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Well, we haven't had a poetry thread in awhile (hi Jazzo!), and the fall provides some good themes for digging up material...Halloween, foliage...spooky, colorful...and all the nuances in between...I'll kick it off with this classic of childhood fright:
LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE
by James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)
INSCRIBED WITH ALL FAITH AND AFFECTION
To all the little children: -- The happy ones; and sad ones;
The sober and the silent ones; the boisterous and glad ones;
The good ones -- Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.
Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,
An' wash the cups an' 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 childern, 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!
Wunst they wuz a little boy wouldn't say his prayers, --
An' when he went to bed at night, away up-stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wuzn't there at all!
An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press,
An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'-wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found wuz thist his pants an' roundabout: --
.. An' the Gobble-uns 'll git you
.... Ef you
...... Don't
........ Watch
.......... Out!
An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin,
An' make fun of ever' one, an' all her blood-an'-kin;
An' wunst, when they was "company," an' ole folks wuz 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 wuz 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 'll 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 parunts, an' yer teachurs 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 'll git you
.... Ef you
...... Don't
........ Watch
.......... Out!
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old hand
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Hurry, hurry, little fingers, let me be the first to quote a poem by Poe...Hurry.
THE CONQUEROR WORM
~ Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Ode to Autumn
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease; 10
For Summer has o'erbrimm'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; 15
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day 25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
John Keats
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old hand
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I could go all archaic on y'all, but since I ain't no fan of cuckoo song , I'll settle for a work often attributed to a modern Irish bard:
Spring is sprung, the grass is riz
I wonder where the birdies is?
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Carpal Tunnel
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>Spring is sprung...
tis like beatin' yer head agin the wall, ain't it?!
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>tis like beatin' yer head agin the wall, ain't it?!
Waaay more fun, and now a custom. What would the change of seasons be without a diatribe on hemispherism? 8^)
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I've always wondered - did you (sjm or CK or any other antipodean) have to study English (as in Britain) poems in school? And did you get all confused - or at least offended - when you read things like "May, sweet May" or poems about flowers in April or the loveliness of June? (Although from what I gather your winters may not be as wintry as those I know.)
I personally always found those confusing for a different reason, mostly because spring happens much later (and winter much earlier) where I come from. April is really nothing to scream about, for example - cold and muddy and not at all poem-worthy. And reading poems about brilliant fall colours is funny on the Prairies, where there are no maple trees and thus none of the brilliant reds that the rest of the country raves about, and puts on the flag.
Anyway, I'd love to read some antipodean poetry extolling the wonders of say, daffodils in September (if you have daffodils there), or hot December days, or the chills of late June, that sort of thing.
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daffodils in September..or hot December days, or the chills of late JuneReally good point, Bean. A nice challenge to hemispherist preconceptions. OTOH what do we care about sinister denizens of the underworld? 
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veteran
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Forever AutumnThe summer sun is fading as the year grows old, And darker days are drawing near, The winter winds will be much colder, Now you're not here. I watch the birds fly south across the autumn sky, And one by one they disappear, I wish that I was flying with them, Now you're not here. Like the sun through the trees you came to love me, Like a leaf on the breeze you blew away. Through autumn's golden gown we used to kick our way, You always loved this time of year, Those fallen leaves lie undisturbed now, 'cause you're not here, 'cause you're not here, 'cause you're not here. Like the sun through the trees you came to love me, Like a leaf on the breeze you blew away. A gentle rain falls softly on my weary eyes, As if to hide a lonely tear, My life will be Forever Autumn, 'cause you're not here, 'cause you're not here, 'cause you're not here. 
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I know where the birdies is --
They're eatin' all my radishis.
(A TEd original)
TEd
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What would the change of seasons be without a diatribe on hemispherism?
Oh, what!? We're sposed to cain't revel in the most bittersweet of all seasonal changes jus cuz some a y'all choose to live hanging upside down by yer feet from the wrong side of the world?
BTW, we used to rib a transplanted Ozzie friend about celebrating Christmas in summer. We asked her what her favorite Christmas custom was and she replied, "Sitting by the pool drinking gin'n'tonics
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Forever AutumnIs that a shona original? 
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Pooh-Bah
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Gold and red leaves fall
I don't like raking at all
But the air smells good
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Is that a shona original?My writing isn't quite that bad. Well, it is, actually.  But it's a song from Jeff Wayne's famous double album War Of The Worlds, based on the H.G. Wells book, sung by Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues. c.1976 I think.
