justified their poetic experimentations in a variety of prose genres (prefaces, reviews, essays, diaries, letters, works of autobiography or philosophy) or else inside the poetry itself. But they never wrote only for other poets and critics: the Romantics competed in a burgeoning literary marketplace that made room for the revival of English and Scottish ballads (narrative folk songs, transcribed and disseminated in print), the recovery of medieval romances (one etymological root of Romantic), and prose fiction ranging from the psychological extremes of the gothic novel to the wit of Jane Austen’s social realism. Romantic poets looked curiously backward—to Greek mythology, friezes, and urns or to a distinctly British cultural past of medieval ruins and tales of knights and elves—to look speculatively forward. Perhaps no pre-Romantic author inspired the Romantics more than William Shakespeare, who exemplified what Keats termed “Negative Capability, that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.” For Keats, “a great poet” such as Shakespeare opened his imagination to all possibilities, limited neither by an insistent search for truth nor by his own egocentric gravity: “the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.”



Drawing on unrestrained imagination and a variegated cultural landscape, a Romantic-era poem could be trivial or fantastic, succinctly songlike or digressively meandering, a searching fragment or a precisely bounded sonnet or ode, as comic as Lord Byron’s mock epic Don Juan or as cosmologically subversive as Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If any single innovation has emerged as Romanticism’s foremost legacy, it is the dominance among poetic genres of the lyric poem, spoken in first-person (the lyric I) often identified with the poet, caught between passion and reason, finding correspondences in natural surroundings for the introspective workings of heart and mind. If any collection cemented that legacy, it would be Wordsworth and Coleridge’s landmark collection Lyrical Ballads, first published anonymously in 1798. The collection provokes with its title alone, inverting hierarchies, hybridizing the exalted outbursts of lyric poetry with the folk narratives of ballads. In a retrospective preface added for the 1800 second edition and expanded in later editions, Wordsworth set out his polemical program for a poetry grounded in feeling, supplying Romanticism with some of its most resonant and lasting phrases: “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”; “it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”



The following poems, poets, articles, poem guides, and recordings offer introductory samples of the Romantic era. Included are the monumental Romantic poets often nicknamed “the Big Six”—the older generation of Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge and the so-called Young Romantics—Byron, Shelley, and Keats. Indispensable women poets such as Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, and Felicia Dorothea Hemans; the Scottish poet and lyricist Robert Burns; and the farm laborer–poet John Clare are also represented. But even this collection is only a beginning: no introduction to Romanticism can encompass the entire period in all its variety and restless experimentation.



BRITISH ROMANTIC POETS

William Blake

William Wordsworth

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Lord Byron (George Gordon)

Percy Bysshe Shelley

John Keats

John Clare

Leigh Hunt

Mary Robinson

Robert Southey

Sir Walter Scott

Anna Lætitia Barbauld

Dorothy Wordsworth

Walter Savage Landor

Thomas Chatterton

Charlotte Smith

Mary Lamb

Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Robert Burns

Charles Lamb

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Charlotte Richardson

George Crabbe

Hannah More

Hartley Coleridge

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog on the magnificence of the Romanticism Era in American Poetry
Blog Posted:2/13/2021 11:30:00 AM
Blog on the magnificence of the Romanticism Era in American Poetry



Poem One:

Inspired by my reading of -Lady Labyrinth's---magnificent

-- "Courting the Sublime Significance of Nothingness"



(1.) Poem One



Seeking The Boundaries Of Love's Depths And Her Hand



The air, its surging breath sings

into the soul of a willing fan

one that leaves baggage far behind,

an emboldened adventurer



Such that looks for rarity

for the invisible truth

a soft kiss within a whisper

a song that invades heart, soul and mind



Becomes a diviner, an escape artist,

calm wading ebony seas of despair

jealous of only Time

envious of only beauty

fearful of enormity of mortal blindness



What curses may the shadows then utter

the pains of life and a dark pit

nay, such does not faze

the hardy, the faithful, the true seeker



Alas! So recites the ailing poet

lost amidst memories long fled

begging the stars to shine again

the heavens to gift

Love, deep love , sweet love

and the divine tastes of her love



Dare the Gods such deny

risking vanity and hateful mortal wrath

inked curses and paper cuts to hardened hearts

not so, for the seeker - lives to seek

to touch her lips

to into bliss fairly fall



And should such treasure be gained

die as a humble servant to fate

without regret.

without of arrows malice,

shot at invisible beasts

under a dying moon and a wicked host



Fanciful the imagination and poet's heart

mixing of dreams and elusive elements

self-aggrandizing, a warrior

combating invisible foes

stabbed by those eyeless ghosts

crying into wounded nights and fading lights



Aye, this and more- the seeker finds

never the eternity of lost love

the infinity of peace and joy

the heart of her

the touch of her

the depths of love only she gifts



And at last, the poet begs Aphrodite

to this life extinguish

for without love

without warmth

without her return

the universes exists not…

dying embers in finality embrace the cold

yielding in sorrows to the darkness, to its empty cries…



Robert J. Lindley, 2-10-2021

Romanticism

( Inspiration found, a memory revisited, a truth accepted )

Poem number one-- my new blog





(2.)



Sight Of Gazing At Those Gleaming-Bright Newborn Rainbow Hues



Sweetness and splendor of Nature's beauty- The Rose

Imagination, myriad paths, life we each chose

Hopes and dear dreams, glory of love and life we seek

Enormity of choices, traversing this realm, scaling its mighty peaks

Curse of mortality, these flesh and bone cast bodies so weak!



Sight of gazing at those gleaming-bright newborn rainbow hues

Splendor and immense bounty of flowing skies, shining blues

Man's vanity that invades to set us on darken paths

Woes and sorrows, birthed by Fate's accursed wraths

Man's science, ingenuity, greed and love affair with math.



Humanity- earth's wonders its bounties of teeming throngs

The Arts- beauty of poetry, literature and majestic songs

Life, oft a cup gathered into warm welcoming hands

Honor, duty, the task of taking hard defiant stands

The unpredictability of Time's falling sands.



Yet dare we forget that life demands truth and sincere love

For the rose may prick if plucked without the needed gloves

In youth, those honey-eyed dreams of hot romantic nights

Lovely maiden gifting her jewels her sexual delights

That which a brief moment may overcome world's darkest blights.



Sweetness and splendor of Nature's beauty- The Rose

Imagination, myriad paths, life we each chose

Hopes and dear dreams, glory of love and life we seek

Enormity of choices, traversing this realm, scaling its mighty peaks

Curse of mortality, these flesh and bone cast bodies so weak!



Robert J. Lindley, 2-12-2021

Romanticism, ( Of mortality, love, literature, poetry and the Arts )

From blog- "Blog: On The Romanticism Era In American Poetry"



******

(3.)



Dare We Wake To Wade In Life's Luscious New Streams



As dawn comes singing and gifts its soft golden beams

Dare we wake to wade in life's luscious new streams

Shall we welcome with ardor of lover and friend

With truth and hope forgive those that only pretend

For what is life, if we but such grace dare refuse

Man was given the honor to in life so choose.



Within passion's deep gifts, love such great treasures gives.

As soothing balm, in the beauty of all that lives.



Can our dreams this dark raging world evil subside

Conquer its demons, its wicked devilish pride

Set a new course in which hope and love may flourish

Seed romanticism that our spirits so nourish

Bring on faith, that our crying souls should so cherish.



Within passion's deep gifts, love such great treasures gives.

As soothing balm, in the beauty of all that lives.



As dawn comes singing and gifts its soft golden beams.

Dare we wake to wade in life's luscious new streams.



Robert J. Lindley, 2-13-2021

Romanticism, ( Of mortality, love, literature, poetry and the Arts )

From blog- "Blog: On The Romanticism Era In American Poetry"



******

Blog: On The Romanticism Era In American Poetry

(1.)

https://sites.google.com/site/usingliteraturetodream/home/literary-periods-in-chronological-order/native-american-literature-undetermined-1650/the-colonial-period-1650-1800/the-romantic-period-1800-1840



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Experience the Dream Across Literary Periods‎ > ‎Literary Periods in Chronological Order‎ > ‎Native American Literature (Undetermined-1650)‎ > ‎The Colonial Period (1650-1800)‎ > ‎

The Romantic Period (1800-1840)

The Romantic Period (1800-1840)

Romanticism (or the Romantic era/Period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1840. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, it was also a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education and the natural sciences. Its effect on politics was considerable, and complex; while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, in the long term its effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant.





The movement validated strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities, both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, made spontaneity a desirable characteristic (as in the musical impromptu), and argued for a "natural" epistemology of human activities as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usage. Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to elevate a revived medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl, and industrialism, and it also attempted to embrace the exotic, unfamiliar, and distant in modes more authentic than Rococo chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape.



Although the movement was rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which prized intuition and emotion over Enlightenment rationalism, the ideologies and events of the French Revolution laid the background from which both Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment emerged. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism, which was in part an escape from modern realities; indeed, in the second half of the 19th century, "Realism" was offered as a polarized opposite to Romanticism. Romanticism elevated the achievements of what it perceived as heroic individualists and artists, whose pioneering examples would elevate society. It also legitimized the individual imagination as a critical authority, which permitted freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a Zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas.



Washington Irving

Washington Irving was an American author who composed a collection of stories that became The Sketch Book (1819), which included "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." After serving as a US ambassador, he turned out a succession of historical and biographical works. Irving advocated for writing as a legitimate career, and argued for laws to protect writers from copyright infringement.



Perhaps best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle," Washington Irving was born on April 3, 1783 in New York City, New York, USA. He was one of eleven children born to Scottish-English immigrant parents, William Irving, Sr. and Sarah. He was named Washington after the hero of the American revolution (which had just ended),George Washington, and attended the first presidential inauguration of his namesake in 1789.





Washington Irving was educated privately, studied law, and began to write essays for periodicals. He travelled in France and Italy (1804–6), wrote whimsical journals and letters, then returned to New York City to practice law -- though by his own admission, he was not a good student, and in 1806, he barely passed the bar. He and his brother William Irving and James Kirke Paulding wrote the Salamagundi papers (1807–8), a collection of humorous essays. He first became more widely known for his comic work, A History of New York (1809), written under the name of "Diedrich Knickerbocker."



In 1815 Irving went to England to work for his brothers' business, and when that failed he composed a collection of stories and essays that became The Sketch Book, published under the name "Geoffrey Crayon" (1819–20), which included ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’. In 1822 he went to the Continent, living in Germany and France for several years, and was then in Spain (1826) and became attache at the US embassy in Madrid. While in Spain he researched for his biography of Christopher Columbus(1828) and his works on Granada (1829) and the Alhambra (1832).



He was secretary of the US legation in London (1829–32), and later returned to Spain as the US ambassador (1842–6), but he spent most of the rest of his life at his estate, ‘Sunnyside’, near Tarrytown, NY, turning out a succession of mainly historical and biographical works, including a five-volume life of George Washington. Although he became a best-selling author, he never really fully developed as a literary talent, he has retained his reputation as the first American man of letters. Irving also advocated for writing as a legitimate career, and argued for stronger laws to protect writers from copyright infringement.



William Cullen Bryant

Bryant was born on November 3, 1794, in a log cabin near Cummington, Massachusetts; the home of his birth is today marked with a plaque. He was the second son of Peter Bryant, a doctor and later a state legislator, and Sarah Snell. His maternal ancestry traces back to passengers on the Mayflower; his father's, to colonists who arrived about a dozen years later.



Bryant and his family moved to a new home when he was two years old. The William Cullen Bryant Homestead, his boyhood home, is now a museum. After just two years at Williams College, he studied law in Worthington and Bridgewater in Massachusetts, and he was admitted to the bar in 1815. He then began practicing law in nearby Plainfield, walking the seven miles from Cummington every day. On one of these walks, in December 1815, he noticed a single bird flying on the horizon; the sight moved him enough to write "To a Waterfowl".





Bryant developed an interest in poetry early in life. Under his father's tutelage, he emulated Alexander Pope and other Neo-Classic British poets. The Embargo, a savage attack on President Thomas Jefferson published in 1808, reflected Dr. Bryant's Federalist political views. The first edition quickly sold out—partly because of the publicity earned by the poet's young age—and a second, expanded edition, which included Bryant's translation of Classical verse, was printed. The youth wrote little poetry while preparing to enter Williams College as a sophomore, but upon leaving Williams after a single year and then beginning to read law, he regenerated his passion for poetry through encounter with the English pre-Romantics and, particularly, William Wordsworth.



The Fireside Poets

The Fireside poets (also called the "schoolroom" or "household" poets) were the first group of American poets to rival British poets in popularity in either country. Today their verse may seem more Victorian in sensibility than romantic, perhaps overly sentimental or moralizing in tone, but as a group they are notable for their scholarship, political sensibilities, and the resilience of their lines and themes. (Most schoolchildren can recite a line or two from "Paul Revere's Ride" or The Song of Hiawatha.)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and William Cullen Bryant are the poets most commonly grouped together under this heading. In general, these poets preferred conventional forms over experimentation, and this attention to rhyme and strict metrical cadences made their work popular for memorization and recitation in classrooms and homes. They are most remembered for their longer narrative poems (Longfellow's Evangeline and Hiawatha, Whittier's Snow-bound) that frequently used American legends and scenes of American home life and contemporary politics (as in Holmes's "Old Ironsides" and Lowell's anti-slavery poems) as their subject matter.





At the peak of his career, Longfellow's popularity rivaled Tennyson's in England as well as in America, and he was a noted translator and scholar in several languages--in fact, he was the first American poet to be honored with a bust in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner. Hiawatha itself draws not only on Native American languages for its rhythmic underpinning, but also echoes the Kalevala, a Finnish epic. Lowell and Whittier, both outspoken liberals and abolitionists, were known for their journalism and work with the fledglingAtlantic Monthly. They did not hesitate to address issues that were divisive and highly charged in their day, and in fact used the sentimental tone in their poems to encourage their audience to consider these issues in less abstract and more personal terms.



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and was one of the five Fireside Poets.





Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, then part of Massachusetts, and studied at Bowdoin College. After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later, at Harvard College. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems(1841). Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, living the remainder of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a former headquarters of George Washington. His first wife, Mary Potter, died in 1835 after a miscarriage. His second wife, Frances Appleton, died in 1861 after sustaining burns when her dress caught fire. After her death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on his translation. He died in 1882.



Longfellow wrote predominantly lyric poems, known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. He has been criticized, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses.



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Lindley Avatar
Robert
Lindley
Date: 2/13/2021 11:59:00 AM
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https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-americanlit1/chapter/reading-the-romantic-period-1820-1860-essayists-and-poets/ The Romantic Period, 1820–1860: Essayists and Poets Fresh New Vision Electrified Artistic and Intellectual Circles The Romantic movement, which originated in Germany but quickly spread to England, France, and beyond, reached America around the year 1820, some twenty years after William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge had revolutionized English poetry by publishing Lyrical Ballads. In America as in Europe, fresh new vision electrified artistic and intellectual circles.
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Robert
Lindley
Date: 2/13/2021 11:54:00 AM
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Links: 1. https://literariness.org/2017/11/29/romanticism-in-america/ 2. https://poets.org/text/brief-guide-romanticism 3. https://www.britannica.com/list/periods-of-american-literature 4. https://www.britannica.com/art/Romanticism 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism
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Robert
Lindley
Date: 2/13/2021 11:48:00 AM
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Romanticism: Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Match Girl The Little Match Girl "Free, free, free! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!" -- Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour
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Robert
Lindley
Date: 2/13/2021 11:47:00 AM
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Romanticism: Nathaniel Hawthorne, THe Gorgon's Head The Gorgon's Head "There stood Perseus, a beautiful young man, with golden ringlets and rosy cheeks, the crooked sword by his side, and the brightly polished shield upon his arm,—a figure that seemed all made up of courage, sprightliness, and glorious light." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Gorgon's Head I like to see it lap the miles, And lick the valleys up, And stop to feed itself at tanks; And then, prodigious, step Around a pile of mountains...
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Robert
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Date: 2/13/2021 11:44:00 AM
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https://americanliterature.com/romanticism-study-guide Quotes Explain the specific qualities of each quote as an exemplar of Romanticism: "Facts are such horrid things!" -- Jane Austen's Lady Susan I sang of the dancing stars, I sang of the daedal earth, And of heaven, and the giant wars, And love, and death, and birth.” -- Percy Pysshe Shelley's Hymn of Pan And of his fame forgetful! so his fame Should share in nature's immortality, A venerable thing! and so his song Should make all nature lovelier, and itself Be lov'd, like nature!"
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Robert
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Date: 2/13/2021 11:41:00 AM
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The Dark Romantics-Gothic Literature The Gothic begins with later-eighteenth-century writers' turn to the past; in the context of the Romantic period, the Gothic is, then, a type of imitation medievalism. By extension, it came to designate the macabre, mysterious, fantastic, supernatural, and, again, the terrifying, especially the pleasurably terrifying, in literature more generally. Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), American poet, critic, short story writer, and author of such macabre works as “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1840).
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Robert
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Date: 2/13/2021 11:36:00 AM
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Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the 1830s and 1840s in the New England region of the United States as a protest to the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian church taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among the transcendentalists' core beliefs was the inherent goodness of both man and nature.
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[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog on The Great Poet-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Blog Posted:2/18/2021 4:37:00 PM
Blog on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

Three Poems by Longfellow…



The Day is Done
-- BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

The day is done, and the darkness

Falls from the wings of Night,

As a feather is wafted downward

From an eagle in his flight.



I see the lights of the village

Gleam through the rain and the mist,

And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me

That my soul cannot resist:



A feeling of sadness and longing,

That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles the rain.



Come, read to me some poem,

Some simple and heartfelt lay,

That shall soothe this restless feeling,

And banish the thoughts of day.



Not from the grand old masters,

Not from the bards sublime,

Whose distant footsteps echo

Through the corridors of Time.



For, like strains of martial music,

Their mighty thoughts suggest

Life's endless toil and endeavor;

And to-night I long for rest.



Read from some humbler poet,

Whose songs gushed from his heart,

As showers from the clouds of summer,

Or tears from the eyelids start;



Who, through long days of labor,

And nights devoid of ease,

Still heard in his soul the music

Of wonderful melodies.



Such songs have power to quiet

The restless pulse of care,

And come like the benediction

That follows after prayer.



Then read from the treasured volume

The poem of thy choice,

And lend to the rhyme of the poet

The beauty of thy voice.



And the night shall be filled with music,

And the cares, that infest the day,

Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,

And as silently steal away.



******

The Arrow and the Song
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.



I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of song?



Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend.



*******



Aftermath
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

When the summer fields are mown,

When the birds are fledged and flown,

And the dry leaves strew the path;

With the falling of the snow,

With the cawing of the crow,

Once again the fields we mow

And gather in the aftermath.



Not the sweet, new grass with flowers

Is this harvesting of ours;

Not the upland clover bloom;

But the rowen mixed with weeds,

Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,

Where the poppy drops its seeds

In the silence and the gloom.



*******

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

"Henry Wadsworth" redirects here. For the actor, see Henry Wadsworth (actor).

"Longfellow" redirects here. For other uses, see Longfellow (disambiguation).

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1868

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1868

Born February 27, 1807

Portland, Maine, U.S.

Died March 24, 1882 (aged 75)

Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.

Occupation Poet

Professor

Alma mater Bowdoin College

Spouses Mary Storer Potter

Frances Elizabeth Appleton

Children Charles Appleton Longfellow

Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow

Fanny Longfellow

Alice Mary Longfellow

Edith Longfellow

Anne Allegra Longfellow

Signature

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and was one of the Fireside Poets from New England.



Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, which was then still part of Massachusetts. He studied at Bowdoin College and became a professor at Bowdoin and later at Harvard College after spending time in Europe. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1841). He retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, and he lived the remainder of his life in the Revolutionary War headquarters of George Washington in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His first wife Mary Potter died in 1835 after a miscarriage. His second wife Frances Appleton died in 1861 after sustaining burns when her dress caught fire. After her death, Longfellow had difficulty writing poetry for a time and focused on translating works from foreign languages. He died in 1882.



Longfellow wrote many lyric poems known for their musicality and often presenting stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and had success overseas. He has been criticized by some, however, for imitating European styles and writing specifically for the masses.





Birthplace of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Portland, Maine, c. 1910; the house was demolished in 1955.

Longfellow was born on February 27, 1807, to Stephen Longfellow and Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow in Portland, Maine,[1] then a district of Massachusetts.[2] He grew up in what is now known as the Wadsworth-Longfellow House. His father was a lawyer, and his maternal grandfather was Peleg Wadsworth, a general in the American Revolutionary War and a Member of Congress.[3] His mother was descended from Richard Warren, a passenger on the Mayflower.[4] He was named after his mother's brother Henry Wadsworth, a Navy lieutenant who had died three years earlier at the Battle of Tripoli.[5] He was the second of eight children.[6]



Longfellow was descended from English colonists who settled in New England in the early 1600s.[7] They included Mayflower Pilgrims Richard Warren, William Brewster, and John and Priscilla Alden through their daughter Elizabeth Pabodie, the first child born in Plymouth Colony.[8]



Longfellow attended a dame school at the age of three and was enrolled by age six at the private Portland Academy. In his years there, he earned a reputation as being very studious and became fluent in Latin.[9] His mother encouraged his enthusiasm for reading and learning, introducing him to Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote.[10] He published his first poem in the Portland Gazette on November 17, 1820, a patriotic and historical four-stanza poem called "The Battle of Lovell's Pond".[11] He studied at the Portland Academy until age 14. He spent much of his summers as a child at his grandfather Peleg's farm in Hiram, Maine.



In the fall of 1822, 15 year-old Longfellow enrolled at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, along with his brother Stephen.[9] His grandfather was a founder of the college[12] and his father was a trustee.[9] There Longfellow met Nathaniel Hawthorne who became his lifelong friend.[13] He boarded with a clergyman for a time before rooming on the third floor[14] in 1823 of what is now known as Winthrop Hall.[15] He joined the Peucinian Society, a group of students with Federalist leanings.[16] In his senior year, Longfellow wrote to his father about his aspirations



(Much more information at link given above .. Robert)



********

2.

https://interestingliterature.com/2019/11/the-best-henry-wadsworth-longfellow-poems-everyone-should-read/



LITERATURE

The Best Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poems Everyone Should Read

The best Longfellow poems



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of the most popular and influential American poets of the nineteenth century. Longfellow (1807-82) is best-known for The Song of Hiawatha, and for growing a beard to hide the marks of a family tragedy, but he also wrote many other celebrated poems. But what are Longfellow’s very best poems? Some poems immediately spring to mind, such as The Song of Hiawatha, but Longfellow was a prolific poet who wrote a great deal of great poems, not all of which are as well-known. Below, we pick – and discuss – ten of Longfellow’s greatest poems



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Three Tribute poems-- composed by me,

For Longfellow blog….

(1.)

Glory Of Faith's Triumphant Golden Crowns



The rays of morn took their first golden breath

Dispersing powers of night's darkling mists

First gleams romancing sweet the earthen shores

Beating back dark shadows with glowing fists

Demanding night accept its coming death!

Triumphant crowns!



Dawn's first yawning, a parade of new dreams

Waking Fate and its ever growing lists

With dancing echoes of showers to fall

Beating back dark shadows with glowing fists

Birthing flowers born from resplendent streams!

Triumphant crowns!



Sweet the softest callings of better days

With man rising to earn his daily bread

And Nature singing true to cheer life's all

Earth no longer mourning yesterday's dead

Future hope setting sail as sunbeams play!

Triumphant crowns!



Humanity follows its usual course

Teeming hordes traversing their daily treks

While bright blue-set skies rejoice overhead

Across well-worn pathways from life's great wrecks

Amidst the carnage of loss and remorse!

Triumphant crowns!



Father Time speaks demanding to be heard

Above the din of crowds surging about

Commanding its fleeing hours to obey

Sternly obeyed were its arrogant shouts

And the infinite powers of each word!

Triumphant crowns!



Sun was setting, its daily chores all done

Mortals noted the rapid fleeing light

All had felt the ever changing new course

Some with increasing joy, others with fright

Dark shadows arose screaming lets have fun!

Triumphant crowns!



The moon sped brightly forth taking top stage

Stars came twinkling across heavenly skies

The wise old owl took its same midnight flight

Night spread its woven cloak of evil lies

While the sleeping crowds await first new page!

Triumphant crowns!



The rays of morn took their first golden breath

Dispersing powers of night's darkling mists

First gleams romancing sweet the earthen shores

Beating back dark shadows with glowing fists

Demanding night accept its coming death!

Triumphant crowns!



Robert J. Lindley, 2-17-2021

Romanticism, ( That Man Could Wake To See Coming Of Eternity )

Blog poem.



*****

(2.)

Love's Fever Burns In The Air, As We Kiss Anew



As my angel passed by, sweet the rustling leaves

And amidst world's accursed worries, life so grieves

Her soft footfalls, gift promise of far better days

Removing anguish birthed by darkened greys

A reprieve if you will, a blessing to arrive

A soft gentle breeze, love proving one is alive!



As she looks at me, her glowing smile, beaming bright

My heart begs this eager soul, pray to hold on tight

For such is a treasure so truly Heaven sent

Bountiful gift, to relieve such earthly torment

And wouldst I dare to question this exquisite gift

As just mere sight of her this spirit so uplifts!



As my bliss turns to my asking is this a dream

Is it a spell, fairies casting a golden stream

Nay, lonely heart replies, this is romance born true

Love's fever burns in the air, as we kiss anew

She grabs my hand and whisper darling, shall we dance

Again, we enter paradise of our romance!



As she looks at me, her glowing smile, beaming bright.

My heart begs this eager soul, pray to hold on tight!



Robert J. Lindley,

Romanticism, ( The Fever Of Love, If A Mere Dream, May I Never Wake )

Blog poem.



*****

(3.)

That Summer Day At That Resplendent, Ancient Weeping Tree



Around that tall, wide spread ancient weeping tree

Where singing meadows and smiling sky looking down

Upon a wandering searching child, namely me

Far, very far away from our small farming town

Gazing up to see where hides the Olympic gods

Seeking life's approval by their wizened nods!



Yet the gods had vanished leaving bright blue sky

Its deep beauty, vestige of all that was to be

I stood transfixed, bravely questioning the why

Could not life and happiness be given for free

Puzzled by the cold hard-set silence falling down

At last seeing, fled were the gods with their false crowns!



As such thoughts invaded a newly minted mind

A child decided best to further knowledge seek

For how ever was a soul to life's great truths find

And verify, blessings come to those humbly meek

Thus acknowledge power of words my father spoke

And prove too, life was love, light- God's masterful stroke!



That summer day at that resplendent, ancient weeping tree.

I found truth- God put an innocent, loving soul in me.



Robert J. Lindley, 2-16-2021

Romanticism-

( A poetic narrative, Wherein One Great Truth Was Found )

Blog poem.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Deleted....

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog On The Genius Of Rudyard Kipling
Blog Posted:2/28/2021 11:58:00 AM
Blog On The Genius Of Rudyard Kipling

In The Shadows Beyond The Lights, Tribute poem



In the shadows beyond the lights

Poe's curse, Raven's dark flights

A land, far beyond sinking moon

Loss and sorrows brought too soon

Groans of our dying mortal coils

Greed for greater earthen spoils

Accursed abyss, blacken Hell

Falling under evil spell.



Wherein the heart's joys are so brief

Stealing away like a thief

As setting sun fading to black

Victim dying to backtrack

Midnight pause, silver crescent fade

Pain, love when one is played

The dark behind sphinx's stony smile

Or birth of hate, mortal guile.



Muffled cries of the recent dead

Chained in rooms of pure dread

Stone walls washed with flowing red

Souls wondering where light fled

Echoes from deep caverns below

Singing in Hell's daily shows

No mercy therein ever cast

Raven's ghouls having a blast.



In the shadows beyond the lights

Poe's curse, Raven's dark flights

A land, far beyond sinking moon

Loss and sorrows brought too soon.



Robert J. Lindley, 2-24- 2021

Dark Rhyme, ( Within The Depths Of Darkest Night )

Tribute to Kipling

*******

Blog on the genius of Rudyard Kipling

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rudyard-kipling

Rudyard Kipling

1865–1936

Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling is one of the best-known of the late Victorian poets and story-tellers. Although he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1907, his political views, which grew more toxic as he aged, have long made him critically unpopular. In the New Yorker, Charles McGrath remarked “Kipling has been variously labelled a colonialist, a jingoist, a racist, an anti-Semite, a misogynist, a right-wing imperialist warmonger; and—though some scholars have argued that his views were more complicated than he is given credit for—to some degree he really was all those things. That he was also a prodigiously gifted writer who created works of inarguable greatness hardly matters anymore, at least not in many classrooms, where Kipling remains politically toxic.” However, Kipling’s works for children, above all his novel The Jungle Book, first published in 1894, remain part of popular cultural through the many movie versions made and remade since the 1960s.



Kipling was born in Bombay, India, in 1865. His father, John Lockwood Kipling, was principal of the Jeejeebyhoy School of Art, an architect and artist who had come to the colony, writes Charles Cantalupo in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, “to encourage, support, and restore native Indian art against the incursions of British business interests.” He meant to try, Cantalupo continues, “to preserve, at least in part, and to copy styles of art and architecture which, representing a rich and continuous tradition of thousands of years, were suddenly threatened with extinction.” His mother, Alice Macdonald, had connections through her sister’s marriage to the artist Sir Edward Burne-Jones with important members of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in British arts and letters.



Kipling spent the first years of his life in India, remembering it in later years as almost a paradise. “My first impression,” he wrote in his posthumously published autobiography Something of Myself for My Friends Known and Unknown, “is of daybreak, light and colour and golden and purple fruits at the level of my shoulder.” In 1871, however, his parents sent him and his sister Beatrice—called “Trix”—to England, partly to avoid health problems, but also so that the children could begin their schooling. Kipling and his sister were placed with the widow of an old Navy captain named Holloway at a boarding house called Lorne Lodge in Southsea, a suburb of Portsmouth. Kipling and Trix spent the better part of the next six years in that place, which they came to call the “House of Desolation.”

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

Blog on Rudyard Kipling

(1.)

Poem titled

- Recessional

Written by Rudyard Kipling-1897

God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!



The tumult and the shouting dies;

The Captains and the Kings depart:

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.



Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!



Far-called, our navies melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire:

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!



If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!



For heathen heart that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard,

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,

For frantic boast and foolish word—

Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

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

(2.)

Mesopotamia

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

1917

They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,

The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:

But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,

Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?



They shall not return to us, the strong men coldly slain

In sight of help denied from day to day:

But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain,

Are they too strong and wise to put away?



Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide—

Never while the bars of sunset hold.

But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,

Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?



Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour?

When the storm is ended shall we find

How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to power

By the favour and contrivance of their kind?



Even while they soothe us, while they promise large amends,

Even while they make a show of fear,

Do they call upon their debtors, and take counsel with their friends,

To conform and re-establish each career?



Their lives cannot repay us—their death could not undo—

The shame that they have laid upon our race.

But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew,

Shall we leave it unabated in its place?

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

(3.)

https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/thousandth_man.html

The Thousandth Man

"SIMPLE SIMON" -- REWARDS AND FAIRIES



One man in a thousand, Solomon says,

Will stick more close than a brother.

And it's worth while seeking him half your days

If you find him before the other.

Nine nundred and ninety-nine depend

On what the world sees in you,

But the Thousandth man will stand your friend

With the whole round world agin you.



'Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show

Will settle the finding for 'ee.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em go

By your looks, or your acts, or your glory.

But if he finds you and you find him.

The rest of the world don't matter;

For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim

With you in any water.



You can use his purse with no more talk

Than he uses yours for his spendings,

And laugh and meet in your daily walk

As though there had been no lendings.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em call

For silver and gold in their dealings;

But the Thousandth Man h's worth 'em all,

Because you can show him your feelings.



His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right,

In season or out of season.

Stand up and back it in all men's sight --

With that for your only reason!

Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide

The shame or mocking or laughter,

But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side

To the gallows-foot -- and after!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog on: Mythology and Humanity, Literature Once Read In High School

(1.)

Of Mythology And The Tales Of The Seven Sisters



Man that walks beneath winds of searching doom

Ever seeking treasured filled rooms

Therein lusting for all and all the more

Drinking in war and its murderous roar.



From words of a wizen sage- what is Life

But a zagged cut from a rusty knife?



From the dregs of a poisoned chalice,

Whispers uttered in the king's palace

Seeds of pain laced with life-moans of dread

Within deep agonies of Hades' dead



From words of a wizen sage- what is Life

But a zagged cut from a rusty knife?



Forbidden, wretched agonies of Hades

Wondrous, bright glimmerings of the Pleiades

Asterope weeping in night skies above

Innocence ravaged, forcing her love.



From words of a wizen sage- what is Life

But a zagged cut from a rusty knife?



Stars and tales of damaged gods of old

Mankind believing such as it was told

Yet existing upon this floating speck

In greed's name, savaging earth, creating wrecks.



From words of a wizen sage- what is Life

But a zagged cut from a rusty knife?



Zeus striding across towering mountains

Commander of all life giving fountains

Once a wrathful god but now just a myth

Even He, Death cut with its mighty scythe.



From words of a wizen sage- what is Life

But a zagged cut from a rusty knife?


Robert J. Lindley, 3-12-2021

Rhyme, ( Wondrous Tales From The School Literature Of My Youth )

Of Mythology and Humanity…

(With Tribute given to Homer) , ( "The Iliad And The Odyssey")

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

(2.)

As Destiny And Fate, The Olympic Gods Destroyed



As time plays its ancient dirge

Did not Zeus fly down to sate his deep urge

Not as a fallen god among mere men

But ravenous pillager of women

In such depraved deeds man still gave way

Gathering in temples to his name pray

And blindness held its grip on mortal souls

Seen, fallacy mythology extols.



Ancient Greeks believed in such Olympic truths

As a model to mode their warrior youth

Praising the gods for their powerful might

Blinded to the truth denying true light

In Nature's beauty they saw god faces

Honoring such by Olympic races

Man raced forward and its folly found

Set about to Prometheus unbound.



The gods so angered swift were their wraths

Futile their standing in man's raging paths

O' pity the tale of Olympic fall

And Fate and Death's sad final curtain call

For mankind saw they were not truly gods

Left them to die as he stalwartly plods.



Wherein mankind found yet another way.

Leaving gods in temples bound to decay.



Robert J. Lindley, 3-12-2021

Rhyme, ( Wondrous Tales From The School Literature Of My Youth )

Of Mythology And Humanity…

(With Tribute given to Homer) , ( "The Iliad And The Odyssey")

Note:

Pleiades, in Greek mythology, the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione: Maia, Electra, Taygete, Celaeno, Alcyone, Sterope, and Merope. They all had children by gods (except Merope, who married Sisyphus).

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

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pleiades-Greek-mythology

Pleiades

Greek mythology

WRITTEN BY

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Haiphong cyclone | tropical cyclone, Pacific Ocean [1881]

Pleiades, in Greek mythology, the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione: Maia, Electra, Taygete, Celaeno, Alcyone, Sterope, and Merope. They all had children by gods (except Merope, who married Sisyphus).

mythology. Greek. Hermes. (Roman Mercury)

BRITANNICA QUIZ

A Study of Greek and Roman Mythology

Who led the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece? Who is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Ares? From fruits to winged sandals, test your knowledge in this study of Greek and Roman mythology.

The Pleiades eventually formed a constellation. One myth recounts that they all killed themselves out of grief over the death of their sisters, the Hyades. Another explains that after seven years of being pursued by Orion, a Boeotian giant, they were turned into stars by Zeus. Orion became a constellation, too, and continued to pursue the sisters across the sky. The faintest star of the Pleiades was thought to be either Merope, who was ashamed of loving a mortal, or Electra, grieving for Troy, the city of Dardanus, her son with Zeus.

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

https://www.naic.edu/~gibson/pleiades/pleiades_myth.html

Pleiades Mythology

The mythology associated with the Pleiades cluster is extensive; Burnham alone devotes eight pages to the subject, and Allen more than twice that number (see references). Here only Greek legends are presented. Even so, these are manifold and often contradictory, being patched together from many different cultures over a long period of time. Further uncertainty is added by most Pleiads sharing names with otherwise unrelated mythological characters. So enjoy, but please do not consider this information to be infallible.

Possible Name Derivations

plein, `to sail', making Pleione `sailing queen' and her daughters `sailing ones.' The cluster's conjunction with the sun in spring and opposition in fall marked the start and end of the summer sailing season in ancient Greece.

pleos, `full', of which the plural is `many', appropriate for a star cluster.

peleiades, `flock of doves', consistent with the sisters' mythological transformation.

Genealogy

The Pleiad(e)s were the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, and half-sisters of the Hyades, whose mother was Æthra (`bright sky'; a different Æthra than the mother of Theseus). They were perhaps also half-sisters of the Hesperides, who were daughters of either Night alone, or Atlas and Hesperis (`evening'), or Ceto and Phorcys. Both Pleione and Æthra were Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, the titans who ruled the outer seas before being replaced by Poseidon. Atlas (`he who dares' or `suffers'; from the Indo-European tel-, tla-, `to lift, support, bear'), another titan, led their war against the gods, and was afterward condemned by Zeus to hold up the heavens on his shoulders. The Pleiades were also nymphs in the train of Artemis, and together with the seven Hyades (`rainmakers' or `piglets'; individual Hyad names are not fully agreed upon) were called the Atlantides, Dodonides, or Nysiades, nursemaids and teachers to the infant Bacchus. The Hesperides (`nymphs of the west'), apparently not counted in this, were only three, and dwelled in an orchard of Hera's, from which Heracles fetched golden apples in his eleventh labor.

Individual Sisters

For each, a name translation is given first, followed by available biographical information, and parallel stories of like-named characters.

Alcyone or Halcyone - `queen who wards off evil [storms]' -

Seduced by Poseidon and gave birth to either Hyrieus (the name of Orion's father, but perhaps not the same Hyrieus) or Anthas, founder of Anthæa, Hyperea, and Halicarnassus.



Another Alcyone, daughter of Æolus (guardian of the winds) and Ægiale, married Ceyx of Trachis; the two jokingly called each other Hera and Zeus, vexing those gods, who drowned Ceyx in a storm at sea; Alcyone threw herself into the sea at the news, and was transformed into a halcyon (kingfisher). Legend has it the halcyon hen buries her dead mate in the winter before laying her eggs in a compact nest and setting it adrift on the sea; Æolus forbids the nest to be disturbed, so the water is calm for 14 days centered on the winter solstice, called the Halcyon Days. The actual bird does not build nests however; instead the story probably derives from an old pagan observance of the turning season, with the moon-goddess conveying a dead symbolic king of the old year to his resting place. Though this Alcyone and the Pleiad Alcyone appear to be separate individuals, they may be related: in 2000 BC, a vigorous period of ancient astronomy, the Pleiades rose nearly four hours earlier than they do today for the same time of year, and were overhead at nightfall on the winter solstice, when the Halcyon supposedly nested; their conjunction with the sun during spring equinoxes at that time may have something to do with the association of the cluster with birds, which are often used as symbols of life and renewal.



Asterope or Sterope - `lightning', `twinkling', `sun-face', `stubborn-face' (Indo-European ster-, `star', `stellar', `asterisk', etc.) -

In some accounts, ravished by Ares and gave birth to Oenomaus, king of Pisa. In others, Oenomaus was her husband, and they had a beautiful daughter, Hippodaima, and three sons, Leucippus, Hippodamus, and Dysponteus, founder of Dyspontium; or, Oenomaus may instead have had these children with Euarete, daughter of Acrisius.



Another Asterope was daughter of the river Cebren.



Still another was daughter of Porthaön, and may have been the mother of the Sirens, who lured sailors to their deaths with their enchanting singing.



A possible alternate name is Asterië (`of the starry sky' or `of the sun'), which may also be a name for the creatrix of the universe, Eurynome, in the Pelasgian myth. Graves mentions her as a Pleiad only in passing, with no other mention in the other references. Perhaps she was at one time a Pleiad when different names were used, or an earlier version of Sterope, whose name is similar; or perhaps Graves is incorrect. He also in passing calls the titan or oak-goddess Dione a Pleiad, without explanation or corroboration. Does the term have a broader meaning in some contexts?



Celæno - `swarthy' -

Had sons Lycus (``wolf'') and Chimærus (``he-goat'') by Prometheus. No other data.



