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In honor of National Poetry Month in the US (April), I thought I'd start a new poetry thread...it's been awhile.

ABOUT THESE POEMS

by Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)

On pavements I shall trample them
With broken glass and sun in turn.
In winter I shall open them
For the peeling ceiling to learn.

The garret will start to declaim
With a bow to the window frame.
Calamities, eccentricities
Will leapfrog to the cornices.

The blizzard will not month after month
Scour ends and beginnings with snow.
I shall remember: there is the sun.
And see: the light changed long ago.

When Christmas with a jackdaw glint
Peeps out, the day will suddenly
Brighten, revealing many things
Unnoticed by my love and me.

Shielding my face at the window
And scarfed against the rasping air,
I shall shout to the kids: Hey, you,
What century is out there?

Who beat a pathway to the door,
To the entrance walled up with snow,
While I was smoking with Byron
And drinking with Edgar Poe?

Received in Darial as a friend,
As in the armoury or hell,
I dipped my life, like Lermontov's
Passion, like lips in alcohol.

1917


from Selected Poems, © 1983 by Peter France





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Oh boy, I love these threads.

I have two that go together. The original classic (one of my favorite poems) and a modern humorous response that I encountered recently.

Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; -on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.


The Dover Bitch: A Criticism of Life by Anthony Hecht (b. 1922)

So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, "Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc., etc."
Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read
Sophocles in a fairly good translation
And caught that bitter allusion to the sea,
But all the time he was talking she had in mind
The notion of what his whiskers would feel like
On the back of her neck. She told me later on
That after a while she got to looking out
At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad,
Thinking of all the wine and enormousd beds
And blandishments in French and the perfumes.
And then she got really angry. To have been brought
All the way down from London, and then be addressed
As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort
Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty.
Anyway, she watched him pace the room
And finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit,
And then she said one or two unprintable things.
But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is,
She's really all right. I still see her once in a while
And she always treats me right.
We have a drink
And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year
Before I see her again, but there she is,
Running to fat, but dependable as the come,
And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d'Amour.


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THE SONG OF THE BLODEUWEDD
From THE MABINOGION

Anonymous, Welsh -- c. 1063

Not of father nor of mother
Was my blood, was my body.
I was spellbound by Gwydion,
Prime enchanter of the Britons,
When he formed me of nine blossoms,
.......Nine buds of various kind:
From primrose of the mountain,
Broom, meadow-sweet and cockle,
........Together intertwined,
From the bean in its shade bearing
A white spectral army
.....Of earth, of earthy kind,
From blossoms of the nettle,
Oak, thorn and bashful chestnut--
Nine powers of nine flowers,
......Nine powers in me combined,
............Nine buds of plant and tree.
Long and white are my fingers
............As the ninth wave of the sea.

translated by Robert Graves




(Welcome back, mav! )







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possibly my favourite pome of all time (bar only T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)

Love Calls Us to the Things of This World
by Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)

      The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

     Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

     Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
The soul shrinks

     From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day,
And cries,
"Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven."

     Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colours
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,

     "Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult balance."

(Q: why, o why, won't this effing discussion board program let me put in the spaces as they occur in the poem? how are others managing it? I've tried tabs, I've tried using the space bar, and neither appears to be working, if the post preview is to be believed. It is DAMNED FRUSTRATING.)

EDIT: Okay, thanks tsuwm....Have used the <pre> and </pre> formatting to fix up this 'ere pome 'ere. Discovered something irritating when I did - that configuration adds a blank line at the end, but within the brackets does NOT allow blank lines - so at the end of each verse I had to close the format and start it again on the next line (if you follow me). Still - good to know....


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(here is an old gem, a tribute to words, as it were)

THE SONG OF THE HAPPY SHEPHERD
From CROSSWAYS, 1889

by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

‘The stars are threshed, and the souls are threshed from their husks.’—William Blake

To A. E.

The woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
Yet still she turns her restless head:
But O, sick children of the world,
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.
Where are now the warring kings,
Word be-mockers?—By the Rood
Where are now the warring kings?
An idle word is now their glory,
By the stammering schoolboy said,
Reading some entangled story:
The kings of the old time are dead;
The wandering earth herself may be
Only a sudden flaming word,
In clanging space a moment heard,
Troubling the endless reverie.

Then nowise worship dusty deeds,
Nor seek, for this is also sooth,
To hunger fiercely after truth,
Lest all thy toiling only breeds
New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth
Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then,
No learning from the starry men,
Who follow with the optic glass
The whirling ways of stars that pass—
Seek, then, for this is also sooth,
No word of theirs—the cold star-bane
Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,
And dead is all their human truth.
Go gather by the humming sea
Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell,
And to its lips thy story tell,
And they thy comforters will be,
Rewarding in melodious guile
Thy fretful words a little while,
Till they shall singing fade in ruth
And die a pearly brotherhood;
For words alone are certain good:
Sing, then, for this is also sooth.

I must be gone: there is a grave
Where daffodil and lily wave,
And I would please the hapless faun,
Buried under the sleepy ground,
With mirthful songs before the dawn.
His shouting days with mirth were crowned;
And still I dream he treads the lawn,
Walking ghostly in the dew,
Pierced by my glad singing through,
My songs of old earth’s dreamy youth:
But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!
For fair are poppies on the brow:
Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.


© 1938 by William Butler Yeats



mg, I've had the same problem and it drives me crazy, because preserving the poet's intended form is imperative to me. I tried the [pre] code but can't get it to work correctly. So I just settled on whiting out dots for indentations. This board and others I've frequented all seem to shove everything flush left...even at the Poetry Archives. If there's a technical trick to this I'm missing I'd also appreciate someone clueing us in. Thanks.







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From SONG OF MYSELF

Walt Whitman

48.

I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is,
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud,
And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,
And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times,
And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe,
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

And I say to mankind, Be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death.)

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe'er I go,
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.



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this is one of my favorite Whitman poems:

When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;  
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams,
to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer,
where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; 5
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

I came back and edited the poem.. did you notice, each line got longer, and drearier, till you got to line four.
and line four, is very long. it drones on like the learn'd astronomer.. each line every worder, creating sense of dreary boring words, piled one on top of an other..
break the line, and you lose a lot of that.. the first word of every line is bold now.
but i was asked to edit, and i did, WO'N, whitman it doing loop de loops in his grave, i'll have you know.!


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Spring and Fall
(to a young child)

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.


Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Poems: 1876-1889.
Copied from http://www.daytips.com/pages/poemaday.html


It's amazing for me to think that some joker several thousand miles away scribbled something 130 years ago that I still today can read and love.

k



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The Emperor of Ice-Cream by Wallace Stevens

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream


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Too long to post but well worth it and amusing throughout is Nothing to Wear by William Allen Butler. You can find it in bartleby, at
http://www.bartleby.com/102/157.html

[also mentioned just now in the "nude/naked" thread]


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Talk about a wordsmith. Edgar Poe's transcendent ability to weave the english language into a coherent syntax of rhyme, meter, meaning, and story, is Genius -period. -mw

The Conqueror Worm -Edgar Poe

Lo! tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly-
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!