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enthusiast
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I know where the birdies is --
They're eatin' all my radishis.
Birdies? Not.
It's gotta be that cat. Anything that size is eatin' whatever it can find.
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AFTER APPLE-PICKING
by Robert Frost
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
©1914 by Robert frost
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Gold and red leaves fall
I don't like raking at all
But the air smells goodNice one, Alex. You've even introduced rhyme into the scheme.
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Carpal Tunnel
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...and even has the nature theme, as a true haiku should :-)
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old hand
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Now boys and girls a poem to be read when the wolfbane is in bloom that is guaranteed to give as much pleasure to the reader as to those who listen...
DREAMLAND
~ Edgar Allan Poe (1844)
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule-
From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE- out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters- lone and dead,-
Their still waters- still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,-
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,-
By the mountains- near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,-
By the grey woods,- by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp-
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,-
By each spot the most unholy-
In each nook most melancholy-
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past-
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by-
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth- and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region-
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis- oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not- dare not openly view it!
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
_____The End_____
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Not a poem, but. What autumnal perusal of literature would be complete without this? THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
by Washington Irvinghttp://www.bartleby.com/310/2/2.html
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The Spring and The Fall
by Edna St Vincent Millay
In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The trees were black where the bark was wet.
I see them yet, in the spring of the year.
He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach
That was out of the way and hard to reach.
In the fall of the year, in the fall of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The rooks went up with a raucous trill.
I hear them still, in the fall of the year.
He laughed at all I dared to praise,
And broke my heart, in little ways.
Year be springing or year be falling,
The bark will drip and the birds be calling.
There's much that's fine to see and hear
In the spring of a year, in the fall of a year.
'Tis not love's going hurts my days,
But that it went in little ways.
Gad, I love poetry. It says it all, don't it?
If you can't see the bright side, polish the dull side.
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These are really lyrics, but what the heck. It's autumnal:
The Autumn Leaves
The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold....
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sunburned hands, I used to hold
Since you went away, the days grow long
And soon I'll hear ol' winter's song.
But I miss you most of all my darling,
When autumn leaves start to fall.
Since you went away, the days grow long
And soon I'll hear ol' winter's song.
But I miss you most of all my darling,
When autumn leaves start to fall.
(French Lyrics by Jacques Prévert, English Lyrics by Johnny Mercer, Music by Joseph
Kosma)
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(from a "weird poetry" site)
GRAVEYARD ZOMBIE
We were partying at the graveyard
like we do every Saturday night
We were partying exceptionally hard
Drinking Mad Dog and Milwaukee Light
From out in the darkness we heard
Sounds from behind a tombstone
We thought it was just some birds
But who ever heard a bird moan?
The hideous creature approached us
It was all covered in blood
I then looked at my friend Gus
He ran but fell in the mud
The monster began walking toward me
But I couldn't move an inch
There were gaping holes in it's body
And it had a terrible stench
I saw a hatchet buried in it's head
It's clothes unfashionable and torn
It not only looked like it should be dead
It looked like it should've never been born
As the horrifying creature approached
I stood as brave as a chickenshit could
It reached and grabbed me by the throat
And said,"You know I don't feel so good
I've got worms crawling out of my head
and numerous wounds on my torso
I just found out that I am dead
But what hurts even more so
Is that people still drink Old Milwaukee
It makes me grateful that I am dead
Take a tip from a graveyard zombie
Drink Molson Golden Ale instead"
Haji O'Brien
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Hopefully, this is not a rude irrelevant intruding to this wonderful thread (that somehow reminded me of the film "The dead poets society"). If it is, tell me and I’ll withdraw with apologies.
There is an ad on Classic FM here in Britain. It starts from a poem describing the value of photographs in people’s lives. The first line is
Photographs are smiles that last forever
The last two lines haunt me
If you ever see my house on fire
Leave the silver, save the photographs
I would be happy if somebody can tell me who is the author of the poem.
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Vika,
I just googled each of the lines, but no hits.
Wish you luck in finding the author.
WW
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can one google poetry? i hope that this area is one where humans still do better than robots even if we are loosing in chess TA for trying anyway
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Yes, Vika, you can google lines of poetry. Let's say you're alone one night and cannot remember the author of a poem, but you distinctly remember a line from the poem. You just put the line into quotation marks in Google and, if the poem is lurking about somewhere, you'll get a hit...or lots of hits.
The two lines from your poem didn't bring up any hits on Google at least.