Electra or Eleckra - `amber', `shining', `bright' (Indo-European wleik-, `to flow, run', as a liquid); electrum is an alloy of silver and gold, and means amber in Latin, as does the Greek elektron; Thales of Miletus noted in 600 BC that a rubbed piece of amber will attract bits of straw, a manifestation of the effects of static electricity (outer charge stripping via friction), and perhaps the origin of the modern term -

Wife of Corythus; seduced by Zeus and gave birth to Dardanus, founder of Troy, ancestor of Priam and his house. Called Atlantis by Ovid, personifying the family. May also, by Thaumas, be the mother of the Harpies, foul bird-women who lived in a Cretan cave and harried criminals, but this could be a different ocean-nymph of the same name.



Another Electra was a daughter of Oedipus, though this may not be the same Oedipus who killed his father and married his mother. She is said to be mother of Dardanus and Iason.



Yet another Electra was a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytæmnestra, with an alternate name of Laodice, and with brother Orestes and sisters Chrysothemis and Iphigeneia (or Iphianassa), though the latter sister may have been Clytæmnestra's niece, adopted from Theseus and Helen. Agamemnon was king of Mycenæ and led the Greeks against Troy; he was murdered at his return by Clytæmnestra and her lover Ægisthus, both of whom Orestes and Electra killed in revenge, whence the psychological term `Electra complex'. This Electra was also wife to the peasant Pylades, and bore him Medon and Strophius the Second.



Maia - `grandmother', `mother', `nurse'; `the great one' (Latin) -

Eldest and most beautiful of the sisters; a mountain nymph in Arcadia. Seduced by Zeus and gave birth to Hermes. Later became foster-mother to Arcas, son of Zeus and Callisto, during the period while Callisto was a bear, and before she and Arcas were placed in the heavens by Zeus (she as Ursa Major, he as either Boötes or Ursa Minor).



Another Maia was the Roman goddess of spring, daughter of Faunus and wife of Vulcan (his Greek counterpart, Hephæstus, married Aphrodite instead). Farmers were cautioned not to sow grain before the time of her setting, or conjunction with the sun. The month of May is named after her, and is coincidentally(?) the month in which the solar conjunction happens. By our modern calendar, the conjunction occurred in April in early Roman times, with the shift since then due to the precession of the Earth's axis; but calendars too have changed over time, especially before the time of Julius Caesar, so the month and the cluster's solar conjunction may have lined up then as well.

Merope - `eloquent', `bee-eater', `mortal' -

Married Sisyphus (se-sophos, `very wise'), son of Æolus, grandson of Deucalion (the Greek Noah), and great-grandson of Prometheus. She bore Sisyphus sons Glaucus, Ornytion, and Sinon; she is sometimes also said to be mother of Dædalus, though others in the running are Alcippe and Iphinoë. Sisyphus founded the city of Ephyre (Corinth) and later revealed Zeus's rape of Ægina to her father Asopus (a river), for which Zeus condemned Sisyphus to roll a huge stone up a hill in Hades, only to have it roll back down each time the task was nearly done. Glaucus (or Glaukos) was father of Bellerophon, and in one story was killed by horses maddened by Aphrodite because he would not let them breed. He also led Lycian troops in the Trojan War, and in the Iliad was tricked by the Greek hero Diomedes into exchanging his gold armor for Diomedes' brass, the origin of the term `Diomedian swap'. Another Glaucus was a fisherman of Boeotia who became a sea-god gifted with prophecy and instructed Apollo in soothsaying. Still another Glaucus was a son of Minos who drowned in a vat of honey and was revived by the seer Polyidos, who instructed Glaucus in divination, but, angry at being made a prisoner, caused the boy to forget everything when Polyidos finally left Crete. The word glaukos means gleaming, bluish green or gray, perhaps describing the appearance of a blind eye if glaucoma (cataract) derives from it. Is the name Glaucus a reference to sight, or blindness, physical or otherwise? It is also curious that meropia is a condition of partial blindness.

Another Merope was daughter of Dionysus's son Oenopion, king of Chios; Orion fell in love with her, and Oenopion refused to give her up, instead having him blinded. Orion regained his sight and sought vengeance, but was killed by Artemis, or by a scorpion, or by some other means (many versions).

Yet another Merope and her sister Cleothera (with alternate names of Cameiro and Clytië for the two of them) were orphaned daughters of Pandareus.

Still another was mother of Æpytus by Cresphontes, king of Messenia. Her husband was murdered by Polyphontes, who claimed both her and the throne, but was later killed by Æpytus to avenge his father's death.



One last, more often known as Periboea, was wife of Polybus, king of Corinth. The two of them adopted the infant Oedipus after his father Laius left him to die, heeding a prophecy that his son would kill him, which, of course, he eventually did.



Taygete or Taygeta - ? tanygennetos, `long-necked' -

Seduced by Zeus and gave birth to Lacedæmon, founder of Sparta, to which she was thus an important goddess. In some versions of the story, she was unwilling to yield to Zeus, and was disguised by Artemis as a hind (female red deer) to elude him; but he eventually caught her and begot on her Lacedæmon, whereupon she hanged herself.



Another Taygete was niece to the first. She married Lacedæmon and bore Himerus, who drowned himself in a river after Aphrodite caused him to deflower his sister Cleodice. One of the Taygetes may have been mother to Tantalus, who was tormented in Hades with thirst and hunger for offending the gods; however his parentage is uncertain; his mother may instead be Pluto (not the Roman version of Hades), daughter of either Cronus and Rhea or Oceanus and Tethys, and his father Zeus or Tmolus.



Astromorphosis

One day the great hunter Orion saw the Pleiads (perhaps with their mother, or perhaps just one of them; see Merope above) as they walked through the Boeotian countryside, and fancied them. He pursued them for seven years, until Zeus answered their prayers for delivery and transformed them into birds (doves or pidgeons), placing them among the stars. Later on, when Orion was killed (many conflicting stories as to how), he was placed in the heavens behind the Pleiades, immortalizing the chase.

Lost Pleiad

The `lost Pleiad' legend came about to explain why only six are easily visible to the unaided eye (I have my own thoughts on this). This sister is variously said to be Electra, who veiled her face at the burning of Troy, appearing to mortals afterwards only as a comet; or Merope, who was shamed for marrying a mortal; or Celæno, who was struck by a thunderbolt. Missing Pleiad myths also appear in other cultures, prompting Burnham to speculate stellar variability (Pleione?) as a physical basis. It is difficult to know if the modern naming pays attention to any of this. Celæno is the faintest at present, but the "star" Asterope is actually two stars, each of which is fainter than Celæno if considered separately.

References

The information above was taken from:

Burnham's Celestial Handbook, Revised & Enlarged Edition, Robert Burnham Jr., 1976, Dover Publications Inc.

Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, Richard Hinckley Allen, 1899, 1963, Dover reprint (Note: Allen's text on individual Pleiades stars can be found at Alcyone Systems.)

Star Lore of All Ages, William Tyler Olcott, 1911, 1931, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York

Star Tales, Ian Ridpath, 1988, Universe Books

The Age of Fable, Thomas Bullfinch, 1942, Heritage Press

The Greek Myths, Robert Graves, 1960, Pelican Books

The Reader's Encyclopedia 2/e, William Rose Benet, 1965, Thomas Y. Crowell Company

American Heritage Dictionary, 1965

Fundamentals of Physics 2/e, David Halliday and Robert Resnick, 1986, John Wiley & Sons, New York

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epic_poems

List of epic poems

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

This list can be compared with two others, national epic and list of world folk-epics.[1]

This is a list of epic poems.

Ancient epics (to 500)

Before the 8th century BC

Epic of Gilgamesh (Mesopotamian mythology)

Epic of Lugalbanda (including Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave and Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird, Mesopotamian mythology)

Epic of Enmerkar (including Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta and Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana, Mesopotamian mythology)

Atrahasis (Mesopotamian mythology)

Enuma Elish (Babylonian mythology)

The Descent of Inanna into the Underworld (Mesopotamian mythology)

Legend of Keret (Ugaritic mythology)

Cycle of Kumarbi (Hurrian mythology)

8th to 6th century BC

Iliad, ascribed to Homer (Greek mythology)

Odyssey, ascribed to Homer (Greek mythology)

Works and Days, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology)

Theogony, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology)

Shield of Heracles, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology)

Catalogue of Women, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology; only fragments survive)

Cypria, Aethiopis, Little Iliad, Iliupersis, Nostoi and Telegony, forming the so-called Epic Cycle (only fragments survive)

Oedipodea, Thebaid, Epigoni and Alcmeonis, forming the so-called Theban Cycle (only fragments survive)

A series of poems ascribed to Hesiod during antiquity (of which only fragments survive): Aegimius (alternatively ascribed to Cercops of Miletus), Astronomia, Descent of Perithous, Idaean Dactyls (almost completely lost), Megala Erga, Megalai Ehoiai, Melampodia and Wedding of Ceyx

Capture of Oechalia, ascribed to Homer or Creophylus of Samos during antiquity (only fragment survives)

Phocais, ascribed to Homer during antiquity (only fragment survives)

Titanomachy ascribed to Eumelus of Corinth (only fragment survives)

Danais (written by one of the cyclic poets and from which the Danaid tetralogy of Aeschylus draws its material), Minyas and Naupactia, almost completely lost

5th to 4th century BC

Heracleia, tells of the labors of Heracles, almost completely lost, written by Panyassis (Greek mythology)

Mahabharata, ascribed to Veda Vyasa (Indian mythology)

Ramayana, ascribed to Valmiki (Indian mythology)

3rd century BC

Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes (Greek mythology)

2nd century BC

Annales by Ennius (Roman history; only fragments survive)

1st century BC

De rerum natura by Lucretius (natural philosophy)

Georgics by Virgil (didactic poem)

Aeneid by Virgil (Roman mythology)

1st century AD

Metamorphoses by Ovid (Greek and Roman mythology)

Pharsalia by Lucan (Roman history; unfinished)

Argonautica by Gaius Valerius Flaccus (Roman poet, Greek mythology; incomplete)

Punica by Silius Italicus (Roman history)

Thebaid and Achilleid by Statius (Roman poet, Greek mythology; latter poem incomplete)

[LongTermGuy]

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/864/27893119368_24bfa6b0da_b.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LuTddsk20k4/maxresdefault.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vL8Net8oKXE/Vn1xiVeqE1I/AAAAAAABDpE/Bm1N-dlNLdM/s1600/seven%2Bsisters%2Bgreek%2Bmyth.jpg

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/864/27893119368_24bfa6b0da_b.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LuTddsk20k4/maxresdefault.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vL8Net8oKXE/Vn1xiVeqE1I/AAAAAAABDpE/Bm1N-dlNLdM/s1600/seven%2Bsisters%2Bgreek%2Bmyth.jpg

Great images my friend...
One for each night of the week...
If a mere mortal could last that long.--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Current blog listing as of today..
I have 5 blogs listed as -HOT...
Although one blog by my good friend , Panagiota Romios
is not my blog. It is a blog of birthday wishes given me.
My other blog, titled--
"The magnificence of the Romanticism Era in British Poetry" 2/10/ 2021
having just fallen off the list due to its length as presented on the site.

1. Hot Blog-
Mythology and Humanity, Literature Once Read In High School 3/12/2021 Robert Lindley

2. Hot Blog-
Happy Birthday Robert Lindley From Your Many Admirers 3/9/2021 Panagiota Romios

3. Hot Blog-
Blog On The Genius Of Rudyard Kipling 2/28/2021 Robert Lindley

4. Hot Blog
Blog on The Great Poet-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 2/18/2021 Robert Lindley

5. Hot Blog
Blog on
The magnificence of the Romanticism Era in American Poetry 2/13/2021 Robert Lindley

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

New Blog

The Influence Of Greek Mythology Upon Poetry And Modern World



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



Polus D'orumagdos Ororei And The Way Of Victory



Grave deeply, as the storm-gods clamor round

Here lieth a mortal whom the thundering sound

Of heroes maddened, one whose heart took fire

At their slow march about the headland pyre,

Chanting their sorrows in the noblest tongue

Earth ever knew, one who had been - among

The sailors in the living ships of old,

Tugged at the oars with them, and felt the cold

Of wintry night-seas heaving over the prow

In the shadows of the moon ; and now

HE hath no fear of any death,

For he hath seen men pitifully die

A thousand ways, and patiently awaiteth

Whatever reckoning shalt draweth nigh.

Robert J. Lindley, 7-24-2020

******

The Way Of Victory



I longed for wandering by those islands

Where ever blue rapturous sunlight beams ;

Sought a mountain home, for sleep and silence

And gold-crested star-winds throughout my dreams ;

In deep tumult, thunder of rolling tides,

Far below uplands where Holy rest abides,

He sent victory, where pilgrim road leads

Through murmuring crowds, through cities' rash mobs,

Through reality, human thoughts and deeds,

Through smoke, dust, agony, -red sodden ways

Where reapers harvest and toil dauntless days,

Sea of sorrows grip, death-winds moaning past

Soul resplendent, triumphant to the last.

Robert J. Lindley, 7-17- 2020

********





The Artistry of the Homeric Simile

Scott, William C. (William Clyde), 1937-

Dartmouth College Library



Hanover, NH 03755, USA



© 2009 by William C. Scott



https://www.dartmouth.edu/library/digital/publishing/scott2009/





William C. Scott



The Artistry

of the

Homeric Simile



Dartmouth College Library

&

Dartmouth College Press

Hanover, New Hampshire





Published by

University Press of New England

Hanover and London



Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data



Scott, William C. (William Clyde), 1937–

The artistry of the Homeric simile / William C. Scott.

p. cm.



Includes bibliographical references and index.



ISBN 978-1-58465-797-2 (pbk.: alk. paper)



DOI: 10.1349/ddlp.769



1. Homer—Literary style. 2. Greek language—Figures

of speech. 3. Oral-formulaic analysis. 4. Oral tradition—

Greece. 5. Rhetoric, Ancient. 6. Simile. I. Title.



PA4177.S5S28 2009



883'.01—dc22 2009016159



Preface

The similes in Homer are treasure troves. They describe scenes of Greek life that are not presented in their simplest form anywhere else: landscapes and seascapes; storms and calm weather; fighting among animals; aspects of civic life such as disputes, athletic contests, horse races, community entertainment, women carrying on their daily lives, and men running their farms and orchards. But the similes also show Homer dealing with his tradition. They are basic paratactic additions to the narrative showing how the Greeks found and developed parallels between two scenes, each of which elucidated and interpreted the other, and then expressed those scenes in effective poetic language.





Hanover, New Hampshire



W.C.S.



-ix-



The Artistry of the Homeric Simile

-1-





Chapter One



Similes, the Shield of Achilles,

and Other Digressions

Similes are often repeated with very little change, they

accumulate when there is no need, and they compare where

there is nothing comparable. Great art would consist in making

one large and highly appropriate simile. Homer becomes too

carried away with his own similes and forgets narrative.

M. de la Motte1



In the eighteenth book of Homer’s Iliad Hephaistos makes a new shield for Achilles.2 The description of this shield is justly famed as a small masterwork in its own right as well as being the prototype for later poets and writers who include art objects within their works.3 The most notable ancient examples are The Shield of Heracles, the shields in the central scene of Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes, the cup in Theocritus’ first Idyll, the tapestry in Catullus’ epyllion on the marriage of Peleus and Thetis (c. 64), and the shield of Aeneas in book 8 of The Aeneid. These ekphrases occupy so large a portion of each work that they are necessarily major elements in the overall design.4



Homer often describes objects and implements in the course of his narrative, even pausing in the midst of events to present a detailed picture of some article drawn from the background. Book 11 of the Iliad contains three examples. The first and second are the descriptions of the breastplate and the shield of Agamemnon embedded in his arming scene (11.19–40); the third is "Nestor’s cup" (11.632–37). The presentation of each object is sufficiently detailed that it has been possible to find fragmentary yet often rather precise remains that parallel the verbal descriptions.5 These descriptions focus sharply on physical features. While they may interrupt an action, they do so only long enough to permit a listing of the elements that would meet the eye of the observer. Such quick sketches of a person’s possessions, however, strengthen the characterization being developed in the larger passage. The

-2-

highlighting of Agamemnon’s battle gear introduces the king as a heroic personage and reinforces his status as a major warrior at the moment he begins his aristeia.6 The ornate cup that Nestor alone can lift endows him with extra strength and stature at the moment when he is going to give crucial advice to Patroclus.7



One such piece described in the poems, however, will never be successfully reproduced even with considerable effort and ingenuity, and that is the Shield of Achilles. Special problems abound: the figures are in motion and small vignettes are in the process of evolving; this shield will not hold still for a static modeling session but continues to shift and change before the eyes of the observer. Thus though several commentaries feature a basic drawing of the shield that locates the individual scenes within the surrounding border of the river Ocean, sketches of the events described in each scene are omitted.8 The conclusion is inevitable: while there may have been shields that resembled the Shield of Achilles in basic shape and complexity, this particular shield never did and never could have actually existed because it is as much a product of the poet’s imagination as the narrative itself. The people on the Shield live and breathe, events develop over time, and there is such a collection of varied subject matter that it probably could never have been arrayed in its entirety on the surface of any one weapon. In addition, the presentation of the Shield is complex. It is not only a verbal description of the contents; it also involves the medium, the process of creation, the maker and his motives, and the interpreter.9



Once it is clear that Achilles’ Shield is more a creation of the poet than of the forge, a new set of revealing parallels can be sought. These would be imaginative constructs that interrupt the ongoing narrative in order to introduce a scene developed within its own clearly bounded framework. An obvious example is the tale of Odysseus’ visit to his maternal grandfather, Autolycus, in book 19 of the Odyssey (392–466).



This story falls into three segments: the naming of the baby Odysseus, the reception of the young boy at his grandfather’s palace, and his wounding by the boar. Each confirms an element in Odysseus’ characterization that was present from an early age. Autolycus is known for…..

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

Links





Scott. C. The Artistry of the Homeric Simile - Dartmouth Collegehttps://www.dartmouth.edu › scott2009 › ocm318673021

by WC Scott · 2009 · Cited by 95 — The simile covers this moment in a different way than a factual report would: ... that testify to the resourcefulness and strength of other lions who emerge victorious over men and ... Orumagdos ororei describes both woodcutters and warriors (Aristarchus). ... The Shield of Achilles: Ends of the Iliad and Beginnings of the Polis.



https://www.bisd303.org/cms/lib3/WA01001636/Centricity/Domain/1342/Modernist%20Poetry.pdf



https://www.coursera.org/learn/modpo



https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-wordsworth



https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/e/English_poetry.htm



https://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/language-linguistics-and-literary-terms/literature-general/classicism

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

First Creation- A Poet's Blog - On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And Eternity
Blog Posted:5/15/2021 7:31:00 AM
First Creation- A Poet's Blog -

On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And Eternity

(Blog on poetry, its depths and man's search for eternity)

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

FAMOUS QUOTES:



Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.

Henry Van Dyke

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/eternity-quotes



Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Khalil Gibran

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/eternity-quotes



Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity.

John Milton

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/eternity-quotes



The hope of eternal life is not to be taken up upon slight grounds. It is a subject to be settled between God and your own soul; settled for eternity. A supposed hope, and nothing more, will prove your ruin.

Ellen G. White

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/eternity-quotes



As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Henry David Thoreau

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/eternity-quotes



Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/eternity-quotes



Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end.

Madame de Stael

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/eternity-quotes



The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

A. E. Housman

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/eternity-quotes



What love we've given, we'll have forever. What love we fail to give, will be lost for all eternity.

Leo Buscaglia

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/eternity-quotes



Every action of your life touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.

Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/eternity-quotes



If you want to know why the coast is such an inspirational place, ask Herman Melville, Jack London, Nordhoff and Hall, Robert Louis Stevenson or Joseph Conrad. It's a glimpse of eternity. It invites rumination, the relentless whisper of the tide against the shore.

John Cooper Clarke

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/eternity-quotes



A life once spent is irrevocable. It will remain to be contemplated through eternity. If it be marked with sins, the marks will be indelible. If it has been a useless life, it can never be improved. Such it will stand forever and ever. The same may be said of each day.

Adoniram Judson

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/eternity-quotes



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



(1A.)

https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-gifts-of-men/

The Gifts of Men



There are many gifts of the youthful apparent

across the earth, those that the soul-bearing carry

in their brains, just as the God of Armies here,

the Measurer so powerfully, has doled out unto humanity

given as a unique present, sending them wide afield,

his own privileges, and every one of them

may be taken up by some of those living among the people. (ll. 1-7)



There are no men upon the earth so blessed with misery,

nor so moderate of prosperity, so craven of spirit,

nor so delayed of courage, that the granter of grace

should deprive them of every skill of the mind,

or mighty deed, wise in wit or in wordy statements,

lest they be hopeless in all matters—

those which God wrought in this worldly life,

all these gracious gifts—God would never deem

that any should become so wretched. (ll 8-17)…



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

(1.B.)

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/eternity-2/

Robert Herrick

Eternity



O years! and age! farewell:

Behold I go,

Where I do know

Infinity to dwell.



And these mine eyes shall see

All times, how they

Are lost i' th' sea

Of vast eternity:--

Where never moon shall sway

The stars; but she,

And night, shall be

Drown'd in one endless day.

--- Robert Herrick

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



(1.)

Earth, Mortal Life, Is It A Prelude To Eternity



The real challenge, the virgin path to take

Youth and its mysteries - things we forsake

As rising to greet dawn and feel its rays

Sense of peace, hope that it forever stays

That brief time just before golden sun sets

Those fleeting loves, with age one never forgets.



The real challenge, the virgin path to take.

Youth and its mysteries - things we forsake.



That first day, seeing a forever beach

Sweet new love, once thought so far beyond reach

Princess met me, holding my trembling hand

We both barely sixteen, walking white sands

That brief time just before golden sun sets

That first glowing love, that one never forgets.



The real challenge, the virgin path to take.

Youth and its mysteries - things we forsake.



And the now, when a billion years has flown

The in-between, ahead lies great unknown

When daylight yields to a powerful dark

To a bloody battle we must embark

That brief time just before golden sun sets

That first glowing love, that one never forgets.



The real challenge, the virgin path to take.

Youth and its mysteries - things we forsake.



As the path into a golden sunset

Life was not about, treasures one could get

It was the joy of love and being free

And promise of one day- eternity.



The real challenge, the virgin path to take.

Youth and its mysteries - things we forsake.

Robert J. Lindley,

Rhyme, ( A Look Well Beyond Life's Mere Fleeting Blink )

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

(2.)

A Quest Finished, An Epic Truth Found



There in fertile green valley of contemplation

Yet lies those eager seeds of wicked damnation

Sprung from the dark-set and evil heart born of greed

Pleasures that lurk to strike, as a snake in the weeds

That which mankind embraces in its quest for more

Ever seeking to steal gold from paradise shores.



There in swollen streams yet awaits ready to pounce

Wanton greed that measures all by the golden ounce

And ravaging darkness born in a world of hate

Firm and loyal ally with wicked hands of Fate

That which mankind embraces in its quest for more

Ever seeking to steal gold from paradise shores.



Surely as truth weds divine handmaidens of light.

Faith and Love conquers terrors of the darkest night.

Robert J. Lindley,

Sonnet,

( Wherein Hope And Faith, Seeds Great Harvests Of Eternity )

***********

(3.)

A Winter Night At The Old Cabin



white banks, frozen stream

trees staring at naked limbs

full moon smiling down

Robert J. Lindley,

haiku,

( poetic thoughts from a scene never forgotten)

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Second Creation- A Poet's Blog - On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And Eternity
Blog Posted:5/19/2021 10:28:00 AM
Second Creation-

A Poet's Blog -

On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And Eternity

(Blog on poetry, its depths and man's search for eternity)

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

Quote- April 9th, 1979

"On Shelley and Keats",

"One was poetry's truest heart, the other was poetry's truest beats".. RJL.



(1.)

Wrought Of Man, Destined For Its Decay



Wrought of man, destined for its decay.

Created from earth, Fate cries of no worth.



And in that cold, darkened certainty

Lies truth that forbids bought eternity

First that infant breath, taken to survive

Then wailing cry, shouting I am alive.



Wrought of man, destined for its decay.

Created from earth, Fate cries of no worth.



Mortals doomed to ever seek power

And over high mountains seek to tower

Yet dark seeded with hopeless vanity

Born into evil, - all humanity.



Wrought of man, destined for its decay.

Created from earth, Fate cries of no worth.



In these shallow coverings, our clay shells

Ever taking, as lustful greed impels

Embracing those vices this realm demands

In blindness destroying air sea and lands.



Wrought of man, destined for its decay.

Created from earth, Fate cries of no worth.



Robert J. Lindley,

Rhyme,

( Tribute to Shelley and his magnificent poem- " Ozymandias" )

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

(2.)



The Quest, The Discovery, The Great Revelation



From sun's bright glow he went into valley below

With dedication and courage in tow

There menacing shadows, rocky terrain unknown

In ancient forest, thistles and vines overgrown

He not yet the brave hero he was soon to be

Thinking should he survive the world would surely see.



Farther and farther down he went yet unafraid

With his bright golden shield and ever trusty blade

At last, with great relief entering level ground

Having come upon some ancient burial mounds

Each huge grave having a massive black-cut headstone

He felt here, more than just sinister undertones.



Ahead he saw where half a mountain had come down

Edged by broken remnants of a crushed town

Crossing there he saw signs of a great battle fought

And shuddered at great carnage as was once wrought

Ahead he saw- a palace of shimmering gold

Same as was in childhood fairy tales he was told.



Crossing a small stream to a temple he then came

There was a tall stone pillar bearing just one name

Etched in quite deep, were words praising that great king

Proclaiming -beware over man my wrath I bring

I the world's most powerful ruler shall smite all

Under my banner even great giants must soon fall.



Ahead seventy steps lead to a huge headstone

Carved were these sad words, here rest the dead king's bones

He that had soon found, Fate had far different plans

Than those shallow dreams born to such an evil man

His words angered destiny and thus its wrath

And death had quickly rushed across his vain path!



With that find, hero turned to retrace his path

For wisdom cried, dare thee to test Fate's dark wrath

Hero returned, seeing the valley below

Kneeling he then thanked God - for letting him know

How He had supreme rule over this evil world

And He had never, angry lightning bolts hurled.



Robert J. Lindley, started 3-23-2015, continued,

8-09- 2019, completed 5-13-2021…..



Note: sometimes these things just take me what

seems like forever to find the path to finishing them.

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

Yet Eager Heart, Its Poet's Ink So Bleeds



In my youth, I dreamed a thousand deaths

Swore I, thousand curses under my breath

And life's old memories now screams at me

Ah my dearest boy, soon you will all see

Now hold your breath until you cry with me

All was fantasy, life was never free!



Yet eager heart, its poet's ink so bleeds

Onto page and feeds soul's tenderest needs!



There was a wandering child, seeking more

Life beat him, he kicked in Fated doors

From dawn's breath- he saw glints of paradise

He began to think world would soon be nice

An error, one that would so dearly cost

For path it gave- his true sight he soon lost!



Yet eager heart, its poet's ink so bleeds

Onto page and feeds soul's tenderest needs!



In those dreams, youth found no treasure at all

Just a life leading towards chained halls

Woe! Years danced, quickly away they flew

Then nights became blacker, morn's breath did too

Dreams all faded and dear love ran away

And so soon future's sweet hope lost its way!



Yet eager heart, its poet's ink so bleeds

Onto page and feeds soul's tenderest needs!

Robert J. Lindley,
Rhyme- (The Depths Of Heart And Dreams That Wandered In )

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

And Fate And Time Were Gaily Conspiring



Swimming that desert the waves were splashing,

Back in the shadows sharp teeth were gnashing

There was no comfort in the great knowing

Hell to pay as black-winds were a'blowing

Silence screamed, nobody could hear it

World exploding, blind I did not fear it

And Fate and Time were gaily conspiring

We danced forth foolishly admiring!



We that were young saw only false visions.

Shot our blank-guns with such imprecision.



Life was a sad, a sad little parade

And in it, world's end was already made

New-ghosts they came along just a'prancing

Watching the innocent youth romancing

Life its heartbeats sad and so damn blinding

And those long sharp shadow teeth were grinding

There was no comfort in the great knowing

Hell to pay, as black-winds were a'blowing!



We that were young saw only false visions.

Shot our blank-guns with such imprecision.



And life was a dark, a dark little parade.

And in it, world's end was already made!



And Fate and Time were gaily conspiring.

We danced forth foolishly admiring!



Robert J. Lindley, July 23rd 1979, March 11th 1985

MAY 18-2021

Rhyme, ( edited version of an ancient poem)



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

I Was A Poet But Never Was I Complete



I was a poet but never was I complete

I had the heart and the sad bruises on my feet

But never was I free from those hard aching blues

I fought the raging world,

paid me some ghastly dues!



I was a man, ink stains splattered in my head

I a wanderer, ghosts dancing around my bed

Midnight came, with darkness singing its devilry

Dawn came ending,

all of night's stomping revelry!



I was a warrior, with both sword and sharp pen

I had a lost soul, as did many other men

Time, its flowing sands blasted my old, leather hide

I fought the idea,

to ever end this long ride!



I was a poet but never was I complete

I had the heart and the sad bruises on my feet

But never was I free from those hard aching blues

I fought the raging world,

paid me some ghastly dues!



Robert J. Lindley,

Rhyme, 5-19-2021

( With Candles Burned Out, The Night Cried The Loudest)



Note:

(As the mystical light faded, with it went the promise of immortality)

For the lost, the weak, the hard fallen came only poet's fresh ink

and sometimes drops of sad, sad aching insanity....

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Now both of my recent blogs are Hot.
Both are presented here at this site. --Tyr


Hot Blog Second Creation- A Poet's Blog - On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And Eternity 5/19/2021 Robert Lindley ****
Poetry and Prose CLOSE COUNTRY COUSINS 5/17/2021 Brian Strand
Ups and downs 5/16/2021 Bradley Smith
Address of Poetry 6-Much in Many Forms 5/16/2021 Sally Eslinger
SHAVUOT a historic event 5/16/2021 Brian Strand
Hot Blog First Creation- A Poet's Blog - On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And Eternity 5/15/2021 Robert Lindley****
************************************************** ************************************************** *****

Third and Final blog in that ongoing series ( Blog - On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And Eternity) is now about halfway complete.
Has been a hard, even a major task to do these three.
Not likely to ever repeat such any time soon.
What with my old age beating on me so and my life and family taking up so much of my free time..
My great hope is that the poet's pen never fails me-even if it does cry out for rest from time to time.
As this old age -- just aint no happy picnic, but the alternative this old man does not relish... --Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Quick blog -on a current reading I am in the middle of this weekend.
Blog Posted:5/23/2021 7:04:00 AM

An Excerpt from--

Clarity and Obscurity: The Essences of Classical & Modern Poetry ~ The Imaginative Conservative



II.

If philosophy and rhetoric do not belong in poetry, all that remains is the raw emotional effect of the language itself. The modernist conception, which sees the effect of language as the true substance of poetry, leaves no room for philosophizing. Or rather, it makes its philosophy about the poem—and therefore external to the poem—rather than within the poem. In this way modernist poetry, which bills its opacity as depth, is actually superficial.

To illustrate the modernist conception of poetry as superficial, few better examples are available than Hart Crane’s “Voyages.” While on its surface the poem might seem a poor comparison to Shelley’s “Mont Blanc,” as its poems are indisputably love poems. To be sure, contemporary critics, mired in the dominance of sexual identity politics, tend to view Crane’s “Voyages” as primarily expressions of homosexual love. But Crane himself characterized them as primarily “sea poems” and only secondarily as “also love poems.”[21] The sweeping imagery Crane uses in portraying a subject as grand and universal to the human experience as the sea compares perfectly to Shelley’s equally sweeping description of a similarly grand and universal object of nature.

Before turning to the poems themselves, it is once again worthwhile to examine polemics, this time modernist. “Voyages” emerged in the modernist milieu, and understanding modernism is essential to examining its language. Crane did not leave us with any sweeping polemic stating his conception of poetry as Shelley did, but he left voluminous correspondence that permits insight into his poetic ideals. There, Crane expressed his high regard of both Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot.[22] Both Pound and Eliot, it so happens, were highly influential polemicists, and their arguments should provide some helpful insight into Crane’s ideals.

In his short but tight 1913 essay, “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste,” Pound begins by defining the poetic “image” as “that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time.”[23] The presentation of this emotional “complex,” in turn, “gives that sense of sudden liberation; that sense of freedom from time limits and space limits; that sense of sudden growth, which we experience in the presence of the greatest works of art.”[24] To Pound, “[i]t is better to present one Image in a lifetime than to produce voluminous works.”[25]

Pound advises poets, “Don’t be ‘viewy’—leave that to the writers of pretty little philosophic essays,” and “Consider the definiteness of Dante’s presentation, as compared with Milton’s rhetoric.”[26] Pound’s use of “viewy” is unclear. Though it would usually mean “showy” or “ostentatious,” he associates it instead with philosophy rather than the display of imagery he advocates. Given the primacy of the image in his conception, his preference for “presentation” over “rhetoric,” and his earlier definition of the image complex, it is not a difficult leap to conclude that Pound conceives of poetry not as the conveyance of a message so much as the conveyance of an emotional effect.

T.S. Eliot’s profoundly influential 1919 essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent” provides a much more detailed and eloquent articulation of the modernist approach to poetry. Though the essay’s primary focus is the relationship between the heritage of past literature and present poetry, its entire second section describes the purpose of poetry in Eliot’s modernist conception.

For Eliot, the mature poet is a mere catalyst, a “finely perfected medium in which special, or very varied, feelings are at liberty to enter into new combinations” in the same way that platinum catalyzed the formation of sulfuric acid without itself being consumed.[27] The elements that the poet catalyzes are “emotions and feelings,” and their product, “[t]he effect of a work of art upon the person who enjoys it[,] is an experience different in kind from any experience not of art.”[28] This effect “may be formed out of one emotion, or may be a combination of several; and various feelings, inhering for the writer in particular words or phrases or images, may be added to compose the final result.”[29] Great poetry may even “be made without the direct use of any emotion whatever: composed out of feelings solely.”[30]

On examining the greatest poetry, Eliot perceives “how completely any semi-ethical criterion of ‘sublimity’ misses the mark.”[31] Its greatness lies not in “the intensity, of the emotions, the components, but the intensity of the artistic process, the pressure, so to speak, under which the fusion takes place, that counts.”[32] Even though poetry might “employ[ ] a definite emotion,” its “intensity . . . is something quite different from whatever intensity in the supposed experience it may give the impression of.”[33] Providing the example of Keats, Eliot asserts, “The ode of Keats contains a number of feelings which have nothing particular to do with the nightingale, but which the nightingale, partly, perhaps, because of its attractive name, and partly because of its reputation, served to bring together.”[34]

Eliot also rejects the Wordsworth’s famous definition of poetry as “emotion recollected in tranquility.” For Eliot, the poet does not recollect emotion, but collects experiences, using ordinary emotions and working them through poetry “to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all.”[36] In concluding, Eliot calls this emotion in art impersonal, and has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet.

These two essays reveal the modernist conception of poetry as completely alien to that of Shelley, Poe, or Keats. However highly Eliot regarded those poets as part of the historical tradition he and his generation were to expand, his views of their art could not be more alien to theirs. For both him and Pound (and the rest of the modernists), the poem is not the conveyance of an underlying truth in a manner that delights—a concept, at least in English, stretching back to Sir Philip Sidney in the Renaissance—it is rather the conveyance of an effect on the reader. For Pound, the conveyance is a complex formed from the poetic image, and for Eliot it is a concentration of an impersonal experience that conjures a new emotion. But Eliot’s definition is only a more expansive view of Pound’s. The essence of both—the essence of modernism—is that poetry’s purpose is to convey an effect, not a truth. It works on, rather than speaks to, the reader.

If “effect” is merely the emotional response of the reader to the language used, then poetry is but a cosmetic art, and a poet is but a writer who can string together a series of pretty-sounding words that conjure an image. That task requires no special skill. Like architecture or carpentry, true craftsmanship in poetry requires attention to structure and foundation, not merely color and ornament. And shoddy constructions and Potemkin villages never endure. True art lies in the essence of the work, not its impressions. This is yet another sense in which to read Keats’s famous line, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”


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

This from the above excerpt further intrigues me :


"" True art lies in the essence of the work, not its impressions. This is yet another sense in which to read Keats’s famous line, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty. ”"

- Shall we as poets not attempt to understand this??

Not write to --poetry-- first and the readers second?

Do we place "message" first, second or even third? within our writings?? RJL

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

New Blog, Poetry, does its beautiful depths enter your heart?
Blog Posted:5/29/2021 3:53:00 PM
New Blog,

Poetry, does its beautiful depths enter your heart?

***********

https://interestingliterature.com/2018/01/10-of-the-best-poems-about-the-heart/

LITERATURE

10 of the Best Poems about the Heart

Are these the greatest heart poems? Selected by Dr Oliver Tearle



Poets have often written about the heart. Whether they’re discussing desire, or being broken-hearted by loss or unrequited love, or the boundless joy they feel in their hearts when encountering the wonders of the natural world. Here are ten of the best poems featuring hearts.



SELECTION-- Only the first three of the ten listed -RJL….

(1.)

Sir Philip Sidney, ‘My true love hath my heart, and I have his’.



My true love hath my heart, and I have his,

By just exchange one for the other given:

I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;

There never was a bargain better driven.

His heart in me keeps me and him in one;

My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:

He loves my heart, for once it was his own;

I cherish his because in me it bides …



The poem is taken from Sidney’s long prose work the Arcadia, a pastoral narrative which Sidney composed in around 1580. The speaker of the poem in Book III of the Arcadia is a shepherdess, pledging her love for her betrothed, a shepherd who rests in her lap; this poem sees her describing the ‘bargain’ struck between the two lovers.

*****

(2.)

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 46.



Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,

How to divide the conquest of thy sight;

Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar,

My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.

My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,

A closet never pierced with crystal eyes,

But the defendant doth that plea deny,

And says in him thy fair appearance lies …



In this sonnet, Shakespeare argues that his eyes and heart are engaged in a fight to the death, over who should have the right to own the image of Shakespeare’s beloved, the Fair Youth. The poet’s heart argues that it knows the truth of the young man, and no eye, no matter how clear, has ever penetrated that truth. Shakespeare concludes that his eyes own his beloved’s outward visible appearance, while his heart has rights over what’s inside.

*****

(3.)

John Donne, ‘Batter my heart, three-person’d God’.



Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp’d town to another due,

Labour to admit you, but oh, to no end;

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue …



This is a remarkable sonnet because, although it was written after Donne’s confirmation as a priest in the Church of England, it is teeming with the same erotic language we find in his earlier ‘love sonnets’. This is the aspect of Donne which prefigures (and possibly influenced) a poet of 250 years later, the Victorian religious poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who often addresses God in the same breathless, excited way that we see in this sonnet. (Hopkins also favoured the sonnet form, as demonstrated by his most famous poem, ‘The Windhover’, as well as by many of his other best-loved poems.) Donne’s sonnet also ends with a very daring declaration of desire that God ‘ravish’ him – much as he had longed for the women in his life to ravish him in his altogether more libertine youth.

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

My three sonnets composed for this blog.

My interpretation of life, love, this world

poetry writing- and the experiences of life

that have set me to be a dedicated lifelong

poet that goes my own way, regardless of

any that think I should conform more to their

ideas on poetry and how to express myself.

RJL
(1.)

Alas! So Shoot Me, I Grieve What Was Lost



Alas! So shoot me, I grieve what was lost

Not just youth, but those things Time took away

Within aching heart comes an icy frost

Covering epic pains of such decay!



One may ask, how dare I so complain?

Does Nature cry about hard falling rain?



Yet does not this world its ills promote well?

Oft with sorrows borne from depths of Hell?



Dare I choose to such dark verses to write?

Have I not truly joined in the fight?



Alas! So shoot me, I grieve what was lost

Not just youth, but those things Time took away

Within aching heart comes an icy frost

Covering epic pains of such decay!

Robert J. Lindley,

Sonnet, repeat stanza ( with triple couplets )

******

(2.)

Those Lush And Tender, Soft Welcoming Lips



Those flowing curls, glowing luscious mane

Sexy smile, flowering as desert rain

Bountiful beauty, sent to ease heart's pain

Lovely blessing sent for this soul to gain.