That motley drama- oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out- out are the lights- out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

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

Listen...
...a crawling shape intrudes!

A blood red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes! - it writhes! - with mortal pangs,
The mimes become its food

Don't you just love it?


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W'ON, thanks for the alert!
Here's my offering, and kind of honoring 2 poets in a sense.

In Memory of W. B. Yeats
W. H. Auden

I
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.

What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

II

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.




III

Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.


From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden, renewed by The Estate of W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.



Copyright © 1997-2002 by The Academy of American Poets
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BELATED PALINODE FOR DYLAN THOMAS

In Wales at Laugharne at last I stand beside
..his cliff-perched writing shed
....above the coursing waters
......where the hawk hangs still
........above the cockle-strewn shingle
Where he walked in a glory of all his days
....(before the weather turned around)
And aie! aie! a waterbird far away
....cries and cries again
......over St. Johns Hill
And in his tilted boathouse now
....a tape of himself is playing --
......his lush voice
........his plush voice
..........his posh accent
............(too BBC-fulsome, cried the Welsh)
..............now echoes through his little
................upstairs room
And aie! aie!
.....echo the waterbirds once again
Beyond his sounding shed
....a fig tree hides the sea
......A fishboat heeled over
........a grebe afloat far out
..........a coracle abandoned
............a rusted coaler out of Cardiff still
..............a bold green headland lost in sun
Beyond which lie (across an ocean and a continent)
....San Francisco's white wood houses
......and a poet's sun-bleached cottage
........on Bolinas' far lagoon
..........with its wind-torn Little Mesa
............(so very like St. Johns Hill)
A single kestrel soars over
....riding the salt wind
........'high tide and the heron's call'
.........................................still echoing
...........(Aie! aie! it calls and calls again)
As in his listing boathouse now
....his great recorded voice runs out
......(grave as a gravedigger in his grave)
........leaving a sounding void of light
..........for poets and herons to fill
(Drowned down in New York's White Horse Tavern
....he went not gentle into his good night)
And Far West poets calling still
....over St. Johns Hill
......to the loveliest poet of all our days
........sweet singer of Swansea
..........lushed singer of Laugharne
............Dylan of all our days

-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti, These Are My Rivers




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When You Are Old
W.B. Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

I did that mostly from memory - had to look up the punctuation and one line....There was a time when I decided to start memorizing poetry, and I got quite a few down before I became lax and gave it up. Now this one is the principal one that remains in my head (as well as lines and fragments from Love Calls Us to the Things of This World, and from Prufrock). It was nice while it lasted, though....Think I'll try again.

I love this poem, too.....Eh, there are sooo many pomes to love. Have been enjoying reading others' choices, too - interesting to see what different people choose.

Whit, I WONDERED why you had some white dots in amongst your purple pome! I am too lazy to go back and fix "Love...." tonight - maybe another time. It IS crazy-making - as you said, the poet created the lines a certain way and we should respect that. The line breaks and indents do add a lot to the way a poem reads.


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but i was asked to edit, and i did, WO'N, whitman it doing loop de loops in his grave, i'll have you know.!

Yes, thanks Helen ...you know how it kills me to do that, and especially to Whitman. But, when the only alternative is a wide thread here, what else can we do? Trying to read wide is maddening. And you're right...Walt probably is doing loop de loops in his grave...sorry guy.


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To Shakespeare
After Three Hundred Years


Bright baffling Soul, least capturable of themes,
Thou, who display'dst a life of commonplace,
Leaving no intimate word or personal trace
Of high design outside the artistry
Of thy penned dreams,
Still shalt remain at heart unread eternally.

Through human orbits thy discourse to-day,
Despite thy formal pilgrimage, throbs on
In harmonies that cow Oblivion,
And, like the wind, with all-uncared effect
Maintain a sway
Not fore-desired, in tracks unchosen and unchecked.

And yet, at thy last breath, with mindless note
The borough clocks but samely tongued the hour,
The Avon just as always glassed the tower,
Thy age was published on thy passing-bell
But in due rote
With other dwellers' deaths accorded a like knell.

And at the strokes some townsman (met, maybe,
And thereon queried by some squire's good dame
Driving in shopward) may have given thy name,
With, 'Yes, a worthy man and well-to-do;
Though, as for me,
I knew him but by just a neighbour's nod, 'tis true.

'I' faith, few knew him much here, save by word,
He having elsewhere led his busier life;
Though to be sure he left with us his wife.'
--'Ah, one of the tradesmen's sons, I now recall. . . .
Witty, I've heard. . . .
We did not know him. . . . Well, good-day. Death comes to all.'

So, like a strange bright bird we sometimes find
To mingle with the barn-door brood awhile,
Then vanish from their homely domicile--
Into man's poesy, we wot not whence,
Flew thy strange mind,
Lodged there a radiant guest, and sped for ever thence.


Thomas Hardy
1916



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I love this poem; it's so moving and at the same time so very funny.


A Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman,
for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a
headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole familites shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corrridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermrket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?


I hate the way this thing refuses to indent and space properly. Well, the words are still there.





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In several of the pems recently posted, the poet refers by name to other poets. I'll offer two more in that theme.

A word is in order on the first, The Poets at Tea by Barry Pain. Pain imagines ten poets conversing over tea; in each section of the poem, one poet speaks in his characteristic voice. To keep this post brief I've included only three of the ten, Macauley (abbreviated), Poe, and Walt Whitman. (omitting Tennyson, Swinburne, Cowper, Browning, Wordsworth, Rossetti and Burns)

Pour, varlet, pour the water,
The water steaming hot!
A spoonful for each man of us,
Another for the pot! ...
Whiter than snow the crystals
Grown sweet 'neath tropic fires,
More righ the herb of China's field,
The pasture-lands more fragrance yield;
Forever let Britania wield
The teapost of her sires!

Here's a mellow cup of tea -- golden tea!
What a world or rapturous thought its fragance brings to me!
Oh, from out the silver cells
How it wells!
How it smells!
Keeping tune, tune, tune,
To the tintinnabulation of the spoon.
And the kettle on the fire
Boils its spout off with desire,
With a desperate desire
And a crystalline endeavor
Now, now to sit, or never,
On the top of the pale-faced moon,
But he alwyays came home to tea, tea, tea, tea, tea,
Tea to the n-th.


One cup for my self-hood,
Many for you. Allons, camerados, we will drink together,
O hand-in-hand! That tea-spoon, please when you've done with it.
What butter-colored hair you've got. I don't want to be personal.
All right, then, you needn't. You're a stale-cadaver.
Eigthteen-pence if the bottles are returned.
Allons, from all bat-eyed formulas.