If you have a word out of place, that could make all the difference in getting a hit.
This method works for finding song titles, too.
Happy Googling when your human brain can benefit from the help of bots!
WW
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vika, the graveyard poem is just a humorous piece for fun, if that's what you're asking about. Here's a poem you might like : WINTER APPROACHES
by Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)
Winter approaches. And once again
The secret retreat of some bear
Will vanish under impassable mud
To a tearful child's despair.
Little huts will awaken in lakes
Refelcting their smoke like a path.
Encircled by autumn's cold slush,
Life-lovers will meet by the hearth.
Inhabitants of the stern North,
Whose roof is open to air,
'In this sign conquer' is written
On each inaccesible lair.
I love you, provincial retreats,
Off the map, off the road, past the farm.
The more thumbed and grubby the brook,
The greater for me its charm.
Slow lines of lumbering carts,
You spell out an alphabet leading
From meadow to meadow. Your pages
Were always my favorite reading.
And suddenly here it is written
Again, in the first snow -- the spidery
Cursive itlaic of sleigh runners --
A page like a piece of embroidery.
A silvery-haze October.
Pewter shine since the frosts began.
Autumnal twilight of Chekhov,
Tchaikovsky and Levitan.
©1943 by Boris Pasternak
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re: If you ever see my house on fire
Leave the silver, save the photographsI can't help much, but the folks at http://www.emule.com/poetrydo a pretty good job - you might give them a try !
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old hand
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And suddenly here it is written
Again, in the first snow -- the spidery
Cursive itlaic of sleigh runners --
A page like a piece of embroidery.
ahhhh....
If you can't see the bright side, polish the dull side.
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Well, the alphatist of this thread has pressured me, so here goes:
We just knew the original Whitman would have something to say about this fine season, didn't we?
from Calamus, Leaves of Grass
When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd
with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for
me that follow'd,
And else when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd, still
I was not happy,
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health,
refresh'd, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the
morning light,
When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing bathed,
laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way
coming, O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food
nourish'd me more, and the beautiful day pass'd well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came
my friend,
And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me
whispering to congratulate me,
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in
the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast--and that night I was happy.
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stranger
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This is more for late fall, but I love it too much to wait.
The night is freezing fast,
Tomorrow comes December;
And winterfalls of old
Are with me from the past;
And chiefly I remember
How Dick would hate the cold.
Fall, winter, fall; for he,
Prompt hand and headpiece clever
Has woven a winter robe,
And made of earth and sea
His overcoat forever,
And wears the turning globe.
--A.E. Housman
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Okay, Jazzo...I'll see your Walt, and raise you one! AUTUMN RIVULETS
As Consequent, Etc.
As consequent from store of summer rains,
Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,
Or many a herb-lined brook's reticulations,
Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,
Songs of continued years I sing.
Life's ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend,
With the old streams of death.)
Some threading Ohio's farm-fields or the woods,
Some down Colorado's cañons from sources of perpetual snow,
Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas,
Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa,
Some to Atlantica's bays, and so to the great salt brine.
In you whoe'er you are my book perusing,
In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing,
All, all toward the mystic ocean tending.
Currents for starting a continent new,
Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,
Fusion of ocean and land, tender and pensive waves,
(Not safe and peaceful only, waves rous'd and ominous too,
Out of the depths the storm's abysmic waves, who knows
whence?
Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter'd
sail.)
Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring,
A windrow-drift of weeds and shells.
O little shells, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and
voiceless,
Will you not little shells to the tympans of temples held,
Murmurs and echoes still call up, eternity's music faint and
far,
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica's rim, strains for the soul
of the prairies,
Whisper'd reverberations, chords for the ear of the West
joyously sounding,
Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable,
Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life,
(For not my life and yours alone I give — all, all I give,)
These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry,
Wash'd on America's shores?
--Walt Whitman
1881
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And I'll raise 1 Walt.
I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven,
O suns--O grass of graves--O perpetual transfers and
promotions,
If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing?
Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest,
Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing
twilight,
Toss, sparkles of day and dusk--toss on the black stems
that decay in the muck,
Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.
I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night,
I perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday sunbeams
reflected,
And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring
great or small.
Song of Myself, Canto 49
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Carpal Tunnel
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(especially dedicated to Fiberbabe, in the true spirt of the season )
ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD
by Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
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 glimmering 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 Memory o'er their Tomb no Trophies raise,
Where through 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 waked 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 flower 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 history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone
Their glowing virtues, but their crimes confined;
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 crazed 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 through the church-way path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved 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.