Ravishing essence with sweet touch to match

My hesitation, thinking what is the catch

That such a beauty would now my way pass

A goddess, sweet speaking to this poor lass.



Those lush and tender, soft welcoming lips

With true beauty, grace, and curvaceous hips

Yes beauty, as could launch a thousand ships

And greatest king's treasure surely eclipse.



Those tender kisses that were sent both ways.

May we forever - remember that day!



Robert J. Lindley,

Sonnet,

( And Life, Its Journey Ever Sped Onward )

******

(3.)

Does Basking Moon Ask Strolling Stars For More



Of beauty, earth, wind and soft glowing sky

Dares this artist to weep tears asking why

Heart and soul must pay such a heavy price

And shed blood for it to ever suffice?



Does basking moon ask strolling stars for more

Space and time to heavenly night explore

And cast upon earth a much deeper hue

To inspire such in poets such as you?



Does dawn its resplendent new rays withhold

That gift, that gleaming beauty to be sold

Or Mother Nature fail to gift new birth

Or poets fail to cast beauty's true worth?



Do these quizzing queries set well in verse

Or fail as being dated and quite terse?

Robert J. Lindley,

Sonnet,

( And what of life, love and this thing we call earth ? )

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



https://discover.hubpages.com/literature/Poems-and-Poetry-The-Heart-of-a-Poet

JAN 4, 2015

Poems and Poetry - The Heart of a Poet



REBEKAHELLE

Poetry Has Form and Structure

Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. Iambic pentameter first appeared in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in late 14th century.

Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. Iambic pentameter first appeared in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in late 14th century.



___________



Poets have been writing poetry since time began. Poems begin in the head and heart, not with the pen. A poet is not necessarily someone who writes poems, but is someone who sees the world poetically, and is able to express it by way of language.



Most people can compose a poem, but the simple act of writing doesn't make a poet. A poet looks at the world and sees poetry, in everything, and is able to express it with specific language. A visual artist may see the world through images and is able to express it with paint. A musician may hear the world and express it with sounds.



A poet therefore, must be able to use language to convey emotion, depth, reality, fantasy, hope, despair, love, death, illusion.



Without poetry, humanity has nowhere to hang its soul. A good poem can give us hope or laughter, tears, joy. A great poem can remind us of the magnitude of life itself. Life is so multidimensional, if we dare to enter into the life of a poem.



How Is a Poet Inspired?

The poet has the task of crafting language in order to give inspiration, in whatever form, to the reader. The world is the poets canvas. There are some poems waiting to be born, begging to be written. A poet will know when this happens.



A poet can be inspired at any moment, in the most unlikely environments, by the most seemingly, non-poetic topics or situations.



It could be the look in the eye of a passerby, or the sound of an unrelenting wind, the horrific image of a war torn road, the causal glance into the blue of the sky, the complexity of disease or famine, the beauty of love or its painful departure. Poetry is the ability to express what readers need to feel.



Part One: Life ~ V1~



"If I can stop one heart from breaking,



I shall not live in vain;



If I can ease one life the aching,



Or cool one pain,



Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again,



I shall not live in vain."



Emily Dickinson ~



The heart of a poet belongs to the world. A poet writes for the masses realizing the reader is an individual. Once the poem is written and published for others to read and discover, now the poem belongs to the reader.



It is this relationship between the reader and the poem that is the very heart of a poet. A reader will bring what he brings to the poem and make it meaningful. The poet’s work is accomplished. A poem is like any work of art in this respect, it has individual meaning in understanding and perception.



_________

What Is the Heart of a Poet?

I have written poems in which readers assumed I was writing about a personal experience. This is certainly not the case. A poet must be able to write in such a manner that it conveys a real experience that may be universal in feeling. And of course, poets will use real life experiences as inspiration, and yet be able to separate themselves from the poem and appeal to the whole of humanity.



Composing a poem requires skill, knowledge of language, styles of poetry and figures of speech, feeling, and a selflessness, wanting to express. A poet must read poetry.



A Noiseless, Patient Spider~



" NOISELESS, patient spider,



I mark'd, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;



Mark'd how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,



It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;



Ever unreeling them--ever tirelessly speeding them.



And you, O my Soul, where you stand,



Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,



Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, --seeking the spheres, to connect them



Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold;



Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul."



Walt Whitman~

Poetry is the lifeblood of civilization, giving it meaning and reason, hopelessness, joy, depravity, serenity, humor, recklessness and abandon, humility, compassion, love, death, life, a sense of purpose. The heart of a poet weaves a thread of humanity throughout the world. Enjoy it, read it often, compose it with love and respect.

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

Edit:
5-30-2021

My last four blogs-including the new blog just presented yesterday,
Previous three blogs have all went --HOT.
As did the previous 7 blogs not shown on the current listing.
My hope is that this new goes to the hot stage, as that indicates
it too has been read by a great many readers..... -Tyr


Most Recent Blogs
# Blog Title Date Posted Poet

1… New Blog, Poetry, does its beautiful depths enter your heart?
5/29/2021 Robert Lindley

2…. Hot Blog Second Creation- A Poet's Blog - On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And Eternity 5/19/2021 Robert Lindley

3…. Hot Blog First Creation- A Poet's Blog - On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And Eternity 5/15/2021 Robert Lindley

4…. Hot Blog New Blog: The Influence Of Greek Mythology Upon Poetry And Modern World
4/25/2021 Robert Lindley

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

edit --
And now only a couple hours after my posting the previous edit-- my new blog has went --HOT....--Tyr



Hot Blog New Blog, Poetry, does its beautiful depths enter your heart?
5/29/2021 Robert Lindley

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

New Blog on, Ekphrasis And Its Spurring Quest For Greater Imagery In Verse
Blog Posted:6/5/2021 5:53:00 AM
New Blog on,

Ekphrasis And Its Spurring Quest For Greater Imagery In Verse

********

(1.)

Ekphrasis on, The Spinners

(Las Hilanderas) artist, Diego Velazquez



colors, fabric missing painter's glaze

spun within moonbeam's glow

threads entangled in beautiful gaze

majestic, with heart-sought truth in tow



by mortal flesh and heart-sights thus sewn

born- sky, water and land

expressions, vanity's undertones

imagination, from spinning hands



from earth, cascading heavenly clouds

windows - life's wondrous stage

Turin, mystery and famous shroud

digital world, techno all the rage



wondrous explosion, breathtaking scenes

hope, mankind's fleeing race

dark's blight, Gods births, depths obscene

humanity searching - divine grace



spirals of color, artistic flair

three spinners- flowing skies

imagination, beyond compare

artists, weavers and spirited eyes.



Robert J. Lindley , 6-01-2021

Ekphrasis on, The Spinners,

Artist- Diego Velazquez

This creation, inspired by my having read JCB Brul's poem,

"Ekphrasis on House of Parliament At Sunset"- of Claude Monet's

famed painting series , 1899--1901….



(2.)

My, My How Illusions Have Ever Brighter Grown



Fading memories, sweet years further away flown

Of the here and now- seedings of future unknown

My, my how illusions have ever brighter grown

And in fabric of time's wrath early deaths are sewn!



Seas and waving folds in this universe collide.

Ripples of dying love -hurt I cannot abide.



There residing within dark's bursts of spastic pains

A splash of paint ten thousand broken mirrors stains

My, my how illusions wash decayed remains

And hungry wolf to dying sheep never explains!



Seas and waving folds in this universe collide.

Ripples of dying love -hurt I cannot abide.



Fading memories, sweet years further away flown

Of the here and now- seedings of future unknown

My, my how illusions have ever brighter grown

And in fabric of time's wrath early deaths are sewn!



Seas and waving folds in this universe collide.

Ripples of dying love -hurt I cannot abide.


Robert J. Lindley,

Rhyme, ( From A Far Deeper Gaze Into The Looking Glass )

*****

(3.)

Memories, Dreaming Again Of That Bliss



romance and that velvet kiss

deep softness in that sweet touch

as moon-cast glimmers danced

dreaming again of that bliss.



nights and you soft satin sheets

open window fragrant breeze

as bright moon-shot gleaming fell

romance clocked both heartbeats.



beauty's glow, in eyes of blue

passion, mountains of fervor

as moon, its love-song preached

naked bodies, me and you.



eternal desires, your love

youthful dreams of wondrous nights

as moon-whispers, fell about

treasure, you- gems from above.



romance and that velvet kiss

deep softness in that sweet touch

as moon-cast glimmers danced

dreaming again of that bliss.


Robert J. Lindley,

Romanticism,

( Poetic verses on sweet days of yore )

woke 3am, composed from a sweet dream

*****

Notes: - Three links

(1.)

http://www.diegovelazquez.net/spinners/

(2.)

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Diego-Velazquez



The Spinners (Las Hilanderas)



Spinners (Las Hilanderas) Diego Velazquez

One of the most admired and complex paintings by the Spanish painter Diego Velazquez is this one, Las Hilanderas. Also known as The Spinners, or The Fable of Arachne, the painting is a depiction of the mythological tale of Arachne, which is originally described in Ovid's Metamorphoses, book VI.

In this story, a weaving competition takes place between Arachne and Pallas Athena, the patron goddess of weaving. After hearing of Arachne's boastful claims that she possessed spinning skills which could not be matched, the goddess challenged Arachne. Upon seeing the scene depicted on Arachne's completed tapestry, which she perceived to show the gods in a negative light, Pallas Athena turned Arachne into a spider, condemning her to weave forever. It is this competition we see about to commence in The Spinners. Rather than portraying the climactic scene of the tale, where Arachne experiences her transformation, Velazquez chose instead to render the scene just before the contest is truly underway.



While the subject of mythology was a common one for painters of the Renaissance or Baroque eras, it is Velazquez's avoidance of the primary drama of the story that makes this painting so unique and enigmatic, leaving many to ponder its complexities even today. Often interpreted as an allegory for the arts themselves, The Spinners is viewed by many to be a commentary on all creative endeavours; a representation of craft against high art, with the Arachne serving as craft and the goddess symbolizing fine arts. Still other analysts assert that possibly Diego Velazquez was merely claiming in this piece that to create substantial works of art, one must do the hard work that is required.



Some details pertaining to the commission of The Spinners are uncertain, further lending an enigmatic air to the painting. Based on the complexity of composition and other stylistic elements such as economical use of paint, tones of lightness, and the unmistakable Italian Baroque influence, many scholars have dated the piece to have been created in 1657. However, this has been disputed by some, who date the painting somewhere between 1644–50. What is certain is that The Spinners was painted for King Philip IV’s huntsman, Don Pedro de Arce. While Diego Velazquez's thoughts behind creating The Spinners will likely never be made clear to us, the fact that it leaves us discussing, pondering, and interpreting so deeply all these many years later is the mark of a great work of art, indeed.

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

(2.)

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Diego-Velazquez



Diego Velázquez

Spanish painter

WRITTEN BY

Enriqueta Harris-Frankfort

Honorary Fellow of the Warburg Institute, University of London. Author of Goya; Velázquez; and others.

Diego Velázquez, in full Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, (baptized June 6, 1599, Sevilla, Spain—died August 6, 1660, Madrid), the most important Spanish painter of the 17th century, a giant of Western art.



Diego Velázquez: Las meninas

Las meninas (with a self-portrait of the artist at the left, reflections of Philip IV and Queen Mariana in the mirror at the back of the room, and the infanta Margarita with her meninas, or maids of honour, in the foreground), oil on canvas by Diego Velázquez, c. 1656; in the Prado Museum, Madrid.



Velázquez is universally acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest artists. The naturalistic style in which he was trained provided a language for the expression of his remarkable power of observation in portraying both the living model and still life. Stimulated by the study of 16th-century Venetian painting, he developed from a master of faithful likeness and characterization into the creator of masterpieces of visual impression unique in his time. With brilliant diversity of brushstrokes and subtle harmonies of colour, he achieved effects of form and texture, space, light, and atmosphere that make him the chief forerunner of 19th-century French Impressionism.



The principal source of information about Velázquez’s early career is the treatise Arte de la pintura (“The Art of Painting”), published in 1649 by his master and father-in-law Francisco Pacheco, who is more important as a biographer and theoretician than as a painter. The first complete biography of Velázquez appeared in the third volume (El Parnaso español; “The Spanish Parnassus”) of El museo pictórico y escala óptica (“The Pictorial Museum and Optical Scale”), published in 1724 by the court painter and art scholar Antonio Palomino. This was based on biographical notes made by Velázquez’s pupil Juan de Alfaro, who was Palomino’s patron. The number of personal documents is very small, and official documentation relating to his paintings is relatively rare. Since he seldom signed or dated his works, their identification and chronology has often to be based on stylistic evidence alone. Though many copies of his portraits were evidently made in his studio by assistants, his own production was not large, and his surviving autograph works number fewer than 150. He is known to have worked slowly, and during his later years much of his time was occupied by his duties as a court official in Madrid.

******

(3.)

https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-imagery-poems.html



Theodore Rothke - My Papa’s Waltz

This famous poem by Theodore Rothke is an excellent example of olfactory and tactile imagery with plenty of visual imagery thrown in for good measure. The effect is powerful.


My Papa’s Waltz


The whiskey on your breath



Could make a small boy dizzy;



But I hung on like death:



Such waltzing was not easy.



We romped until the pans



Slid from the kitchen shelf;



My mother’s countenance



Could not unfrown itself.



The hand that held my wrist



Was battered on one knuckle;



At every step you missed



My right ear scraped a buckle.



You beat time on my head



With a palm caked hard by dirt,



Then waltzed me off to bed



Still clinging to your shirt.

****

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

my new blog went--- HOT-- in one day.....

Always astounds me that these blogs are going to the -HOT- status so very quickly... --Tyr



Hot Blog New Blog on, Ekphrasis And Its Spurring Quest For Greater Imagery In Verse 6/5/2021 Robert Lindley

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

New Blog, Why Dark Poetry Fascinated So Many Famous Poets..
Blog Posted:6/11/2021 8:26:00 PM
New Blog, Why Dark Poetry Fascinated So Many Famous Poets..



(1.)

Poe's Nightmare And Penitence



The statue in the hall, moved ever so slightly,

I saw this movement upon every midnight stroke-

Alone, eagerly waiting for this dark magic nightly

Shivers given, very addictive but sadly were no joke,

Anticipation burned awaiting that movement refined

For each night at midnight it moved just a bit more

And sat I, there to watch as I so greedily dined,

Upon the tender, ethereal flesh of my love, Lenore!



As the darkened years swiftly raced into the mists:

I prayed to the dark gods for mercy evermore,

And Lenore's name was always on my pleading lists

Come back, come back again to me- my sweet Lenore!



Last year, that eerie, moving statue began to smile

A wicked little grin, a grimace for to be sure

My mind confused, for this was not in her style

The movement and soft grace of my Lenore so pure;

Aha! Could this be the spirit of the Raven gone?

Returneth to plague and so vex my tired old Soul,

Or my mind deranged from its loneliness trying to atone

For a grieving hate-darkened heart as black as coal?



Now the statue has made it all the way to the door,

There was no creaking and groaning as it slowly walks

Nor any of the great beauty resplendent in my Lenore

Yet for years now, we've had our mystical, nightly talks!



Last night the door opened and away she magically flew

By all the dark gods, I cried for her to not fly away!

Please stay and in this dark dungeon reside, just we two,

Alas! Aghast at this penitence my ruined heart to pay;

Where once the sheer brightness of her love and name,

Would heal my wounds and thus join us in bright light of day

Raven! What hellish playing you've done in this wicked game

For now I grieve ever the more, for my Lenore to love and stay!



Robert J. Lindley, 11-27-2015



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



The Beast, Hideous Monster That Lived To Kill



PART 1



It was a dark beast, hellish in fury and deep hate

I that came to know it, wondered its wicked fate

And mysterious way its unlucky victims it chose

Insanity of violence and leaving the red rose

Humanlike, the way it rearranged each torn dress

Always their hair combed neat, tho' each a bloody mess

Why did it scratch my door night of its deadly attacks

From behind my barn leave its hideous bloody tracks!



O'how I worried that somehow me they would accuse

True, I had a temper and record of a short fuse

Yet they knew me and as a truly kind hearted-man

And a courageous soul, the kind that never ran

Did not those savage attacks happen ten miles away

Always at moonlit night, never at light of day

Had seen it, had trailed it to its forest lair

But no further, even found chunks of its black hair!



Then it came to me, an idea why it killed

What a clever thought, in my heart it so thrilled

Could it be acts of dark vengeance it was doing

Well thought plan it was diligently pursuing

For six months the beast killed at least once a week

Fierce, so deadly, nothing about it mild and meek

Always a victim that was innocent and weak

And I just behind it, waiting to take a peek!



With newfound knowledge a clever plan came to me

To take action, no longer hide behind a tree

First step, find a deadly weapon, one sure to kill

A long blade too cut it, O' what a wondrous thrill

With a new plan and a fine weapon in my hand

Tonight I would dare it, take a brave hero's stand

Strike the massive beast down before it did the deed

And stand there in wanton delight, watching it bleed!



Then it stopped no more scratching on my front door

I felt lost, into aching heart a hole it tore

Why, why had it so suddenly abandoned me

Could it somehow into my sad, lonely heart see

A whisper, passing phantom or was it a dream

Had we not both become a great night-stalking team

Then in the mirror hairy image did I see

Only this, savage beast staring right back at me!



Robert J. Lindley, 6-11-2021

Dark poetry-

As A Tribute to Edgar Allan Poe



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

(1.)



https://interestingliterature.com/2018/02/10-of-the-best-poems-about-darkness/





LITERATURE

10 of the Best Poems about Darkness

The greatest dark poems selected by Dr Oliver Tearle



Poetry isn’t all sweetness and light, of course. In fact, much of it is concerned with the darker aspects of the natural world, whether it’s the mystery or solemnity of night-time darkness or some other, more abstract or metaphorical kind of darkness (‘O dark dark dark’, as T. S. Eliot put it in Four Quartets). Here, we offer ten of the best poems about darkness of various kinds.





1. Charlotte Smith, ‘Written near a Port on a Dark Evening’.



All is black shadow but the lucid line

Marked by the light surf on the level sand,

Or where afar the ship-lights faintly shine

Like wandering fairy fires, that oft on land

Misled the pilgrim …



This sonnet was written by one of the great proto-Romantic poets of the second half of the eighteenth century. Smith’s sonnets anticipate Romanticism partly because nature in her poetry is so often feared with an awesome power that verges on the terrifying: ‘life’s long darkling way’ is brooding and full of menace here.



2. Lord Byron, ‘Darkness’.





I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day …



This poem was inspired by a curious incident: the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, which drastically altered the weather conditions across the world and led to 1816 being branded ‘the Year without a Summer’. The same event also led to Byron’s trip to Lake Geneva and his ghost-story writing competition, which produced Mary Shelley’s masterpiece Frankenstein.



For Byron, the extermination of the sun seemed like a dream, yet it was ‘no dream’ but a strange and almost sublimely terrifying reality.





3. Robert Browning, ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’.



If at his counsel I should turn aside

Into that ominous tract which, all agree,

Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly

I did turn as he pointed: neither pride

Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,

So much as gladness that some end might be …



A grotesque quasi-medieval dramatic monologue detailing the quest of the titular Roland, this poem was produced in an attempt to overcome writer’s block: in 1852 Browning had set himself the New Year’s Resolution to write a new poem every day, and this vivid dreamscape is what arose from his fevered imagination.





Browning borrowed the title from a line in Shakespeare’s King Lear; the character of Roland as he appears in Browning’s poem has in turn inspired Stephen King to write his Dark Tower series, while J. K. Rowling borrowed the word ‘slughorn’ from the poem when creating the name of her character Horace Slughorn.



4. Emily Dickinson, ‘We grow accustomed to the Dark’.



We grow accustomed to the Dark –

When Light is put away –

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp

To witness her Good bye –





A Moment – We Uncertain step

For newness of the night –

Then – fit our Vision to the Dark –

And meet the Road – erect …



The first line of this poem also provides the poem with its main theme: the way our eyes adjust to the darkness, just as our minds adapt to the bleakness of life and contemplation of the ‘night’ that is death.



5. Thomas Hardy, ‘The Darkling Thrush’.



At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead,

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited.

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,

With blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

Upon the growing gloom …





This classic Hardy poem captures the mood of a winter evening as the sun, ‘the weakening eye of day’, sets below the horizon and gives way to dusk on New Year’s Eve. Hardy hears a thrush singing, and wonders whether the thrush is aware of some reason to be hopeful for the coming new year, some reason of which Hardy himself is unaware.



In ‘The Darkling Thrush’ itself we are given clues that religion is on the speaker’s mind. In the third stanza, when the thrush of the title appears (‘darkling’ is an old poetic word for ‘in darkness’ – it also, incidentally, echoes Matthew Arnold‘s use of the word in his famous poem about declining faith, ‘Dover Beach’, published in 1867), its song is described as ‘evensong’, suggesting the church service, while the use of the word ‘soul’ also suggests the spiritual. (Such a religiously inflected analysis of Hardy’s poem is reinforced by ‘carolings’ in the next stanza.)



6. Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day’.





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 …



One of Hopkins’s ‘Terrible Sonnets’, this poem is one of the finest evocations of a sleepless night that English poetry has produced. When we wake to find that it’s not yet morning but we are still surrounded by darkness, and undergo some sort of ‘dark night of the soul’, we often feel as Hopkins describes here. For him it is a spiritual battle as well as a mere case of insomnia.



As so often with Hopkins, the spiritual and psychological are experienced as a vivid visceral force that is physical as well as metaphysical: his depression and doubt weigh upon him like heartburn or indigestion (‘heartburn’ picking up on the poet’s more abstract address to his ‘heart’ in the third line of the poem, but also leading into the ‘blood’ mentioned a couple of lines later).





7. Carl Sandburg, ‘Moonset’.



This short poem is almost actively ‘unpoetical’ in its imagery, and offers a fresh look at the moon. The poem’s final image of ‘dark listening to dark’ is especially eye-catching.



8. Edward Thomas, ‘The Dark Forest’.



Dark is the forest and deep, and overhead

Hang stars like seeds of light

In vain, though not since they were sown was bred

Anything more bright …



This poem from the wonderful nature poet Edward Thomas (1878-1917) begins by describing a forest at night, above whose trees the stars shine like ‘seeds of light’.





9. Joseph Campbell, ‘Darkness’.



One of the first ‘modern’ poems written in English, this short lyric by the Irish-born poet Joseph Campbell (1879-1944) shares affinities with the poems of T. E. Hulme, and seems in some respects to prefigure the ‘bog’ poems of Seamus Heaney. You can read Campbell’s ‘Darkness’ by clicking on the link below, which will also take you to three other short poems by Campbell.



10. Philip Larkin, ‘Going’.



Philip Larkin never learned, in Sigmund Freud’s memorable phrase about King Lear, to make friends with the necessity of dying. ‘Going’ is an early example of Larkin’s mature engagement with the terrifying realisation that death will come for us all.



In ten unrhymed lines, ‘Going’ explores death without ever mentioning it by name, instead referring to it, slightly elliptically, as ‘an evening’ that is ‘coming in’. Larkin uses the metaphor of the coming evening – an evening which ‘lights no lamps’ because there is no hope of staving off this darkness, the darkness of death.





Continue to explore classic poetry with these short poems about death and dying, our pick of the best poems about eyes, and these classic poems about secrets. We also recommend The Oxford Book of English Verse – perhaps the best poetry anthology on the market (we offer our pick of the best poetry anthologies here).



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.





**********



(2.)



http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/thematic_poems/dark_poems.html



Dark Poems and Poetry



A Collection of Dark Poems and Poetry from the most Famous Poets and Authors.



25 POEMS-



Under Her Dark Veil by Anna Akhmatova

Senlin: His Dark Origins by Conrad Aiken

The House Of Dust: Part 01: 06: Over the darkened city, the city of towers by Conrad Aiken

The House Of Dust: Part 02: 01: The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea by Conrad Aiken

The Door in the Dark by Robert Frost

An Electric Sign Goes Dark by Carl Sandburg

My Country in Darkness by Eavan Boland

Behold, As Goblins Dark Of Mien by Robert Louis Stevenson

From the Dark Tower by Countee Cullen

In the Dark Pine-Wood by James Joyce

The Dark Hour by William Henry Davies

Dark Night by Frank Bidart

The Dark Forest by Edward Thomas

When the Dark Comes Down by Lucy Maud Montgomery

The Night is Darkening Around Me by Emily Bronte

Night is Darkening Around Me, The by Emily Bronte

Written near a Port on a Dark Evening by Charlotte Smith

Childe Roland To The Dark Tower Came by Robert Browning

Through the Dark Sod -- as Education by Emily Dickinson

Not quite dark yet by Yosa Buson

Darkness by Lord Byron

My Soul is Dark by Lord Byron

My wheel is in the dark! by Emily Dickinson

We grow accustomed to the Dark by Emily Dickinson

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





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



https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45176/huge-vapours-brood-above-the-clifted-shore



Huge Vapours Brood above the Clifted Shore

-- BY CHARLOTTE SMITH

Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore,

Night o'er the ocean settles, dark and mute,

Save where is heard the repercussive roar

Of drowsy billows, on the rugged foot

Of rocks remote; or still more distant tone

Of seamen, in the anchored bark, that tell

The watch relieved; or one deep voice alone,

Singing the hour, and bidding "strike the bell."

All is black shadow, but the lucid line

Marked by the light surf on the level sand,

Or where afar, the ship-lights faintly shine

Like wandering fairy fires, that oft on land

Mislead the pilgrim; such the dubious ray

That wavering reason lends, in life's long darkling way.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I just saw that all 5 of my blogs are NOW listed as HOT…--Tyr


Most Recent Blogs:


1. Hot Blog New Blog, Why Dark Poetry Fascinated So Many Famous Poets.. 6/11/2021 Robert Lindley
2. Hot Blog New Blog on, Ekphrasis And Its Spurring Quest For Greater Imagery In Verse 6/5/2021 Robert Lindley
3. Hot Blog New Blog, Poetry, does its beautiful depths enter your heart? 5/29/2021 Robert Lindley
4. Hot Blog Second Creation- A Poet's Blog - On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And
Eternity 5/19/2021 Robert Lindley
5. Hot Blog First Creation- A Poet's Blog - On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And Eternity
5/15/2021 Robert Lindley

[icansayit]

i just saw that all 5 of my blogs are now listed as hot…--tyr


most recent blogs:


1. Hot blog new blog, why dark poetry fascinated so many famous poets.. 6/11/2021 robert lindley
2. Hot blog new blog on, ekphrasis and its spurring quest for greater imagery in verse 6/5/2021 robert lindley
3. Hot blog new blog, poetry, does its beautiful depths enter your heart? 5/29/2021 robert lindley
4. Hot blog second creation- a poet's blog - on life, love, living, death, earth and
eternity 5/19/2021 robert lindley
5. Hot blog first creation- a poet's blog - on life, love, living, death, earth and eternity
5/15/2021 robert lindley


hard work always pays off. Congrats!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Third Creation- A Poet's Blog - On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And Eternity
Blog Posted:6/19/2021 6:45:00 PM
Third Creation- A Poet's Blog - On Life, Love, Living, Death, Earth And Eternity



*****

(1.)

Ancient Trees Wept For Me, Autumn Leaves Crying



I remember when I was dead and dying

Ancient trees wept for me, Autumn leaves crying

Hey, hey, hey - I was another lost fellow

No longer cool, damn sure no longer mellow

Awake there listening to life's sad bellows!



I recall wind telling its banshees to fry

So confused I asked the spinning moon why

Hey, hey, hey - I was another lost fellow

No longer cool, damn sure no longer mellow

Awake there listening to life's sad bellows!



I remember great sorrows at Christmas time

Freezing and weeping, nowhere without a dime

Hey, hey, hey - I was another lost fellow

No longer cool, damn sure no longer mellow

Awake there listening to life's sad bellows!



I recall blues and sleeping on frozen ground

Hold a broke-heart refusing to ever pound

Hey, hey, hey - I was another lost fellow

No longer cool, damn sure no longer mellow

Awake there listening to life's sad bellows!



I remember when I was dead and dying

Ancient trees wept for me, Autumn leaves crying

Hey, hey, hey - I was another lost fellow

No longer cool, damn sure no longer mellow

Awake there listening to life's sad bellows!



Robert J. Lindley, 6-17-2021

(Life in for a penny, in for a pound)

Revised from much older piece- 1979.

*****

(2.)

Baby, Four A.M. And I Am Pleading



Baby, four A.M. and I am pleading

Will you come to me and stop this bleeding?



A hole, I feel where heart used to pump

Throat closes with that massive growing lump

Dark world weeps and then sky begins to fall

Next it comes, our flaming love I recall

In yellow moon, only your face I see

It is my birthday, I sit here moaning

Can you hear my cursing and loud moaning?



Baby, four A.M. and I am pleading

Will you come to me and stop this bleeding?



Baby, cold here- this room I am hating

Heart restless because we are not dating

I look out, bright stars are still slow falling

It is you this lost soul keeps on calling

In yellow moon only your face I see

It is my birthday, I sit here moaning

Can you hear my cursing and loud moaning?



Baby, four A.M. and I am pleading

Will you come to me and stop this bleeding?



Robert J. Lindley, 6-16-2021

Sad Romanticism,

*****

(3.)

That Night Moon Smiled, Venus Blew My Mind



That night moon smiled, Venus blew my mind

O'glory this heart you gave new love

Swept soft melodies from Heaven above

Life danced sending sweet blessings to find.



Me naked and watching in my backyard

Such splendor reminding me of you

And the hot July night we became two

Now this long separation is so hard.



Baby, send me, send me a hugging word

Fly to me, moon and I sincerely plea

May romance then reunite you and me

And we yet again become two lovebirds.



To you, I'll sail across the seven seas

Walk barefoot slowly through blazing-hot fires

Rise at dawn, write verse that true love inspires

Hear me darling, my most desperate plea.



That night moon smiled, Venus blew my mind

O'glory this heart you gave new love

Swept soft melodies from Heaven above

Life danced sending sweet blessings to find.

Robert J. Lindley,

Romanticism,

( When True Love Was Again So Deeply Sought )

*****

(4.)

Love I So Beg, Her Soft Kisses, Please I Implore



Life, sometimes I just can't take the pain anymore

I then dream about transmitting through that black door

Into another realm, where sun wakes midnight moon

Cats in the cradle without that new silver spoon.



Life, sometimes I just can't take the pain anymore

The trees are all falling, nobody knows the score

Sky weeps and the heavens make galaxies anew

Dawn returns waking me yet again without you.



Life, sometimes I just can't take the pain anymore

True love died and there is no paradise shores

Melodic voice singing from a distant dark cave

Crying out, please save me, save me if you are brave.



Life will you ever deign to show me that far shore

Open your treasure chest, give me a little more

Life, tell me will you my romantic heart restore

Love I so beg, her soft kisses, please I implore!

Robert J. Lindley,

Romanticism ( When the cold hand of lonely, tells a heart to beg )



******

(5.)

In Youth, When Life So Amplifies Our Grief



Twas not the winter of my discontent

Instead a summer of sad, epic loss

Days where aching soul was torn and rent

Dying thirst, each desert I tried to cross.



In youth, when life so amplifies our grief.

We fail and oft even our dreams are brief.



The comfortable trails I knew now gone

I struggled to cross that deep, dark abyss

Feeling horror down deep into my bones

Knowing soon evil would bequeath death's kiss.



In youth, when life so amplifies our grief.

We fail and oft even our dreams are brief.



Yes, it was a great love that had died

Its torture now, its burning red-hot flames

Weeping rivers of useless tears I cried

Her heart crushed and it is me she blames.



In youth, when life so amplifies our grief.

We fail and oft even our dreams are brief.



Twas not the winter of my discontent

Instead a summer of sad, epic loss

Days where aching soul was torn and rent

Dying thirst, each desert I tried to cross.



In youth, when life so amplifies our grief.

We fail and oft even our dreams are brief.

Robert J. Lindley,

Rhyme, ( Sights , Sound, Repeated Amplifications )

*****

(6.)

Life, I Beg No More



O'why does it hurt so

painful surging flow

I just don't know

I just can't defend it

my weakness, I can't mend it

She stays so strong

Sings her brave-cast song

Ooh, I can't defend it

Death, baby please don’t befriend it

Wish back to hell, I could send it

Ooh, I see her far ashore

Life, I beg no more

Than to not see her implore

That life loves again

And joy becomes her friend

Ooh, I want to be in it

It comes we don't know why

Diamonds tears from weeping sky

This great hurt I can't deny

O'why does it hurt so

painful surging flow

I just don't know

I just can't defend it

my weakness, I can't mend it

She stays so strong

Sings her brave-cast song

Ooh, I can't defend it

A battle we can't win it

Ooh, I see her far ashore

Life, I beg no more

Than to not see her implore

That life loves again

And joy becomes a friend

Love, I want to be in it

This battle we will win it

O'why does it hurt so

painful surging flow

I just don't know

I just can't defend it

my weakness, I can't mend it

She stays so strong

Sings her brave-cast song

Ooh, I can't defend it

Death, baby please don’t befriend it

Wish back to hell, I could send it

Ooh, I see her far ashore

Life, I beg no more

Than to not see her implore

That life loves again

And joy becomes her friend

Ooh, I want to be in it

It comes we don't know why

Diamonds tears from weeping sky

This great hurt I can't deny

O'why does it hurt so

painful surging flow

I just don't know

I just can't defend it

my weakness, I can't mend it

She stays so strong

Sings her brave-cast song

Ooh, I can't defend it

A battle we can't win it

Ooh, I see her far ashore

Life, I beg no more

Than to not see her implore

That life loves again

And joy becomes her friend

Love, I want to be in it

This battle we will win it

Robert J. Lindley, 6-16-2021
Lyrics- Inspired by a truly
magnificent famous song

Note:
A friend asked me why I do not write lyrics.
I decided to give it a shot.

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

1) "The creative adult is the child who survived." ...

2) "The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul." ...

3) "Creativity doesn't wait for that perfect moment. ...

4) "Everything you can imagine is real." ...

5) "You can't use up creativity. ...

6) "Creativity is intelligence having fun."



“Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you grow up” – Pablo Picasso



“If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced” – Vincent Van Gogh



“Have no fear of perfection, you’ll never reach it” – Salvador Dali



“Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people” – Leo Burnett



“You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club” – Jack London



“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will” – George Bernard Shaw



“Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try” – Dr. Seuss



“Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity” – Charles Mingus



“Originality is nothing but judicious imitation” – Voltaire



“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things” – Ray Bradbury



“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, the just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while” – Steve Jobs



“Creativity is a drug I cannot live without” – Cecil B. DeMille



“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not’?” – George Bernard Shaw



“Creativity is contagious, pass it on” – Albert Einstein

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog on poetic- form Haiku- Imagery, Imagination, Color And Inspiration - Robert Lindley's Blog

Blog on poetic- form Haiku- Imagery, Imagination, Color And Inspiration
Blog Posted:6/29/2021 5:48:00 AM
Blog on poetic- form Haiku-
Imagery, Imagination, Color And Inspiration

____________________________________



(1.)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/imagery

Imagery

Elements of a poem that invoke any of the five senses to create a set of mental images. Specifically, using vivid or figurative language to represent ideas, objects, or actions. Poems that use rich imagery include T.S. Eliot’s “Preludes,” Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind,” Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” and Mary Oliver’s “At Black River.”

(2.)

https://poetryarchive.org/glossary/imagery/

About Imagery

Imagery is the name given to the elements in a poem that spark off the senses. Despite "image" being a synonym for "picture", images need not be only visual; any of the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) can respond to what a poet writes. Examples of non-visual imagery can be found in Ken Smith's 'In Praise of Vodka', where he describes the drink as having "the taste of air, of wind on fields, / the wind through the long wet forest", and James Berry's 'Seashell', which puts the "ocean sighs" right in a listener's ear.



A poet could simply state, say, "I see a tree", but it is possible to conjure up much more specific images using techniques such as simile ("a tree like a spiky rocket"), metaphor ("a green cloud riding a pole") or synechdoche ("bare, black branches") - each of these suggests a different kind of tree. Techniques, such as these, that can be used to create powerful images are called figurative language, and can also include onomatopoeia, metonymy and personification.



One of the great pleasures of poetry is discovering a particularly powerful image; the Imagists of the early 20th century felt it was the most important aspect, so were devoted to finding strong images and presenting them in the clearest language possible. Of course, not every poem is an Imagist poem, but making images is something that nearly every poem in the Archive does.



An interesting contrast in imagery can be found by comparing Alison Croggon's 'The Elwood Organic Fruit and Vegetable Shop' with Allen Ginsberg's 'A Supermarket in California'; although both poets seem to like the shops they write about, Ginsberg's shop is full of hard, bright things, corralled into aisles, featuring neon, tins and freezers, while the organic shop is full of images of soft, natural things rubbing against one another in sunlight. Without it being said explicitly, the imagery makes it clear that the supermarket is big, boxy, and tidy, unlike the cosy Elwood's. This is partly done with the visual images that are drawn, and in part with Croggon's images that mix the senses (this is called synaesthesia), such as the strawberries with their "klaxons of sweetness" or the gardens with "well-groomed scents", having the way the imagery is made correspond with what the imagery shows.



Fleur Adcock's poem, 'Leaving the Tate', uses imagery of picture-making to build up the overlap between art and sight at the centre of the poem.

3.)

https://literarydevices.net/examples-of-imagery-in-poetry/

Examples of Imagery in Poetry

Imagery is one of the literary devices that engage the human senses; sight, hearing, taste, and touch. Imagery is as important as metaphor and simile and can be written without using any figurative language at all. It represents object, action, and idea which appeal our senses. Sometimes it becomes more complex than just a picture. There are five main types of imagery, each related to one of the human senses:



Visual imagery (sight)

Auditory Imagery (hearing)

Olfactory imagery (smell)

Gustatory imagery (taste)

Tactile imagery ( touch)

A writer can use single or multiple imageries in his writings. Imagery can be literal. They also allow the readers to directly sympathize with the character and narrator. Through imagery, the reader imagines a similar sensory experience. It helps to build compelling poetry, convincing narratives, clear plays, well-designed film sets, and heart touching descriptive songs. It involves imagination. Hence, writing without imagery would be dull and dry, and writing with imagery can be gripping and vibrant. The necessary sensory detail can allow the reader to understand the character and minute details of writing which a writer wants to communicate. Imagery can be symbolic, which deepens the impact of the text. For more explanation refer to this article: //literarydevices.net/figurative-language/. Here are a few examples of imagery in a poetry:

After Apple picking- Robert Frost



I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin

The rumbling sound

Of load on load of apples coming in.



These lines have powerful imagery. We can feel the swaying ladder, see the bending boughs and hear the rumbling sound of apples going in the cellar bin. These lines are literal. Every word means what it typically means. The entire poem is imagery that conveys deep feelings of contemplation and subtle remorse for things left undone to the reader.



Romeo and Juliet –W. Shakespeare

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night,

Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear



Here Romeo is comparing the beauty of Juliet. He says that she looks more radiant than brightly lit torches in the hall. Further, he says that her face glows like a precious bright jewel against the dark skin of an African in the night. Here he uses the contrasting images of light and dark to portray her beauty. The imagery also involves the use of figurative language; he uses the simile to enhance the imagery.



To Autumn – John Keats



Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.



Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep



To Autumn is rich in imagery, evoking the perception of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. The above lines are primarily visual imagery. The tactile imagery (touch) is seen in the warmth of the day, the clammy cells, the soft lifted hair.