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And the second, a biting sonnet by James Kenneth Stephen

Wordsworth
Two voices are there: one is of the deep;
It learns the storm cloud's thunderous melody,
Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea,
Now birdlike pipes, now closes soft in sleep;
And one is of an old half-witted sheep
Which bleats articulate monotony,
And indicates that two and one are three,
That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep:
And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times,
Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes
The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst;
At other times -- good Lord! I'd rather be
Quite unacquainted with the A, B, C,
Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst.


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Robert Graves served with the British Army in the Royal Welch Fusiliers druring WWI, seeing some of the most brutal battles of the war.

THE NEXT WAR

by Robert Graves (1895-1985)

You young friskies who today
Jump and fight in Father’s hay
With bows and arrows and wooden spears,
Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers,
Happy though these hours you spend,
Have they warned you how games end?
Boys, from the first time you prod
And thrust with spears of curtain-rod,
From the first time you tear and slash
Your long-bows from the garden ash,
Or fit your shaft with a blue jay feather,
Binding the split tops together,
From that same hour by fate you’re bound
As champions of this stony ground,
Loyal and true in everything,
To serve your Army and your King,
Prepared to starve and sweat and die
Under some fierce foreign sky,
If only to keep safe those joys
That belong to British boys,
To keep young Prussians from the soft
Scented hay of father’s loft,
And stop young Slavs from cutting bows
And bendy spears from Welsh hedgerows.
...Another War soon gets begun,
A dirtier, a more glorious one;
Then, boys, you’ll have to play, all in;
It’s the cruellest team will win.
So hold your nose against the stink
And never stop too long to think.
Wars don’t change except in name;
The next one must go just the same,
And new foul tricks unguessed before
Will win and justify this War.
Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage
Once more with pomp and greed and rage;
Courtly ministers will stop
At home and fight to the last drop;
By the million men will die
In some new horrible agony;
And children here will thrust and poke,
Shoot and die, and laugh at the joke,
With bows and arrows and wooden spears,
Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers.


© 1917 by Robert Graves

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I have posted this before, but it is brief, so please pardon my yarting vanity...

Generic Haiku
by Alex Williams and Jimi Evans, 1987

Five syllables here
Something about the seasons
This line is real deep


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My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke

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.




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I hope this thread survives the Ides of April, what with the gloom of the happy cats down at the I, R, and S. But a rich diet of even the most expensive poems needs a refreshingly moderately-priced, tone-wine to clear the jaded palate. So here I offer an interlude, a sampling, such as it am, of my selections of the most pleasing, or the most sonorous, extracts from mankind's poetry.

And sup til times and times are done
the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun.

-Yeats

If the red slayer thinks that he has slayed
And the slain believes that he is slain
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep,
I turn, and pass, and live again
.

- Emerson

When robot mice and robot men run 'round in robot towns.

- Bradbury

the bird of time has but a short way to flutter
And Lo, the bird is on the wing.


- Omar

Damsel with a dulcimer ...etc.

- Coleridge

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil...

-King James Bible.

Over the mountains of the moon, down the valley of the shadow
Ride boldly ride, the Shade replied, if you seek for Eldorado
.

-Poe.


And so forth...


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When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?


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I like the idea of a few samplings there, Milo.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

T. S. Eliot, from The Wasteland


The contradiction in every act,
The infinite task of the human heart.

Delmore Schwartz, from The One Who Would Take Man's Life in His Own Hands


We love the things we love for what they are.

Robert Frost, from Hyla Brook

He who Doubts from what he sees
Will neer Believe do what you Please
If the Sun & Moon should Doubt
Theyd immediately Go out

A Truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent

The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun
Palsied strikes the Summers Sun

God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day

William Blake, from Auguries of Innocence (all punctuation and letter case his)

Expect poison from the standing water.

Joys impregnate. Sorrow brings forth.

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.

The cut worm forgives the plow.

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.

Damn braces: Bless relaxes.

William Blake, from Proverbs of Hell

Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

Emily Dickinson, from My Life Closed Twice

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A quiet bower for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

John Keats, from Endymion








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ODE

by Arthur O'Shaugnessy (1844-1881)

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying,
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.



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HEY ! One thing is true that can't be taken from (US):
We have 10 days left in National [Poetry] Month (US).
             ___________________________

Ever-so-often this month, I will post a lessor poem by a major poet or a major poem by a lessor poet, least either be forgotten. Aren't I nice?

YOUR TEARS

I DARE not ask your very all:
I only ask a part.
Bring me - when dancers leave the hall -
Your aching heart.

Give other friends your lighted face,
The laughter of the years:
I come to crave a greater grace -
Bring me your tears!
Edwin Markham































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——— Sea Fever ———
I must go down to the sea again,
... to the lonely sea and the sky
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song
... and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face,
... and a grey dawn breaking,

I must go down to the seas again,
... for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
... and the sea-gulls crying

I must go down to the seas again,
... to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way
... where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

John Masefield


I tried o break the lines so the post will not go wide on us all. I may have posted this before but I do love it!



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Okay, milum, gems of obscurity it is! Here's one of my favorite lesser known scribblings:

ON THE EVE OF HIS EXECUTION

by Chidiock Tichborne (1558?-1586)

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
my feast of ioy is but a dish of paine:
My Crop of corne is but a field of tares,
and al my good is but vaine hope of gaine.
The day is past, and yet I saw no sunne,
And now I liue, and now my life is done.


My tale was heard, and yet it was not told,
my fruite is falne, & yet my leaues are greene:
My youth is spent, and yet I am not old,
I saw the world, and yet I was not seene.
My thred is cut, and yet it is not spunne,
And now I liue, and now my life is done.


I sought my death, and found it in my wombe,
I lookt for life, and saw it was a shade:
I trod the earth, and knew it was my Tombe,
And now I die, and now I was but made.
My glasse is full, and now my glasse is runne,
And now I liue, and now my life is done.


Tichborne was executed because he got caught up in one of those English Throne conspiracy things...and he died rather gruesomely. Here's a link for the story if anyone is interested:

http://www.etsu.edu/english/sites/bowens.htm





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Another obscure poet

Hints of Spring

Last night I heard an owl
Hoot a lovesong to the night.
No answer came, but I'm sure it will.
Then I saw a waning moon
Rise just before dawn
To look down on my fields so dark and still.

I've caught other hints of spring
In a streak of living red
That chased a herd of shadows from my woods,
And a little shaft of morning
That came dancing down the hill
And started romancing with some buds.


-Max Ellison

That was a quick edit, amigo!