--Thomas Gray
-----------------------
Why visit a grave?
(The Cemetaries of Christchurch)
European ancestors, who often saw their small children predecease them and their siblings and contemporaries die in what should have been the prime of life, were frequent visitors to graveyards.
My maternal grandmother, Hilda Jane Gapes, was brought up in Willow Street, across the river from the Barbadoes Street Cemetery. She and her siblings frequently swung across the river on willow trees, fell in and had to scramble out to get to the burial place. Once there they played about the tombstones. On one occasion, Hilda's brother, Reg, climbed into a freshly dug burial plot in an attempt to retrieve a rabbit. He was unable to scramble out and had to be assisted from his place of imprisonment.
My grandmother's grandmother, Elizabeth Swindell, used to clean the younger generation's wounds with salt. This was a very efficient and very painful means of getting children's scratches to heal. In a politically incorrect manner, my grandmother spoke to a cousin about their mutual grandmother being an "old bitch". News got back to the venerable grandparent. As she lay dying, she made my grandmother swear that, once a week, she would lay flowers on the old lady's grave. My grandmother carried out this duty faithfully and, for a decade, visited Elizabeth's resting place at Barbadoes Street. Then, as her wedding day approached, she decided to put aside the childish promise.
Our ancestors' experiences and opinions were picked up by the greatest of writers . Shakespeare described how the gravediggers, at work at Elsinore, unearth the remains of Hamlet's acquaintance from childhood, Yorick. The prince picks up Yorick's skull and muses on the personality of his erstwhile companion.
A famous 18th century poem is Thomas Gray's "Elegy written in a country churchyard". The poem begins at twilight when "the ploughman homeward plods his weary way". He leaves the world to darkness and to Thomas Gray who sits in the country churchyard at Stoke Poges musing over the gravestones and contemplating "the short and simple annals of the poor". A well-known 19th century poem on death and burial is Lord Tennyson's "Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington".
In Great Expectations Dickens has the young Pip pondering over the gravestones of his parents and tiny siblings. It is there that the boy is seized by the convict, Magwitch, who is later to become his anonymous benefactor.
In Victorian times - and later- Christchurch newspapers carried detailed and often graphic descriptions of deaths, inquests and funerals. Examples of this type of journalism appear in this text.
A visit to a New Zealand graveyard can show us the burial place of our antecedents. A study of the inscriptions on tombstones gives us an idea of how fragile life was among earlier generations in this country. The grand resting places of Richard John Seddon, William Ferguson Massey and Michael Joseph Savage show how, in a previous age, political heavyweights were honoured.
http://library.christchurch.org.nz/Guides/Cemeteries/whyvisit.asp
(just as I was finising this post someone on the TV said, "We are in a grave situtation"!...I swear!  )
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old hand
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Thank you Juan! I liked that piece even before I was a ghoul!
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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This passage from gray's "Elegy" is one of my all-time favorite quatrains:
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
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old hand
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Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Sad, sad, Whitman. True. But not true.
Someone knows... He knows.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Sad, sad, Whitman. True. But not true.
Someone knows... He knows.So does this mean, milum, that you'll be breaking out the scuba gear for some undersea caving? (or that you've already been on such expeditions?...if, so please report!)
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OP
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LADY LAZARUS
by Sylvia Plath
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr god, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
23-29 October 1962
From The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath, published by Harper & Row. Copyright © 1981 by the Estate of Sylvia Plath
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I Hold Your Hand In Mine
I hold your hand in mine, dear,
I press it to my lips.
I take a healthy bite
From your dainty fingertips.
My joy would be complete, dear,
If you were only here,
But still I keep your hand
As a precious souvenir.
The night you died I cut it off,
I really don't know why.
For now each time I kiss it
I get bloodstains on my tie.
I'm sorry now I killed you,
For our love was something fine,
And till they come to get me
I shall hold your hand in mine.