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

The Image, The Inner Reaches Of The Mind

sandy land, windswept

oasis, wet evergreen

silent cat leapt

Robert J. Lindley, 6-29-2021

Haiku

*****

On A Glowing Bright Summer Day

bright morn, wooden fence

young colt, wide open meadow

boy, red bicycle

Robert J. Lindley, 6-26-2021

Haiku

*****

Glimmering, Shimmering And Flaming Sweet

her eyes, shining pools

her kissing lips luscious red

desert at high noon

Robert J. Lindley, 6-24-2021

Haiku

*****

Beneath Expanse, Glorious Earthen Skies

cold pavement, late night

moonlit trees, Heavenly glows

old owl, frighten mouse

Robert J. Lindley, 6-23-2021

Haiku


*****

The Season And The Old Farm

old garden, bare ground

frost on the fallen mailbox

breakfast, eggs, bacon

Robert J. Lindley, 6-21-2021

Haiku

*****

Dawn, A New Day And A Wonderful Start

table, broken spoon

breakfast on a sunny morn

coffee, hot and black

Robert J. Lindley, 6-16-2021

Haiku

*****

The Visit

white stone, sad morning

fresh mowed grass twixt the rows

bright sun, soft cool breeze

Robert J. Lindley, 6-10-2021

Haiku

*****

The Frozen Ground

crunch, crunch, icy glaze

trees, limbs weighted to the ground

crisp morn, soft new gloves

Robert J. Lindley, 6-07-2021

Haiku

*****

The Ancient Forest

dark, deep canopy

autumn colors vibrant reds

sunken stone markers

Robert J. Lindley, 6-04-2021

Haiku

*****

The Cool Clear Stream

rushing waters, smooth stones

rocky walls, bright meadow's glow

sky, reflection- hope

Robert J. Lindley, 6-01-2021

Haiku

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

Although there have been various haiku poets throughout time, we can notably refer to Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa and Masaoka Shiki for revolutionizing what we see of our modern haiku.
Famous Japanese Haiku Poets

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Tribute Blog - On The Magnificent Poet, Edgar Allan Poe
Blog Posted:7/16/2021 9:59:00 AM
A Tribute Blog - On The Magnificent Poet,

Edgar Allan Poe- a name that no credible

top ten list of history's greatest poets can omit.

One of my - recent- tribute poems - started in 1979-

finally finished on - 7/12/2021



The Bloodstone, The Raven And Master Poe

(I.)

The ancient stone, here Raven bled

Cursed and flew away alone

To follow the dark and make its night-bed

Unholy accursed path, bloody the stone

From the abyss, into light of the earth

With Fate and anger, its darkest of hands

A beast reborn - shadow of devil's worth

A repugnant new plague upon this land.



Woe! To the unsuspecting that are blind

Wading through life, unaware of the beast

A heart slayer, infester of the mind

Ravenous for innocence, its great feast

Invisible to most, a curse to few

Relentless in darkest of wicked guile

Ever seeking the cries of victims new

Witty its bold actions, patience its style.



For centuries it search to he then meet

And with the cleverness of its black wit

At his house uninvited take a seat

Torment nightly, drive insane- bit by bit

Blind to the ghastly creature was young Poe

He that life and love had been so tragic

Raven decided, put on a fine show

By showcasing its best evil magic.



First to wake its victim at midnight hour

An ungodly screech a soft tapping sound

From the walls, using its wicked powers

Then whisper, to further its victim hound

For years Poe pretended not to such hear

He was busy, with writing his great verse

No time for such nonsense, no time for fear

Deny the truth of this tiresome new curse



In so doing, shut out this bothersome beast

Pen sweeter words of love and write, write, write

Enjoy fame, his being toast of the East

Phantom ignore, that newborn curse of night

Yet to Raven, this was but the new game

Had it not, its greatest victim now found

And in glee, flew aloft screaming that name

Swearing an oath to one day have Poe bound.

(II.)

For seven years it had been wickedly clever

Doing just enough to sate its wicked desires

When begged to stop. Alas it cried, never

Not until your soul rests on the burning pyres

Yet Poe now keenly aware this was no dream

And with accursed fever, praying it to cease

Sought help from a young friend to form a team

Anything, anything to gain his release.



Raven now knew it was time to a truth real

That soon, very soon, it would make Poe cry

And with fiendish delight his true love kill

And forever all of his happiness deny

That night Poe lost it, flew into a rage

Scribing vows that few men would dare to utter

His blood was ink splashing onto each page

Gnashing teeth as each word he would mutter.



Raven too had hatched a brilliant new plan

A week he invisibly watched -showing no sign

Having realized Poe that was no ordinary man

Watching with hellish glee, as Poe scribed each line

This great battle was to be a battle of wits

Spread from night skies down to Plutonian shores

Beneath burning rocks into dark putrid pits

Two warriors set about to even the scores.



Poe rose each morn, a new fire in his steady eyes

For he could not Raven's dreaded threat forget

He must never blink- always seek to true prize

For nothing like this beast had he ever met

Raven each night, flew up from far below

With only inflicting pain on its hellish mind

That its hate was immense and each night grows

Could not see, that such would soon make it blind.



Thinking, smiling with time, time was on its side

And had not Fate to its evil demands agreed

Raven wings stretched for a victory ride

So very content to watch Poe's heart bleed

Yet Fate and Poe both decried its dark heart

Determination thus born by a man

One sure to upset Raven's applecart

Must be executed as a long range plan.



It would use Raven's immense vanity

As well rely on a couple old traps

Twist or two to test Raven's sanity

And have Raven running few hundred laps

Poe who had never depended on Fate

Was all in as it was sure to go well

Raven would discover it far too late

And wake to again find itself in Hell.



First to inform about the game, Poe's friend

A young lad most clever and truly bright

He would have to hate Poe, only pretend

And make Raven believe it that dark night

Now to get the dagger and blood-red ink

Rehearse the scene while Raven was away

Water down the whiskey Poe was to drink

And in its success each sincerely pray.



Night again came, Raven was there with glee

Raven sat with its happy evil soul

Poe's room was dark almost too dark to see

Was necessary to achieve the goal

Poe began by decrying his sad plight

The constant torment was driving him mad

Complaining this agony was not right

What had he ever done that was so bad?



Muttering how his life he would soon end

And join his beloved in that dark place

Death take me, Poe called- this poor soul send

That again I may see her pretty face

Raven watching, thought this is what I need

Poe destroyed dying in deep disgrace

Beg I true evil let me see him bleed

No other joy could ever this replace!

(III.)

There came hammer knocking on the back door

As Poe was acting out pitiful moans

Raven thought, could this be from Hell's dark shore

Another beast hearing anguishing groans

Then a sweet young voice, from a mortal man

Asking entry from his friend Master Poe

Raven mused, more fish for frying pan

Tonight shall be a most delightful show!



Poe look startled but said, "enter young lord"

I was merely rehearsing for a play

Pray tell me what news for I am bored

And this has been a truly dreadful day

Young Luke crossed the room and bowed low

Rising gave Poe the dagger as a gift

Asking, Master Poe why this strange request

And your odd message, bring it and be swift.



Poe took the weapon with a sad, sad look

In a wailing voice said- "this is my Fate"

As he did so his entire body shook

He in soft voice moaned, you are not too late

Young Luke was startled and a bit confused

Have you such sorrows as to death invite

Asking, for this you would not have used

A dear friend, to bring this sharp blade tonight!



No sooner said, than Raven cried, "no not yet"

Poe you must not, I need far more than this

Too soon, dark master and I have a bet

And next blood moon is to be your death kiss

Poe and Luke pretended to not such hear

As Luke moved and blocked Raven's view

Raven almost exploded from the fear

When Luke that loud cry gave, Raven then knew!



Alas! Raven thought such must never be

This calamity that has foiled my plan

Was never what Fate and I did agree

Not for this hideous and loathsome man

Fate, have you our agreement now went back on

Did not our sworn oath -we in hot-blood swear

And both splash our venom on the bloodstone

This, after my accursed soul I bare!



As Luke stepped back, there Poe in blood lay

That dagger to the hilt stick in his chest

Luke fell to his knees, God forgive I pray

May our brother Poe now have peaceful rest

Raven beside itself, at thus being cheated

Cursed sky, cursed even louder Fate

As Luke into far corner retreated

Raven came forward to eat from that plate.



As Raven neared, his invisible cloak fell

Approaching were Master Poe had died

And from distant hill the midnight church bell

Rang in tune with those tears Raven cried

Leaning closer to whisper in Poe's ear

Raven over dead master hovered

Saying, this fresh blood my soul now so cheers

I shall taste it and my face now smother!



With its ghastly black tongue it licked

As it got that first bloody red-ink taste

Would know it had been cleverly tricked

Poe acted swiftly, with no time to waste

The dagger plunged into Raven's chest

Raven felt its razor sharp silver blade

Poe said, I send thee to your hellish nest

And to the death that your evil hath made!



Then Raven vanished into thin air

Room suddenly lit up with golden light

A glowing angel then appeared there

Allowing Poe and Luke to see its sight

With a joyful shout it sang right on out

You shall both be truly, deeply blessed

And with deep pride walk this world all about

Raven now this failure has confessed.



Luke spoke first, saying but Raven is dead

How can it, such confession ever speak

Poe, did you hear what this angel has said

Raven can again into our world sneak

Poe addressed the angel, is this true

That foul beast can innocent souls aggrieve

Did it not receive the death it was due

Or has Fate- Luke and I now so deceived?



Angel replied, that was Raven's first death

Evil beast has six more deaths to endure

Before that savage thing takes its last breath

Earth not see it's like, of that I assure

Poe said, of this night I shall set in verse

We must ever be on guard and alert

And remember this beast is a dark curse

That lives to get revenge and mankind hurt!

Robert J. Lindley, 7-12-2021

The Bloodstone, The Raven And Master Poe

Part Three of Three



Note_

Total of three parts, composed in a total of 200

rhyming verses....This is part three- the conclusion.

A dark tale, in rhyme and with the epic struggle

between Raven and Master Poe.

Raven with yet six more lives to infest earth

and thus plague Poe and whomever it chooses.

I myself have heard the late night knocking but

but laughed it off and set mousetraps -knowing

that disbelief is a stout shield…. Admitting that

such is a reality may bring in an unwanted guest….


Copyright © Robert Lindley | Year Posted 2021

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

From The Tree Of Evil Into Earth Its Broken Bough



From the tree of evil into earth its broken bough

Power and pain such fertile seed for its black-plow

And the evil fruit consumed by all of mankind

Hunger that sets the dark into the human mind

Flies so deftly with demon spawn upon its wings

Defies logic, presented as mere stranger things

Woe to those that see not the brilliancy of Poe

Not seeing, his dark verses were not just for show!



We mortals that think we are far above it all

Walk in our blindness, hearing not such monsters call

Master Poe warns of Raven, we think it so cute

Our disbelief lies at evil tree's longest root

And repugnant plaguing shadows born from its fruit

Those that enter victim's homes to life so disrupt

Such as is that deep blindness that truth so corrupts

And may in some way bring life's end far too abrupt!



Master Poe of such a plaguing curse had to fight

He that despite his knowledge-had no peace at night

Man, a prisoner to the beast in his own home

Malevolent menace there, Raven free to roam.



From the tree of evil into earth its broken bough

Power and pain such fertile seed for its black-plow

And the evil fruit consumed by all of mankind

Hunger that sets the dark into the human mind.



Robert J. Lindley, 7-16- 2021

Rhyme, ( Wherein the seeds of evil dwells )

In quibus habitat per mala semina.

******

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edgar-Allan-Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

American writer

WRITTEN BY

Thomas Ollive Mabbott See All Contributors

Professor of English, Hunter College, City University of New York, 1946–66. Editor of Complete Works of Poe.

See Article History

Alternative Title: Edgar A. Perry

Edgar Allan Poe, (born January 19, 1809, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.—died October 7, 1849, Baltimore, Maryland), American short-story writer, poet, critic, and editor who is famous for his cultivation of mystery and the macabre. His tale “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841) initiated the modern detective story, and the atmosphere in his tales of horror is unrivaled in American fiction. His “The Raven” (1845) numbers among the best-known poems in the national literature.



TOP QUESTIONS

What are Edgar Allan Poe’s best-known works?

What influence did Edgar Allan Poe have?

How did Edgar Allan Poe die?

Life

Poe was the son of the English-born actress Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe, Jr., an actor from Baltimore. After his mother died in Richmond, Virginia, in 1811, he was taken into the home of John Allan, a Richmond merchant (presumably his godfather), and of his childless wife. He was later taken to Scotland and England (1815–20), where he was given a classical education that was continued in Richmond. For 11 months in 1826 he attended the University of Virginia, but his gambling losses at the university so incensed his guardian that he refused to let him continue, and Poe returned to Richmond to find his sweetheart, (Sarah) Elmira Royster, engaged. He went to Boston, where in 1827 he published a pamphlet of youthful Byronic poems, Tamerlane, and Other Poems. Poverty forced him to join the army under the name of Edgar A. Perry, but, on the death of Poe’s foster mother, John Allan purchased his release from the army and helped him get an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Before going, Poe published a new volume at Baltimore, Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems (1829). He successfully sought expulsion from the academy, where he was absent from all drills and classes for a week. He proceeded to New York City and brought out a volume of Poems, containing several masterpieces, some showing the influence of John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He then returned to Baltimore, where he began to write stories. In 1833 his “MS. Found in a Bottle” won $50 from a Baltimore weekly, and by 1835 he was in Richmond as editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. There he made a name as a critical reviewer and married his young cousin Virginia Clemm, who was only 13. Poe seems to have been an affectionate husband and son-in-law.



Observe science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury's remarks on Edgar Allan Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Observe science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury's remarks on Edgar Allan Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury discussing Edgar Allan Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher” in an Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation film, 1975. Bradbury compares the screenplay with the written work and discusses both the Gothic tradition and Poe's influence on contemporary science fiction.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

See all videos for this article

Poe was dismissed from his job in Richmond, apparently for drinking, and went to New York City. Drinking was in fact to be the bane of his life. To talk well in a large company he needed a slight stimulant, but a glass of sherry might start him on a spree; and, although he rarely succumbed to intoxication, he was often seen in public when he did. This gave rise to the conjecture that Poe was a drug addict, but according to medical testimony he had a brain lesion. While in New York City in 1838 he published a long prose narrative, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, combining (as so often in his tales) much factual material with the wildest fancies. It is considered one inspiration of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. In 1839 he became coeditor of Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine in Philadelphia. There a contract for a monthly feature stimulated him to write “William Wilson” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” stories of supernatural horror. The latter contains a study of a neurotic now known to have been an acquaintance of Poe, not Poe himself.



Later in 1839 Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque appeared (dated 1840). He resigned from Burton’s about June 1840 but returned in 1841 to edit its successor, Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine, in which he printed “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”—the first detective story. In 1843 his “The Gold Bug” won a prize of $100 from the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, which gave him great publicity. In 1844 he returned to New York, wrote “The Balloon Hoax” for the Sun, and became subeditor of the New York Mirror under N.P. Willis, thereafter a lifelong friend. In the New York Mirror of January 29, 1845, appeared, from advance sheets of the American Review, his most famous poem, “The Raven,” which gave him national fame at once. Poe then became editor of the Broadway Journal, a short-lived weekly, in which he republished most of his short stories, in 1845. During this last year the now-forgotten poet Frances Sargent Locke Osgood pursued Poe. Virginia did not object, but “Fanny’s” indiscreet writings about her literary love caused great scandal. His The Raven and Other Poems and a selection of his Tales came out in 1845, and in 1846 Poe moved to a cottage at Fordham (now part of New York City), where he wrote for Godey’s Lady’s Book (May–October 1846) “The Literati of New York City”—gossipy sketches on personalities of the day, which led to a libel suit.



On the other side, Poe is conspicuous for a close observation of minute details, as in the long narratives and in many of the descriptions that introduce the tales or constitute their settings. Closely connected with this is his power of ratiocination. He prided himself on his logic and carefully handled this real accomplishment so as to impress the public with his possessing still more of it than he had; hence the would-be feats of thought reading, problem unraveling, and cryptography that he attributed to his characters William Legrand and C. Auguste Dupin. This suggested to him the analytical tales, which created the detective story, and his science fiction tales.



The same duality is evinced in his art. He was capable of writing angelic or weird poetry, with a supreme sense of rhythm and word appeal, or prose of sumptuous beauty and suggestiveness, with the apparent abandon of compelling inspiration; yet he would write down a problem of morbid psychology or the outlines of an unrelenting plot in a hard and dry style. In Poe’s masterpieces the double contents of his temper, of his mind, and of his art are fused into a oneness of tone, structure, and movement, the more effective, perhaps, as it is compounded of various elements.



As a critic, Poe laid great stress upon correctness of language, metre, and structure. He formulated rules for the short story, in which he sought the ancient unities: i.e., the short story should relate a complete action and take place within one day in one place. To these unities he added that of mood or effect. He was not extreme in these views, however. He praised longer works and sometimes thought allegories and morals admirable if not crudely presented. Poe admired originality, often in work very different from his own, and was sometimes an unexpectedly generous critic of decidedly minor writers.



Poe’s genius was early recognized abroad. No one did more to persuade the world and, in the long run, the United States, of Poe’s greatness than the French poets Charles Baudelaire and Stéphane Mallarmé. Indeed his role in French literature was that of a poetic master model and guide to criticism. French Symbolism relied on his “The Philosophy of Composition,” borrowed from his imagery, and used his examples to generate the theory of pure poetry.

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

An old fragment from decades ago , untitled,

and yet to be finished…



xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

And in the dark, the huge monster feverishly waited

For the young innocent child, it had so cleverly baited

To be a delicious dish, a truly fine, magnificent meal

O' how wicked its dark and ravenous blackness must feel

Whilst this blinded world in its flowing fantasy exists

Thinking evil is made up of only men with their puny fists

Yet one poet in The House of Usher set the record straight

There from the dark beneath, far greater than man's hate

Await those so fierce most are bound in unbreakable chains

That which when free, bringeth such agonizing and great pains

So was that dark hidden world that master Poe saw and knew

The untold tales of which Poe gave to this world just a few

And in that his rightful glory burst forth like a dark flower

For we that can see, evil watches from its invisible towers

And with eagerness, and its great savagery its carnage waits

For those that are to be its victims- so cast by dark hands of Fate..

RJL, July 25th 1973

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

This new blog honoring Edgar Allan Poe , went to the --HOT-- LEVEL faster than any previous blog I have presented at my home poetry site.
Took it only a couple hours to go --HOT...
I could not be more pleased. --Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog on the very brilliant and famous Canadian poet, Bliss Carman - A Dedication…
Blog Posted:8/22/2021 9:50:00 AM
Blog on the very brilliant and famous
Canadian poet, Bliss Carman- A Dedication…


https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/bliss-carman

(1.)


Bliss Carman

1861–1929

Poet and essayist (William) Bliss Carman was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, in 1861. He earned a BA and an MA at the University of New Brunswick and studied at the University of Edinburgh and Harvard University. He settled in New Canaan, Connecticut, in 1909.



Carman’s metered, formal verse explores natural and spiritual themes. He is the author of more than 50 volumes of poetry, including Low Tide on Grand Pré (1893), Over the Wintry Threshold (1913), and Later Poems (1926), as well as four essay collections, including Talks on Poetry and Life (1926). With Lorne Pierce, he edited the anthology Our Canadian Literature: Representative Verse, English, and French (1922). Pierce also edited The Selected Poems of Bliss Carman (1954) and he is the subject of the biography Bliss Carman: Quest and Revolt (1985), by Muriel Miller.



Carman’s honors included membership in the Royal Society of Canada. Carman is buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Fredericton. The Stanford University Archives holds a selection of his papers.


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



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_Carman



Bliss Carman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Bliss Carman

FRSC

Photo by Pirie MacDonald

Photo by Pirie MacDonald

Born William Bliss Carman

April 15, 1861

Fredericton, New Brunswick

Died June 8, 1929 (aged 68)

New Canaan, Connecticut

Resting place Fredericton, New Brunswick

Occupation poet

Language English

Nationality Canadian

Citizenship British subject

Education University of New Brunswick; University of Edinburgh; Harvard University

Genre Poetry

Literary movement Confederation Poets, The Song Fishermen

Notable works Low Tide on Grand Pré,

Songs from Vagabondia,

Sappho: 100 Lyrics

Notable awards Lorne Pierce Medal (1928)

Robert Frost Medal (1930)

FRSC

William Bliss Carman FRSC (April 15, 1861 – June 8, 1929) was a Canadian poet who lived most of his life in the United States, where he achieved international fame. He was acclaimed as Canada's poet laureate[1] during his later years.[2][3]



In Canada, Carman is classed as one of the Confederation Poets, a group which also included Charles G.D. Roberts (his cousin), Archibald Lampman, and Duncan Campbell Scott.[4] "Of the group, Carman had the surest lyric touch and achieved the widest international recognition. But unlike others, he never attempted to secure his income by novel writing, popular journalism, or non-literary employment. He remained a poet, supplementing his art with critical commentaries on literary ideas, philosophy, and aesthetics."[5]



Life

He was born William Bliss Carman in Fredericton, New Brunswick. "Bliss" was his mother's maiden name. He was the great grandson[6] of United Empire Loyalists who fled to Nova Scotia after the American Revolution, settling in New Brunswick (then part of Nova Scotia).[7] His literary roots run deep with an ancestry that includes a mother who was a descendant of Daniel Bliss of Concord, Massachusetts, the great-grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson. His sister, Jean, married the botanist and historian William Francis Ganong. And on his mother's side he was a first cousin to Charles (later Sir Charles) G. D. Roberts.[3]



Education and early career

Carman was educated at the Fredericton Collegiate School and the University of New Brunswick (UNB), from which he received a B.A. in 1881. At the Collegiate School he came under the influence of headmaster George Robert Parkin, who gave him a love of classical literature[8] and introduced him to the poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne.[9] His first published poem was in the UNB Monthly in 1879. He then spent a year at Oxford and the University of Edinburgh (1882–1883), but returned home to receive his M.A. from UNB in 1884.[10]



After the death of his father in January 1885 and his mother in February 1886,[10] Carman enrolled in Harvard University (1886–1887).[7] At Harvard he moved in a literary circle that included American poet Richard Hovey, who would become his close friend and his collaborator on the successful Vagabondia poetry series.[11] Carman and Hovey were members of the "Visionists" circle along with Herbert Copeland and F. Holland Day, who would later form the Boston publishing firm Copeland & Day that would launch Vagabondia.[3]



After Harvard Carman briefly returned to Canada, but was back in Boston by February 1890. "Boston is one of the few places where my critical education and tastes could be of any use to me in earning money," he wrote. "New York and London are about the only other places."[5] Unable to find employment in Boston, he moved to New York City and became literary editor of the New York Independent at the grand sum of $20/week.[5] There he could help his Canadian friends get published, in the process "introducing Canadian poets to its readers."[12] However, Carman was never a good fit at the semi-religious weekly, and he was summarily dismissed in 1892. "Brief stints would follow with Current Literature, Cosmopolitan, The Chap-Book, and The Atlantic Monthly, but after 1895 he would be strictly a contributor to the magazines and newspapers, never an editor in any department."[3]



To make matters worse, Carman's first book of poetry, 1893's Low Tide on Grand Pré, was not a success; no Canadian company would publish it, and the U.S. edition stiffed when its publisher went bankrupt.[5]



Literary success

At this low point, Songs of Vagabondia, the first Hovey-Carman collaboration, was published by Copeland & Day in 1894. It was an immediate success. "No one could have been more surprised at the tremendous popularity of these care-free celebrations (the first of the three collections went through seven rapid editions) than the young authors, Richard Hovey and Bliss Carman."[13] Songs of Vagabondia would ultimately "go through sixteen printings (ranging from 500 to 1000 copies) over the next thirty years. The three Vagabondia volumes that followed fell slightly short of that record, but each went through numerous printings. Carman and Hovey quickly found themselves with a cult following, especially among college students, who responded to the poetry's anti-materialistic themes, its celebration of individual freedom, and its glorification of comradeship."[3]



The success of Songs of Vagabondia prompted another Boston firm, Stone & Kimball, to reissue Low Tide... and to hire Carman as the editor of its literary journal, The Chapbook. The next year, though, the editor's job went West (with Stone & Kimball) to Chicago, while Carman opted to remain in Boston.[5]



"In Boston in 1895, he worked on a new poetry book, Behind the Arras, which he placed with a prominent Boston publisher (Lamson, Wolffe).... He published two more books of verse with Lamson, Wolffe."[5] He also began writing a weekly column for the Boston Evening Transcript, which ran from 1895 to 1900.[7]



In 1896 Carman met Mary Perry King, who became the greatest and longest-lasting female influence in his life. Mrs. King became his patron: "She put pence in his purse, and food in his mouth, when he struck bottom and, what is more, she often put a song on his lips when he despaired, and helped him sell it." According to Carman's roommate, Mitchell Kennerley, "On rare occasions they had intimate relations at 10 E. 16 which they always advised me of by leaving a bunch of violets — Mary Perry's favorite flower — on the pillow of my bed."[14] If he knew of the latter, Dr. King did not object: "He even supported her involvement in the career of Bliss Carman to the extent that the situation developed into something close to a ménage à trois" with the Kings.[3]



Through Mrs. King's influence Carman became an advocate of 'unitrinianism,' a philosophy which "drew on the theories of François-Alexandre-Nicolas-Chéri Delsarte to develop a strategy of mind-body-spirit harmonization aimed at undoing the physical, psychological, and spiritual damage caused by urban modernity."[7] This shared belief created a bond between Mrs. King and Carman but estranged him somewhat from his former friends.[citation needed]



In 1899 Lamson, Wolffe was taken over by the Boston firm of Small, Maynard & Co., who had also acquired the rights to Low Tide... "The rights to all Carman's books were now held by one publisher and, in lieu of earnings, Carman took a financial stake in the company. When Small, Maynard failed in 1903, Carman lost all his assets."[5]



Down but not out, Carman signed with another Boston company, L.C. Page, and began to churn out new work. Page published seven books of new Carman poetry between 1902 and 1905. As well, the firm released three books based on Carman's Transcript columns, and a prose work on unitrinianism, The Making of Personality, that he'd written with Mrs. King.[12] "Page also helped Carman rescue his 'dream project,' a deluxe edition of his collected poetry to 1903.... Page acquired distribution rights with the stipulation that the book be sold privately, by subscription. The project failed; Carman was deeply disappointed and became disenchanted with Page, whose grip on Carman's copyrights would prevent the publication of another collected edition during Carman's lifetime."[5]



Carman also picked up some needed cash in 1904 as editor-in-chief of the 10-volume project, The World's Best Poetry.[7]



Later years



Bliss Carman Memorial, Forest Hill Cemetery, Fredericton NB

After 1908 Carman lived near the Kings' New Canaan, Connecticut, estate, "Sunshine", or in the summer in a cabin near their summer home in the Catskills, "Moonshine."[3] Between 1908 and 1920, literary taste began to shift, and his fortunes and health declined.[5]



"Although not a political activist, Carman during the First World War was a member of the Vigilantes, who supported American entry into the conflict on the Allied side."[15]



By 1920, Carman was impoverished and recovering from a near-fatal attack of tuberculosis.[15] That year he revisited Canada and "began the first of a series of successful and relatively lucrative reading tours, discovering 'there is nothing worth talking of in book sales compared with reading.'"[5] "'Breathless attention, crowded halls, and a strange, profound enthusiasm such as I never guessed could be,' he reported to a friend. 'And good thrifty money too. Think of it! An entirely new life for me, and I am the most surprised person in Canada.'" Carman was feted at "a dinner held by the newly formed Canadian Authors' Association at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Montreal on 28 October 1921 where he was crowned Canada's Poet Laureate with a wreath of maple leaves."[3]



The tours of Canada continued, and by 1925 Carman had finally acquired a Canadian publisher. "McClelland & Stewart (Toronto) issued a collection of selected earlier verses and became his main publisher. They benefited from Carman's popularity and his revered position in Canadian literature, but no one could convince L.C. Page to relinquish its copyrights. An edition of collected poetry was published only after Carman's death, due greatly to the persistence of his literary executor, Lorne Pierce."[5]



During the 1920s, Carman was a member of the Halifax literary and social set, The Song Fishermen. In 1927 he edited The Oxford Book of American Verse.[16]



Carman died of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 68 in New Canaan, and was cremated in New Canaan. "It took two months, and the influence of New Brunswick's Premier J.B.M. Baxter and Canadian Prime Minister W.L.M. King, for Carman's ashes to be returned to Fredericton."[10] "His ashes were buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, Fredericton, and a national memorial service was held at the Anglican cathedral there." Twenty-five years later, on May 13, 1954, a scarlet maple tree was planted at his gravesite, to grant his request in his 1892 poem "The Grave-Tree":[7]



Let me have a scarlet maple

For the grave-tree at my head,

With the quiet sun behind it,

In the years when I am dead.

Writing

Low Tide on Grand Pré

As a student at Harvard, Carman "was heavily influenced by Royce, whose spiritualistic idealism, combined with the transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson, lies centrally in the background of his first major poem, "Low Tide on Grand Pré" written in the summer and winter of 1886."[7] "Low Tide..." was published in the Spring, 1887 Atlantic Monthly, giving Carman a literary reputation while still at Harvard.[5] It was also included in the 1889 anthology, Songs of the Great Dominion.



Literary critic Desmond Pacey considered "Low Tide..." to be "the most nearly perfect single poem to come out of Canada. It will withstand any amount of critical scrutiny."[17]



"Low Tide..." served as the title poem for Carman's first book. "The poems in this volume have been collected with reference to their similarity of tone," Carman wrote in his preface; a nostalgic tone of pervading loss and melancholy. Three outstanding examples are "The Eavesdropper," "In Apple Time" and "Wayfaring." However, "none can equal the artistry of the title poem. What is more, although Carman would publish over thirty other volumes during his lifetime, none of them contains anything that surpasses this poem he wrote when he was barely twenty-five years old."[3]



Vagabondia

Carman rose to prominence in the 1890s, a decade the poetry of which anthologist Louis Untermeyer has called marked by "a cheerless evasion, a humorous unconcern; its most representative craftsmen were, with four exceptions, the writers of light verse." The first two of those four exceptions were Richard Hovey and Bliss Carman. For Untermeyer: "The poetry of this period ... is dead because it detached itself from the world.... But ... Rev……………………..

……………….>>>>>

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

My three, Bliss Carman- dedication poems.

I composed first two last week and the third

poem, very early this morn.

(1.)



New Dawn, Blessed Gems With Love So Gifted



From morning glow, into soft basking day,

Sacred the time, in life and love we pray,

We converse, we laugh, and hope we embrace-

Fallen man, rectified by God's pure grace.



For divine light that gifts its tender glows,

Healing us from our pains, sorrows and woes,

Upon earth and we mortals so in need

Of saving balm as in darkness we bleed.



Evidenced by Nature's constant gifts

Words heavenly sent that our souls uplift

We so blessed, can thank our living God

As upon this our earth, we daily trod.



Robert J. Lindley, 8-21-2021

Cumque esset mane, meridiem haec anima et haec leniter demulcens blanditiis

*********

(2.)



Beauty Of Sunset And A Life With Love



Behold! Dawn with its ravishing beauty

Life must be more than a slavish duty

From golden shores unto whispering hills

Let love enter, until treasures it spills

Understand precious touch of womankind

For upon earth - that is the gold we find.



Accept all we have and our daily bread

With love's bounty one is truly well fed

Wake unto morning's new resplendent calls

One is blessed without great golden walls.



Walk with Nature unto its forest crown

Flee a spell away from idle town

See and feel the wonders of God's own hands

As life's beauty gifts its most wondrous strands.



Robert J. Lindley, 8-21-2021

In medio annorum vivifica me dulcis rufus occasum

********

(3.)



Love Exists As Notes From A Warbler's Throat



Love exists as notes from a warbler's throat

On life's fleeting winds truth so gaily floats

Over mountains steep and sweet meadows below

Bringing along heart's beauty in its tow

Salvation comes with prayer's truest breath

Conquering woes and even mortal death.



Earth has awaken since first dawning of Man.

Grinning, dancing, spinning- as only it can.



Life and Nature need not fight as they do

Certain harmony is long overdue

Love cries out life must find a better way

Than sad darkness, with its shadowy grays.



Earth has awaken since first dawning of Man.

Grinning, dancing, spinning- as only it can.



Love exists as notes from a warbler's throat

On life's fleeting winds truth so gaily floats

Over mountains steep and sweet meadows below

Bringing along heart's beauty in its tow.



Robert J. Lindley, 8-22-2021

May poetica amoris et verum in aeternum nuptui

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Creativity (Is The Lifeblood of The Poet)- Trinity From Newfound Bliss, A Dream-Night's Sequence- Honoring Byron, Shelley And Keats
Blog Posted:8/26/2021 9:41:00 AM
Creativity (Is The Lifeblood of The Poet)-

Trinity From Newfound Bliss, A Dream-Night's Sequence-
Honoring Byron, Shelley And Keats



Poem One

Bestowed, Beauty And Bounty Of Moon's Heavenly Breath



Light of pallid moon and swashing oceans

Earth's natural beauty, spinning motion

Awaiting dawn's sweet new call, its soft glee

Truth of universe's eternal decree,

Golden orb, where romantic dreams are born

So oft fleeing from dark world sad and torn

Lovers' sight given unto those in need

Blessed bounty of divinely sent seed ….

Chalice of hope, love elixir of life

Sweet gems, gifted new world with less strife

So often found 'neath gleams of soft moonlight

Bountiful and within Heavenly sight

Love and joy, wherein true romance resides

There above, our moon that so softly glides

Sky light born of God's divine breath and fire

Treasured relief from world's constant ire.



Robert J. Lindley

Romanticism

*********

Poem Two


Morn's Rays Reaffirming I Am Not Blind



I will not kneel and fall as a lost slave

My bloodline is from heritage of the brave

My soul, its depths are so truly heart born

Tho', I have endured meritless scorn

I do not dare to cringe, instead I rise

Seeing truth, life through a humble poet's eyes!



Those dark times, I walked valleys of doubt

I rose from abyss with victory shouts

Reborn a warrior and a stronger man

Of retreating I have never been a fan

I seek divine light, in this soul it floods

This vessel a mixture of many bloods!



New dawn, waking to romantic love find

Morn's rays reaffirming I am not blind

Joy as sun its golden harvests beams down

Blessed to live in these hills just out of town

Mercy and sweet blessings in my old age

Now freed from darkness and my youthful rage!



I will not kneel and fall as a lost slave

My bloodline is from heritage of the brave

Those dark times, I walked valleys of doubt

I rose from abyss with victory shouts

New dawn, waking to romantic love find

Morn's rays reaffirming I am not blind!



Robert J. Lindley

Romanticism



********



Poem Three

Under Red Sunset, Walking On White Beach Sands


Day's ending, reality time does fly

Romance searching as I ask life not why

With coming of full moon's radiant glow

Love's deep pleasures failed to ever show

And sad loneliness raced forth instead

Life to feel so empty, as is my bed

But my beautiful love is before you

Came to sate hot appetites of we two!



Under red sunset, walking on white beach sands

We in fervor -found out where new love stands

Above mountaintops, in heavenly spheres

Dancing out loud and devoid of life's fears

Ecstasy and promise of bedroom nights

Windows letting in sky's golden moonlight

And night recording our sensual moans

Long before videos on new cell phones!



Brother moon, you that urges wolf's loud calls

Shining down, as into love sweethearts fall

Heating hearts to loving memories make

Sweetest desserts to let love's hot fires bake

In new formed ovens, love's tender heat

Tapping in time with united heartbeats

Under your guide, golden moonbeams teach

Love's high plateau, we together may reach!



Robert J. Lindley

Romanticism

______________________

(1.)

English poets such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake, and Lord Byron produced work that expressed spontaneous feelings, found parallels to their own emotional lives in the natural world, and celebrated creativity rather than logic.

***

Romantic poetry

Romantic poetry is the poetry of the Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. It involved a reaction against prevailing Enlightenment ideas of the 18th century, and lasted approximately from 1800 to 1850. Wikipedia

***

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/romanticism#:~:text=English%20poets%20such%20as%20 William,celebrated%20creativity%20rather%20than%20 logic.

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(2.)

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-romantics

The Romantics

Theme: Romanticism

Published:

15 May 2014

Dr Stephanie Forward explains the key ideas and influences of Romanticism, and considers their place in the work of writers including Wordsworth, Blake, P B Shelley and Keats.

Today the word ‘romantic’ evokes images of love and sentimentality, but the term ‘Romanticism’ has a much wider meaning. It covers a range of developments in art, literature, music and philosophy, spanning the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The ‘Romantics’ would not have used the term themselves: the label was applied retrospectively, from around the middle of the 19th century.

In 1762 Jean-Jacques Rousseau declared in The Social Contract: ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ During the Romantic period major transitions took place in society, as dissatisfied intellectuals and artists challenged the Establishment. In England, the Romantic poets were at the very heart of this movement. They were inspired by a desire for liberty, and they denounced the exploitation of the poor. There was an emphasis on the importance of the individual; a conviction that people should follow ideals rather than imposed conventions and rules. The Romantics renounced the rationalism and order associated with the preceding Enlightenment era, stressing the importance of expressing authentic personal feelings. They had a real sense of responsibility to their fellow men: they felt it was their duty to use their poetry to inform and inspire others, and to change society.



Revolution

When reference is made to Romantic verse, the poets who generally spring to mind are William Blake (1757-1827), William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), George Gordon, 6th Lord Byron (1788-1824), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) and John Keats (1795-1821). These writers had an intuitive feeling that they were ‘chosen’ to guide others through the tempestuous period of change.

This was a time of physical confrontation; of violent rebellion in parts of Europe and the New World. Conscious of anarchy across the English Channel, the British government feared similar outbreaks. The early Romantic poets tended to be supporters of the French Revolution, hoping that it would bring about political change; however, the bloody Reign of Terror shocked them profoundly and affected their views. In his youth William Wordsworth was drawn to the Republican cause in France, until he gradually became disenchanted with the Revolutionaries.

The imagination

The Romantics were not in agreement about everything they said and did: far from it! Nevertheless, certain key ideas dominated their writings. They genuinely thought that they were prophetic figures who could interpret reality. The Romantics highlighted the healing power of the imagination, because they truly believed that it could enable people to transcend their troubles and their circumstances. Their creative talents could illuminate and transform the world into a coherent vision, to regenerate mankind spiritually. In A Defence of Poetry (1821), Shelley elevated the status of poets: ‘They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit…’.[1] He declared that ‘Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world’. This might sound somewhat pretentious, but it serves to convey the faith the Romantics had in their poetry.

Manuscript of P B Shelley's 'The Masque of Anarchy'

Sheet of paper containing the handwritten draft of P B Shelley's 'The Masque of Anarchy', and a faint pencil sketch of a tree

P B Shelley’s manuscript of ‘The Masque of Anarchy’, 1819, was a reaction of furious outrage at the Peterloo Massacre. An avowedly political poem, it praises the non-violence of the Manchester protesters when faced with the aggression of the state.

Usage terms Public Domain

The marginalised and oppressed

Wordsworth was concerned about the elitism of earlier poets, whose highbrow language and subject matter were neither readily accessible nor particularly relevant to ordinary people. He maintained that poetry should be democratic; that it should be composed in ‘the language really spoken by men’ (Preface to Lyrical Ballads [1802]). For this reason, he tried to give a voice to those who tended to be marginalised and oppressed by society: the rural poor; discharged soldiers; ‘fallen’ women; the insane; and children.

Blake was radical in his political views, frequently addressing social issues in his poems and expressing his concerns about the monarchy and the church. His poem ‘London’ draws attention to the suffering of chimney-sweeps, soldiers and prostitutes.



Lyrical Ballads: 1800 edition

Page from the preface to Lyrical Ballads

In the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth writes that he has ‘taken as much pains to avoid [poetic diction] as others ordinarily take to produce it’, trying instead to ‘bring [his] language near to the language of men’.

Usage terms Public Domain

William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Decorated page containing the poem 'London' with illustration of a child leading an elderly man through a street, from William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience

‘London’ from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, 1794. Blake emphasises the injustice of late 18th-century society and the desperation of the poor.

Usage terms Public Domain

Children, nature and the sublime

For the world to be regenerated, the Romantics said that it was necessary to start all over again with a childlike perspective. They believed that children were special because they were innocent and uncorrupted, enjoying a precious affinity with nature. Romantic verse was suffused with reverence for the natural world. In Coleridge’s ‘Frost at Midnight’ (1798) the poet hailed nature as the ‘Great universal Teacher!’ Recalling his unhappy times at Christ’s Hospital School in London, he explained his aspirations for his son, Hartley, who would have the freedom to enjoy his childhood and appreciate his surroundings. The Romantics were inspired by the environment, and encouraged people to venture into new territories – both literally and metaphorically. In their writings they made the world seem a place with infinite, unlimited potential.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Walking Tour of Cumbria

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Walking Tour of Cumbria [folio: 3v-4r]

In August 1802, Samuel Taylor Coleridge set out from his home at Greta Hall, Keswick, for a week’s solo walking-tour in the nearby Cumbrian mountains. He kept detailed notes of the landscape around him, drawing rough sketches and maps. These notes and sketches are in Notebook No 2, one of 64 notebooks Coleridge kept between 1794 and his death.