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Nell Flaherty’s Drake
MY NAME it is Nell, right candid I tell,
And I live near a dell I ne’er will deny,
I had a large drake, the truth for to spake,
My grandfather left me when going to die;
He was merry and sound, and would weigh twenty pound,
The universe round would I rove for his sake.
Bad luck to the robber, be he drunken or sober,
That murdered Nell Flaherty’s beautiful drake.
His neck it was green, and rare to be seen,
He was fit for a queen of the highest degree.
His body so white, it would you delight,
He was fat, plump, and heavy, and brisk as a bee.
This dear little fellow, his legs they were yellow,
He could fly like a swallow, or swim like a hake,
But some wicked habbage, to grease his white cabbage,
Has murdered Nell Flaherty’s beautiful drake!

May his pig never grunt, may his cat never hunt,
That a ghost may him haunt in the dark of the night.
May his hens never lay, may his horse never neigh,
May his goat fly away like an old paper kite;
May his duck never quack, may his goose be turned black
And pull down his stack with her long yellow beak.
May the scurvy and itch never part from the britch
Of the wretch that murdered Nell Flaherty’s drake!

May his rooster ne’er crow, may his bellows not blow,
Nor potatoes to grow—may he never have none—
May his cradle not rock, may his chest have no lock,
May his wife have no frock for to shade her backbone.
That the bugs and the fleas may this wicked wretch tease,
And a piercing north breeze make him tremble and shake.
May a four-years’-old bug build a nest in the lug (ear)
Of the monster that murdered Nell Flaherty’s drake.
May his pipe never smoke, may his tea-pot be broke,
And to add to the joke may his kettle not boil;
May he be poorly fed till the hour he is dead.
May he always be fed on lobscouse and fish oil.
May he swell with the gout till his grinders fall out,
May he roar, howl, and shout with a horrid toothache,
May his temple wear horns and his toes carry corns,
The wretch that murdered Nell Flaherty’s drake,
May his dog yelp and howl with both hunger and cold,
May his wife always scold till his brains go astray.
May the curse of each hag, that ever carried a bag,
Light down on the wag till his head it turns gray.
May monkeys still bite him, and mad dogs affright him,
And every one slight him, asleep or awake.
May wasps ever gnaw him, and jackdaws ever claw him,
The monster that murdered Nell Flaherty’s drake.

But the only good news I have to diffuse,
Is of Peter Hughes and Paddy McCade,
And crooked Ned Manson, and big-nosed Bob Hanson,
Each one had a grandson of my beautiful drake.
Oh! my bird he has dozens of nephews and cousins,
And one I must have, or my heart it will break.
To keep my mind easy, or else I’ll run crazy;
And so ends the song of my beautiful drake.

By that prolific writer : Anon.



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             GREEN CANDLES

"There's someone at the door" said gold candlestick:
"let her in quick!, let her in quick!"
"there's a small hand groping at the handle:
"Why don't you turn it?" asked green candle.

"Don't go, don't go," said the Heppelwhite chair.
"lest you find a strange lady there."
"Yes, stay where you are," whispered the white wall.
"There is nobody there at all."

"I know her little foot," gray carpet said:
"Who but I should know her light tread?"
"She shall come in." answered the open door.
"And not," said the room, go out any more."


-Humbert Wolfe




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GHOST HOUSE
by Robert Frost


I DWELL in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. 5

O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed. 10

I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart; 15

The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out. 20

It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
Who share the unlit place with me—
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar. 25

They are tireless folk, but slow and sad,
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,—
With none among them that ever sings,
And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had. 30


"...and the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow"

...walking on a gently undulating road in Connecticut
a few summers back, I spotted purple stems. Stopped
to look, and, sure enough, there were the stems
and leaves of the raspberry. I felt Frost was there,
peeking over my shoulder, him thinking, "I made you stop,
didn't I? Me with my use of purple-stemmed and rolling
rhythm..."

That's why I like it--all
of the best of it--it makes us stop





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Can anyone help here?

I periodically stumble across this in my handwritten notes notes from my college days (ancient history!).
I have no idea who wrote it. Can anyone help?

The tanned blonde
in the green print sack
in the center of the subway car
standing
though there are seats
has had it from
1 teen-age hood
1 lesbian
1 envious housewife
4 men over fifty
(& myself), in short
the contents of this half of the car

                   Our notations are:
long legs, long waist, high breasts (no bra), long
neck, the model slump
the handbag drape and how the skirt
cuts in under a very handsome
set of cheeks
‘stirring dull roots with spring rain’ sayeth the preacher

               Only a stolid young man
with a blue business suit and the New York Times
does not know he is being assaulted

So.
She has us and we her
all the way to downtown Brooklyn
Over the tunnel and through the bridge
to DeKalb Avenue we go
all very chummy

She stares at the number over the door
and gives no sign
yet the sign is on her.


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Keiva, isn't this apt:

"April is the cruellest month,
breeding Lilacs out of the dead land,
mixing memory and desire,
stirring dull roots with Spring rain."
-- T.S. Eliot


I was able to find, by googling "in the green print sack" that it's apparently a poem called The Once Over by one Paul Blackburn.
http://english.rutgers.edu/comic.htm


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RUNAWAY HOLLYHOCKS
for Veloise

Two hollyhocks that I saw stood
Knee deep in grass beside a woods.
Hand in hand they seemed to say,
"Just look at us! We've run away!"

I've seen hollyhocks before
Standing by some country door,
Curtsying shadows in the lane,
Peeking in some kitchen pane,
Or doing sentry by the gate,
But these were lost, and it was late.

I can't believe that any fiend
Would turn them out, or be so mean
As when they bloomed to come and say,
"We don't want hollyhocks today."

I think, perhaps, some love instead,
For one was white, and one was red,
Caused them through the night to say,
"When morning comes, we'll run away."


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Jazzo, thank you! That's been gnawing at the back of my mind for years. [My googling efforts had included text from the end of the poem. slapping own worhead in disgust at self -e] And in all these years I'd never noted the T.S. Eliot reference. [slapping again -e]

Let me register that IMHO, April is not the cruelest month:
April, April,
Laugh thy girlish laughter;
Then, the moment after,
Weep thy girlish tears!

-- William Watson

There's a collegiate story, jazzo, behind that poem you found for me. Remind me to tell you by PM; it's too long to write out now.



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               SIMPLES
O bella, biolnda
sei come l'onda



Of cool sweet dew and radiance mild
The moon a web of silence weaves
In the still garden where a child
Gathers the simple salad leaves.

A moon-dew stars her hanging hair,
And moonlight touches her young brow;
And, gathering, she sings an air:
"Fair as the wave is, fair art thou."

Be mine, I pray, a waxen ear
To shield me from her childish croon;
And mine a shieled heart for her
Who gathers simples of the moon.

James Joyce


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obscure

BEWARE

by Cydias (Greek - c. 400 B.C.)