Usage terms Public Domain

A key idea in Romantic poetry is the concept of the sublime. This term conveys the feelings people experience when they see awesome landscapes, or find themselves in extreme situations which elicit both fear and admiration. For example, Shelley described his reaction to stunning, overwhelming scenery in the poem ‘Mont Blanc’ (1816).

Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful [page: title page]

In this 1757 essay, the philosopher Edmund Burke discusses the attraction of the immense, the terrible and the uncontrollable. The work had a profound influence on the Romantic poets.

Usage terms Public Domain

The second-generation Romantics

Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge were first-generation Romantics, writing against a backdrop of war. Wordsworth, however, became increasingly conservative in his outlook: indeed, second-generation Romantics, such as Byron, Shelley and Keats, felt that he had ‘sold out’ to the Establishment. In the suppressed Dedication to Don Juan (1819-1824) Byron criticised the Poet Laureate, Robert Southey, and the other ‘Lakers’, Wordsworth and Coleridge (all three lived in the Lake District). Byron also vented his spleen on the English Foreign Secretary, Viscount Castlereagh, denouncing him as an ‘intellectual eunuch’, a ‘bungler’ and a ‘tinkering slavemaker’ (stanzas 11 and 14). Although the Romantics stressed the importance of the individual, they also advocated a commitment to mankind. Byron became actively involved in the struggles for Italian nationalism and the liberation of Greece from Ottoman rule.

Notorious for his sexual exploits, and dogged by debt and scandal, Byron quitted Britain in 1816. Lady Caroline Lamb famously declared that he was ‘Mad, bad and dangerous to know.’ Similar accusations were pointed at Shelley. Nicknamed ‘Mad Shelley’ at Eton, he was sent down from Oxford for advocating atheism. He antagonised the Establishment further by his criticism of the monarchy, and by his immoral lifestyle.

Letter from Lord Byron about his memoirs, 29 October 1819

Letter from Lord Byron about his memoirs, 1819

In this letter to his publisher, John Murray, Byron notes the poor reception of the first two cantos of Don Juan, but states that he has written a hundred stanzas of a third canto. He also states that he is leaving his memoirs to his friend George Moore, to be read after his death, but that this text does not include details of his love affairs.

Usage terms Public Domain

Female poets

Female poets also contributed to the Romantic movement, but their strategies tended to be more subtle and less controversial. Although Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855) was modest about her writing abilities, she produced poems of her own; and her journals and travel narratives certainly provided inspiration for her brother. Women were generally limited in their prospects, and many found themselves confined to the domestic sphere; nevertheless, they did manage to express or intimate their concerns. For example, Mary Alcock (c. 1742-1798) penned ‘The Chimney Sweeper’s Complaint’. In ‘The Birth-Day’, Mary Robinson (1758-1800) highlighted the enormous discrepancy between life for the rich and the poor. Gender issues were foregrounded in ‘Indian Woman’s Death Song’ by Felicia Hemans (1793-1835).

The Gothic

Reaction against the Enlightenment was reflected in the rise of the Gothic novel. The most popular and well-paid 18th-century novelist, Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), specialised in ‘the hobgoblin-romance’. Her fiction held particular appeal for frustrated middle-class women who experienced a vicarious frisson of excitement when they read about heroines venturing into awe-inspiring landscapes. She was dubbed ‘Mother Radcliffe’ by Keats, because she had such an influence on Romantic poets. The Gothic genre contributed to Coleridge’s Christabel (1816) and Keats’s ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ (1819). Mary Shelley (1797-1851) blended realist, Gothic and Romantic elements to produce her masterpiece Frankenstein (1818), in which a number of Romantic aspects can be identified. She quotes from Coleridge’s Romantic poem The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere. In the third chapter Frankenstein refers to his scientific endeavours being driven by his imagination. The book raises worrying questions about the possibility of ‘regenerating’ mankind; but at several points the world of nature provides inspiration and solace.

******

https://poets.org/text/brief-guide-romanticism

A Brief Guide to Romanticism

"In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs, in spite of things silently gone out of mind and things violently destroyed, the Poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time. The objects of the Poet's thoughts are everywhere; though the eyes and senses of man are, it is true, his favorite guides, yet he will follow wheresoever he can find an atmosphere of sensation in which to move his wings. Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge—it is as immortal as the heart of man."

—William Wordsworth, "Preface to Lyrical Ballads"

Romanticism was arguably the largest artistic movement of the late 1700s. Its influence was felt across continents and through every artistic discipline into the mid-nineteenth century, and many of its values and beliefs can still be seen in contemporary poetry.

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact start of the romantic movement, as its beginnings can be traced to many events of the time: a surge of interest in folklore in the early to mid-nineteenth century with the work of the brothers Grimm, reactions against neoclassicism and the Augustan poets in England, and political events and uprisings that fostered nationalistic pride.

Romantic poets cultivated individualism, reverence for the natural world, idealism, physical and emotional passion, and an interest in the mystic and supernatural. Romantics set themselves in opposition to the order and rationality of classical and neoclassical artistic precepts to embrace freedom and revolution in their art and politics. German romantic poets included Fredrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and British poets such as Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, George Gordon Lord Byron, and John Keats propelled the English romantic movement. Victor Hugo was a noted French romantic poet as well, and romanticism crossed the Atlantic through the work of American poets like Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe. The romantic era produced many of the stereotypes of poets and poetry that exist to this day (i.e., the poet as a tortured and melancholy visionary).

Romantic ideals never died out in poetry, but were largely absorbed into the precepts of many other movements. Traces of romanticism lived on in French symbolism and surrealism and in the work of prominent poets such as Charles Baudelaire and Rainer Maria Rilke.

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"Creativity, Romanticism - Life, Love, Inspiration, Depth, Heart And Beauty

To many are indeed the majority aspects qualities building blocks of the

foundation of poetry…..In that ocean, one must swim or sink.

Creativity is listed first, as poetry cannot exist without it, imho." RJL



This blog was started back in early November of 2020. I got then very

sick and put the blog on a back burner--now that I have had a few days

to compete it and post it here. I bite the bullet and burned midnight oil

to get it completed…

My first two poems for this new blog were composed back then,

while the third and final poem composed as a tribute was created

this week..

********

"Poetic beauty is born from heart and soul. Its depths sweet sunshine,

romance sets world aglow and on its desserts we are blessed to dine" .. RJL



"Poeticus decor oritur ex corde et anima. Intus suavis sunshine,

suis romance sets orbem terrarum super solitum ardens et demerita ad nos beati dine" ..RJL

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Creativity (Is The Lifeblood of The Poet)- Trinity From Newfound Bliss, A Dream-Night's Sequence- Honoring Byron, Shelly And Keats
Blog Posted:8/26/2021 9:41:00 AM
Creativity (Is The Lifeblood of The Poet)-

Blog went -- HOT -- in less than 4 hours...--Tyr

[LongTermGuy]

Blog went -- HOT -- in less than 4 hours...--Tyr


https://www.poetrysoup.com/poetry/blogs/blog_detail.aspx?BlogID=37114&PoetID=51137 :beer:

[icansayit]

How much more rewarding can it be to have such a talented POET so close?

Congrats Robert (TYR). Well done.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

How much more rewarding can it be to have such a talented POET so close?

Congrats Robert (TYR). Well done.

Thank you my friend. :beer: :beer: :saluting2:
But reality is that fewer and fewer Americans are liking and understanding enough to appreciate poetry.
And that is from the deep decay within the American education system.
Especially so, in its liberal reduction in the teachings of Literature, etc..
With the sad added reality that modern poetry has been deliberately morphed into a lesser state by the so-called progressives /critics that simply abhor the classical, golden poets of old- because they can not touch the level those famous men and women created/wrote at......
Yet another example wherein liberalism destroyed what it could never hope to match or excel at...--Tyr

[icansayit]

Thank you my friend. :beer: :beer: :saluting2:
But reality is that fewer and fewer Americans are liking and understanding enough to appreciate poetry.
And that is from the deep decay within the American education system.
Especially so, in its liberal reduction in the teachings of Literature, etc..
With the sad added reality that modern poetry has been deliberately morphed into a lesser state by the so-called progressives /critics that simply abhor the classical, golden poets of old- because they can not touch the level those famous men and women created/wrote at......
Yet another example wherein liberalism destroyed what it could never hope to match or excel at...--Tyr

The mentality of decay in the entire World today is caused by poor education, which comes from poor Personal Responsibility that has been avoided in order to maintain the INSTANT GRATIFICATION of the UN-EDUCATED, EASILY-LED, FOLLOWERS of the EASIEST PATH TO "SELF-GRATIFICATION".
I can foresee YOU writing a poem that explains it more than I can. Great Luck. Jim

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog- To never give up. To "create" new, a short series of poems
Blog Posted:9/12/2021 9:08:00 AM
Blog- To not give up. To create new, A series of poems



Tragic, When Innocence Was Lost And Love Fled

(Youth, Dreams And Reality Series) number 1.


Like lake June swans once so were she and I

Passionate romance money cannot buy

Coupled and in heart's fervor we stood

Giving into our fever all we could

She the flighted arrow, I the strong bow

In our innocent youth fearing no blows

Living love's bounty, dreaming wondrous dreams

In sweet blindness, not seeing world's black schemes.



O' deepest sorrows why were you thus cast

Allowing joy to fade away so fast

Had we not with truest hearts in love fled

Together, spirit and soul therein wed

Watching beauty of night's heavenly skies

World's evils we gave no thought or replies

Living love's bounty, dreaming wondrous dreams

In sweet blindness, not seeing world's black schemes.



How I now so grieve that ill-fated day

In my epic misery bow to pray

For sweet mercy and yet another shot

To live forever in our moonlit spot

Swearing to always refuse any goodbye

Such dark reality firmly deny

Living love's bounty, dreaming wondrous dreams

In sweet blindness, not seeing world's black schemes.



Like lake June swans once so were she and I

Passionate romance money cannot buy

Coupled and in heart's fervor we stood

Giving into our fever all we could

She the flighted arrow, I the strong bow

In our innocent youth fearing no blows

Living love's bounty, dreaming wondrous dreams

In sweet blindness, not seeing world's black schemes.



Robert J. Lindley, 9-12-2021

Romanticism,

( What Once Was, And Can Never Be Again )


Note-

"Such sorrows of youth and the innocence that was our shield."

"Talibus aerumnas iuvenum et innocens clypei"



**********



Blog- To not give up. To create new,

A series of poems. number 2



Tragic, When Innocence Was Lost And Love Fled

(Youth, Dreams And Reality Series) number 2



Beauty waltzed in on my diamond dreams

While I a young lad wading rushing streams

There bright roses and lush gardens in bloom

Bringing me back from the darkness and gloom

How oft we wonder why happiness flees

Despite our prayers, our sincerest pleas

Yet tomorrow always comes, life moves on

Where we find beauty in a simple stone.



I wake from dreams and eager dawn I beg

Give me back love and my young dancing legs

For in this tired ole spirit hope still shines

I see Nature's beauty smell scented pines

Walk the ancient trails and rest a bit

Thank God my bloodline gives me heart and grit

Oft I wonder who now walks these old shoes

As lonely builds its walls and sings its blues.



Sun sets a glowing red, life welcomes soft night

Such a soulful peace allows no dark fright

In youth I found that time was not a friend

For took away joy as happy days end

And some nights radiant moon its rays hid

Reminding, fairy tales are just for kids

In those somber thoughts, her dear face appears

And then in waiting heart love romance sears.



Beauty waltzed in on my diamond dreams

While I a young lad wading rushing streams

There bright roses and lush gardens in bloom

Bringing me back from the darkness and gloom

How oft we wonder why happiness flees

Despite our prayers, our sincerest pleas

Yet tomorrow always comes, life moves on

Where we find beauty in a simple stone.



Robert J. Lindley, 9-12-2021

Romanticism,

( What Once Was, And Can Never Be Again )



Note-
"I that hold hope as a long lost friend. Await its gifts"…

"I. Qui spem tam diu perditam teneo amici. Exspecta eius dona."



**********



https://theconversation.com/poetry-has-a-power-to-inspire-change-like-no-other-art-form-99722



Poetry has a power to inspire change like no other art form

October 2, 2018 6.26am EDT

Author

Kate North

Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, Cardiff Metropolitan University



Disclosure statement

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Culturally, poetry is used in varied ways. Haikus, for example, juxtapose images of the everyday, while lyric poetry expresses the personal and emotional. Similarly, poets themselves come in a range of guises. Think of the Romantic poet engaging with the sublime, the penniless artist in their garret, the high-brow don, the bard, the soldier on the frontline, the spoken word performer, the National Poet, the Poet Laureate or the Makar.



As an educator I sometimes encounter a fear of poetry in new students who have previously been put off by former teachers. Such teachers are, perhaps, intimidated by verse themselves, presenting it as a kind of algebra with an answer to be uncovered through some obscure metric code. This fear disperses, however, when students are given the confidence to interpret and engage with poetry on their own terms.



In creative writing classes we often talk about students needing to “find their own voice” and the best poems I read are written in the writers’ own particular voice, rather than in some inhabited “poetic” register. This is because poetry, for the writer and the reader, is about relevance.



Poetry is as relevant now as ever, whether you are a regular reader of it or not. Though chances are, at some point in your life, you will reach out to poetry. People look to poems, most often, at times of change. These can be happy or sad times, like birthdays, funerals or weddings. Poetry can provide clear expression of emotion at moments that are overwhelming and burdensome.



Read news coverage based on evidence, not tweets

Markers of change

Poetry is also used to mark periods of change which are often celebrated through public events. In these instances the reading and writing of poetry can be transformative. At Remembrance Sunday, for example, verse is used to reflect upon and process the harsh realities of loss, as well as commemorate the military service of those who have passed.



In the wake of the shocking Manchester Arena bombing, Tony Walsh’s This is the Place gave the city a voice that was unifying, defiant and inspiring. It was important that Walsh is a Mancunian himself, just as David Jones fought in the trenches and at Mametz Wood which gives his In Parenthesis the weight of experience, while Holly McNish’s written experience in her book Nobody Told Me rings with the truth of a mother.





The communication of personal experiences like these in poetry, using direct and immediate terms, came to the fore with the early confessional poetry movement through poets like Robert Lowell, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. Their use of the personal and private as the basis for their poems was once considered shocking but is now an embedded part of the contemporary poetry world.



That is not to say that poetry can only communicate direct experiences, however. Some poems are spaces in which broad questions are grappled with and answers sought. For example, in Shakespeare’s The Tempest we are told death is a transformation rather than an end:



Nothing of him that doth fade



But doth suffer a sea-change



Into something rich and strange



These comforting words can also be found on the grave of Percy Bysshe Shelley in Rome.



Looking forward

Poetry is also used to explore the potential for change in the future, carrying with it the fears or hopes of the poet. Take Interim by Lola Ridge for example, a poem which holds particular relevance at this time. Ridge was a prominent activist and an advocate of the working classes. In Interim, change is yet to happen. We encounter the moment before change, the build up to change, the pause to take stock, consider and prepare for what is next. In it she anticipates a future movement or event. At a time of political uncertainty, as Brexit is being wrangled with, when opinions on all sides appear fragmented rather than unified, I find Ridge’s words a particular comfort. She describes the world as:



A great bird resting in its flight



Between the alleys of the stars.



This idea of the resting world is powerful. The world is waiting for its inhabitants to come to order perhaps, or to evolve even, before moving on to who knows where. But that is just me and my interpretation. Another reader will disagree and that is one of the most satisfying things about reading poetry. Your interpretation is yours alone and it can change the way you think or feel about something. It can help in times of challenge and it can bolster in periods of unease.



Today, poetry has never been more immediately accessible. With websites like The Poetry Archive and The Poetry Foundation one can summon a poem in the palm of one’s hand. Whether you are a regular reader of poetry or a person who encounters it only at moments of change, there is no denying the ongoing relevance and power of it.





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https://www.writerswrite.co.za/15-reasons-to-write-poetry/



15 Good Reasons To Write Poetry



In this post, we give you 15 good reasons to write poetry.



Why should you write poems?





Because they’re awesome, but also because poetry is even more condensed that the short story. I find writing poems challenging and they make me approach writing differently.



15 Good Reasons To Write Poetry

They also:



Allow you to brainstorm. Because the medium differs from stories, poems allow you to express things differently. Use them to brainstorm ideas.

Make your words work. Even more than the short story, poems have limited words and we need make our words work hard.

Make you think differently about words. Poems make us re-evaluate words and think of new ways to manipulate language.

Make you evaluate each word, because of the condensed nature of a poem we have to spend even more time evaluating our word choice.

Allow you to say exactly what it is you want to say. Poems act as a filter and help us get to the guts of the matter.

Have rules, but they also have no rules. You get to break all the rules when you write poems but do it only because it serves the poem. Manipulate grammar, change the sentence structure.

Allow you to experiment and experiment some more. Have fun.

Have many places to submit. The only thing there is more of on the internet than short story competitions and submissions are poetry sites. Dig in.

Are even quicker to write. A poem can take a few minutes and just spill out or it can take years.

Give you a break from fiction, because it is such a different medium.

Give you deadlines, deadlines, and more deadlines. Find them online, sign up here, but get going.

Make you more aware of how words and sentences sound, which will improve your fiction.

Give you an opportunity to learn by reading and commenting on other poems.

Help you learn from the comments and feedback from other poets.

Help you express emotion and feelings. Poems are supposed to make you feel something even if you don’t understand them. They help you get feelings out.

It is true that many of these are applicable of all writing, but I hope that I have convinced you that poems are valuable. These 15 good reasons to write poetry should inspire you. It would be awesome if you would like to join us for this new adventure.

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

I must be slipping a bit, as it took two days for this new blog to go --HOT.....---Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Blog A Week, Honoring Each Week One Chosen Famous Poet , First Week, Randall Jarrell



Blog Posted:9/17/2021 7:39:00 AM
A Blog A Week, Honoring Each Week One Chosen Famous Poet , First Week, Randall Jarrell

(1.)

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/08/01/specials/jarrell-crutches.html



October 7, 1951

With Wild Dogmatism

By ROBERT LOWELL

THE SEVEN-LEAGUE CRUTCHES

By Randall Jarrell

Randall Jarrell is our most talented poet under 40, and one whose wit, pathos and grace remind us more of Pope or Matthew Arnold than of any of his contemporaries. I don't know whether Jarrell is unappreciated or not -- it's hard to imagine anyone taking him lightly. He is almost brutally serious about literature and so bewilderingly gifted that it is impossible to comment on him without the humiliating thought that he himself could do it better.



He is a man of letters in the European sense, with real verve, imagination and uniqueness. Even his dogmatism is more wild and personal than we are accustomed to, completely unspoiled by the hedging "equanimity" that weakens the style and temperament of so many of our serious writers. His murderous intuitive phrases are famous; but at the same time his mind is essentially conservative and takes as much joy in rescuing the reputation of a sleeping good writer as in chloroforming a mediocre one.



Jarrell's prose intelligence -- he seems to know everything -- gives his poetry an extraordinary advantage over, for instance, a thunderbolt like Dylan Thomas, in dealing with the present. Jarrell is able to see our whole scientific, political and spiritual situation directly and on its own terms. He is a tireless discoverer of new themes and resources, and a master technician, who moves easily from the little to the grand. Monstrously knowing and monstrously innocent -- one does not know just where to find him ... a Wordsworth with the obsessions of Lewis Carroll.



"The Seven-League Crutches" should best be read with Jarrell's three earlier volumes. "Blood for a Stranger" (1942) is a Parnassian tour-de-force in the manner of Auden; nevertheless, it has several fine poems, the beginnings of better, and enough of the author's personality for John Crowe Ransom to write in ironic astonishment that Jarrell had "the velocity of an angel." "Little Friend, Little Friend" (1945), however, contains some of the best poems on modern war, better, I think, and far more professional than those of Wilfred Owen, which, though they seem pathetically eternal to us now, are sometimes amateurish and unfinished. The determined, passive, sacrificial lives of the pilots, inwardly so harmless and outwardly so destructive, are ideal subjects for Jarrell. In "Losses" (1948) and more rangingly in "Seven-League Crutches," new subjects appear. Using himself, children, characters from fairy stories, history and painting, he is still able to find beings that are determined, passive and sacrificial, but the experience is quiet, more complex and probably more universal. It's an odd universe, where a bruised joy or a bruised sorrow is forever commenting on itself with the gruff animal common sense and sophistication of Fontaine. Jarrell has gone far enough to be compared with his peers, the best lyric poets of the past: he has the same finesse and originality that they have, and his faults, a certain idiosyncratic willfulness and eclectic timidity, are only faults in this context.



Among the new poems, "Orient Express," a sequel, I think, to "Dover Beach," is a brilliantly expert combination of regular and irregular lines, buried rhymes, and sestina-like repeated rhymes, in which shifts in tone and rhythm are played off against the deadening roll of the train. "A Game at Salzburg" has the broken, charmed motion of someone thinking out loud. Both, in their different ways, are as skillful and lovely as any short poem I know of. "The Knight, Death, and the Devil" is a careful translation of Durer's engraving. The description is dense; the generalizations are profound. It is one of the most remarkable word-pictures in English verse or prose, and comparable to Auden's "Musee de Beaux Arts."




"The Contrary Poet" is an absolutely literal translation from Corbiere. The original is as clearly there as in the French, and it is also a great English poem. "The Night Before the Night Before Christmas" is long; it is also, perhaps, the best, most mannered, the most unforgettable and the most irritating poem in the book. Some of Jarrell's monologues are Robert Frost for "the man who reads Hamlet," or rather for a Hamlet who had been tutored by Jarrell. In "Seele in Raum," he masters Frost's methods and manages to make a simple half-mad woman speak in character, and yet with his own humor and terror.



My favorite is "A Girl in a Library," an apotheosis of the American girl, an immortal character piece, and the poem in which Jarrell perhaps best uses both his own qualities and his sense of popular culture. The girl is a college student, blonde and athletic.



But not so sadly; not so thoughtfully

And answers * * * guilelessly: I'm studying.



I quote the ending:



Sit and dream

One comes, a finger width beneath your skin,

To the braided maidens singing as they spin;

There sounds the shepherd's pipe, the watchman's rattle

Across the short dark distance of the years.

I am a thought of yours: and yet, you do not think ...

The firelight of a long, blind dreaming story

Lingers upon your lips; and I have seen

Firm, fixed forever in your closing eyes,

The Corn King beckoning to his Spring Queen.



"Belinda" was once drawn with something of the same hesitating satire and sympathy.



Mr. Lowell, who received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1947, is author of "The Mills of the Kavanaughs."

***********

(2.) A video link- Jarrell speaking

Randall Jarrell Reads from His Work


**********

September 1948

The King's Hunt

BY RANDALL JARRELL

**********

https://www.modernamericanpoetry.org/creator/randall-jarrell

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

My two tribute poems- composed to honor this truly gifted

and totally amazingly brilliant poet…

****

(1.)

As I Sit Here Chilling On My Front Porch



As I sit here chilling on my front porch

Yet still wonderment in this aged soul

Tho' I feel far too fast fading life's torch

Seeking to find more than, world's heavy toll

Watching this world dancing through my front yard

Sipping hot coffee, daring to be free

Soaring fodder for a want to be bard

Or a brave captain sailing stormy seas.



Now I see trees swaying and waves crashing

Thunder blasting, arriving tempest roars

Fate cries, you chips you will soon be cashing

I say, go away now you simply bore

Sun and its golden rays beam as scene change

On my black mustang I am now riding

Across a desert prairie, open range

Searching through life while no longer hiding.



Ahead a glistening purple mountain

Destination for a sad broken heart

Treasure found as a renewal fountain

As dreaming depicted on my star chart

There awaits golden gems and lover's touch

An angel as promised ages ago

Nirvana, as true love delivers such

From there into Heaven away we go.



I sit here just chilling on my front porch

Yet still wonderment in this aged soul

Tho' I feel far too fast fading life's torch

Seeking to find more than, world's heavy toll.


Robert J. Lindley, JULY 11TH, 2021

Romanticism- Tribute poem for

Randall Jarrell

**********

(2.)

Wherein, Innocent Children Once Played.



Beyond the fall of that shimmering veil

With the folds of life's mysterious walls

Imprisoned in the dark pits of hell

Innocents that failed to heed this call

Soft beckoning into a warming light

Enticement to live in a sweeter state

Devoid of fear of life and evil night

As always forbidden there any hate.



For only joy and happiness resides

Among bright gardens and its golden walls

Left behind vanity and foolish prides

One only enters by Heaven's dear call

Time banished and true love reigns supreme

Peace there is the feast on which all may dine

Eradicated all the world's dark schemes

There is no greedy, this stuff is all mine.



Yes, truly such a treasure does exist

Wherein wicked world can never invade

Just beyond the purple veil's falling mist

Wherein, innocent children once played.


Robert J. Lindley, 9-17- 2021

Romanticism- Tribute poem for

Randall Jarrell

**********

Note-

This blog was started months ago- due to health issues then, was abandoned.

All that was needed was the second poem.

That was last night and finished this morn..

I leave it as it was first composed- unedited.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

This new blog went directly to the -HOT-- stage, the first hour after my posting it.
I am amazed at how fast it went--HOT... .
I now have four blogs listed as -HOT- on the blog page..- :beer:---Tyr

[icansayit]

This new blog went directly to the -HOT-- stage, the first hour after my posting it.
I am amazed at how fast it went--HOT... .
I now have four blogs listed as -HOT- on the blog page..- :beer:---Tyr

Well Done. Our Poet Laureate of DP.

https://www.benicialibrary.org/sites/default/files/images/PoetLaureate_0.jpg

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Well Done. Our Poet Laureate of DP.

https://www.benicialibrary.org/sites/default/files/images/PoetLaureate_0.jpg

The thing is the blogs there can be read by anyone. That means non- members, non- paying readers can read the blogs. Anybody across the entire world that finds that site can read the blogs. So those at that site that have worked diligently to limit me (with their well groomed standing )there and my poetry can not stopppppppppppppppp those reads.
Thus the little firmly entrenched --cabal there-- can not hit me in that area.
Can not limit the reads, the appreciation for my writings/ works...
I concentrate on my poems and depths, message sent, and quality over that of --playing the popularity game that is so very prevalent there.
Seven years ago when I first joined and bought a lifetime membership--immediately I was viciously attacked by that little cabal of smug, egotistical and self-righteous sect of self-proclaimed great poets....Because I wrote the truth, composed in the old -style not in the new modern degraded crap style that modern poetry cites as magnicent and has now become, imho. Opposing idiocy and liberalism always brings on vicious attacks my friend. Such that Iweathered there for 7 years now.. Not to mention the same at certain other sites in the past , too.... --Tyr

[icansayit]

The thing is the blogs there can be read by anyone. That means non- members, non- paying readers can read the blogs. Anybody across the entire world that finds that site can read the blogs. So those at that site that have worked diligently to limit me (with their well groomed standing )there and my poetry can not stopppppppppppppppp those reads.
Thus the little firmly entrenched --cabal there-- can not hit me in that area.
Can not limit the reads, the appreciation for my writings/ works...
I concentrate on my poems and depths, message sent, and quality over that of --playing the popularity game that is so very prevalent there.
Seven years ago when I first joined and bought a lifetime membership--immediately I was viciously attacked by that little cabal of smug, egotistical and self-righteous sect of self-proclaimed great poets....Because I wrote the truth, composed in the old -style not in the new modern degraded crap style that modern poetry cites as magnicent and has now become, imho. Opposing idiocy and liberalism always brings on vicious attacks my friend. Such that Iweathered there for 7 years now.. Not to mention the same at certain other sites in the past , too.... --Tyr

I can verify what you said Robert.
Go to GOOGLE images...then type...poet laureate

You'll see why the CABAL is probably calling you a WHITE SUPREMISIST.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I can verify what you said Robert.
Go to GOOGLE images...then type...poet laureate

You'll see why the CABAL is probably calling you a WHITE SUPREMISIST.

Thanks, I will check that out. As I was not aware of that reality....
Have not research very deeply the modern day criticisms of poetry or poet laureates...
Only a very small, cursory bit of information I have seen over the years from my researchings of some modern poets. -Tyr

[SassyLady]

Congrats Robert!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Congrats Robert!
After years of ignoring them I finally got totally fed up with tHem and their antics. '
Within 3 months I and several others caused enough of a stir that administration decided to do something ABOUT THE GUILTY PARTY---THEM.
3 or 4 of them got banned and the other 7 or 8 piped right on down..
My guess is to bide their time and reengage after this blows over, I give it 6 or 7 months--maybe about Spring of 2022..
Because scum like that never give up... not as long as they think they can regain what justice took away from them......
That being the ability to be arrogant, and self-serving trolls..--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

icansayit, I checked it out. You were dead on the money. So one-sided that it is truly embarrassing. A perfect leftist primarily/liberal set up to glorify only liberal faithful modern poets and the modern forms of poetry that the modern critics praise as golden--which damn sure isn't... Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Blog A Week, Honoring Each Week One Chosen Famous Poet , Second Week, ROBERT BRIDGES.
Blog Posted:9/27/2021 10:35:00 AM

A Blog A Week, Honoring Each Week One Chosen Famous Poet , Second Week, ROBERT BRIDGES.


(1.)

The Evening Darkens Over

---- BY ROBERT BRIDGES

The evening darkens over

After a day so bright

The wind capt waves discover

That wild will be the night.

There’s sound of distant thunder.



The latest sea-birds hover

Along the cliff’s sheer height;

As in the memory wander

Last flutterings of delight,

White wings lost on the white.



There’s not a ship in sight;

And as the sun goes under

Thick clouds conspire to cover

The moon that should rise yonder.

Thou art alone, fond lover.



*********

(2.)

I Love all Beauteous Things

---- BY ROBERT BRIDGES

I love all beauteous things,

I seek and adore them;

God hath no better praise,

And man in his hasty days

Is honoured for them.



I too will something make

And joy in the making;

Altho’ to-morrow it seem

Like the empty words of a dream

Remembered on waking.



**********

(3.)

To Catullus

----- BY ROBERT BRIDGES



Would that you were alive today, Catullus!

Truth ’tis, there is a filthy skunk amongst us,

A rank musk-idiot, the filthiest skunk,

Of no least sorry use on earth, but only

Fit in fancy to justify the outlay

Of your most horrible vocabulary.



My Muse, all innocent as Eve in Eden,

Would yet wear any skins of old pollution

Rather than celebrate the name detested.

Ev’n now might he rejoice at our attention,

Guess'd he this little ode were aiming at him.



O! were you but alive again, Catullus!



For see, not one among the bards of our time

With their flimsy tackle was out to strike him;

Not those two pretty Laureates of England,

Not Alfred Tennyson nor Alfred Austin.



**********

(4.)

London Snow

---- BY ROBERT BRIDGES

When men were all asleep the snow came flying,

In large white flakes falling on the city brown,

Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,

Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;

Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;

Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:

Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;

Hiding difference, making unevenness even,

Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.

All night it fell, and when full inches seven

It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,

The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;

And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness

Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:

The eye marvelled—marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;

The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;

No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,

And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.

Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,

They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze

Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;

Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;

Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder,

‘O look at the trees!’ they cried, ‘O look at the trees!’

With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,

Following along the white deserted way,

A country company long dispersed asunder:

When now already the sun, in pale display

Standing by Paul’s high dome, spread forth below

His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.

For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;

And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,

Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:

But even for them awhile no cares encumber

Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,

The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber

At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken

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

Bio:



https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-bridges

Robert Bridges

1844–1930

Side headshot of poet Robert Bridges.

Unknown author, public domain

A Victorian who, by choice, remained apart from the aesthetic movements of his day, Robert Bridges was a classicist. His experimentation with 18th-century classical forms culminated in The Testament of Beauty, generally acknowledged as his masterpiece. He succeeded Alfred Austin as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in 1913 and was active in the Society for Pure English, which was founded largely through his efforts. He had an important friendship and correspondence with Gerard Manley Hopkins; his edition of Hopkins's poems is considered a major contribution to English literature.



Bridges spent his early childhood in a house overlooking the anchoring ground of the British fleet in Walmer, Kent, England. His father's death in 1853 and his mother's remarriage a year later precipitated a move to Rochdale, where his stepfather was the vicar. Bridges attended Eton College from 1854 to 1863, where he met the poet Digby Mackworth Dolben and Lionel Muirhead, a lifelong friend. His acquaintance with Hopkins began at Corpus Christi College. Bridges had at one point intended to enter the religious life in the Church of England, but instead chose to become a physician and began his study of medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1869. He received his degree in 1874 and worked at St. Bartholomew's and other hospitals until 1882, when he retired from practice after a bout with pneumonia and chose to devote himself to literature.



After his illness and a trip to Italy with Muirhead, Bridges moved with his mother to Yattendon in Berkshire, where he met and married Monica Waterhouse, daughter of the famous architect Alfred A. Waterhouse. Their children included the poet Elizabeth Daryush. It was during his residence in Yattendon, from 1882 to 1904, that Bridges wrote most of his best-known lyrics as well as eight plays and two masques, all in verse. In 1902 Bridges' wife Monica and daughter Margaret became seriously ill, and Bridges decided to move from Yattendon to a healthier climate. The family lived in several temporary homes, spent a year in Switzerland, and finally settled again in England at Chilswell House, which Bridges had designed and which was built on Boar's Hill overlooking Oxford University. Bridges lived there until his death in 1930.



The events of the first World War, including the wounding of his son, Edward, had a sobering effect on Bridges' poetry. He composed fiercely patriotic poems and letters, and in 1915 edited a volume of prose and poetry, The Spirit of Man, intended to appeal to readers living in war times. Bridges cofounded the Society for Pure English (SPE) in 1913; the group's intention was to establish "a sounder ideal of the purity of our language." Its work was interrupted by the war, but resumed in 1919 and continued until 1948, 18 years after Bridges' death. His work for the SPE led to Bridges' only trip to the United States in 1924, during which he increased interest in the group among American scholars.



Bridges began a long philosophical poem entitled The Testament of Beauty on Christmas Day, 1924, with 14 lines of what he referred to as "loose Alexandrines." He set the piece aside until 1926, when the death of his daughter Margaret prompted him to resume work as a way to ease his grief. The Testament of Beauty was published in October 1929, one day after his 85th birthday and six months before his death.



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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bridges

Robert Bridges

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the American critic, editor and writer, see Robert Bridges (critic).

Robert Bridges

Robert Bridges.jpg

Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom

In office

25 July 1913 – 21 April 1930

Monarch George V

Preceded by Alfred Austin

Succeeded by John Masefield

Personal details

Born Robert Seymour Bridges

23 October 1844

Walmer, Kent, England

Died 21 April 1930 (aged 85)

Boars Hill, Berkshire, England

Nationality British

Alma mater Corpus Christi College, Oxford

St Bartholomew's Hospital

Occupation Writer

Awards Poet Laureate

Robert Seymour Bridges OM (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is the author of many well-known hymns. It was through Bridges' efforts that Gerard Manley Hopkins achieved posthumous fame.



"The Evening Darkens Over"



The evening darkens over

After a day so bright,

The windcapt waves discover

That wild will be the night.

There's sound of distant thunder.



The latest sea-birds hover

Along the cliff's sheer height;

As in the memory wander

Last flutterings of delight,

White wings lost on the white.



There's not a ship in sight;

And as the sun goes under,

Thick clouds conspire to cover

The moon that should rise yonder.

Thou art alone, fond lover.



Bridges was born at Walmer, Kent, in England, the son of John Thomas Bridges (died 1853) and his wife Harriett Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Sir Robert Affleck, 4th Baronet. He was the fourth son and eighth child. After his father's death his mother married again, in 1854, to John Edward Nassau Molesworth, vicar of Rochdale, and the family moved there.[1]



Bridges was educated at Eton College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford.[2] He went on to study medicine in London at St Bartholomew's Hospital, intending to practise until the age of forty and then retire to write poetry. He practised as a casualty physician at his teaching hospital (where he made a series of highly critical remarks about the Victorian medical establishment) and subsequently as a full physician to the Great (later Royal) Northern Hospital. He was also a physician to the Hospital for Sick Children.



Lung disease forced Bridges to retire in 1882, and from that point on he devoted himself to writing and literary research. However, Bridges' literary work started long before his retirement, his first collection of poems having been published in 1873. In 1884 he married Mary Monica Waterhouse, daughter of the architect Alfred Waterhouse R.A., and spent the rest of his life in rural seclusion, first at Yattendon, then at Boars Hill, Berkshire (close to Oxford), where he died.



He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1900. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1913, the only medical graduate to have held the office.



He was the father of poet Elizabeth Daryush and of the cabinet secretary Edward Bridges.





Memorial to Robert Bridges and Edward Bridges, 1st Baron Bridges, in St Nicholas-at-Wade, Kent

Literary work

As a poet Bridges stands rather apart from the current of modern English verse, but his work has had great influence in a select circle, by its restraint, purity, precision and delicacy yet strength of expression. It embodies a distinct theory of prosody. Bridges' faith underpinned much of his work.[3]



In the book Milton's Prosody, he took an empirical approach to examining Milton's use of blank verse, and developed the controversial theory that Milton's practice was essentially syllabic. He considered free verse to be too limiting, and explained his position in the essay "Humdrum and Harum-Scarum". His own efforts to "free" verse resulted in the poems he called "Neo-Miltonic Syllabics", which were collected in New Verse (1925). The metre of these poems was based on syllables rather than accents, and he used the principle again in the long philosophical poem The Testament of Beauty (1929), for which he was appointed to the Order of Merit in that year.[4] His best-known poems, however, are to be found in the two earlier volumes of Shorter Poems (1890, 1894). He also wrote verse plays, with limited success, and literary criticism, including a study of the work of John Keats.



"Melancholia"

The sickness of desire, that in dark days

Looks on the imagination of despair,

Forgetteth man, and stinteth God his praise;

Nor but in sleep findeth a cure for care.

Incertainty that once gave scope to dream

Of laughing enterprise and glory untold,

Is now a blackness that no stars redeem,

A wall of terror in a night of cold.



Fool! thou that hast impossibly desired

And now impatiently despairest, see

How nought is changed: Joy's wisdom is attired

Splended for others' eyes if not for thee:

Not love or beauty or youth from earth is fled:

If they delite thee not, 'tis thou art dead.



Bridges' poetry was privately printed in the first instance, and was slow in making its way beyond a comparatively small circle of his admirers. His best work is to be found in his Shorter Poems (1890), and a complete edition (to date) of his Poetical Works (6 vols.) was published in 1898–1905.



Despite being made poet laureate in 1913, Bridges was never a very well-known poet and only achieved his great popularity shortly before his death with The Testament of Beauty. However, his verse evoked response in many great British composers of the time. Among those to set his poems to music were Hubert Parry, Gustav Holst and later Gerald Finzi.[5]



During the First World War, Bridges joined the group of writers assembled by Charles Masterman as part of Britain's War Propaganda Bureau at Wellington House.[6]



At Oxford, Bridges befriended Gerard Manley Hopkins, who is now considered a superior poet but who owes his present fame to Bridges' efforts in arranging the posthumous publication (1918) of his verse.



Bridges received advice from the young phonetician David Abercrombie on the reformed spelling system he was devising for the publication of his collected essays (later published in seven volumes by Oxford University Press, with the help of the distinguished typographer Stanley Morison, who designed the new letters). Thus Robert Bridges contributed to phonetics and he was also a founder member of the Society for Pure English.[7]



Hymnody

Bridges made an important contribution to hymnody with the publication in 1899 of his Yattendon Hymnal, which he created specifically for musical reasons. This collection of hymns, although not a financial success, became a bridge between the Victorian hymnody of the last half of the 19th century and the modern hymnody of the early 20th century.



Bridges wrote and also translated historic hymns, and many of these were included in Songs of Syon (1904) and the later English Hymnal (1906). Several of Bridges' hymns and translations are still in use today:



"Thee will I love, my God and King"

"Happy are they that love God"

"Rejoice, O land, in God thy might"

The Baptist Hymn Book, University Press, Oxford 1962

"Ah, Holy Jesus" (Johann Heermann, 1630)

"All my hope on God is founded" (Joachim Neander, c. 1680)

"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" (Martin Jahn, 1661)

"O Gladsome Light" (Phos Hilaron)

"O Sacred Head, sore wounded" (Paulus Gerhardt, 1656)

"O Splendour of God's Glory Bright" (Ambrose, 4th century)

"When morning gilds the skies" (stanza 3; Katholisches Gesangbuch, 1744)

Major works

Dates given are of first publication and significant revisions.