Beware. There are fawns
who, facing the lion,
die of fright just thinking
the lion might be hungry.



translated by Sam Hamill

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        THE TIRED MAN

I am a quie gentleman,
And I would sit and dream;
But my wife is on the hillside,
Wild as a hill-stream.

I am a quiet gentleman,
And I would sit and think;
But my wife is walking the whirlwind
Through night as black as ink.

Oh, give me a woman of my race
As well controlled as I,
And let us sit by the fire,
Patient till we die.
Anna Wickham




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Verse for a Certain Dog
Dorothy Parker

Such glorious faith as fills your limpid eyes,
Dear little friend of mine, I never knew.
All-innocent are you, and yet all-wise.
(For Heaven's sake, stop worrying that shoe!)
You look about, and all you see is fair;
This mighty globe was made for you alone.
Of all the thunderous ages, you're the heir.
(Get off the pillow with that dirty bone!)

A skeptic world you face with steady gaze;
High in young pride you hold your noble head,
Gayly you meet the rush of roaring days.
(Must you eat puppy biscuit on the bed?)
Lancelike your courage, gleaming swift and strong,
Yours the white rapture of a winged soul,
Yours is a spirit like a Mayday song.
(God help you, if you break the goldfish bowl!)

"Whatever is, is good" - your gracious creed.
You wear your joy of living like a crown.
Love lights your simplest act, your every deed.
(Drop it, I tell you- put that kitten down!)
You are God's kindliest gift of all - a friend.
Your shining loyalty unflecked by doubt,
You ask but leave to follow to the end.
(Couldn't you wait until I took you out?)


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              BAST

She had green eyes, that excellent seer
And little peaks to either ear.
She sat there, and I sat here.

She spoke of Egypt, and a white
Temple, against enormous night.

She smiled with clicking teeth and said
That the dead were never dead:

Said old emperors hung like bats
In barns at night, or ran like rats -
But Empresses came back as cats!

William Rose Benil


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Considering it's US Poetry Month I offer this:

Quality Control
by J5

Zaakir's the name, the aka soupa, the verbal acupuncture from ya dope old schoola,
I used to be the brother for others they used to dumb on,
Now they be the lovers of brothers, they can't front on
Put me in the mix, lp 12", sp, the elegant poetic pestilence
I'm carbonated, plus anti-confederated, highly commemorated and the most celebrated
For connecting it, word, verb subject to the predicate
Plus I got the etiquette, to keep it moving and show my cats how it's done
Cause it's the verbal compact position #1

We keep it beaming like a beacon, if it's lyrics that you're seeking.
Whether black or Puerto Rican people back us when we speaking
We got the kind of rhymes to get you ready for the weekend,
To the mass amount of legions that came for party pleasing
our tempeture is freezing, all kind of different regions
The rhythm is the reason your checking for what we've done
Please son, our thesis, 'll rip your crew in pieces
Your rhymes ain't ripe homeboy you ain't in season

Ayo my quality control, captivates your mind, body and soul
For who the bell tolls, let the rhythm explode
Big bad and bold b-boys of old

We'll it's the angelic man relic clan repellant,
My transparent manuscripts withstand bullets
Flashing like a Japan tourist we command pure hits
While you cramming to understand these contraband lyrics
My fam summits to pray 5 times a day, climbing into your mind with live rhyme display
j5 finds a way to remain supreme
Coming verbally harder son as if my name was Kadeem.

Hey yo my team dream works, without Spielbergs I spill words
communicate from the earth throughout the universe
I transmit, transcripts transcontinental, lyrics deeply rooted in your spirit
I love the power of words, nouns and verbs, the pen and the sword, linguistic on'award,
No folklore's or myths in my penmanship, the path of scholar warriors is what I present
Verbally decapitating those against us,
Jihah'fasibili'lah, my words make sense
You gots to get up on your vocab, you gots to have vocab,
Letters make words and sentences make paragraphs

I make the pen capsize the brother with the planet eyes
planting knives every pen that I utilize, spit juice
crack blood from your tooth, inflict truth speak Allah's 99 attributes
Hey yo you baby mc's drink pedialite
While underground doesn't like you the media might
But we the elite we'll change that as we bridge gaps
in this lyrical grudge match brothers we slug back

We bless tracks wit da help of a raw rap
Imprinted like paw tracks all over your brain rack
My mental maneuver will clearly steer right through ya
We grand like puba understand that we move ya
A yo my rhythm reveal rollercoast the real deal
Revolutionize react and build, I plant my dreams in a field and wait to harvest my skills
For the starving mc hungry trying to get a meal

Ayo my quality control, captivates your mind body and soul
For who the bell tolls, let the rhythm explode
Big bad and bold b-boys of old


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DO NOT PONDER TOO MUCH

by Stefan George (1868-1933) German

Do not ponder too much
meanings that cannot be found --
The symbol-scenes that no man understands:

The wild swan you shot, that you kept alive
In the yard, for a while, with shattered wing --
He reminded you, you said, of a faraway creature:
Your kindred self that you had destroyed in him.
He languished with neither thanks for your care nor rancor,
But when his dying came,
His fading eye rebuked you for driving him now
Out of a known into a new cycle of things.


translated by Stanley Burnshaw






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     WAGTAIL AND BABY

A Baby watched a ford, whereto
A wagtail came for drinking;
A blaring bull went wading through,
The wagtail showed no shrinking.

A stallion splashed his way across,
The birdie nearly sinking;
He gave his plumes a twitch and toss,
and held his own unblinking.

Next saw the baby round the spot
A mongrel slowly slinking:
The wagtail gazed, but faltered not
In dip and sip and prinking.

A perfect gentleman then neared;
The wagtail, in a winking,
With terror rose and disappeared.
The baby fell a-thinking.

Thomas Hardy

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

LITERARY LOVE

I BROKE my heart because of you, my dear;
I wept full many an unmanly tear -
But as in agony I lay awake
I thought, "What lovely poems this will make!"

Harry Kemp
**************


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Gotta say about Literary Love: Ain't it the truth; ain't it the truth!




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(and I offer this also in concert with Earth Day)

SONG OF THE SKY LOOM

Tewa (Native American tribe), Anonymous (19th Century)

O our Mother the Earth, O our Father the Sky,
Your children are we, and with tired backs
We bring you the gifts you love.
Then weave for us a garment of brightness;
May the warp be the white light of the morning,
May the weft be the red light of the evening,
May the fringes be the falling rain,
May the border be the standing rainbow.
Thus weave for us a garment of brightness,
That we may walk fittingly where birds sing,
That we may walk fittingly where grass is green,
O our Mother the Earth, O our Father the Sky.


translated by Herbert J. Spinden


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SPRING AND ALL
William Carlos Williams

By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines-

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches-

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind-

Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined-
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf


But now the stark dignity of
entrance-Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken





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The Cherry-Blossom Wand
Anna Wickham

I WILL pluck from my tree a cherry-blossom wand,
And carry it in my merciless hand,
So I will drive you, so bewitch your eyes,
With a beautiful thing that can never grow wise.