Poetry collections

The Growth of Love (1876; 1889; 1898), a sequence of (24; 79; 69) sonnets

Prometheus the Firegiver: A Mask in the Greek Manner (1883)

Eros and Psyche: A Narrative Poem in Twelve Measures (1885; 1894), a story from the Latin of Apuleius

Shorter Poems, Books I–IV (1890)

Shorter Poems, Books I–V (1894)

New Poems (1899)

Demeter: A Mask (1905), performed in 1904 at the opening of the Somerville College Library

Ibant Obscuri: An Experiment in the Classical Hexameter (1916), with reprint of summary of Stone's Prosody, accompanied by 'later observations & modifications'

October and Other Poems (1920)

The Tapestry: Poems (1925), in neo-Miltonic syllabics

New Verse (1926), includes verse of The Tapestry

The Testament of Beauty (1929)

Verse drama

Nero (1885), an historical tragedy; called The First Part of Nero subsequent to the publication of Nero: Part II

The Feast of Bacchus (1889); partly translated from the Heauton-Timoroumenos of Terence

Achilles in Scyros (1890), a drama in a mixed manner

Palicio (1890), a romantic drama in five acts in the Elizabethan manner

The Return of Ulysses (1890), a drama in five acts in a mixed manner

The Christian Captives (1890), a tragedy in five acts in a mixed manner; on the same subject as Calderón's El Principe Constante

The Humours of the Court (1893), a comedy in three acts; founded on Calderón's El secreto á voces and on Lope de Vega's El Perro del hortelano

Nero, Part II (1894)

Prose

Milton's Prosody, With a Chapter on Accentual Verse (1893; 1901; 1921), based on essays published in 1887 and 1889

Keats (1895)

Hymns from the Yattendon Hymnal (1899)

The Spirit of Man (1916)

Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins (1918), edited with notes by R.B.

The Necessity of Poetry (1918)

Collected Essays, Papers, Etc. (1927–36

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

My Two Tribute Poems

(1.)

Pity, We Keep Much Of Our Lives Deeply Hidden


What can anybody truly know of me, real me

The truth that we keep hidden in heart's secret place

Beautiful flower gardens we just cannot grow

The sad aching memories we cannot erase

Treasured delight rejoicing in falling snow?



Pity, we keep much of our lives deeply hidden.

Much of it, things we were taught to be forbidden.



What can anybody truly know of me, my ink

Constant worries we poets always fret over

Will this deep, heartfelt offering be accepted

Could I much better describe that field of clover

Did magic fly forth or was it intercepted?



Pity, we keep much of our lives deeply hidden.

Much of it, things we were taught to be forbidden.



What can anybody truly know of me, my verse

That my youth was wild and so full of sad mistakes

That Love so often stabbed an innocent heart

Woe-some fact, that I rarely ever hit the brakes

Or the many times my life was blasted apart?



Pity, we keep much of our lives deeply hidden.

Much of it, things we were taught to be forbidden.



What can anybody truly know of me, my mind

Can they feel the oft intense depths of poems thus cast

Or with intuition, cipher unwritten words

Know I truly seek to ink poetry that lasts

Or hear singing from life's invisible songbirds?



Pity, we keep much of our lives deeply hidden.

Much of it, things we were taught to be forbidden.



What can anybody truly know of me, my heart

The magnificent times it felt true love was found

Romance that cheered and soothed an aching soul

Or will they come to see that by chains I am bound

And my all, scarred by pains from life's heavy toll?



Pity, we keep much of our lives deeply hidden.

Much of it, things we were taught to be forbidden.

Robert J. Lindley,
Rhyme,

( Born from life that was in wild-youth carelessly lived )

Note:

Can one present anything but heart's truest truth???

And still be a honorable and true poet???

**********

(2.)

Thoughts, Back When I Left Childhood In The Ancient Dust



Decades ago I stepped forth leaving childhood behind

Right into a world wherein for survival fight is a must

Leading onto pathetic pathways were the end is a bind

Like a bright shiny penny deep coated with green rust

But as happens, somehow that first couple decades I lived on

With those hidden cancers firmly entrenched in flesh and bone!



Well golly, you may say, same bull-hockey exists for us all.

And in innocent blindness, beg we for that promised fall!



I feel that life and this evil world 'oft promises too much

Hold on, perhaps truth is my jaded past sorely interferes

If greater wisdom was ever gained I would not think such

But hat my sad-cast summation is laced with epic fears

My deep scars and forever aches this life forever hold firm

And my desperate disease tis born from that unholy germ!



Well golly, you may say, same bull-hockey exists for us all.

And in innocent blindness, beg we for that promised fall!



My friends, 'tis not that I cry my woes in a false foolish sense

As my great blindness may just be a heart that accepts not Fate

That I should perhaps wash my old brain repeatedly and then rinse

For built up anger and loss -too oft leads to staggering hate

And I splash poetic ink, doing so out of blinded rage

While I foolishly bemoan my lot and my advancing age!



Well golly, you may say, same bull-hockey exists for us all.

And in innocent blindness, beg we for that promised fall!

Robert J. Lindley,

Rhyme,
( Born from life that was in wild-youth carelessly lived )

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

NEW SECOND WEEK BLOG HAS ALREADY WENT TO THE " HOT BLOG" STAGE..--:beer:----Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

To my all of my many friends and fellow poets:
Blog Posted:11/6/2021 12:04:00 PM

To my all of my many friends and fellow poets:

Finally my wife is home from the hospital. Awaiting further medical treatment and a future bone marrow transplant. I want to thank all that have given their prayers and best wished on her recovery and my recent troubles for that great kindness and act of giving! This ordeal has been a grievous process to endure and those prayers and many well wishes such a wonderful gift! I am indeed blessed by having such kind friends and my gratitude can not be properly expressed in words. May God bless you , one and all.

This my first writings after my abscence, is indeed a treasured gift to be able to return to inking poetry and my deepest thoughts to share....

I believe such would never again occur but for the kindness of my many friends here. God bless.... I may be quite slow to get back into the race but bear with me.. The first step is this blog and hopefully the rest shall come as time begins to heal this old, tired soul...



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

'O That Morn's Reprieve Would But Stay, Ever The Live Long Day



As night devours its diminishing, stonewalling deep black-veils

And dawn whilst cascading forth vanquishes previous haze

Golden rays emerge to set roses to gift sweet, sweet smells

With presents from Nature's true beauty to counter world's craze



'O that morn's reprieve would but stay, ever the live long day.

With Hope, Life and Love, never again to be cast away.



If such rewarded treasure were to be man's constant gift

With such deep bounty that such love could never ones soul leave

Gone would be life's many vagaries and world's wicked shifts

And those heaping sorrows that come to set souls to so grieve.



'O that morn's reprieve would but stay, ever the live long day.

With Hope, Life and Love, never again to be cast away.



Thus plead I, soul in abject darkness that grieves each deep blow

With pierced and aching heart invaded by devouring pains

Beg dearest relief that seeds happiness to again grow

And from this dark void, emerge as whole from these sad remains!



'O that morn's reprieve would but stay, ever the live long day.

With Hope, Life and Love, never again to be cast away.



'O that Prayer and Love would this evil abyss destroy.

Reunited, my darling and I dance with sweetest joy.



Robert J. Lindley, 11-02-2021

Romanticism

( Born from the cherished promises that Hope gifts )



~~~~~~



'Neath Magic Waters Was Where Heart Belongs




From hazy image of the tallow light,

lapping waters cast forth a welcome glow

she would come, her moonlit song cried it so

to cast away dark world's hideous blight.



Through beastly wilderness I trekked far,

to this enchanted lake barely alive

into these murky depths this soul must dive

whilst having no fear of crossing the bar.



The promise, joyous treasured release

to be found in that realm far, far below

away from torment of deep falling blows

into world wherein evil horrors cease.



As her sweet siren song came to its end

Love's urgent pull become so very strong

'neath magic waters was where heart belongs

resting forever with my faithful friend.



With my one last look at heaven above

down, down to the gleaming bottom I sank

for this gift all the while giving my thanks

I departed this realm seeking true love.



From hazy image of the tallow light,

lapping waters cast forth a welcome glow

she would come, her moonlit song cried it so

to cast away dark world's hideous blight.



Robert J. Lindley, 11-03-2021

Rhyme



Note:

For three days now my darling wife has been home, out of that dreary hospital.

I have again found the power to wield my poetic and hopeful pen.

~~~~~~~~~



When Heart Beats To Make Its Mark



When there was pitch black dark

a solitary light spoke,

"poetry is alive in me!"



When there was grief, deep and stark

a single cry bellowed,

"poetry rests in my heart!"



Where sky meets streaming skylark

a yearning plea asked,

"can poetry survive?"



When heart beats to make its mark

a soul begged its release,

" will poetry sing in tune?"



Where great poetry lights the park

a heavenly voice boomed,

"poetry will set you free!"



Robert J. Lindley, 11-04-2021

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

A Blog, On Poetic Contrasting, Between Dark And Light, 11-28-2021


A Blog, On Poetic Contrasting, Between Dark And Light, 11-28-2021
Blog Posted:11/28/2021 6:24:00 AM
Blog, On Poetic Contrast, Between Dark And Light

My two poems composed -one of dark, one of Light.-Tyr

(1.)

The Horrid Night, The Terrible Nightmare



In a dance of serpents the long fangs drip

poison falling from needle sharp fang tips

chained here in this dark cavern of doom

with just one bite this will become my tomb

I ponder deep how did I end up here,

as my sweat oozes out buckets of fear !



Seems a dream, ghastly nightmare to endure

I think, tis true my heart is not so pure

but that proves what a weak mortal I be

one like all other, too blinded to see

I ponder deep how did I end up here,

as my sweat oozes out buckets of fear !



I cringe, three snakes slither over to me

in their cold serpent eyes hunger I see

agonizing with my shivers I wait

powerless, now cast into hands of dark Fate

I ponder deep how did I end up here,

as my sweat oozes out buckets of fear !



As minutes pass like weeks or painful days

aching brain conjures up some fleeing ways

If I sincerely pray maybe I live

I do, I think what treasures may I give

I ponder deep how did I end up here,

as my sweat oozes out buckets of fear !



Then from the dark a voice begins to speak

you are man, and man is evil and weak

I the master of fear reign in this dark

here you are like a bare tree with no bark

I ponder deep how did I end up here,

as my sweat oozes out buckets of fear !



I fought the strong urge to give a reply

I wanted to ask the hidden voice, why

on earth was I in this place brought and bound

in this frightening dark, deep underground

I ponder deep how did I end up here,

as my sweat oozes out buckets of fear !



How I do not know, the voice heard my mind

saying, I brought you because you are blind

in this cavern, a lesson you must learn

recalling life's warnings you once did spurn

I ponder deep how did I end up here,

as my sweat oozes out buckets of fear !



It was then I cried, God forgive me

I was truly a lost fool, now I see

Please rescue me from this dark abode

I know now it was my soul I then sold

I now know how I ended up down here,

where my sweat oozes out buckets of fear !



I give thanks, that this lost soul you now save!

With your mercy, I leave this self-made grave!



Robert J. Lindley, 11-28-2021

Rhyme (Dark)

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

(2.)

From Seed A Promise, Treasures To Flourish On Earth



Seed waits not only for Spring's first shower

but for glorious rays of dawn's first hour

resting 'neath in its comfortable hidden bed

far away from cries of earth's ancient dead!



From seed a promise- treasures to flourish on earth.

Tis reminder, measures of life and love's true worth.



As world represents its raging black-seas

man exist, victim uttering sad pleas

battles fought, sacrificing flowing red

Alas! But vanity that gifts more dead!



From seed a promise- treasures to flourish on earth.

Tis reminder, measures of life and love's true worth.



Spring arrives, O' glory- of rising seeds

earthen harvests that many billions feeds

fruits of man's labors, Nature's blessed soil

does soul and body well, labor's hard toil.



From seed a promise- treasures to flourish on earth.

Tis reminder, measures of life and love's true worth.



Mankind walks onward in its blinded way

amidst darkness, victims to set to pay

forgetting divine gifts, walking dead roads

increasing chained hands, life's heavy loads.



From seed a promise- treasures to flourish on earth.

Tis reminder, measures of life and love's true worth.



Why mankind seeks sadden hearts, weary hands

one must embrace light's truth to understand

for that is the source of those waiting seeds

healing balm that stops black-rivers that bleed.



From seed a promise- treasures to flourish on earth.

Tis reminder, measures of life and love's true worth.



Seed waits not only for Spring's first shower

but for glorious rays of dawn's first hour

resting 'neath in its comfortable hidden bed

far away from cries of earth's ancient dead!



From seed a promise- treasures to flourish on earth.

Tis reminder, measures of life and love's true worth.

Robert J. Lindley
Rhyme, 11-28-2021



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



https://interestingliterature.com/2018/02/10-of-the-best-poems-about-darkness/





LITERATURE

10 of the Best Poems about Darkness



Interesting Literature



LITERATURE

10 of the Best Poems about Darkness



The greatest dark poems selected by Dr Oliver Tearle



LATEST VIDEOS

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(Error Code: 100013)

Poetry isn’t all sweetness and light, of course. In fact, much of it is concerned with the darker aspects of the natural world, whether it’s the mystery or solemnity of night-time darkness or some other, more abstract or metaphorical kind of darkness (‘O dark dark dark’, as T. S. Eliot put it in Four Quartets). Here, we offer ten of the best poems about darkness of various kinds.



1. Charlotte Smith, ‘Written near a Port on a Dark Evening’.



All is black shadow but the lucid line

Marked by the light surf on the level sand,

Or where afar the ship-lights faintly shine

Like wandering fairy fires, that oft on land

Misled the pilgrim …





This sonnet was written by one of the great proto-Romantic poets of the second half of the eighteenth century. Smith’s sonnets anticipate Romanticism partly because nature in her poetry is so often feared with an awesome power that verges on the terrifying: ‘life’s long darkling way’ is brooding and full of menace here.



2. Lord Byron, ‘Darkness’.



I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day …





This poem was inspired by a curious incident: the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, which drastically altered the weather conditions across the world and led to 1816 being branded ‘the Year without a Summer’. The same event also led to Byron’s trip to Lake Geneva and his ghost-story writing competition, which produced Mary Shelley’s masterpiece Frankenstein.



For Byron, the extermination of the sun seemed like a dream, yet it was ‘no dream’ but a strange and almost sublimely terrifying reality.



3. Robert Browning, ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came’.



If at his counsel I should turn aside

Into that ominous tract which, all agree,

Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly

I did turn as he pointed: neither pride

Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,

So much as gladness that some end might be …





A grotesque quasi-medieval dramatic monologue detailing the quest of the titular Roland, this poem was produced in an attempt to overcome writer’s block: in 1852 Browning had set himself the New Year’s Resolution to write a new poem every day, and this vivid dreamscape is what arose from his fevered imagination.





Browning borrowed the title from a line in Shakespeare’s King Lear; the character of Roland as he appears in Browning’s poem has in turn inspired Stephen King to write his Dark Tower series, while J. K. Rowling borrowed the word ‘slughorn’ from the poem when creating the name of her character Horace Slughorn.



4. Emily Dickinson, ‘We grow accustomed to the Dark’.



We grow accustomed to the Dark –

When Light is put away –

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp

To witness her Good bye –





A Moment – We Uncertain step

For newness of the night –

Then – fit our Vision to the Dark –

And meet the Road – erect …



The first line of this poem also provides the poem with its main theme: the way our eyes adjust to the darkness, just as our minds adapt to the bleakness of life and contemplation of the ‘night’ that is death.



5. Thomas Hardy, ‘The Darkling Thrush’.



At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead,

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited.

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,

With blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

Upon the growing gloom …





This classic Hardy poem captures the mood of a winter evening as the sun, ‘the weakening eye of day’, sets below the horizon and gives way to dusk on New Year’s Eve. Hardy hears a thrush singing, and wonders whether the thrush is aware of some reason to be hopeful for the coming new year, some reason of which Hardy himself is unaware.



In ‘The Darkling Thrush’ itself we are given clues that religion is on the speaker’s mind. In the third stanza, when the thrush of the title appears (‘darkling’ is an old poetic word for ‘in darkness’ – it also, incidentally, echoes Matthew Arnold‘s use of the word in his famous poem about declining faith, ‘Dover Beach’, published in 1867), its song is described as ‘evensong’, suggesting the church service, while the use of the word ‘soul’ also suggests the spiritual. (Such a religiously inflected analysis of Hardy’s poem is reinforced by ‘carolings’ in the next stanza.)





6. Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day’.



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 …



One of Hopkins’s ‘Terrible Sonnets’, this poem is one of the finest evocations of a sleepless night that English poetry has produced. When we wake to find that it’s not yet morning but we are still surrounded by darkness, and undergo some sort of ‘dark night of the soul’, we often feel as Hopkins describes here. For him it is a spiritual battle as well as a mere case of insomnia.





As so often with Hopkins, the spiritual and psychological are experienced as a vivid visceral force that is physical as well as metaphysical: his depression and doubt weigh upon him like heartburn or indigestion (‘heartburn’ picking up on the poet’s more abstract address to his ‘heart’ in the third line of the poem, but also leading into the ‘blood’ mentioned a couple of lines later).



7. Carl Sandburg, ‘Moonset’.



This short poem is almost actively ‘unpoetical’ in its imagery, and offers a fresh look at the moon. The poem’s final image of ‘dark listening to dark’ is especially eye-catching.





8. Edward Thomas, ‘The Dark Forest’.



Dark is the forest and deep, and overhead

Hang stars like seeds of light

In vain, though not since they were sown was bred

Anything more bright …



This poem from the wonderful nature poet Edward Thomas (1878-1917) begins by describing a forest at night, above whose trees the stars shine like ‘seeds of light’.



9. Joseph Campbell, ‘Darkness’.





One of the first ‘modern’ poems written in English, this short lyric by the Irish-born poet Joseph Campbell (1879-1944) shares affinities with the poems of T. E. Hulme, and seems in some respects to prefigure the ‘bog’ poems of Seamus Heaney. You can read Campbell’s ‘Darkness’ by clicking on the link below, which will also take you to three other short poems by Campbell.



10. Philip Larkin, ‘Going’.



Philip Larkin never learned, in Sigmund Freud’s memorable phrase about King Lear, to make friends with the necessity of dying. ‘Going’ is an early example of Larkin’s mature engagement with the terrifying realization that death will come for us all.





In ten unrhymed lines, ‘Going’ explores death without ever mentioning it by name, instead referring to it, slightly elliptically, as ‘an evening’ that is ‘coming in’. Larkin uses the metaphor of the coming evening – an evening which ‘lights no lamps’ because there is no hope of staving off this darkness, the darkness of death.



Continue to explore classic poetry with these short poems about death and dying, our pick of the best poems about eyes, and these classic poems about secrets. We also recommend The Oxford Book of English Verse – perhaps the best poetry anthology on the market (we offer our pick of the best poetry anthologies here).



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.



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

On Poetry- Coming from Light,

The desire to gift in poetic verse -- Love, Joy , Happiness, Greater Understanding in verse.-Robert



https://interestingliterature.com/2017/06/10-of-the-best-poems-about-happiness/



LITERATURE

10 of the Best Poems about Happiness





Previously we’ve offered ten of the most powerful poems about depression. Now, to complement that post, here are ten of the very best poems about being happy. Hurrah! If you’re after more classic poems about happiness, we recommend the wonderful anthology, Heaven on Earth: 101 Happy Poems, edited by Wendy Cope, which includes some of the poems listed below.



Anonymous, ‘Pangur Bán’. This Old Irish poem was written by a monk in the ninth century – about his cat. It features in our pick of the best cat poems, but it’s also a gloriously happy poem (well, cats bring so much happiness, after all), with its talk of delight, merriment, and bliss. (Pangur Bán is the name of the monk’s cat.) Describing the life of the monk in his study with his cat as his happy companion, ‘Pangur Bán’ has everything for the cat-lover and book-lover. Just as the scholar goes in search of knowledge, so his faithful companion goes in search of mice.





Edward Dyer, ‘My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is’.



My mind to me a kingdom is;

Such present joys therein I find,

That it excels all other bliss

That earth affords or grows by kind:

Though much I want that most would have,

Yet still my mind forbids to crave …



This poem by Sir Edward Dyer (1543-1607) might be regarded as the Elizabethan version of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’: the poem extols the virtues of a clean conscience and resisting the temptation to take delight on other people’s misfortune. Well, we say this poem is by Edward Dyer; it used to be unquestionably attributed to him, but doubt has been cast over Dyer’s authorship, with some instead crediting Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford.



Edmund Spenser, from Amoretti.



Oft, when my spirit doth spread her bolder wings,

In mind to mount up to the purest sky;

It down is weighed with thought of earthly things,

And clogged with burden of mortality;

Where, when that sovereign beauty it doth spy,

Resembling heaven’s glory in her light,

Drawn with sweet pleasure’s bait, it back doth fly,

And unto heaven forgets her former flight …



This poem, beginning ‘Oft when my spirit doth spread her bolder wings’, is part of Spenser’s sonnet sequence Amoretti. In summary, Spenser says that when he wishes to think of higher things, his mind is bogged down by thoughts of mortality; but he comes to the conclusion that the way to ensure happiness is to find heaven among earthly things.

William Wordsworth, ‘I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud’.



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.



Given that the daffodils in this famous Wordsworth poem lift the poet’s spirits when he is feeling a little lost or thoughtful, and fill his heart with pleasure, we feel it deserves its place among this pick of the greatest happiness poems. On 15 April 1802, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy were walking around Glencoyne Bay in Ullswater when they came upon a ‘long belt’ of daffodils, as Dorothy put it memorably in her journal. Dorothy Wordsworth wrote of the encounter with the daffodils, ‘we saw a few daffodils close to the water side, we fancied that the lake had floated the seed ashore & that the little colony had so sprung up – But as we went along there were more & yet more & at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about & about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed and reeled and danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the Lake, they looked so gay ever dancing ever changing.’ The influence of this passage from Dorothy’s journal, recalling this happy event, can be seen in Wordsworth’s poem.



Christina Rossetti, ‘A Birthday’.



My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all these

Because my love is come to me …

‘My heart is like a singing bird’: right from this poem’s opening line, the mood is joyful. One of the most famous happy poems to feature on this list, ‘A Birthday’ is about ‘the birthday of my life’ arriving to the speaker, because her ‘love is come to me’. A fine poem by one of the Victorian era’s greatest poets.

Emily Dickinson, ‘How Happy Is the Little Stone’. In this short poem, Emily Dickinson (1830-86) considers the simple life of the small things in nature – specifically, the little stone whose ‘coat of elemental brown / A passing universe put on’. Much like Wordsworth in his ‘Lines Written in Early Spring’, Dickinson ponders the simple happiness that we get from observing nature.



Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘Happy Thought’. This poem from Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885) is only two lines long, so is worth quoting in full here:

The world is so full of a number of things,

I’m sure we should all be as happy as kings.



E. E. Cummings, ‘i thank You God for this most amazing’. This idiosyncratic take on the Shakespearean sonnet form is the perfect poem to read on a day when you feel almost deliriously happy and glad to be alive, and your eyes and ears seem attuned to the world around you to an unusually high degree (something Cummings’ concluding couplet captures wonderfully).

Philip Larkin, ‘Coming’. One of Larkin’s earliest mature poems was called ‘Going’; this poem, written a few years later when the poet was still in his twenties, might be viewed as a companion piece to that other poem. Unusually for the lugubrious Larkin, ‘Coming’ is about how the coming of spring makes the poet feel almost inexplicably happy.

Jenny Joseph, ‘The Sun Has Burst the Sky’. ‘The sun has burst the sky / Because I love you’: so begins this wonderfully joyful poem about being in love, from the poet who also gave us ‘Warning’, about growing old and wearing purple. This poem doesn’t feature in the Heaven on Earth anthology, but is too joyous a happy poem to be omitted from this list.



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]

Blog, On The Importance Of Seeking And Maintaining A Higher Level Of Creativity- ( A New Poetry Form Included)
Blog Posted:1/10/2022 6:50:00 AM
Blog, On The Importance Of Seeking And Maintaining

A Higher Level Of Creativity- ( A New Poetry Form Included)

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

Blog, Creativity is a must for any poet.

This new poetry form was an idea I had

and first wrote poems in- back in 1984,

When I was 30 years old. I started this blog

in January of 2017. Decided to finish it this

New Year of 2022. Five years from start to

finish, yes I am oft slow about completing

tasks. RJL…



Subject- new poetry form- ( " Lind30 " )

7,7,7, 9

Either form be in number of syllables -or match in number of words-

Rhymed or unrhymed. New form Lind30…..



First three examples are in syllable count-plus rhyme



(1.)

Within Beauty, Oft Lies Cold Hard Truth



Within morn's breathe a reprieve

Sweet breeze and understanding

Does not this world deep deceive

Nature serves up its reprimanding.



Robert J. Lindley, 1-09-2022

Lind30 Rhyme- (7,7,7,9)





(2.)



We That Obey The Ticking Of The Clock



Time's call, we try to defeat

Morning's notice 'oft a pain

Rush, rush to cold breakfast eat

Good God, Sally's cat has gone insane!



Robert J. Lindley, 1-09-2022

Lind30 Rhyme- (7,7,7,9)



(3.)



When Love Enters An Eager, Willing Heart



Romantic heart I adore

Her kisses, blessings divine

Pray I this, always for more

Ravishing desserts, taste of her wine.



Robert J. Lindley, 1-09-2022

Lind30 Rhyme- (7,7,7,9)





( Next two examples are in word count and rhyme )



(1.)



A Small Bit Of Philosophy And Wit



Life, a great mystery to be sure

Existence a true nod to our dreams

Light and Truth, both are set pure

To oppose breadth and depths of mankind's dark schemes.



Robert J. Lindley, 1-09-2022

Lind30 Wordcount and Rhyme





(2.)



Oh No, Not Another High Unpaid Bill



He said, dear Katy bar the door

This bill has me so hopping mad

I cannot stand this robbery any more

Give me another shot of whiskey, just a tad!



Robert J. Lindley, 1-09-2022

Lind30 Wordcount and Rhyme

*********

Note 1 -

This blog and this my new poetry form was begun back

in Jan of 2017, I have only now returned to finish it up

The number 30 applies as in syllable count or else in

the number of words…. Either one may be used thus

giving the poet far more leeway into creativity. Using

the rhymed version, whether it be ABAB OR AABB is

a far higher degree of difficulty imho.

Give it a try, even as a diversion or on a mere whim-

Creativity being the foundation upon which a poet must

live, breath-exist, imho. RJL

Note 2-

If any questions, feel free to soupmail me here.

I hope this new form may give to poets another

way.avenue to pursue in their poetry journey.

Comments are welcomed on this new blog.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

My new blog has now just went-- HOT-- in less than two hours after it was posted..-- :beer: --Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

My new poetry form, Lind30 has been used by over a dozen poets in these last few days since I presented the new form.
It has now scored not one but -TWO- POEM OF THE DAY AWARDS in the last 3 days.

Jan 15, 2022 "Grip Of Autumn" harry horsman Verse


Jan 12, 2022 "Winter Barns" Paulette Calasibetta Free verse

********

Grip Of Autumn

Summer's passed on to meltdown
Nature sways in winds of change
A flowing cascade hastens
Woodland stage waits another dawn breaks.

© Harry J Horsman 2022

Emulating Robert Lindley's new form, 'Lind30'

********

Winter Barns



Silos stand like sentinels
Weathered barn doors creak, cows moo
The snow dances with delight
Birds find shelter in the arms of eaves


Poem is written in "Lind30" form. A form developed by Robert Lindley
7/7/7/9 syllable or word count; poets choice.

For: Winter Wonders Within Nature Contest
Sponsored by: M.L. Kiser

Copyright © harry horsman | Year Posted 2022

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Our collaboration poem has been awarded Poem Of The Day this morning at our poetry site.
This makes 3 Poems Of The Day in three days that are a part of my poetry composing.
I am a bit shocked myself. I guess Cassai is smiling upon me this month. -Tyr


Memories Of Youth And Nature, Were A True Blast
In collaboration with Robert Lindley

Beautiful dawn a Nature walk would do one good
Across the flower filled pond, into the woods
With hearty breakfast, soul could be truly blessed
This truth, with faith love must be truly confessed
Nature has its always wonders awed this eager soul
Youth my favourite poet was always Thoreau
His wondrous verses to this happy heart did sing
And Nature's beauty, its marvellous gem did bring!

My human soul blessed to be brought to this earth
By a youth whose Mother Nature the land of birth
Summer our host along with granny and grandad
Much love and sweet nature added to what we had
With daily sun walked paths till his face would fade
Flooding memories into my heart, so much weighed
“Trees are poems that dear earth writes upon the sky”
Shall we strive to embrace love letting our souls fly?


First for me was in my childhood our old farm pond
There croaking brightly the frogs which I was so fond
Game trails across flowering meadows to the hills
When I remember, I get such delightful chills
That summer morn, with golden sun gleaming so bright
And oh my, flashing fireflies we caught that sweet night
My first little green turtle what a wondrous catch
And wild ducks how I watched their batch of eggs hatch.

I still recall the wake of dawn and cockcrowing
The sight of early bird granny her goat milking
The taste of butter and ghee from the sheep skin
My great glee shaking shookwa as my head would spin
The echo of giggles when my head did dangle
Against the far end of well, laughter would jangle
How can I forget prickly pears harvest season
Despite the stinging glochid, that was my Eden.

In June, the small critters really got to going
Down by the farm's little creek, its clear stream flowing
Days I spent going across that woody terrain
I sputter trying its grand beauty to explain
That July, I read how to a forest explore
Heart and soul set to venture to another shore
That God gave us Nature's treasures, blessing indeed
Spring its colourful flowers came from Nature's seeds.

On sunny days grandpa reaped by hand wealth of land
His back bent for hours, no whine for what he could stand
Feeding and herding sheep, one other blessing and grace
Weary were his bones gratitude wearing his face
For long serving Mother Earth reaping its treasure
A forged nature and an insight beyond measure
Glory be to God recited on prayer beads
Divine favour to an offspring of beauty seeds.

Memories Of Youth And Nature, Were A True Blast
In collaboration with Robert Lindley

shookwa : a container of sheep skin we fill with milk then we shake for a while right and left to produce fresh butter.

https://youtu.be/1NaGAQM-VQE

"The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows...”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poet's note :

Dear Robert, so deep my gratitude to you for having kindled my soul and set the spark of your inspiring artistry..
You humbly allowed me to own the precious gems you carved out of a rich life, sharp mind, sensitive heart and devout soul..
I deeply acknowledge the beauty added to my poetic soul as I am tremendously blessed and honoured to commune with you, a highly gifted poet of remarkable humility whose enlightening and inspiring poetry never ceases to stir the mind and the heart..
Belonging to the world of words and the realm of poetry.. walking the path of great poets of inner wonder and true feelings, a deep joy and an immense honour I aspire to and you, Robert, make it true..

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Part Two, Blog On The Importance Of Seeking And Maintaining A Higher Level Of Creativity- ( New Poetry Form Included )

Blog Posted:1/18/2022 5:06:00 AM
Part Two, Blog On The Importance Of Seeking And Maintaining A Higher Level Of Creativity-

( New Poetry Form Included )



A Hexadic Presentation, With Creativity The Desired Goal

Six Poetic Queries In Short Verse- new Lind30Rhyme form…

(1.)

The Magnitude Of Heartfelt Verses



O' heart blessed be thy years

Tho' waterfalls be thy tears

Deep lakes form from thy crying

Shall there be sorrows in thy dying?



Robert J. Lindley, 1-17-2022

Lind30, Rhyme 7,7,7,9

(2.)

Insightful Thoughts From Within Inner Depths



O' soul what sea gifts thy tides

what dreams stirs thy bonafide

spirit bowing to love's calls

what ghosts wander in thy castle halls?



Robert J. Lindley, 1-17-2022

Lind30, Rhyme 7,7,7,9


(3.)

Those Dreams That Gift Us Desired Treasure



O' mind dare thee more create

therein, tempting Hand of Fate

with dreams that go far beyond

life and love in thy small splashing pond?



Robert J. Lindley, 1-17-2022

Lind30, Rhyme 7,7,7,9

( 4.)

Dreams And Love Far, Far Too Sweet To Explain



O' love can thy depths contain

dreams far too sweet to explain

how dearest sleep pleasures brings

angelic voice her fantasy sings?



Robert J. Lindley, 1-17-2022

Lind30, Rhyme 7,7,7,9

(5.)

Do Joyous Gems Come To Those Brave-Of- Heart



O' truth does love's power hold

sweet joys for the brave and bold

as rewards for battles fought

gifting treasures that cannot be bought?



Robert J. Lindley, 1-17-2022

Lind30, Rhyme 7,7,7,9

(6.)

Romance And Dreams Within Aching Longings



O' spirit does desire stir

deeper pleas within night's blur

or sadness dawn's waking hour

for lover's touch beyond dreams' powers?

Robert J. Lindley, 1-17-2022

Lind30, Rhyme 7,7,7,9

Note:
This blog , the second part of previous blog delves

into the greater quest for a higher level of creativity

and greater depths in short form poetry. Measuring

how well the new Lind30 poetry form can help in

that determined poetic endeavor. With this blog, I

concentrated on Lind30 rhyme.. Next blog, I will go

with Lind30 unrhymed. God bless…

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog Number Two has went hot sometime this afternoon.
Seems many poets are now using my new poetry form, LIND3O
EITHER RHYMED OR UNRYHMED EITHER WITH 30 SYLLABLES OR ELSE 30 WORDS.
Two poets scored POTD this week, using my new poetry form --Tyr

[icansayit]

Blog Number Two has went hot sometime this afternoon.
Seems many poets are now using my new poetry form, LIND3O
EITHER RHYMED OR UNRYHMED EITHER WITH 30 SYLLABLES OR ELSE 30 WORDS.
Two poets scored POTD this week, using my new poetry form --Tyr

Congrats. Hope all is getting better. :clap:

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Congrats. Hope all is getting better. :clap:

Has not improved , but has not gotten worse these last few weeks.
Wife's treatments keeping her fairly stable as of now. --Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I am now currently working on my third blog in this new series at my home poetry site, with the usual group of hiding elitists working behind the scenes to try to limit me in any way that they can devise. Sad that such people live to attack others that are not doing a single thing against them. Instead, they attack truth, honesty and any form of expressing criticism of what modern poetry has done to Poetry- by its new standards. Its over emphasis on free verse forms and chaotic ramblings that it so lavishly praises to the high heavens. Whilst making stars out of those with far less talent but with just the right political leanings. Hence the spread of the leftist/socialist cancer into that Art form as well. imho.-
I totally reject that parade into utter stupidity, revisionism and arrogant leftist rot.
And these modern fools that seek to destroy the fame, the illustrious reputations of the golden poets of old..
For seven years now, they have tried to destroy me there, but have miserably time and again failed. --Tyr

[icansayit]

I am now currently working on my third blog in this new series at my home poetry site, with the usual group of hiding elitists working behind the scenes to try to limit me in any way that they can devise. Sad that such people live to attack others that are not doing a single thing against them. Instead, they attack truth, honesty and any form of expressing criticism of what modern poetry has done to Poetry- by its new standards. Its over emphasis on free verse forms and chaotic ramblings that it so lavishly praises to the high heavens. Whilst making stars out of those with far less talent but with just the right political leanings. Hence the spread of the leftist/socialist cancer into that Art form as well. imho.-
I totally reject that parade into utter stupidity, revisionism and arrogant leftist rot.
And these modern fools that seek to destroy the fame, the illustrious reputations of the golden poets of old..
For seven years now, they have tried to destroy me there, but have miserably time and again failed. --Tyr

http://icansayit.com/pictures/pattonflag.jpg

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Part Three,

Blog On The Importance Of Seeking And Maintaining A Higher Level Of Creativity

- ( Examples Of New Poetry Form Included )



One each- of the four main derivatives of the Lind30 poetry form.



Abbreviations:

(1.)Lind30SR, = LIND 30 Syllables Rhymed

(2.) Lind30SU, = Lind 30 Syllables Unrhymed

(3.)Lind30WCR, = Lind 30 Word Count Rhymed

(4.) Lind30WCU, = Lind 30 Word Count Unrhymed



*

(1.)

Mystery That Is Youth's Forward Journey



I sang of sky's blue-cast worth

dawn's echoes glad to be heard

ocean's great girth rivalled

beauty sent by Southern mockingbird.



Robert J. Lindley,

Lind30SR ( Lindley 30 Syllables Rhymed )

7,7,7,9

Edit-- rivalled

The verb is most often used to say that someone or something possesses qualities or aptitudes that approach or equal those of another. ... (Note that in U.S. English, the verb's forms are usually spelled rivaled and rivaling; in British English rivalled and rivalling are preferred.)

Rival Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster





(2.)

Under Midnight Moon, Her Tears Splashed Down



She wept in her darkest hour

under moon disenchanted

life had its sword plunged deep

eager to feel her falling wet tears.



Robert J. Lindley,

Lind30SU ( Lindley 30 Syllables Unrhymed )

7,7,7,9





(3.)

A Gift From Sweeping Depths Of Nature's Bounty



Nature into this soul sent its light

As a beacon safeguards ships at sea

She with saving grace set heart alight

Waking the youthful optimism and the courage within me.



Robert J. Lindley,

Lind30WCR ( Lindley 30 Word Count Rhymed )

7,7,7,9





(4.)

Night Spent In Poe's And Raven's Former House



House creaked, the walls mumbled wailing curses

In seething darkness I felt so alone

As dark shadows invaded through window's opening

Came torture of aching silence as lost hope began.



Robert J. Lindley,

Lind30WCU, ( Lindley 30 Word Count Unrhymed )

7,7,7,9



Note:

Of course these are the 4 main derivates that can

even further set pathways for ever greater creativity

in this new form, Lind30… Other subdivisions within

these four can be found, explored and enjoyed.

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



On Creativity in Poetry-- Consider this:



https://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/you-cant-spell-poem-without-poe-NqlTQcrh





You Can’t Spell “Poem” without “Poe”



The art of macabre poetry is not one to be understated. While the soul-searching, heart wrenching, floral laden soliloquies are favored by many, equally as marveled are the dark depths that exist in the vast world of literature. One may argue the supreme authority on this grisly area of fiction is Edgar Allen Poe, the Gothic genius whose brilliant and daring works have more than stood the test of time. Poe exhibits a flexible versatility in his writing, exhibiting mastery of his craft that is arguably unmatched by any subsequent author. In two of his most famous works, The Raven and Annabel Lee, this versatility is displayed through the eerie nature of the former, that contrasts with the dark romanticism of the latter.



The Raven, since its first publication in 1845, has been a fixed staple in the community of dark poetry. As frequently quoted, analyzed, reanalyzed, and criticised by new enthusiasts, The Raven boasts a mysterious plotline that has captured the attention of scholars everywhere. Beginning “Once upon a midnight dreary”, the poem continues as the lonesome speaker is visited by a curious Raven. The bird, perching upon a bust of Pallas Athena above his door, repeats his mantra, the single word “Nevermore” The speaker responds to him as he laments his great lost love, Lenore, who has been claimed by angels. Whilst talking to the Raven, the speaker begins a descent into madness, calling into question the bird’s existence all together. The guardian above his door is initially unperturbed by the speaker, but his unwavering stare begins to frighten and excite: “To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core” Following this, the speaker begins to experience visions he believes come from God, haunted by his love Lenore whom he desperately wants to relinquish the memories of. Yet “Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore’”, his response suggesting that the speaker cannot escape the clutches of his own .....


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

Note:

I have now started writing a poem using my poetry form Lind30SR,

on Raven and Poe. Whereas usually when doing works on Poe my verses flow forth very fast. This time they are not so obligingly flying forth...

Which is not so bad since I am in no great hurry even if it takes many months to complete.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog- To write, to not lose my sole remaining small joy

amidst this darkest sea, this horrendous cavern of

epic pain, mournful loss and deepest of darkest sorrows … RJL

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

"If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to Heaven and bring you home again."

Author unknown

*****

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love."

Washington Irving

*****

"As long as I can I will look at this world for both of us. As long as I can I will laugh with the birds, I will sing with the flowers, I will pray to the stars, for both of us."

Sascha

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

When A Briefest Moment Of Light Chases Darkness Away



When deep lonely becomes your faithful companion

Dark fills your broken heart's empty canyons

Grief invades and your happiness washes away

Dawn weeps so very deeply- all life seems all gray

Your tears splash upon the most dreaded, sorrowful ground

And night arrives to your fortress skillfully pound

This world every hour seems a century long

You can only cry hearing her favorite song.



O' god, will this massive pain ever fly away?

O' god, shall this soul ever see a happy day?



As I live in this dark abyss, where fear reigns

And heart and soul swim oceans of grievous pains

Will I, this mountain of heartbreaking gloom defeat

As this black-world sends each morn's darkness to greet

I as a poet know, God's light can gift relief

In a blink, break chains, restoring faithful belief

What can a heart do, when weeping sorrows invade sleep

One finds their fervent wish is her to hold and keep?



O' god, will this massive pain ever fly away?

O' god, shall this soul ever see a happy day?

Robert J. Lindley, 3-07- 2022

First Note- deleted….



Second note--

I pray such heartache and sorrow never ever

touches you my friends. For this is no greater, darker and more painful

experience than this…

This has totally demolished my thought to be fortress,

Shown it to be but a vain and mortal folly. No human alive can face this darkness,

this epic, avalanche of heart destroying pain and not weep..

I cry and yet wonder, shall I survive this??? RJL



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

When Death Has Stolen Both Life And Love


Dawn, I beg you- Light return

Do so to soul gift relief

Now pain, all life's true joy burns

And Dark casts its epic stabs of grief.



Robert J. Lindley, 3-07- 2022

Lind30SR



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

Note:

To my friends here, forgive me for not

previously acknowledging your many messages of

heartfelt support and condolences. For it is the best

that I can do to respond in this manner now. I post

this now to try to insure that my temptation to never

again write does not take over. For I truly fear that

should it do so. My demise would quite swiftly follow.

I battle this darkness, this temptation to just end it all..

May God Bless you all….

Robert

[SassyLady]

Live for your son.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Live for your son.

Yes, thank you my friend, that is the most important reason to never ever give up....-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog Posted:4/10/2022 8:20:00 AM
Blog,
A Menagerie Of Verse, Rhyme, And Meandering Thoughts



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


(1.)

And From Within, A Flow Of Ink Seeks Eager Paper



soft sifting into soft

castles old and hearts afire

hungry eyes

and towering skyscrapers

concrete stairways

echoes from bellowing steel

whispers and mysteries

from meandering alleyways

and a world seeding darkness

into the shadows of mankind

time's furies splurge

universe pays no heed

earth rotates and dreams

begging sun and moon to drop

into turbulent seas

to quench a raging thirst

a desire as yet unknown

for deep within

gathering fleeting swirls

ancient men ponder

morn's breath, life and hidden cries

far, far into the scurrying mist

broken chains announce

a split, a release

of spasms of fear

and the final act

the dreaded end

to loving, dreaming

and the final footsteps

across time

another

star

shines.



Robert J. Lindley 4-10-2021

Free verse

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

(2.)

A Dismay And Dark Dying Look At Life



Disillusionment, disenchantment, disconnected thought

O the decaying of life-cast embers, sorrows sad world has wrought

Despair assaulting senses, pale and peaked the cracks in broken heart

Only path to now be chosen, repair of falling soul's overturned cart.



Robert J. Lindley 4-10-2021

Quatrain

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

(3.)

Dismay And Dark Dying Look At The World



Cascade of light emitting from glow of new morn

Baskets of splinters, love from sweeter life thus torn

Once was love's nectar from a maiden's hand sipped

Now the hope, from a mind, a heart, a soul ripped.



Robert J. Lindley 4-10-2021

Quatrain

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

(4.)

A Dismay And Dark Dying Look At Pain



O deepest of pains, from decaying marrows seeps

Crumbling rocks line the lanes, nightmares pave needed sleep

Fathoms beyond, universe laughs and softly cries

Lonely surrounds, fallen eagles from dark-set skies.



Robert J. Lindley 4-10-2021

Quatrain



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

(5.)

And From Within, A Bounty Of Words Flow Forth



sailing into waters swirling towards the abyss

heedless of the consequence, the coming hurts

within, a soul crying without any tears

a spirit existing as fragments of broken chain

rain falling in splatterings of faded gray

from afar, echoes

from beyond this realm

a soft cry

see, see the rainbows that await

live

thrive

walk from the decaying woods

swim the clear river

into the eddies of love

and know

life

its treasures, fear not fate

land ashore

explore

dare

to accept the colors

the glow

the joy

of rainbows, love, memories and promise

dream again

see again, live again

kiss sadness and sorrows goodbye

stay

pray

and ask no more the why.



Robert J. Lindley 4-10-2021

Free verse

********



Note: 4-10- 2022,



Again found, the healing power of poetic ink

the sword that cuts away dark and opens avenues of light

yet reality says, the battle rages on,

for the foe is no weakling

and to live, to thrive, to find joy -vigilance is the call of the day.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog,

( Ancient Times, Some Fragments And Poetic Memories )

*******



I Was In The Ocean, Man It Was Dark And Green



I was in the ocean, man it was dark and green

Man it was all nasty, a deep horror filled scene

Sky was a'bleeding, on my tacky new shoes

And Mother Nature crying because she had no clues

Trees were cursing, world its heart a-eating

Rivers stopped flowing, rocks took their beatings*

Life a'sleeping, snakes a moating, two by two

That was when hope and dreams both said, I do.



I was in the ocean, man it was dark and green.

Man it was all nasty, a deep horror filled scene.



R.J. Lindley ,July 15th 1974

Fragment… NOW COMPLETED

*******

Sad, Sad, Echoes That Bounce From Dying Stone



Sad, sad, echoes that bounce from dying stone

Nobody a'searching, here this soul sits all alone

Dawn its weeping, crying out to beat the band

Woke me from a'sleeping, that I cannot stand

Folks here dancing, barefoot without any shoes

Beauties silently prancing, nobody paying dues*

Life was a'moaning, but closed was the old door

My spirit was a'seeping, through holes in the floor.



Sad, sad, echoes that bounce from dying stone.

Nobody a'searching, here this soul sits all alone.



R. Lindley , July 27th 1974

Fragment… NOW COMPLETED

*******

Saw Her, Dutiful, Beautiful In That Blue Dress



Restless, motionless, oceanless, confessionless

Alone, seeking to atone, heart like a frozen stone

Saw her, dutiful, beautiful in that blue dress

And I a staring fool, just sitting there alone

Like a hungry dog that had lost its juicy bone.



Hopeless, useless, flightless, then cautionless

Blind, I wept for illumination to arrive*

Sorrows were my bread, falling tears I do confess

Love-cast dreams, I ate greedily to stay alive

In youth's vigor, worry I not how to survive.



Restless, motionless, oceanless, confessionless.

Saw her, dutiful, beautiful in that blue dress.



R. Lindley ,July 27th 1974

Fragment,-- NOW COMPLETED



********

( New poem, not a fragment )


But Time Came To Your Side, Saying, Now I Insist



Fate, know this far deeper thought- stay alive I must

For one shallow day, die I become bone and dust

Silent, so calmly asleep, turn I into stone

Beneath green pastures, weeping I for her alone

As fleeing winds, moan when hearing my futile cries

I that so deeply weep, beneath Nature's blue skies.



Fate, know this- your awesome powers, I did resist.

But Time came to your side, saying --now I insist.



Robert J. Lindley, 4-21-2022

Rhyme

*******

Blog Note:

(*)- after the verse, notes last verse of the fragments, that was completed..

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Completed Contests that used my poetry forms as requirements..-Tyr

(1.)

A Poem Crafted In The Various Lind30 by Robert Lindley
Contest Judged: 2/25/2022 8:13:00 AM
Sponsored by: Chantelle Anne Cooke | Send Soup Mail
See Contest Description
Place PoemTitle Poet
Contest Winner Medal 1 The Widower and Wife: LIND30 Hilo Poet
Contest Winner Medal 1 Words Will Not Do Andrea Dietrich
Contest Winner Medal 1 GRAND LIFE Beata Agustin
Contest Winner Medal 1 Snowy The Snowman Constance La France
Contest Winner Medal 1 Pussy Willows Sam Kauffman
Contest Winner Medal 1 Winnie-the-Pooh Looks At The Sky So Blue Eve Roper
Contest Winner Medal 1 Calm Cruise Greg Masciana
Contest Winner Medal 1 Sensational sunset JAN ALLISON
Contest Winner Medal 1 What Time Said When I Complained Janice Canerdy
Contest Winner Medal 1 Lullaby Song Kelly Deschler
Contest Winner Medal 1 Terror filled me ere I slept Jeff Kyser
Contest Winner Medal 1 Old Homeplace L MILTON HANKINS
Contest Winner Medal 1 So Help Us God Sotto Poet
Contest Winner Medal 1 Subtle Glance Linda Craddick
Contest Winner Medal 1 To Love Charles Messina
Contest Winner Medal 1 The Cosmos Paulette Calasibetta
Contest Winner Medal 1 Called Home Robert Gorelick
Contest Winner Medal 1 My Love My Love Paula Goldsmith
Contest Winner Medal 1 Your Fragrance Subimal Sinha-Roy
Contest Winner Medal 1 A Scarlet Gown M. L. Kiser

Contest Description
What to Submit?

1 original, poem on the theme of anything. Must adhere to the Lind30. Please read Robert Lindley's Blogs for further information regarding his poetic forms. NEW POEMS ONLY FROM TODAYS DATE 1/25/2022 AND FORWARD. GOOD LUCK!

PLEASE CHOOSE "VERSE" FOR YOUR FORM.

Prizes

Many Placements Available

Preparing Your Entry

Submit one copy of your poem online. Format your poem. Please make your entry easy to read — no illustrations or fancy fonts.

English Language

Poems should be in English. Poems translated from other languages are not eligible, unless you wrote both the original poem and the translation.

A Note to Poetry Contestants

You are welcome to enter this contest, whether or not you won a prize in one of my previous contests.

****************************
(2.)

LIND30 Rhyme
Contest Judged: 4/13/2022 4:09:00 PM
Sponsored by: Chantelle Anne Cooke | Send Soup Mail
See Contest Description
Place PoemTitle Poet
Contest Winner Medal 1 Green Reflections Constance La France
Contest Winner Medal 2 BITTERNESS Kim Rodrigues
Contest Winner Medal 3 Yearning Paul Callus
4 a boy, a king Jeff Kyser
5 Backlash Sotto Poet
6 Spears Of Green Emile Pinet
7 On Children Today Andrea Dietrich
8 Wine Time Greg Masciana
9 Big Bees Paula Goldsmith
10 Spring Cleaning Sandra Haight

Contest Description
What to Submit?

1 original, poem on the theme of .............Part Two in the series of Robert Lindley's LIND3O. 7,7,7,9 Syllable Count with Rhyme. New poems only from today's date 3/18/2022 and forward. Good Luck!


Prizes

First Prize, Glory
Second Prize, Glory
Third Prize, Glory
Twelve Honorable Mentions

Preparing Your Entry

Submit one copy of your poem online. Format your poem. Please make your entry easy to read — no illustrations or fancy fonts.

English Language

Poems should be in English. Poems translated from other languages are not eligible, unless you wrote both the original poem and the translation.

A Note to Poetry Contestants

You are welcome to enter this contest, whether or not you won a prize in one of my previous contests.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Past blogs-- (poems presented there )


Blog on Balance as it is in Nature, Earth and Poetry A balance as the in-between of light and dark
Blog Posted:5/1/2021 4:01:00 PM
Blog on Balance as it is in Nature, Earth and Poetry

A balance as the in-between of light and dark





https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/8719885/spring-equinox-day-night-perfectly-balanced-first-day-of-spring/



HARMONY ON EARTH Day and night are perfectly balanced on the first day of spring in snap of Earth’s terminator from space

The shot was taken from space on the spring equinox, which fell on March 20 this year



Jenny Awford

26 Mar 2019, 1:08Updated: 26 Mar 2019, 9:47

A STUNNING image shows the Earth in perfect balance between night and day on the first official day of spring.



The snap of the planet's terminator - the line separating night and day - was taken from space on the spring equinox, which fell on March 20 this year.



An image taken from space shows the perfect balance between night and day on the first official day of spring

2

An image taken from space shows the perfect balance between night and day on the first official day of springCredit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

With half of the planet illuminated in light and the other steeped in darkness, the picture captures the Earth’s beautiful symmetry.



During the equinox, the amount of daylight and darkness is nearly equal at all latitudes.



It occurs twice a year, in March and in September and heralds the changing seasons.



Last week marked the official astronomical start of spring – which is also referred to as the vernal equinox.





"During two special times twice a year, the tilt is actually perpendicular to the sun, which means that Earth is equally illuminated in the Northern and Southern hemispheres," C. Alex Young, associate director for science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, previously told Live Science.



This means, the sun is directly above the equator at noon during an equinox, which is latin for “equal night”.



“The 'nearly' equal hours of day and night is due to refraction of sunlight, or a bending of the light's rays that causes the sun to appear above the horizon when the actual position of the sun is below the horizon,” according to the US' National Weather Service.



In the Northern Hemisphere, the spring equinox also marks the beginning of autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.



The Northern Hemisphere's autumnal equinox — which will take place six months later — heralds the coming of spring south of the equator.



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

(1.)



On Nights As Quiet As Silent Fern Grows



On nights as quiet as silent fern grows

Within solitude of a heart torn

A chill like a blanket of winter snow

Invades to destroy hopes of the forlorn.



Outside far beyond moon so softly weeps

Yet the heartbroken finds no release

Hours tick away that much needed sleep

Even most sincere prayers bring no peace.



Those sad nights bringing dark unholy hell

Life seeks to deny epic horrors sent

Yet sorrow's great powers are hard to quell

For heart and soul are both torn and spent.



On nights as quiet as silent fern grows

Within solitude of a heart torn

A chill like a blanket of winter snow

Invades to destroy hopes of the forlorn.



Robert J. Lindley, 4-27-2021

Rhyme,



(2.)



A Vision So Breathtaking To Behold



I remember that day as clear as glass

Glistening dew wet upon verdant grass

A true angel stood there smiling at me

I in my hammock under that old elm tree.



A vision so breathtaking to behold

Like fantastic romantic tale well told

Mind asking can this sweet treasure be real

Is this love at first sight that I now feel?



Taking a deep breath and another look

Deeper romantic thoughts began to cook

Tis heaven sent and so meant to be mine

I say I love you, I want to be thine.



I remember that day as clear as glass

Glistening dew wet upon verdant grass

A true angel stood there smiling at me

I in my hammock under that old elm tree.



I remember that day as clear as glass

Glistening dew wet upon verdant grass

A true angel stood there smiling at me

I in my hammock under that old elm tree.



Robert J. Lindley, 4-28-2021

Romanticism,



(3.)



There Within Twilight's Soft Whispering Breath



There within twilight's soft whispering breath

Resides divine words that can defeat death

Words of hope bathed in Beauty and Light

Treasures as can relieve saddest of plights.



Dare we mortals live our winter choices

Pleading for more with our desperate voices

Mind chanting our deepest of dark sorrows

Living each day, praying for tomorrows.



Our souls steeped in ravaging hot blood

Born to allow our emotions to flood

Prisoners to our passionate resolves

Seeking to our greedy powers evolve.



Should we ever vanquish our darken lusts

Break that stabbing blade that forever thrusts

Only then may we hear that dawning plea

To live and love true, daring to be free.



There within twilight's soft whispering breath

Resides divine words that can defeat death

Words of hope bathed in Beauty and Light

Treasures as can relieve saddest of plights.



Robert J. Lindley, 5-01-2021

Rhyme,

( To look with astonishment beyond the earthen plane )

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog on: Mythology and Humanity, Literature Once Read In High School

(1.)

Of Mythology And The Tales Of The Seven Sisters



Man that walks beneath winds of searching doom

Ever seeking treasured filled rooms

Therein lusting for all and all the more

Drinking in war and its murderous roar.



From words of a wizen sage- what is Life

But a zagged cut from a rusty knife?



From the dregs of a poisoned chalice,

Whispers uttered in the king's palace

Seeds of pain laced with life-moans of dread

Within deep agonies of Hades' dead.



From words of a wizen sage- what is Life

But a zagged cut from a rusty knife?



Forbidden, wretched agonies of Hades

Wondrous, bright glimmerings of the Pleiades

Asterope weeping in night skies above

Innocence ravaged, forcing her love.



From words of a wizen sage- what is Life

But a zagged cut from a rusty knife?



Stars and tales of damaged gods of old

Mankind believing such as it was told

Yet existing upon this floating speck

In greed's name, savaging earth, creating wrecks.



From words of a wizen sage- what is Life

But a zagged cut from a rusty knife?



Zeus striding across towering mountains

Commander of all life giving fountains

Once a wrathful god but now just a myth

Even He, Death cut with its mighty scythe.



From words of a wizen sage- what is Life

But a zagged cut from a rusty knife?

Robert J. Lindley, 3-12-2021

Rhyme, ( Wondrous Tales From The School Literature Of My Youth )

Of Mythology and Humanity…

(With Tribute given to Homer) , ( "The Iliad And The Odyssey")

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

(2.)

As Destiny And Fate, The Olympic Gods Destroyed



As time plays its ancient dirge

Did not Zeus fly down to sate his deep urge

Not as a fallen god among mere men

But ravenous pillager of women

In such depraved deeds man still gave way

Gathering in temples to his name pray

And blindness held its grip on mortal souls

Seen, fallacy mythology extols.



Ancient Greeks believed in such Olympic truths

As a model to mode their warrior youth

Praising the gods for their powerful might

Blinded to the truth denying true light

In Nature's beauty they saw god faces

Honoring such by Olympic races

Man raced forward and its folly found

Set about to Prometheus unbound.



The gods so angered swift were their wraths

Futile their standing in man's raging paths

O' pity the tale of Olympic fall

And Fate and Death's sad final curtain call

For mankind saw they were not truly gods

Left them to die as it stalwartly plods.



Wherein mankind found yet another way.

Leaving gods in temples bound to decay.



Robert J. Lindley, 3-12-2021

Rhyme, ( Wondrous Tales From The School Literature Of My Youth )

Of Mythology And Humanity…

(With Tribute given to Homer) , ( "The Iliad And The Odyssey")

Note:

Pleiades, in Greek mythology, the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione: Maia, Electra, Taygete, Celaeno, Alcyone, Sterope, and Merope. They all had children by gods (except Merope, who married Sisyphus).

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

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pleiades-Greek-mythology

Pleiades

Greek mythology

WRITTEN BY

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Haiphong cyclone | tropical cyclone, Pacific Ocean [1881]

Pleiades, in Greek mythology, the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione: Maia, Electra, Taygete, Celaeno, Alcyone, Sterope, and Merope. They all had children by gods (except Merope, who married Sisyphus).

mythology. Greek. Hermes. (Roman Mercury)

BRITANNICA QUIZ

A Study of Greek and Roman Mythology

Who led the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece? Who is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Ares? From fruits to winged sandals, test your knowledge in this study of Greek and Roman mythology.

The Pleiades eventually formed a constellation. One myth recounts that they all killed themselves out of grief over the death of their sisters, the Hyades. Another explains that after seven years of being pursued by Orion, a Boeotian giant, they were turned into stars by Zeus. Orion became a constellation, too, and continued to pursue the sisters across the sky. The faintest star of the Pleiades was thought to be either Merope, who was ashamed of loving a mortal, or Electra, grieving for Troy, the city of Dardanus, her son with Zeus.

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

https://www.naic.edu/~gibson/pleiades/pleiades_myth.html

Pleiades Mythology

The mythology associated with the Pleiades cluster is extensive; Burnham alone devotes eight pages to the subject, and Allen more than twice that number (see references). Here only Greek legends are presented. Even so, these are manifold and often contradictory, being patched together from many different cultures over a long period of time. Further uncertainty is added by most Pleiads sharing names with otherwise unrelated mythological characters. So enjoy, but please do not consider this information to be infallible.

Possible Name Derivations

plein, `to sail', making Pleione `sailing queen' and her daughters `sailing ones.' The cluster's conjunction with the sun in spring and opposition in fall marked the start and end of the summer sailing season in ancient Greece.

pleos, `full', of which the plural is `many', appropriate for a star cluster.

peleiades, `flock of doves', consistent with the sisters' mythological transformation.

Genealogy

The Pleiad(e)s were the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, and half-sisters of the Hyades, whose mother was Æthra (`bright sky'; a different Æthra than the mother of Theseus). They were perhaps also half-sisters of the Hesperides, who were daughters of either Night alone, or Atlas and Hesperis (`evening'), or Ceto and Phorcys. Both Pleione and Æthra were Oceanids, daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, the titans who ruled the outer seas before being replaced by Poseidon. Atlas (`he who dares' or `suffers'; from the Indo-European tel-, tla-, `to lift, support, bear'), another titan, led their war against the gods, and was afterward condemned by Zeus to hold up the heavens on his shoulders. The Pleiades were also nymphs in the train of Artemis, and together with the seven Hyades (`rainmakers' or `piglets'; individual Hyad names are not fully agreed upon) were called the Atlantides, Dodonides, or Nysiades, nursemaids and teachers to the infant Bacchus. The Hesperides (`nymphs of the west'), apparently not counted in this, were only three, and dwelled in an orchard of Hera's, from which Heracles fetched golden apples in his eleventh labor.

Individual Sisters

For each, a name translation is given first, followed by available biographical information, and parallel stories of like-named characters.

Alcyone or Halcyone - `queen who wards off evil [storms]' -

Seduced by Poseidon and gave birth to either Hyrieus (the name of Orion's father, but perhaps not the same Hyrieus) or Anthas, founder of Anthæa, Hyperea, and Halicarnassus.

Another Alcyone, daughter of Æolus (guardian of the winds) and Ægiale, married Ceyx of Trachis; the two jokingly called each other Hera and Zeus, vexing those gods, who drowned Ceyx in a storm at sea; Alcyone threw herself into the sea at the news, and was transformed into a halcyon (kingfisher). Legend has it the halcyon hen buries her dead mate in the winter before laying her eggs in a compact nest and setting it adrift on the sea; Æolus forbids the nest to be disturbed, so the water is calm for 14 days centered on the winter solstice, called the Halcyon Days. The actual bird does not build nests however; instead the story probably derives from an old pagan observance of the turning season, with the moon-goddess conveying a dead symbolic king of the old year to his resting place. Though this Alcyone and the Pleiad Alcyone appear to be separate individuals, they may be related: in 2000 BC, a vigorous period of ancient astronomy, the Pleiades rose nearly four hours earlier than they do today for the same time of year, and were overhead at nightfall on the winter solstice, when the Halcyon supposedly nested; their conjunction with the sun during spring equinoxes at that time may have something to do with the association of the cluster with birds, which are often used as symbols of life and renewal.

Asterope or Sterope - `lightning', `twinkling', `sun-face', `stubborn-face' (Indo-European ster-, `star', `stellar', `asterisk', etc.) -

In some accounts, ravished by Ares and gave birth to Oenomaus, king of Pisa. In others, Oenomaus was her husband, and they had a beautiful daughter, Hippodaima, and three sons, Leucippus, Hippodamus, and Dysponteus, founder of Dyspontium; or, Oenomaus may instead have had these children with Euarete, daughter of Acrisius.



Another Asterope was daughter of the river Cebren.

Still another was daughter of Porthaön, and may have been the mother of the Sirens, who lured sailors to their deaths with their enchanting singing.

A possible alternate name is Asterië (`of the starry sky' or `of the sun'), which may also be a name for the creatrix of the universe, Eurynome, in the Pelasgian myth. Graves mentions her as a Pleiad only in passing, with no other mention in the other references. Perhaps she was at one time a Pleiad when different names were used, or an earlier version of Sterope, whose name is similar; or perhaps Graves is incorrect. He also in passing calls the titan or oak-goddess Dione a Pleiad, without explanation or corroboration. Does the term have a broader meaning in some contexts?

Celæno - `swarthy' -

Had sons Lycus (``wolf'') and Chimærus (``he-goat'') by Prometheus. No other data.

Electra or Eleckra - `amber', `shining', `bright' (Indo-European wleik-, `to flow, run', as a liquid); electrum is an alloy of silver and gold, and means amber in Latin, as does the Greek elektron; Thales of Miletus noted in 600 BC that a rubbed piece of amber will attract bits of straw, a manifestation of the effects of static electricity (outer charge stripping via friction), and perhaps the origin of the modern term -

Wife of Corythus; seduced by Zeus and gave birth to Dardanus, founder of Troy, ancestor of Priam and his house. Called Atlantis by Ovid, personifying the family. May also, by Thaumas, be the mother of the Harpies, foul bird-women who lived in a Cretan cave and harried criminals, but this could be a different ocean-nymph of the same name.



Another Electra was a daughter of Oedipus, though this may not be the same Oedipus who killed his father and married his mother. She is said to be mother of Dardanus and Iason.



Yet another Electra was a daughter of Agamemnon and Clytæmnestra, with an alternate name of Laodice, and with brother Orestes and sisters Chrysothemis and Iphigeneia (or Iphianassa), though the latter sister may have been Clytæmnestra's niece, adopted from Theseus and Helen. Agamemnon was king of Mycenæ and led the Greeks against Troy; he was murdered at his return by Clytæmnestra and her lover Ægisthus, both of whom Orestes and Electra killed in revenge, whence the psychological term `Electra complex'. This Electra was also wife to the peasant Pylades, and bore him Medon and Strophius the Second.



Maia - `grandmother', `mother', `nurse'; `the great one' (Latin) -

Eldest and most beautiful of the sisters; a mountain nymph in Arcadia. Seduced by Zeus and gave birth to Hermes. Later became foster-mother to Arcas, son of Zeus and Callisto, during the period while Callisto was a bear, and before she and Arcas were placed in the heavens by Zeus (she as Ursa Major, he as either Boötes or Ursa Minor).



Another Maia was the Roman goddess of spring, daughter of Faunus and wife of Vulcan (his Greek counterpart, Hephæstus, married Aphrodite instead). Farmers were cautioned not to sow grain before the time of her setting, or conjunction with the sun. The month of May is named after her, and is coincidentally(?) the month in which the solar conjunction happens. By our modern calendar, the conjunction occurred in April in early Roman times, with the shift since then due to the precession of the Earth's axis; but calendars too have changed over time, especially before the time of Julius Caesar, so the month and the cluster's solar conjunction may have lined up then as well.

Merope - `eloquent', `bee-eater', `mortal' -

Married Sisyphus (se-sophos, `very wise'), son of Æolus, grandson of Deucalion (the Greek Noah), and great-grandson of Prometheus. She bore Sisyphus sons Glaucus, Ornytion, and Sinon; she is sometimes also said to be mother of Dædalus, though others in the running are Alcippe and Iphinoë. Sisyphus founded the city of Ephyre (Corinth) and later revealed Zeus's rape of Ægina to her father Asopus (a river), for which Zeus condemned Sisyphus to roll a huge stone up a hill in Hades, only to have it roll back down each time the task was nearly done. Glaucus (or Glaukos) was father of Bellerophon, and in one story was killed by horses maddened by Aphrodite because he would not let them breed. He also led Lycian troops in the Trojan War, and in the Iliad was tricked by the Greek hero Diomedes into exchanging his gold armor for Diomedes' brass, the origin of the term `Diomedian swap'. Another Glaucus was a fisherman of Boeotia who became a sea-god gifted with prophecy and instructed Apollo in soothsaying. Still another Glaucus was a son of Minos who drowned in a vat of honey and was revived by the seer Polyidos, who instructed Glaucus in divination, but, angry at being made a prisoner, caused the boy to forget everything when Polyidos finally left Crete. The word glaukos means gleaming, bluish green or gray, perhaps describing the appearance of a blind eye if glaucoma (cataract) derives from it. Is the name Glaucus a reference to sight, or blindness, physical or otherwise? It is also curious that meropia is a condition of partial blindness.

Another Merope was daughter of Dionysus's son Oenopion, king of Chios; Orion fell in love with her, and Oenopion refused to give her up, instead having him blinded. Orion regained his sight and sought vengeance, but was killed by Artemis, or by a scorpion, or by some other means (many versions).

Yet another Merope and her sister Cleothera (with alternate names of Cameiro and Clytië for the two of them) were orphaned daughters of Pandareus.

Still another was mother of Æpytus by Cresphontes, king of Messenia. Her husband was murdered by Polyphontes, who claimed both her and the throne, but was later killed by Æpytus to avenge his father's death.



One last, more often known as Periboea, was wife of Polybus, king of Corinth. The two of them adopted the infant Oedipus after his father Laius left him to die, heeding a prophecy that his son would kill him, which, of course, he eventually did.



Taygete or Taygeta - ? tanygennetos, `long-necked' -

Seduced by Zeus and gave birth to Lacedæmon, founder of Sparta, to which she was thus an important goddess. In some versions of the story, she was unwilling to yield to Zeus, and was disguised by Artemis as a hind (female red deer) to elude him; but he eventually caught her and begot on her Lacedæmon, whereupon she hanged herself.



Another Taygete was niece to the first. She married Lacedæmon and bore Himerus, who drowned himself in a river after Aphrodite caused him to deflower his sister Cleodice. One of the Taygetes may have been mother to Tantalus, who was tormented in Hades with thirst and hunger for offending the gods; however his parentage is uncertain; his mother may instead be Pluto (not the Roman version of Hades), daughter of either Cronus and Rhea or Oceanus and Tethys, and his father Zeus or Tmolus.



Astromorphosis

One day the great hunter Orion saw the Pleiads (perhaps with their mother, or perhaps just one of them; see Merope above) as they walked through the Boeotian countryside, and fancied them. He pursued them for seven years, until Zeus answered their prayers for delivery and transformed them into birds (doves or pidgeons), placing them among the stars. Later on, when Orion was killed (many conflicting stories as to how), he was placed in the heavens behind the Pleiades, immortalizing the chase.

Lost Pleiad

The `lost Pleiad' legend came about to explain why only six are easily visible to the unaided eye (I have my own thoughts on this). This sister is variously said to be Electra, who veiled her face at the burning of Troy, appearing to mortals afterwards only as a comet; or Merope, who was shamed for marrying a mortal; or Celæno, who was struck by a thunderbolt. Missing Pleiad myths also appear in other cultures, prompting Burnham to speculate stellar variability (Pleione?) as a physical basis. It is difficult to know if the modern naming pays attention to any of this. Celæno is the faintest at present, but the "star" Asterope is actually two stars, each of which is fainter than Celæno if considered separately.

References

The information above was taken from:

Burnham's Celestial Handbook, Revised & Enlarged Edition, Robert Burnham Jr., 1976, Dover Publications Inc.

Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, Richard Hinckley Allen, 1899, 1963, Dover reprint (Note: Allen's text on individual Pleiades stars can be found at Alcyone Systems.)

Star Lore of All Ages, William Tyler Olcott, 1911, 1931, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York

Star Tales, Ian Ridpath, 1988, Universe Books

The Age of Fable, Thomas Bullfinch, 1942, Heritage Press

The Greek Myths, Robert Graves, 1960, Pelican Books

The Reader's Encyclopedia 2/e, William Rose Benet, 1965, Thomas Y. Crowell Company

American Heritage Dictionary, 1965

Fundamentals of Physics 2/e, David Halliday and Robert Resnick, 1986, John Wiley & Sons, New York

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epic_poems

List of epic poems

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

This list can be compared with two others, national epic and list of world folk-epics.[1]

This is a list of epic poems.



Ancient epics (to 500)

Before the 8th century BC

Epic of Gilgamesh (Mesopotamian mythology)

Epic of Lugalbanda (including Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave and Lugalbanda and the Anzud Bird, Mesopotamian mythology)

Epic of Enmerkar (including Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta and Enmerkar and En-suhgir-ana, Mesopotamian mythology)

Atrahasis (Mesopotamian mythology)

Enuma Elish (Babylonian mythology)

The Descent of Inanna into the Underworld (Mesopotamian mythology)

Legend of Keret (Ugaritic mythology)

Cycle of Kumarbi (Hurrian mythology)

8th to 6th century BC

Iliad, ascribed to Homer (Greek mythology)

Odyssey, ascribed to Homer (Greek mythology)

Works and Days, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology)

Theogony, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology)

Shield of Heracles, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology)

Catalogue of Women, ascribed to Hesiod (Greek mythology; only fragments survive)

Cypria, Aethiopis, Little Iliad, Iliupersis, Nostoi and Telegony, forming the so-called Epic Cycle (only fragments survive)

Oedipodea, Thebaid, Epigoni and Alcmeonis, forming the so-called Theban Cycle (only fragments survive)

A series of poems ascribed to Hesiod during antiquity (of which only fragments survive): Aegimius (alternatively ascribed to Cercops of Miletus), Astronomia, Descent of Perithous, Idaean Dactyls (almost completely lost), Megala Erga, Megalai Ehoiai, Melampodia and Wedding of Ceyx

Capture of Oechalia, ascribed to Homer or Creophylus of Samos during antiquity (only fragment survives)

Phocais, ascribed to Homer during antiquity (only fragment survives)

Titanomachy ascribed to Eumelus of Corinth (only fragment survives)

Danais (written by one of the cyclic poets and from which the Danaid tetralogy of Aeschylus draws its material), Minyas and Naupactia, almost completely lost

5th to 4th century BC

Heracleia, tells of the labors of Heracles, almost completely lost, written by Panyassis (Greek mythology)

Mahabharata, ascribed to Veda Vyasa (Indian mythology)

Ramayana, ascribed to Valmiki (Indian mythology)

3rd century BC

Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes (Greek mythology)

2nd century BC

Annales by Ennius (Roman history; only fragments survive)

1st century BC

De rerum natura by Lucretius (natural philosophy)

Georgics by Virgil (didactic poem)

Aeneid by Virgil (Roman mythology)

1st century AD

Metamorphoses by Ovid (Greek and Roman mythology)

Pharsalia by Lucan (Roman history; unfinished)

Argonautica by Gaius Valerius Flaccus (Roman poet, Greek mythology; incomplete)

Punica by Silius Italicus (Roman history)

Thebaid and Achilleid by Statius (Roman poet, Greek mythology; latter poem incomplete)

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Going to try an experiment. I will now post a poem that was written by Edgar Allan Poe.
And then start to compose a tribute poem, with that poem in mind and the thoughts it inspired.
Point is to see how fast I can finish one that is by my standards good enough to pass muster.

Poe's poem--one that is not dark....

To The River

by Edgar Allan Poe
(published 1829)



Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow
Of beauty -- the unhidden heart --
The playful maziness of art
In old Alberto's daughter;

But when within thy wave she looks --
Which glistens then, and trembles --
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
Her worshipper resembles;
For in my heart, as in thy stream,
Her image deeply lies --
The heart which trembles at the beam
Of her soul-searching eyes.

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

My tribute offering,
Times started composing, 8:58am
finished 9:24am
This went far faster and came out far better than
i ever thought it could or would.--Tyr

O'Bright Star, Thy Bright Gleamings True Hearts See

O'bright star! may thy gleam our sad hearts sate
with splendor of glow, quench our dying thirsts
Thy exquisite beauty, mankind debates
as well, bold shining depths of thy starbursts.

Why gift that grin, that Chesire cat-eye glow.
As riddles we are never meant to know?

O'bright star! will thy eternal gaze blink
a galactic voice thy wisdom imparts
Are thy infinite gleamings - wine to drink,
as a soothing balm to heal broken hearts,
Shall ever thy distant voice our souls hear
or will we destroy Earth with hate and fear?

May we in our pitifully sad state.
Reach, touch thy heart's glow, to truly relate?

Robert J. Lindley, 9/10/2020
Sonnet, A tribute poem,
To Poe's, poem, titled,
"To The River"..



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

edit- 9-12-2020



https://www.chino.k12.ca.us/cms/lib/CA01902308/Centricity/Domain/3749/8.2.1_The%20Genius%20of%20Poe.pdf

The Genius of “The Tell-Tale Heart” BY STEPHEN KING

When I do public appearances, I’m often-no, always-asked what scares me. The answer is almost everything, from express elevators in very tall buildings to the idea of a zealot1 loose with a suitcase nuke in one of the great cities of the world. But if the question is refined to “What works of fiction have scared you?” two always leap immediately to mind: Lord of the Flies by William Golding and “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe. Most people know that Poe invented the modern detective story (Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is in many ways the same detective as Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin), but few are aware that he also created the first work of criminal sociopathy2 in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a story originally published in 1843. Many great crime writers of the twentieth century, from Jim Thompson and John D. MacDonald to Thomas Harris (who in Hannibal Lecter may have created the greatest sociopath of them all), are the children of Poe. The details of the story are still gruesome enough to produce nightmares (the cutting up of the victim’s body, for instance, or the old man’s one dying shriek), but the terror that lingers-and the story’s genius-lies in the superficially reasonable voice of the narrator. He is never named, and that is fitting, because we have no idea how he picked his victim, or what drove him to the crime. Oh, we know what he says: it was the old man’s gruesomely veiled eye. But of course, Jeffrey Dahmer said he wanted to create zombies, and the Son of Sam at one point claimed his dog told him to do it. We understand, I think, that psychopaths3 offer such wacky motivations because they are as helpless as the rest of us to explain their terrible acts. This is, above all, a persuasive story of lunacy, and Poe never offers any real explanations. Nor has to. The narrator’s cheerful laughter (“A tub had caught… all [the blood]-ha! ha!”) tells us all we need to know. Here is a creature who looks like a man but who really belongs to another species. That’s scary. What elevates this story beyond merely scary and into the realm of genius, though, is that Poe foresaw the darkness of generations far beyond his own. Ours, for instance. 1: zealot- fanatic, enthusiast 2: sociopathy- having antisocial behavior 3: pychopaths- persons suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior. B its founder, Thomas Jefferson. It had strict rules against gambling, horses, guns, tobacco and alcohol, but these rules were generally ignored. Jefferson had enacted a system of student self-government, allowing students to choose their own studies, make their own arrangements for boarding, and report all wrongdoing to the faculty. The unique system was still in chaos, and there was a high dropout rate. During his time there, Poe lost touch with Royster and also became estranged from his foster father over gambling debts. Poe claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for classes, purchase texts, and procure and furnish a dormitory. Allan did send additional money and clothes, but Poe's debts increased. Poe gave up on the university after a year, and, not feeling welcome in Richmond, especially when he learned that his sweetheart Royster had married Alexander Shelton, he traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer. At some point he started using the pseudonym Henri Le Rennet. Death On October 3, 1849, Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore delirious, "in great distress, and... in need of immediate assistance", according to the man who found him, Joseph W. Walker. He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died on Sunday, October 7, 1849, at 5:00 in the morning. Poe was never coherent long enough to explain how he came to be in his dire condition, and, oddly, was wearing clothes that were not his own. Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though it is unclear to whom he was referring. Some sources say Poe's final words were "Lord help my poor soul." All medical records, including his death certificate, have been lost. Newspapers at the time reported Poe's death as "congestion of the brain" or "cerebral inflammation", common euphemisms for deaths from disreputable causes such as alcoholism. The actual cause of death remains a mystery; from as early as 1872, cooping was commonly believed to have been the cause, and speculation has included delirium tremens, heart disease, epilepsy, syphilis, meningeal inflammation, cholera and rabies. Griswold's "Memoir" The day Edgar Allan Poe was buried, a long obituary appeared in the New York Tribune signed "Ludwig". It was soon published throughout the country. The piece began, "Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it." "Ludwig" was soon identified as Rufus Wilmot Griswold, an editor, critic and anthologist who had borne a grudge against Poe since 1842. Griswold somehow became Poe's literary executor and attempted to destroy his enemy's reputation after his death. Rufus Griswold wrote a biographical article of Poe called "Memoir of the Author", which he included in an 1850 volume of the collected works. Griswold depicted Poe as a depraved, drunk, drug-addled madman and included Poe's letters as evidence. Many of his claims were either lies or distorted half-truths. For example, it is now known that Poe was not a drug addict. Griswold's book was denounced by those who knew Poe well, but it became a popularly accepted one. This occurred in part because it was the only full biography available and was widely reprinted and in part because readers thrilled at the thought of reading works by an "evil" man. Letters that Griswold presented as proof of this depiction of Poe were later revealed as forgeries. Literary Style and Themes Genres Poe's best known fiction works are Gothic, a genre he followed to appease the public taste. His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning. Many of his works are generally considered part of the dark romanticism genre, a literary reaction to transcendentalism, which Poe strongly disliked. He referred to followers of the movement as "Frogpondians" after the pond on Boston Common and ridiculed their writings as "metaphor-run mad," lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "mysticism for mysticism's sake." Poe once wrote in a letter to Thomas Holley Chivers that he did not dislike Transcendentalists, "only the pretenders and sophists among them." Beyond horror, Poe also wrote satires, humor tales, and hoaxes. For comic effect, he used irony and ludicrous extravagance, often in an attempt to liberate the reader from cultural conformity. In fact, "Metzengerstein", the first story that Poe is known to have published, and his first foray into horror, was originally intended as a burlesque satirizing the popular genre. Poe also reinvented science fiction, responding in his writing to emerging technologies such as hot air balloons in "The Balloon-Hoax". Poe wrote much of his work using themes specifically catered for mass market tastes. To that end, his fiction often included elements of popular pseudosciences such as phrenology and physiognomy.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Note:
My inspired interpretations received after reading several times
this truly wonderful and very deep poem by Thomas Grays.
A gift he gave to this world and one that is so widely recognized
for its depths, truth, insight, and laments about this dark world
and its harsh, heavy cruel blows laid upon the common man. RJL


Inspiration, Revelation, Adaptation, With Poetic Verse

Sonnet I

I saw morn's soft hands stretching to touch bright moonlight
Tis but a fleeting blink betwixt man's death and birth
Dark unknowing is why we so oft fear the night
In that abject blindness, fail to see life's true worth
Alas! Such are sorrows of mankind's constant plight
That feeds malignant swellings of darkness on earth;
Those of ancient times, of distant long-dead yesterdays
Will one day from that deepest of slumbers arise
Long hidden from flown days and nights, deep weeping grays
Reborn with no thoughts of dark cast previous lies.
As Earth spins, sounding its constant evolving beats
We blind to light's truth, continue our foolish acts
Racing onward counting our coins and useless feats
Life came from light's truth, not so-called man-made facts.