Light are the petals that fall from the bough,
And lighter the love that I offer you now;
In a spring day shall the tale be told
Of the beautiful things that will never grow old.

The blossoms shall fall in the night wind,
And I will leave you so, to be kind:
Eternal in beauty, are short-lived flowers,
Eternal in beauty, these exquisite hours.

I will pluck from my tree a cherry-blossom wand,
And carry it in my merciless hand,
So I will drive you, so bewitch your eyes,
With a beautiful thing that shall never grow wise.

Anna Wickham


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Must Hurry- only seven days left in National Poetry Month.
Quickly now...

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
could [FRAME] thy fearful symmetry?

                                 William Blake


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When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

thank you, milum, for bring that lovely poem to mind


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The City

by C.P. Cavafy

Translated by
Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard


You said: "I'll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart lies buried like something dead.

How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I've spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally."
You won't find a new country, won't find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You'll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses.
You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things elsewhere:
there's no ship for you, there's no road.
Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you've destroyed it everywhere in the world.



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mmmm....interesting sentiments there...
maybe one or two of them best understood
out of the corner of one's eye.

Betcha don't know two poems about "Clods"?
I thought not. Sometimes "It takes a thief...
    
[THE CLOD]]

I picked up a clod.
"You may yet be a man" I said. "Dream on.
Are you not glad? Do you not tremble?"
But dully it looked at me.
I could swear I heard a sigh of relief.
There was no ecstasy or joy.
"I have been a man" the clod said.

~Edwin Curran

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

THE CLOD AND THE PEBBLE


"Love seeketh not Itself to please,
"Nor for herself hath any care,
"But for another gives its ease,
"And builds a Heaven in Hell's dispair."

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

"Love seeketh only self to please,
"to bind another for it's delight,
"Joys in another's loss of ease,
"And builds a hell in Heaven's despite."
William Blake


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A poem about words. What could be more appropriate.

THESAURUS

It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.

It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes,
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.

Here father is next to sire and brother close
to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning.
And every group has its odd cousin, the one
who traveled the farthest to be here:
astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven
syllable, unpronounceable substitute for the word tool.
Even their own relatives have to squint at their name tags.

I can see my own copy up on a high shelf.
I rarely open it, because I know there is no
such thing as a synonym and because I get nervous
around people who always assemble with their own kind,
forming clubs and nailing signs to closed front doors
while others huddle alone in the dark streets.

I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.

Billy Collins




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YOUR CATFISH FRIEND

by Richard Brautigan (1935-1984)


If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
.... one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
.... of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
.... somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
.... at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."



From The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster by Richard Brautigan, published by Houghton Mifflin.
Copyright © 1989 by Richard Brautigan. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.





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WE REAL COOL

by Gwendolyn Brooks


THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.



We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.





From The Bean Eaters by Gwendolyn Brooks, published by Harpers.
© 1960 by Gwendolyn Brooks. Used with permission. All rights reserved.



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     THE LION

The lion is a kingly beast.
He likes a Hindu for a feast.
And if no Hindu he can get,
The lion-family is upset.

He cuffs his wife and bites her ears
Till she is nearly moved to tears.
Then some explorer finds the den
And all is family peace again.
Vachel Lindsay

Which of the following two is YOU.

     PRESCIENCE

I went to sleep smiling,
I wakened despairing -
Where was my soul,
On what terror-path faring?
What grief shall befall me,
By midnight or noon,
What thing has my soul learned
That I shall know soon?
Margaret Widdemer

                                                            
A WASTED DAY

I spoiled the day;
Hotly, in haste,
All the calm hours
I gashed and defaced.

Let me forget,
Let me embark
- Sleep for my boat -
And sail through the dark.

Till a new day
Heaven will send,
Whole as an apple,
Kind as a friend.
Frances Cornford




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Following up on milum's lionizing, and adding a word-related Twist:

THE PURIST
by Ogden Nash

I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist.
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."



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Fan-Piece, For Her Imperial Lord

O fan of white silk,
clear as frost on the grass-blade,

You also are laid aside.

-- Ezra Pound

Based on a 1st century BC Chinese poem


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THE PURIST
by Ogden Nash

I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist.


Ah, Nash at his best, even surpassing...

Po-ta-to, po-tah-ta,
sih-CAY-dah, sih-CAH-duh,
Let's call the whole thing off.
-

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

And now; Lets give these ceremonies some chauvinistic USA patriotism by way of a poetic twist...
 REGARDING (1) THE U.S AND (2) NEW YORK

Before I was a travelled bird,
I scoffed, in my provincial way,
At other lands; I deemed absurd
All nations but these U.S.A.

And - although Middle-Western born -
Before I was a travelled guy,
I laughed at, with unhidden scorn,
All cities but New York N.Y.

But now I've been about a bit -
How travel broadens! How it does!
And I have found out this, to wit:
How right I was! How right I was!
Franklin P. Adams


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The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter


While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

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

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

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

-- Ezra Pound


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A Late Walk

by Robert Frost - 1913

WHEN I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words.
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.



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Thank you wordwind, you know, that Frost fellow wasn't bad.

This is not as good, but it's cute.

       IT HAPPENS OFTEN

There was a man in our town
Whose Christian name was Jim;
He stepped into a pot of glue,
And fell and broke his limb.

The doctors tried to set it,
But still it would not mend;
He limped about, and would, no doubt,
Be limping to the end.

But on a day it happened
He walked abroad, and then
He stepped into some other glue,
And broke his leg again.

And when his leg was mended,
And he was out once more,
Both leg and man were stronger than
They had ever been before!

So, when I broke my heart, once,
I thought of Mister Jim -
I went and broke it once again,
Now I'm as well as him!
Edwin Meade Robinson




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No, milum, that Frost fellow wasn't bad, but he wasn't thought to be good enough to win the Nobel prize. Pity, really. He should have won it. Here's another:

BY June our brook’s run out of song and speed.
Sought for much after that, it will be found
Either to have gone groping underground
(And taken with it all the Hyla breed
That shouted in the mist a month ago, 5
Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)—
Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed,
Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent
Even against the way its waters went.
Its bed is left a faded paper sheet 10
Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat—
A brook to none but who remember long.
This as it will be seen is other far
Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.
We love the things we love for what they are.