Sonnet II

I that thought to profit, see beyond Earthly veil
Having never measured truest rectitude of life
In my epic quest, the highest of mountains scale
In youth, blind to sad flowing storms of mortal strife
Alas! We that in our darkness refuse to see
Oft face raging storms that seem to forever swirl
Not realizing, Love's blessings are given free
To counter lightning bolts world's malevolence hurls.
I that foolishly thought to defeat that we die
Later learned the truth our vanity denies
We are lost because we believe that blackest lie
That we were once roaming beasts beneath earthen skies
By our own greatness became gods of divine might
Free to do as we please, revel in our delights.

Sonnet III

In June, when wondering winds our hearts so lighten
I have found eager bubbling brooks streaming along
Summer's morn setting up today gaily brighten
Nature gifting beauty, songbirds gifting sweet song
Across flowering meadows, busy bees flying
Life many treasures so beautifully sharing
Time to live, not sadly ponder mortal dying
For truest of joy depends on our loving caring
There rests much more happiness in sincere kindness
And sweeter breath within Love's soft-touch inspiring
Eyes to then see, welcoming defeat of blindness
Rather than worldly conflicts and daily sparring
To satisfy our fleshly dreams and deep desires
And embrace light's divine truth that never expires.

Robert J. Lindley, 9/15, 9/16, 9/17
Sonnet trilogy,
( When Blessed Gifts Are Suddenly Given To One Pleading )

Note -- This new creation, was composed in three days of
each day my reading of Thomas Gray's magnificent poem,
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, that was first
published in 1751....

********


(1.)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44299/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyard


Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
BY THOMAS GRAY
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such, as wand'ring near her secret bow'r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn,
The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their hist'ry in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscrib'd alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, ling'ring look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who mindful of th' unhonour'd Dead
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies he would rove,
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath and near his fav'rite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

"The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow thro' the church-way path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

THE EPITAPH
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heav'n did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear,
He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
The bosom of his Father and his God.

******************************************
(2.) https://www.supersummary.com/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyard/summary/

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Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard Summary


Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Plot Summary of “Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics.

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is a Restoration Period poem by Thomas Gray. An elegy, by strict definition, is usually a lament for the dead. Gray’s version of an elegy is slightly different—he writes about the inevitability and hollowness of death in general, instead of mourning one person. At first, the poem reflects on death in a mostly detached way, as someone who is resigned to death’s outcome. Yet, the epitaph he writes for himself at the end of the poem, reflects a fear of death. Elegy is a renowned English poem, regarded as one of the best of the time, and arguably of all time. It was popular when it was first written and was reprinted many times.

The speaker begins the poem by saying he is in a churchyard with a bell tolling for the end of the day, he uses this image as a metaphor for life and death. He describes the scenery around him, speaking of the sun setting, the church tower covered in ivy, and an owl hooting. He then focuses on the graveyard around him. He speaks of the men who are in the graves and how they were probably simple village folk. They’re dead and nothing will wake these villagers, not a rooster’s call in the morning, not twittering birds, and not the smell of the morning breeze. The speaker also laments that life’s pleasures will no longer be felt by those buried in the graveyard, especially emphasizing the joys of family life.

The dead villagers probably were farmers, and the speaker discusses how they probably enjoyed farming. He warns that although it sounds like a simple life, no one should mock a good honest working life as these men once had. No one should mock these men because in death, these arbitrary ideas of being wealthy or high-born do not matter. Fancy grave markers will not bring someone back to life, and neither will the honor of being well born.


The speaker then wonders about those in the graveyard who are buried in unmarked graves. He wonders if they were full of passion, or if they were potential world leaders who left the world too soon. He wonders if one was a beautiful lyre player, whose music could bring the lyre to life—literally. He laments for the poor villagers, as they were never able to learn much about the world. He uses metaphors to describe their lack of education, that knowledge as a book was never open to them, and that poverty froze their souls.

He speaks of those in the graveyard as unsung heroes, comparing them to gems that are never found, or flowers that bloom and are never seen. He wonders if some of the residents of the graveyard could have been historically relevant, but unable to shine. One could have been a mute Milton, the author of Paradise Lost; or one could have been like John Hampden, a politician who openly opposed the policies of King Charles. Alas, the speaker mourns again that these villagers were poor and unable to make their mark on the world.

But because they were poor, they were also innocent. They were not capable of regicide or being merciless. They were also incapable of hiding the truth, meaning they were honest with the world. The speaker notes that these people, because they were poor, will not even be remembered negatively. They lived far from cities and lived in the quiet. At least their graves are protected by simple grave markers, so people do not desecrate their burial places by accident. And the graves have enough meaning to the speaker that he will stop and reflect on their lives. The speaker wonders who leaves earth in death without wondering what they are leaving behind. Even the poor leave behind loved ones, and they need someone in their life who is pious to close their eyes upon death.

The speaker begins to wonder about himself in relation to these graveyard inhabitants. Even if these deceased villagers were poor, at least the speaker is elegizing them now. The speaker wonders who will elegize him. Maybe it will be someone like him, a kindred spirit, who wandered into the same graveyard. Possibly some grey-haired farmer, who would remark on having seen the speaker rush through the dew covered grass to watch the sun set on the meadow. The speaker continues to think of the imagined farmer, who would remember the speaker luxuriating on the strangely grown roots of a tree, while he watched the babbling brook. Maybe the farmer would think of how the speaker wandered through the woods looking pale with scorn and sorrow. Possibly the speaker was anxious, or was a victim of unrequited love. The speaker wonders if the farmer will notice he’s gone one day, that the farmer did not see him by his favorite tree, near the meadow, or by the woods. He speaks of his own funeral dirges and finally of his own epitaph.

In the speaker’s own epitaph, he remarks that he has died, unknown to both fame and fortune, as in he never became famous and was not well-born. But at least he was full of knowledge—he was a scholar and a poet. Yet oftentimes, the speaker could become depressed. But he was bighearted and sincere, so heaven paid him back for his good qualities by giving him a friend. His other good and bad qualities do not matter anymore, so he instructs people not to go looking for them since he hopes for a good life in heaven with God

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog, On-
( A Look At A Sad Reality, Those Worthy But Not Rewarded )
the unsung greats that have gifted so much....

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

Oh, That Earth Wouldst So Truly Honor Thee
Dedicated To-
"The Great Unknown, Unsung Poets of the
- Past, Present And Future"

Oh, That Earth Wouldst So Truly Honor Thee

Oh, that earth wouldst so truly honor thee
You write poetic verse with such deep glee
As in glory-fruits reaped from your ink tree
Birth gentle winds blowing through land and sea.

Splash thee more, dear hope from your native tongue.
And gift world beautiful verse to be sung.

Inked pools born from candor and purest heart
Offerings of whispers that truth imparts
Defeating the dark which sets us apart
To gift more, fill up love's bountiful cart.

Splash thee more, dear hope from your native tongue.
And gift world beautiful verse to be sung.

Within thy soul and even thy sadness
Counter with blessed hope this world's madness
Shine with rhyming words, bringing on gladness
Yet ignore world's inglorious Fadness.

Splash thee more, dear hope from your native tongue.
And gift world beautiful verse to be sung.

And through thy darkest sorrows gift anew
Heroic words that deepest dark breaks through
Gifts empathy, care many are thus due
For truth, darkness oft turns sky weeping blue.

Splash thee more, dear hope from your native tongue.
And gift world beautiful verse to be sung.

Oh, that earth wouldst so truly honor thee
You write poetic verse with such deep glee
As in glory-fruit reaped from your ink tree
Birth gentle winds blowing through land and sea.

Robert J. Lindley, 9-22-2020
Rhyme,
( A Look At A Sad Reality, Those Worthy But Not Rewarded )


Syllables per line:
0 10 10 10 10
0 10 10
0 10 10 10 10
0 10 10
0 10 10 10 10
0 10 10
0 10 10 10 10
0 10 10
0 10 10 10 10
Total number of syllables:280
Total number of words:214

**************************************************
https://poets.org/poem/giving-0

On Giving
Kahlil Gibran - 1883-1931

Then said a rich man, Speak to us of Giving.
And he answered:
You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?
And what is fear of need by need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the much which they have—and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes. He smiles upon the earth.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;
And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving.
And is there aught you would withhold?
All you have shall some day be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors’.

You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights, is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
And what desert greater shall there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, or receiving?
And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?
See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life—while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.

And you receivers—and you are all receivers—assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.
Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the freehearted earth for mother, and God for father.


From The Prophet (Knopf, 1923). This poem is in the public domain.

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

Some more revelant links....
each has important information in regards to poetry/poets..

(1.)

https://poets.org/poem/failing-and-flying

Failing and Flying
Jack Gilbert - 1925-2012

(2.)

https://writersrelief.com/2013/12/04/8-signs-youve-written-good-poem/

(3.)

https://www.jstor.org/stable/27537650

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Adonais

An Elegy on the Death of John Keats

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)


I WEEP for Adonais—he is dead! Anchor
O, weep for Adonais! though our tears Anchor
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head! Anchor
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years Anchor
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 5
And teach them thine own sorrow! Say: ‘With me Anchor
Died Adonais; till the Future dares Anchor
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be Anchor
An echo and a light unto eternity!’ Anchor

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 10
When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies Anchor
In darkness? where was lorn Urania Anchor
When Adonais died? With veilèd eyes, Anchor
’Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise Anchor
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, 15
Rekindled all the fading melodies Anchor
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, Anchor
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death. Anchor

Oh weep for Adonais—he is dead! Anchor
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep! 20
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed Anchor
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep, Anchor
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep; Anchor
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair Anchor
Descend;—oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 25
Will yet restore him to the vital air; Anchor
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair. Anchor

Most musical of mourners, weep again! Anchor
Lament anew, Urania!—He died, Anchor
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 30
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country’s pride, Anchor
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide, Anchor
Trampled and mocked with many a loathèd rite Anchor
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified, Anchor
Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite 35
Yet reigns o’er earth; the third among the sons of light. Anchor

Most musical of mourners, weep anew! Anchor
Not all to that bright station dared to climb; Anchor
And happier they their happiness who knew, Anchor
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 40
In which suns perished; others more sublime, Anchor
Struck by the envious wrath of man or god, Anchor
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime; Anchor
And some yet live, treading the thorny road, Anchor
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame’s serene abode. 45

But now, thy youngest, dearest one has perished, Anchor
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew, Anchor
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished, Anchor
And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew; Anchor
Most musical of mourners, weep anew! 50
Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and last, Anchor
The bloom, whose petals nipt before they blew Anchor
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste; Anchor
The broken lily lies—the storm is overpast. Anchor

To that high Capital, where kingly Death 55
Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, Anchor
He came; and bought, with price of purest breath, Anchor
A grave among the eternal—Come away! Anchor
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day Anchor
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still 60
He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay; Anchor
Awake him not! surely he takes his fill Anchor
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. Anchor

He will awake no more, oh, never more!— Anchor
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace, 65
The shadow of white Death, and at the door Anchor
Invisible Corruption waits to trace Anchor
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place; Anchor
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe Anchor
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface 70
So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law Anchor
Of change shall o’er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. Anchor

Oh weep for Adonais!—The quick Dreams, Anchor
The passion-wingèd Ministers of thought, Anchor
Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams 75
Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught Anchor
The love which was its music, wander not,— Anchor
Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain, Anchor
But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot Anchor
Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, 80
They ne’er will gather strength, or find a home again. Anchor

And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head, Anchor
And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries; Anchor
‘Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead; Anchor
See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, 85
Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies Anchor
A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain.’ Anchor
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise! Anchor
She knew not ’twas her own; as with no stain Anchor
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. 90

One from a lucid urn of starry dew Anchor
Washed his light limbs as if embalming them; Anchor
Another clipt her profuse locks, and threw Anchor
The wreath upon him, like an anadem, Anchor
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem; 95
Another in her wilful grief would break Anchor
Her bow and wingèd reeds, as if to stem Anchor
A greater loss with one which was more week; Anchor
And dull the barbèd fire against his frozen cheek. Anchor

Another Splendour on his mouth alit, 100
That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath Anchor
Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit, Anchor
And pass into the panting heart beneath Anchor
With lightning and with music: the damp death Anchor
Quenched its caress upon his icy lips; 105
And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath Anchor
Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips, Anchor
It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse. Anchor

And others came … Desires and Adorations, Anchor
Wingèd Persuasions and veiled Destinies, 110
Splendours and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations Anchor
Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies; Anchor
And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, Anchor
And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam Anchor
Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, 115
Came in slow pomp;—the moving pomp might seem Anchor
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. Anchor

All he had loved, and moulded into thought, Anchor
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound, Anchor
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 120
Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, Anchor
Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, Anchor
Dimmed the ae¨rial eyes that kindle day; Anchor
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned, Anchor
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, 125
And the wild winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay. Anchor

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, Anchor
And feeds her grief with his remembered lay, Anchor
And will no more reply to winds or fountains, Anchor
Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, 130
Or herdsman’s horn, or bell at closing day; Anchor
Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear Anchor
Than those for whose disdain she pined away Anchor
Into a shadow of all sounds:—a drear Anchor
Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. 135

Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down Anchor
Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, Anchor
Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown Anchor
For whom should she have waked the sullen year? Anchor
To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear 140
Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both Anchor
Thou, Adonais: wan they stand and sere Anchor
Amid the faint companions of their youth, Anchor
With dew all turned to tears; odour, to sighing ruth. Anchor

Thy spirit’s sister, the lorn nightingale, 145
Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain; Anchor
Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale Anchor
Heaven, and could nourish in the sun’s domain Anchor
Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, Anchor
Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, 150
As Albion wails for thee; the curse of Cain Anchor
Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast, Anchor
And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest! Anchor

Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone, Anchor
But grief returns with the revolving year; 155
The airs and streams renew their joyous tone: Anchor
The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear; Anchor
Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons’ bier; Anchor
The amorous birds now pair in every brake, Anchor
And build their mossy homes in field and brere; 160
And the green lizard, and the golden snake, Anchor
Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake. Anchor

Through wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean Anchor
A quickening life from the Earth’s heart has burst Anchor
As it has ever done, with change and motion, 165
From the great morning of the world when first Anchor
God dawned on Chaos; in its stream immersed Anchor
The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light; Anchor
All baser things pant with life’s sacred thirst; Anchor
Diffuse themselves; and spend in love’s delight, 170
The beauty and the joy of their renewèd might. Anchor

The leprous corpse touched by this spirit tender Anchor
Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath; Anchor
Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour Anchor
Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death 175
And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath; Anchor
Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows Anchor
Be as a sword consumed before the sheath Anchor
By sightless lightning?—the intense atom glows Anchor
A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. 180

Alas! that all we loved of him should be Anchor
But for our grief, as if it had not been, Anchor
And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me! Anchor
Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene Anchor
The actors or spectators? Great and mean 185
Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow. Anchor
As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, Anchor
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Anchor
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow. Anchor

He will awake no more, oh, never more! 190
‘Wake thou,’ cried Misery, ‘childless Mother, rise Anchor
Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart’s core, Anchor
A wound more fierce than his, with tears and sighs.’ Anchor
And all the Dreams that watched Urania’s eyes, Anchor
And all the Echoes whom their sister’s song 195
Had held in holy silence, cried: ‘Arise!’ Anchor
Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung, Anchor
From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung. Anchor

She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs Anchor
Out of the East, and follows wild and drear 200
The golden Day, which, on eternal wings, Anchor
Even as a ghost abandoning a bier, Anchor
Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear Anchor
So struck, so roused, so rapt Urania; Anchor
So saddened round her like an atmosphere 205
Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way Anchor
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. Anchor

Out of her secret Paradise she sped, Anchor
Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel, Anchor
And human hearts, which to her airy tread 210
Yielding not, wounded the invisible Anchor
Palms of her tender feet where’er they fell: Anchor
And barbèd tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they Anchor
Rent the soft Form they never could repel, Anchor
Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, 215
Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way. Anchor

In the death-chamber for a moment Death, Anchor
Shamed by the presence of that living Might, Anchor
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath Anchor
Revisited those lips, and Life’s pale light 220
Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight. Anchor
‘Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless, Anchor
As silent lightning leaves the starless night! Anchor
Leave me not!’ cried Urania: her distress Anchor
Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress. 225

‘Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again; Anchor
Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live; Anchor
And in my heartless breast and burning brain Anchor
That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive, Anchor
With food of saddest memory kept alive, 230
Now thou art dead, as dead, as if it were a part Anchor
Of thee, my Adonais! I would give Anchor
All that I am to be as thou now art! Anchor
But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart! Anchor
poem PARTIAL-cut off here...


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

https://www.bartleby.com/41/522.html

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

This Truth, All Must Find Dear Hope They Embrace


This Earth, this accumulation of life
a great mass of air, water, rock, and soil
a dark world, where danger cuts like a knife
man gets bread and water by daily toil.

O' but those pleasures of heart-sweet dreams cast.
Calm, peaceful sea, ship sailing at full mast.

This World, its beauty that rivals its dark
a great mass of people, buildings and cars
a cauldron of darkness violently stark
all made from explosions of long-dead stars.

O' but those pleasures of heart-sweet dreams cast.
Calm, peaceful sea, ship sailing at full mast.

This Life, its joys, heartaches, and epic pains
a mystery, a climb, race against time
a harvest of precious golden grains
romance, verses born of sweet rhythmic rhyme.

O' but those pleasures of heart-sweet dreams cast.
Calm, peaceful sea, ship sailing at full mast.

This Truth, all must find dear hope they embrace
a revelation, a desire, love
a newfound world of divinely sent grace
giftings of manna from Heaven above.

O' but those pleasures of heart-sweet dreams cast.
Calm, peaceful sea, ship sailing at full mast.

Robert J. Lindley, 10-14-2020
Rhyme( When The Days Have Flown, Into That Mystical Mist )

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Blog, Recently Written Words, Hoping To Revive My Poetic Spirit
Blog Posted:7/4/2022 4:38:00 AM


Blog, Recently Written Words, Hoping To Revive My Poetic Spirit......

***********

Nature's Scenes Cannot Be Outdone



Make a wish upon a dewdrop

Let searching heart decide

Nature's touch, its art never stops

Gazing at its bountiful crops

Life give us all, a thrilling ride

Feed heart and do not hide.



Stroll across land glistening bright

Ponder radiant sun

With heavenly beauty in sight

Washed away are surging blight

Nature's scenes cannot be outdone

Sure, life can be such fun.



As hours fly by, sunset arrives

'fore night's surging deep dark

Cast worries away to survive

'tis so great just to be alive

On tranquil seas vow to embark

Dawn brings its morning larks.



Be jubilant, beauty's heart shows

As treasures fade away

Shall we admire what Nature grows

As Nature its falling gems sows

Hope brings dancing dreams into play

True faith has won its way.



Robert J. Lindley,



Note:

This poem was composed for the contest.

I simply forgot to enter it.



********


Note: 1

Submit a newly-written poem consisting of three or four stanzas and six lines per stanza using the following rhyme scheme and syllable count:



Rhyme scheme: ABAABB CDCCDD EFEEFF GHGGHH

Syllable count in each stanza: 868886

Poem title: Your choice.

Subject theme: Dewdrops. Use the included image for inspiration.



Note: 2

Old age and stress does not bode well for the great memory that I once had and that enabled me cope well with a very hard life encountered in my youth.


******

Long Before, New Slung Ink Has Wetted And Dried



Long before, new slung ink has wetted and dried

Even before the radiant sun has earth refried

Mortal soul feels the love of Heaven far above

Bringing relief from "dastardly world's push and shove"

And on that reality, a believer may

Choose to write and splash poetic verses at play

Yes, truth and happy heart are primary key

Poetry is eager sky sharing newborn sea.



Long before, soul sets to its faithful truth express

There resides within a poet that eagerness

To sing a song and lively dance to versed tune

Describe moonlit glory, finding romance in June

And in sharing, another star just may be born

To help a victim and give hope to the forlorn

Yes, truth and happy heart are primary key

Poetry is eager sky sharing newborn sea.



Long before, glorious spirit's deep felt song sings

Are deep falling raindrops that newborn flowers bring

To weeping world, vacate its sorrows and great woes

Just as Nature's flings beauty in its casting snows

And with flung ink, gift others a happier ride

A poet wades in to surging tides set aside

Yes, truth and happy heart are primary key

Poetry is eager sky sharing newborn sea.



Robert J. Lindley, 6-28-2022

Rhyme, ( Heart and Soul, why a poet so faithfully writes )


Note:

Early this morn, my muse this old sleepyhead woke

3 AM crying out wake I command of thee

I have some verses and brother they are no joke

Rise ye now, do as I say - these gifts are free.

[icansayit]

You are still a young man. Look at me. 75 and still typing 60wpm. Long way from BIDEN-DECADENCE.:coffee:



Blog, Recently Written Words, Hoping To Revive My Poetic Spirit
Blog Posted:7/4/2022 4:38:00 AM


Blog, Recently Written Words, Hoping To Revive My Poetic Spirit......

***********

Nature's Scenes Cannot Be Outdone



Make a wish upon a dewdrop

Let searching heart decide

Nature's touch, its art never stops

Gazing at its bountiful crops

Life give us all, a thrilling ride

Feed heart and do not hide.



Stroll across land glistening bright

Ponder radiant sun

With heavenly beauty in sight

Washed away are surging blight

Nature's scenes cannot be outdone

Sure, life can be such fun.



As hours fly by, sunset arrives

'fore night's surging deep dark

Cast worries away to survive

'tis so great just to be alive

On tranquil seas vow to embark

Dawn brings its morning larks.



Be jubilant, beauty's heart shows

As treasures fade away

Shall we admire what Nature grows

As Nature its falling gems sows

Hope brings dancing dreams into play

True faith has won its way.



Robert J. Lindley,



Note:

This poem was composed for the contest.

I simply forgot to enter it.



********


Note: 1

Submit a newly-written poem consisting of three or four stanzas and six lines per stanza using the following rhyme scheme and syllable count:



Rhyme scheme: ABAABB CDCCDD EFEEFF GHGGHH

Syllable count in each stanza: 868886

Poem title: Your choice.

Subject theme: Dewdrops. Use the included image for inspiration.



Note: 2

Old age and stress does not bode well for the great memory that I once had and that enabled me cope well with a very hard life encountered in my youth.


******

Long Before, New Slung Ink Has Wetted And Dried



Long before, new slung ink has wetted and dried

Even before the radiant sun has earth refried

Mortal soul feels the love of Heaven far above

Bringing relief from "dastardly world's push and shove"

And on that reality, a believer may

Choose to write and splash poetic verses at play

Yes, truth and happy heart are primary key

Poetry is eager sky sharing newborn sea.



Long before, soul sets to its faithful truth express

There resides within a poet that eagerness

To sing a song and lively dance to versed tune

Describe moonlit glory, finding romance in June

And in sharing, another star just may be born

To help a victim and give hope to the forlorn

Yes, truth and happy heart are primary key

Poetry is eager sky sharing newborn sea.



Long before, glorious spirit's deep felt song sings

Are deep falling raindrops that newborn flowers bring

To weeping world, vacate its sorrows and great woes

Just as Nature's flings beauty in its casting snows

And with flung ink, gift others a happier ride

A poet wades in to surging tides set aside

Yes, truth and happy heart are primary key

Poetry is eager sky sharing newborn sea.



Robert J. Lindley, 6-28-2022

Rhyme, ( Heart and Soul, why a poet so faithfully writes )


Note:

Early this morn, my muse this old sleepyhead woke

3 AM crying out wake I command of thee

I have some verses and brother they are no joke

Rise ye now, do as I say - these gifts are free.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

You are still a young man. Look at me. 75 and still typing 60wpm. Long way from BIDEN-DECADENCE.:coffee:

My friend, your words ring true.
At age 68, I am not that old unless my spirit gives up and yields to time and its actions.
Heart and Soul can to some extent counter Time and its decays. God bless.. :saluting2:--Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Alfred Noyes






https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alfred-noyes 1880 – 1958
Born to Alfred and Amelia Adams Noyes on September 16, 1880, Alfred Noyes grew up in Wolverhampton, England. His father, a grocer and a teacher, taught Noyes Latin and Greek. Noyes attended Exeter College, Oxford, but left before he earned a degree. At the age of twenty-one he published his first collection of poems, The Loom Years (1902), which received praise from respected poets such as William Butler Yeats and George Meredith.

Between 1903 and 1908, Noyes published five volumes of poetry including The Forest of Wild Thyme (1905) and The Flower of Old Japan and Other Poems (1907). In his early work, Noyes claimed he was seeking to "follow the careless and happy feet of children back into the kingdom of those dreams which...are the sole reality worth living and dying for; those beautiful dreams, or those fantastic jests." His books were widely reviewed and were published both in Britain and the United States. Among his best-known poems from this time are "The Highwayman" and "Drake." "Drake," which appeared serially in Blackwood's Magazine, was a two-hundred page epic about life at sea. Both in style and subject, the poem shows a clear influence of Romantic poets such as Tennyson and Wordsworth.

In 1907, Noyes married Garnett Daniels. They had three children. His increasing popularity allowed the family to live off royalty checks. In 1914, Noyes accepted a teaching position at Princeton University, where he taught English Literature until 1923. He was a noted critic of modernist writers, particularly James Joyce. Likewise, his work at this time was criticized by some for its refusal to embrace the modernist movement.

In 1922 he began an epic called The Torch Bearers, which was published in three volumes (Watchers of the Sky, 1922; The Book of Earth, 1925; and The Last Voyage, 1930). The book arose out of his visit to a telescope located at Mount Wilson, California and attempted to reconcile his views of science with religion. His wife died in 1926 and Noyes turned increasingly to Catholicism and religious themes in his later books, particularly The Unknown God (1934) and If Judgment Comes (1941). During the World War II, Noyes lived in Canada and America and was a strong advocate of the Allied effort. In 1949, he returned to Britain. As a result of increasing blindness, Noyes dictated all of his subsequent work. His autobiography, Two Worlds for Memory, was published in 1953. Alfred Noyes died on June 25, 1958, and was buried on Isle of Wight.

Alfred Noyes
School/Movements
Romanticism
Related Poets
John Keats
William Wordsworth


W. B. Yeats
Walt Whitman
Edgar Allan Poe
Percy Bysshe Shelley
poems
texts by
texts about

YEAR TITLE
1906 The Highwayman

**********************************************
Alfred Noyes
1880–1958
Image of Alfred Noyes
Hum Historical / Alamy Stock Photo
Extraordinarily prolific and decidedly popular among the reading public, Alfred Noyes enjoyed a full-fledged career as a writer and as an intellectual when few people of the era could depend solely on the writing craft to forge a comfortable living. Especially fond of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, William Wordsworth, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Shakespeare, and adopting much of their style and content, Noyes most often exhibited a style infused with Romanticism and ballad-like simplicity, and his subject matter was usually optimistic and inspired by the natural beauties of the world. Noyes revered the polite formality of traditional English verse and despised the haphazardness and comparative literary disrespect of the modernist movement of the 20th century—especially the work of James Joyce—but some critics chastised his resistance to change and literary evolution.

Despite the fact that critics regarded Noyes as more of a businessman capable of selling his artistic wares than a serious, talented poet, there is no disputing Noyes’s devotion to the written word. Born in 1880, Noyes was the son of a man who had sacrificed a higher education so that his younger brother could attend university. Noyes’s father never abandoned his love of learning, and young Noyes was the beneficiary of his father’s unrequited intellectual pursuits and ideals. His father taught Noyes Latin and Greek, and his academic nurturing secured him a place at Oxford University in 1898, though he left before earning his degree. Nonetheless, his first collection of poetry, The Loom of Years (1902), was published when he was only 21 years old, and received compliments from esteemed poets such as George Meredith and William Butler Yeats. Noyes married Garnett Daniels in 1907, and the couple lived off his royalty checks. That same year they visited the United States for the first time, and were entertained by such impressive company as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s daughters and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s sons. Noyes enjoyed notable relationships throughout his life, apparently drinking tea with Theodore Roosevelt in 1919 just hours before his death and meeting privately with premier Benito Mussolini in 1939, just before the start of World War II.

By the age of 30, Noyes had firmly established himself as the most commercially popular poet of his time. According to Margaret B. McDowell in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, he had “produced his first biography, William Morris (1908), and had collected his poems in eight full-length books. ... They were widely reviewed and several were published in both Britain and the United States. ... Thousands of readers bought Noyes’s books of poems, cherished them, and even memorized parts of them.” McDowell cited a comment from a review in a 1907 issue of the Atlantic Monthly that summed up Noyes’s appeal: “There is a proficiency in the workmanship that, coupled with Mr. Noyes’ humorous tenderness in approaching his theme, all but disarms criticism.” However, as the Modernist movement commenced, critics would get harsher and harsher in their reviews of Noyes’s work.

Three different works consistently vie for the claim of being Noyes’s best-known or most-celebrated endeavor. The first is Drake: An English Epic (1906–08), which achieved most of its exposure because of its serialization in Blackwood’s Magazine. Drake was an ambitious work—a 12-book, 200-page epic in blank verse—that poeticized life at sea, a common theme among English prose and poetry and frequently a favorite of Noyes’s.

Another one of Noyes’s frequently referenced work is “The Highwayman,” an atypically somber, violent poem described by Diane Roback and Richard Donahue in Publishers Weekly as being “about a beautiful woman who dies (with her breast ‘shattered ... drenched with her own red blood’) to save her lover, who is, in turn, shot down ‘like a dog on the highway.’” McDowell quoted Noyes as professing to have written “The Highwayman” in two days when he was 24, “the age when I was genuinely excited by that kind of romantic story.”

The third most-frequently cited work is a three-volume work called The Torch-Bearers (1922, 1925, and 1930), which was inspired after a visit in 1917 to a new telescope being installed at Mount Wilson, California. This trilogy was Noyes’s attempt to reconcile science and religion, as it pays homage to progress in astronomy, biology, and other scientific advancements, as well as the theological and philosophical development of the human race. McDowell described the third volume, The Last Voyage, as reflecting “the intensity of Noyes’s theological search for one’s destiny after life on earth and his increased preoccupation with religion following the death of Garnett,” his first wife, who died in 1926. After her death, Noyes joined the Catholic Church, a transition that greatly influenced his later work.

William Lyon Phelps, writing in The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century, referred to Noyes as “one of the most melodious of modern writers, with a witchery in words that at its best is irresistible. ... [H]e has the imagination of the inspired poet, giving him creative power to reveal anew the majesty of the untamed sea, and the mystery of the stars.” His embodiment of lyrical simplicity and classic familiarity masking as chaste intellectualism was the reason his work was appreciated and adored by the masses. Phelps said, “Alfred Noyes understands the heart of a child,” and likened some of his prettier works to “a kind of singing Alice-in-Wonderland.” Because some of his work—particularly “Flower of Old Japan” and “Forest of Wild Thyme”—sought to regard the world through the eyes of a child, Noyes felt he had to qualify his efforts. According to Phelps’s essay, Noyes asked that his youthful poems “not be taken merely as fairy-tales, but as an attempt to follow the careless and happy feet of children back into the kingdom of those dreams which ... are the sole reality worth living and dying for; those beautiful dreams, or those fantastic jests ... for which mankind has endured so many triumphant martyrdoms that even amidst the rush and roar of modern materialism they cannot be quite forgotten.”

Noyes’s autobiography, Two Worlds for Memory, was published in 1953. He died on the Isle of Wight on June 25, 1958.

POEMS BY ALFRED NOYES
At Dawn
The Barrel-Organ
The Highwayman
See All Poems by Alfred Noyes
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MORE ABOUT THIS POET
Region:
At Dawn
The Barrel-Organ
The Highwayman
The Hill-Flowers
Immortal Sails
Niobe
The Old Meeting House
On The Western Fr
************************************************** ********

The Highwayman
Rating: ★4.5
♡


PART ONE

I

THE wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

II

He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

III

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

IV

And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—

V

'One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.'

VI

He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonliglt, and galloped away to the West.



PART TWO

I

He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching—
Marching—marching—
King George's men came matching, up to the old inn-door.

II

They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

III

They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
'Now, keep good watch! ' and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say—
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

IV

She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

V

The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain.

VI

Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!

VII

Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.

VIII

He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

IX

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

X

And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

XI

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

**************************************************
A Prayer In Time Of War
Rating: ★2.9
♡

Autoplay

The war will change many things in art and life, and among them, it is to be hoped, many of our own ideas as to what is, and what is not, "intellectual."

Thou, whose deep ways are in the sea,
Whose footsteps are not known,
To-night a world that turned from Thee
Is waiting -- at Thy Throne.

The towering Babels that we raised
Where scoffing sophists brawl,
The little Antichrists we praised --
The night is on them all.

The fool hath said . . . The fool hath said . ..
And we, who deemed him wise,
We who believed that Thou wast dead,
How should we seek Thine eyes?

How should we seek to Thee for power
Who scorned Thee yesterday?
How should we kneel, in this dread hour?
Lord, teach us how to pray!

Grant us the single heart, once more,
That mocks no sacred thing,
The Sword of Truth our fathers wore
When Thou wast Lord and King.

Let darkness unto darkness tell
Our deep unspoken prayer,
For, while our souls in darkness dwell,
We know that Thou art there.
************************************************** ***
The Admiral's Ghost
Rating: ★3.7
♡

Autoplay

I tell you a tale to-night
Which a seaman told to me,
With eyes that gleamed in the lanthorn light
And a voice as low as the sea.

You could almost hear the stars
Twinkling up in the sky,
And the old wind woke and moaned in the spars
And the same old waves went by.

Singing the same old song
As ages and ages ago,
While he froze my blood in that deep-sea night
With the things he seemed to know.

A bare foot pattered on deck;
Ropes creaked; then-all grew still,
And he pointed his finger straight in my face
And growled, as a sea-dog will.

'Do 'ee know who Nelson was?
That pore little shrivelled form
With the patch on his eye and the pinned-up sleeve
And a soul like a North Sea storm?

'Ask of the Devonshire men!
They know, and they'll tell you true;
He wasn't the pore little chawed-up chap
That Hardy thought he knew.

'He wasn't the man you think!
His patch was a dern disguise!
For he knew that they'd find him out, d'you see,
If they looked him in both his eyes.

'He was twice as big as he seemed;
But his clothes were cunningly made.
He'd both of his hairy arms alright!
The sleeve was a trick of the trade.

'You've heard of sperrits, no doubt;
Well there's more in the matter than that!
But he wasn't the patch and he wasn't the sleeve,
And he wasn't the laced cocked-hat.

'Nelson was just-a Ghost!
You may laugh! But the Devonshire men
They knew that he'd come when England called,
And they know that he'll come again.

'I'll tell you the way it was
(For none of the landsmen know) ,
And to tell it you right, you must go a-starn
Two hundred years or so.

* * * * * * *

'The waves were lapping and slapping
The same as they are today;
And Drake lay dying aboard his ship
In Nobre Dios Bay.

'The scent of foreign flowers
Came floating all around;
'But I'd give my soul for the smell o' the pitch, '
Says he, 'in Plymouth Sound.

''What shall I do, ' he says,
'When the guns begin to roar,
An' England wants me, and me not there
To shatter 'er fores once more? '

'(You've heard what he said, maybe,
But I'll mark you the p'ints again;
For I want you to box your compass right
And get my story plain.)

' 'You must take my drum', he says,
'To the old sea-wall at home;
And if ever you strike that drum, ' he says,
'Why, strike me blind, I'll come!

''If England needs me, dead
Or living, I'll rise that day!
I'll rise from the darkness under the sea
Ten thousand miles away.'

'That's what he said; and he died;
An' his pirates, listenin' roun'
With their crimson doublets and jewelled swords
That flashed as the sun went down.

'They sewed him up in his shroud
With a round-shot top and toe,
To sink him under the salt-sharp sea
Where all good seamen go.

'They lowered him down in the deep,
And there in the sunset light
They boomed a broadside over his grave,
As meaning to say 'Good night.'

'They sailed away in the dark
To the dear little isle they knew;
And they hung his drum by the old sea-wall
The same as he told them to.

* * * * * * *

'Two hundred years went by,
And the guns began to roar,
And England was fighting hard for her life,
As ever she fought of yore.

''It's only my dead that count, '
She said, as she says today;
'It isn't the ships and it isn't the guns
'Ull sweep Trafalgar's Bay.'

'D'you guess who Nelson was?
You may laugh, but it's true as true!
There was more in that pore little chawed-up chap
Than ever his best friend knew.

'The foe was creepin' close,
In the dark, to our white-cliffed isle;
They were ready to leap at England's throat,
When-O, you may smile, you may smile;

'But-ask of the Devenshire men;
For they heard in the dead of night
The roll of a drum, and they saw him pass
On a ship all shining white.

'He stretched out his dead cold face
And he sailed in the grand old way!
The fishes had taken an eye and his arm,
But he swept Trafalgar's Bay.

'Nelson-was Francis Drake!
O, what matters the uniform,
Or the patch on your eye or your pinned-up sleeve,
If your soul's like a North Sea storm? '

Alfred Noyes

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A Loom Of Years
Rating: ★2.9
♡

Autoplay

In the light of the silent stars that shine on the struggling sea,
In the weary cry of the wind and the whisper of flower and tree,
Under the breath of laughter, deep in the tide of tears,
I hear the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.

The leaves of the winter wither and sink in the forest mould
To colour the flowers of April with purple and white and gold:
Light and scent and music die and are born again
In the heart of a grey-haired woman who wakes in a world of pain.

The hound, the fawn, and the hawk, and the doves that croon and coo,
We are all one woof of the weaving and the one warp threads us through,
One flying cloud on the shuttle that carries our hopes and fears
As it goes thro’ the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.

The green uncrumpling fern and the rustling dewdrenched rose
Pass with our hearts to the Silence where the wings of music close,
Pass and pass to the Timeless that never a moment mars,
Pass and pass to the Darkness that made the suns and stars.

Has the soul gone out in the Darkness? Is the dust sealed from sight?
Ah, hush, for the woof of the ages returns thro’ the warp of the night!
Never that shuttle loses one thread of our hopes and fears,
As it comes thro’ the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.

O, woven in one wide Loom thro’ the throbbing weft of the whole,
One in spirit and flesh, one in body and soul,
Tho’ the leaf were alone in its falling, the bird in its hour to die,
The heart in its muffled anguish, the sea in its mournful cry,

One with the flower of a day, one with the withered moon
One with the granite mountains that melt into the noon
One with the dream that triumphs beyond the light of the spheres,
We come from the Loom of the Weaver that weaves the Web of Years.

Alfred Noyes

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In my youth I studied this great poet. As he was truly a poetic genius. I think it would improve anybody's poetry to study this fantastic poet same as it does Byron, Keats and Shelley.