Hyla Brook
Robert Lee Frost



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LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE
James Whitcomb Riley

Little Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay,
An’ wash the cups and saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away,
An’ shoo the chickens off the porch, an’ dust the hearth, an’ sweep,
An’ make the fire, an’ bake the bread, an’ earn her board-an’-keep;
An’ all us other children, when the supper things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun
A-list’nin’ to the witch tales ‘at Annie tells about,
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘at gits you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

Onc’t they was a little boy wouldn’t say his prayers,—
So when he went to bed at night, away upstairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an’ his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An’ when they turn’t the kivvers down, he wasn’t there at all!
An’ they seeked him in the rafter room, an’ cubbyhole, an’ press,
An’ seeked him up the chimbly flue, an’ ever’wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found was thist his pants an’ roundabout:—
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘II git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

An une time a little girl ‘ud allus laugh an’ grin,
An’ make fun of ever’one, an’ all her blood an’ kin;
An’ onc’t, when they was “company,” an’ ole folks was there,
She mocked ‘em an’ shocked ‘em, an’ said she didn’t care!
An’ thist as she kicked her heels, an’ turn’t to run an’ hide,
They was two great big Black Things a-standin’ by her side,
An’ they snatched her through the ceilin’ ‘fore she knowed what she’s about!
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘11 git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!

An’ little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,
An’ the lamp-wick sputters, an’ the wind goes woo-oo!
An’ you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray,
An’ the lightnin’ bugs in dew is all squenched away,—
You better mind yer parents, and yer teachers fond an’ dear,
An’ churish them ‘at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear,
An’ he’p the pore an’ needy ones ‘at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns ‘11 git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!



(Sorry about the lines being all screwed up!)


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Music is in the ear of the behearer...




>>>>>[OVERTONES]<<<<<
                                                      
I heard a bird at break of day
Sing from the autumn trees
A song so mystical and calm,
So full of certainties.
No man, I think, could listen long
Except upon his knees.
Yet this was but a simple bird,
Alone among [DEAD]trees.

William Alexander Percy


~~~~~*****~~~~~*****~~~~~*****~~~~~*****~~~~~*****


THE BLACKBIRD

In the corner
close by the swings,
every morning
a blackbird sings.

His bill is so yellow
his coat is so black
that makes a fellow
whistle back.

Ann, my daughter,
thinks that he
sings for us two
especially.

____________________Humbert Wolfe__________________



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Untitled

Shy warbler who sings to me from leafy shade,
Although my eyes look high to see,
It's by your song alone I know you,
And you know less than that of me.

I'm quite content to leave it as we have it.
We'll share the tree and summer, but
Your song will be the one we put our faith in.
The ones I know sometimes have proven wrong.

-Max Ellison


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Guys, I can't read this thread. It falls off on both sides of my screen. Why is that? Can we fix it so my eyes don't get boogled?



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Wordwind!..."Hyla brook" is my Favorite frost poem, I know it by heart and present it all the time...especially love the last line...thanks!

HER HAIR

by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)-French


O fleece, which covers her neck like wool!
O curls! O perfume heavy with nonchalance!
Ecstasy! Tonight, in order to people this dark alcove
With the memories sleeping in this hair,
I want to shake them in the air like a handkerchief!

Languorous Asia and burning Africa,
A whole distant world, absent, almost defunct,
Lives in your depths, O aromatic forest!
As other spirits sail on music,
Mine, O my love, swims on your perfume.

I will go there where the tree and man, full of sap,
Swoon for a long time in the ardour of the climate;
Strong tresses, be the ocean swell that carries me off!
You contain, O sea of ebony, a dazzling dream
Of sails and rowers of flames and masts;

A resounding port where my soul can drink
In long draughts perfume, sound and color;
Where ships, gliding in the gold and mixed shades,
Open their vast arms to embrace the glory
Of a pure sky where eternal heat quivers.

I'll plunge my head in love with intoxification
Into that black ocean where she is enclosed;
And my subtle spirit which the rolling ocean caresses
Will be able to find you again, O fertile idleness!
Infinite rockings of my embalmed leisure!

Blue hair, tent of stretched darkness,
You give me back the blue of the huge round sky;
On the downy edges of your twisted locks
My ardor grows drunk on the mingled smells
Of coconut oil, of musk and tar.

For a long time! Forever! My hand in your heavy mane
Will sow rubies, pearls and sapphires,
So that you will never be deaf to my desire!
Are you not the oasis where I dream, and the gourd
From which I draw in long draughts the wine of memory?



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*swoon*


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*swoon*


   


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The Pasture


I’M going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.

I’m going out to fetch the little calf 5
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.

Robert Lee Frost

This one has been set to music at least once. The art song I heard in a recital was lovely.


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DOUBT me, my dim companion!
Why, God would be content
With but a fraction of the love
Poured thee without a stint.
The whole of me, forever, 5
What more the woman can,—
Say quick, that I may dower thee
With last delight I own!

It cannot be my spirit,
For that was thine before; 10
I ceded all of dust I knew,—
What opulence the more
Had I, a humble maiden,
Whose farthest of degree
Was that she might 15
Some distant heaven,
Dwell timidly with thee!

Emily Dickinson


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ELYSIUM is as far as to
The very nearest room,
If in that room a friend await
Felicity or doom.

What fortitude the soul contains, 5
That it can so endure
The accent of a coming foot,
The opening of a door!


Emily Dickinson


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Here are two of my favorites, having a common theme.
And they won't print wide.

Quand vous serez bien vielle, au soir, ŕ la chandelle,
Assise auprčs du feu, dévidant et filant,
Direz, chantant mes vers, en vous émerveillant:
«Ronsard me célébrait au temps que j'étais belle.»

Lors vous n'aurez servante oyant telle nouvelle,
Déjŕ sous le labeur ŕ demi sommeillant,
Qui au bruit de mon nom ne s'aille réveillant,
Bénissant votre nom de louange immortelle.

Je serais sous la terre et, fantôme sans os,
Par les ombres myrteux je prendrai mon repos;
Vous serez au foyer une vielle accroupie,

Regrettant mon amour et votre fier dédain.
Vivez, si m'en croyez, n'attendez ŕ demain;
Cueillez dčs aujourd'hui les roses de la vie.


-- Pierre de Ronsard Sonnets pour Hélčne

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a-getting;
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best, which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer,
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times shall succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.


-- Robert Herrick To the Virgins to Make Much of Time


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Her Hair

O fleece, that down the neck waves to the nape!
O curls! O perfume nonchalant and rare!
O ecstasy! To fill this alcove shape
With memories that in these tresses sleep,
I would shake them like penions in the air!

Languorous Asia, burning Africa,
And a far world, defunct almost, absent,
Within your aromatic forest stay!
As other souls on music drift away,
Mine, O my love! still floats upon your scent.

I shall go there where, full of sap, both tree
And man swoon in the heat of the southern climates;
Strong tresses be the swell that carries me!
I dream upon your sea of amber
Of dazzling sails, of oarsmen, masts, and flames:

A sun-drenched and reverberating port,
Where I imbibe colour and sound and scent;
Where vessels, gliding through the gold and moiré,
Open their vast arms as they leave the shore
To clasp the pure and shimmering firmament.

I'll plunge my head, enamored of its pleasure,
In this black ocean where the other hides;
My subtle spirit then will know a measure
Of fertile idleness and fragrant leisure,
Lulled by the infinite rhythm of its tides!

Pavilion, of autumn-shadowed tresses spun,
You give me back the azure from afar;
And where the twisted locks are fringed with down
Lurk mingled odors I grow drunk upon
Of oil of coconut, of musk, and tar.

A long time! always! my hand in your hair
Will sow the stars of sapphire, pearl, ruby,
That you be never deaf to my desire,
My oasis and my gourd whence I aspire
To drink deep of the wine of memory.

Who likes which translation better?


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Well, here's the original French text...Bel?...
which is the better translation from a French-speaking point of view?
Remember, Baudelaire was a French Symbolist poet,
his images were rich, sensuous, and emotional.



La Chevelure

Charles Baudelaire

O toison, moutonnant jusque sur l'encolure!
O boucles! O parfum chargé de nonchaloir!
Extase! Pour peupler ce soir l'alcôve obscure
Des souvenirs dormant dans cette chevelure,
Je la veux agiter dans l'air comme un mouchoir!

La langoureuse Asie et la brűlante Afrique,
Tout un monde lointain, absent, presque défunt,
Vit dans les profondeurs, foręt aromatique!
Comme d'autres esprits voguent sur la musique,
Le mien, ô mon amour! nage sur ton parfum.

J'irai lŕ-bas oů l'arbre et l'homme, pleins de sčve,
Se pâment longuement sous l'ardeur des climats;
Fortes tresses, soyez la houle qui m'enlčve!
Tu contiens, mer d'ébčne, un éblouissant ręve
De voiles, de rameurs, de flammes et de mâts:
Un port retentissant oů mon âme peut boire
A grands flots le parfum, le son et la couleur;
Oů les vaisseaux, glissant dans l'or et dans la moire,
Ouvrent leurs vastes bras pour embrasser la gloire
D'un ciel pur oů frémit l'éternelle chaleur.

Je plongerai ma tęte amoureuse d'ivresse
Dans ce noir océan oů l'autre est enfermé;
Et mon esprit subtil que le roulis caresse
Saura vous retrouver, ô féconde paresse!
Infinis bercements du loisir embaumé!

Cheveux bleus, pavillon de ténčbres tendues,
Vous me rendez l'azur du ciel immense et rond;
Sur les bords duvetés de vos mčches tordues
Je m'enivre ardemment des senteurs confondues
De l'huile de coco, du musc et du goudron.

Longtemps! toujours! ma main dans ta criničre lourde
Sčmera le rubis, la perle et le saphir,
Afin qu'ŕ mon désir tu ne sois jamais sourde!
N'es-tu pas l'oasis oů je ręve, et la gourde
Oů je hume ŕ longs traits le vin du souvenir?


click here for a beautiful graphic of the piece:
http://www.poetes.com/baud/BChevelure.htm

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Baudelaire ?
You people were not going to let National Poetry Month (US) pass without a word or two from ee. Were you?

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis


- ee cummings






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anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did


Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain


children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more


when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her


someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream


stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)


one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was


all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.


Women and men(both dong and ding)
[summer] [autumn] [winter] [spring]
reaped their sowing and went their came
[sun] [moon] [stars] [rain]


- ee cummings




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Landscape

Now this must be the sweetest place
From here to heaven's end;
The field is white and flowering lace,
The birches leap and bend,

The hills, beneath the roving sun,
From green to purple pass,
And little, trifling breezes run
Their fingers through the grass.

So good it is, so gay it is,
So calm it is, and pure.
A one whose eyes may look on this
Must be the happier, sure.

But me- I see it flat and gray
And blurred with misery,
Because a lad a mile away
Has little need of me.


Dorothy Parker


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Incurable

And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned;
The calmer, I, to see it true
That ways of love are never new-
The love that sets you daft and dazed
Is every love that ever blazed;
The happier, I, to fathom this:
A kiss is every other kiss.
The reckless vow, the lovely name,
When Helen walked, were spoke the same;
The weighted breast, the grinding woe,
When Phaon fled, were ever so.
Oh, it is sure as it is sad
That any lad is every lad,
And what's a girl, to dare implore
Her dear be hers forevermore?
Though he be tried and he be bold,
And swearing death should he be cold,
He'll run the path the others went....
But you, my sweet, are different.

Dorothy Parker


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The Lady's Reward

Lady, lady, never start
Conversation toward your heart;
Keep your pretty words serene;
Never murmur what you mean.
Show yourself, by word and look,
Swift and shallow as a brook.
Be as cool and quick to go
As a drop of April snow;
Be as delicate and gay
As a cherry flower in May.
Lady, lady, never speak
Of the tears that burn your cheek-
She will never win him, whose
Words had shown she feared to lose.
Be you wise and never sad,
You will get your lovely lad.
Never serious be, nor true,
And your wish will come to you-
And if that makes you happy, kid,
You'll be the first it ever did.

Dorothy Parker


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Tombstones in the Starlight

I. The Minor Poet

His little trills and chirpings were his best.
No music like the nightingale's was born
Within his throat; but he, too, laid his breast
Upon a thorn.

II. The Pretty Lady

She hated bleak and wintry things alone.
All that was warm and quick, she loved too well-
A light, a flame, a heart against her own;
It is forever bitter cold, in Hell.

III. The Very Rich Man

He'd have the best, and that was none too good;
No barrier could hold, before his terms.
He lies below, correct in cypress wood,
And entertains the most exclusive worms.

IV. The Fisherwoman

The man she had was kind and clean
And well enough for every day,
But, oh, dear friends, you should have seen
The one that got away!

V. The Crusader

Arrived in Heaven, when his sands were run,
He seized a quill, and sat him down to tell
The local press that something should be done
About that noisy nuisance, Gabriel.

Vl. The Actress

Her name, cut clear upon this marble cross,
Shines, as it shone when she was still on earth;
While tenderly the mild, agreeable moss
Obscures the figures of her date of birth.

Dorothy Parker


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I think I'll close this off with a little Charles Bukowski (and my view was #714...Babe Ruth's career home run total!...Yeah! )

POETRY

by Charles Bukowski


it
takes
a lot of

desperation

dissatisfaction

and
disillusion

to
write

a
few
good
poems.

it's not
for
everybody

either to

write
it

or even to

read
it.



© 1968 by Charles Bukowski





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Afterword:
Just who the heck is Charles Bukowski?

- - And good-bye everyone...

Maybe. - -


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Thank you, milum! (sniff)

And goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are!

Wait a minute...milum?...who the heck was that masked man?

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It would seem appropriate to finish off with this aubade from Milton:

SONG
On May morning.

Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The Flowry May,who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.

Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing,
Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing.

Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
And welcom thee, and wish thee long.



Bingley


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