-Tom Lehrer
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Meet Me In The Indian Summer
(Van Morrison)
Well don't you know
How much I love you
Don't you know
How much I care
It's beyond my comprehension
'Cos I love you on the square
It's not bound by any definition
It isn't written in the stars
It's not limited like Saturn
Isn't ruled by Mercury or Mars
Oh won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
Where we'll go walking
Down by the weeping willow tree
Won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
We'll go walking to eternity
It's not modelled by convention
It isn't worshipped like the sun
It's not likened unto any other
And it will never come undone
Well don't you know
That my world is so lonely
Just like a freight train in the dawn
That's why I need to
Have and hold you
Just to keep me from going wrong
Oh won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
We'll go walking
By the weeping willow tree
Won't you meet me Lord
In the Indian summer
We'll go walking to eternity
Won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
Well before
Those chilly winds do blow
Won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
Take me way back
To what I know
Oh won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
We'll go walking
By the weeping willow tree
Oh won't you meet me
In the Indian summer
We'll go walking to eternity
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Carpal Tunnel
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"Listen! The wind is rising,
and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings,
Now for October eves!
-- Autumn (Resignation) by Humbert Wolfe, 1926
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
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(even numbered lines are indented 3 spaces, 2, 4, etc.)
THE AUTUMN
By: Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them --
The summer flowers depart --
Sit still -- as all transform'd to stone,
Except your musing heart.
How there you sat in summer-time,
May yet be in your mind;
And how you heard the green woods sing
Beneath the freshening wind.
Though the same wind now blows around,
You would its blast recall;
For every breath that stirs the trees,
Doth cause a leaf to fall.
Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth
That flesh and dust impart:
We cannot bear its visitings,
When change is on the heart.
Gay words and jests may make us smile,
When Sorrow is asleep;
But other things must make us smile,
When Sorrow bids us weep!
The dearest hands that clasp our hands, --
Their presence may be o'er;
The dearest voice that meets our ear,
That tone may come no more!
Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,
Which once refresh'd our mind,
Shall come -- as, on those sighing woods,
The chilling autumn wind.
Hear not the wind -- view not the woods;
Look out o'er vale and hill-
In spring, the sky encircled them --
The sky is round them still.
Come autumn's scathe -- come winter's cold --
Come change -- and human fate!
Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,
Can ne'er be desolate.
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(in memory of "Shellie", my 11 year old Sheltie who died suddenly Wednesday, interred today...with my heartfelt thanks to Jackie for these):
THE BEST PLACE TO BURY A DOG
"There is one best place to bury a dog.
"If you bury him in this spot, he will
come to you when you call - come to you
over the grim, dim frontier of death,
and down the well-remembered path,
and to your side again.
"And though you call a dozen living
dogs to heel, they shall not growl at
him, nor resent his coming,
for he belongs there.
"People may scoff at you, who see
no lightest blade of grass bent by his
footfall, who hear no whimper, people
who may never really have had a dog.
Smile at them, for you shall know
something that is hidden from them,
and which is well worth the knowing.
"The one best place to bury a good
dog is in the heart of his master."
--- Ben Hur Lampman ---
from the Portland Oregonian Sept. 11, 1925
[AKA "If A Dog Be Well Remembered"]
[AKA "Where TO Bury A Dog"]
*****************************************
ROOM IN YOUR HEART
Sorrow fills a barren space;
you close your eyes and see my face
and think of times I made you laugh,
the love we shared, the bond we had,
the special way I needed you -
the friendship shared by just we two.
The day's too quiet, the world seems older,
the wind blows now a little colder.
You gaze into the empty air
and look for me, but I'm not there -
I'm in heaven and I watch you,
and I see the world around you too.
I see little souls wearing fur,
souls who bark and souls who purr
born unwanted and unloved -
I see all this and more above -
I watch them suffer, I see them cry,
I see them lost, I watch them die.
I see unwanted thousands born -
and when they die, nobody mourns.
These little souls wearing fur
(Some who bark and some who purr)
are castaways who - unlike me -
will never know love or security.
A few short months they starve and roam,
Or caged in shelters - nobody takes home.
They're special too (furballs of pleasure),
filled with love and each one, a treasure.
My pain and suffering came to an end,
so don't cry for me, my person, my friend.
But think of the living -
those souls with fur
(some who bark and some who purr) -
And though our bond can't be broken apart,
make room for another in your home and
your heart.
--- Caro Schubert-James ---
amethyst@nc5.infi.net
alt.support.grief.pet-loss
http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~rneville/saveapet.html
**************************************************
EPITAPH TO A DOG
Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains
Of one
Who Possessed Beauty
Without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man
Without his Vices.
This Praise, which would be unmeaning flattery
If inscribed over Human Ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the
Memory of
"Boatswain," a Dog
Who was born at Newfoundland,
May, 1803,
And died at Newstead Abbey
Nov. 18, 1808.
When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below.
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master's own,
Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth--
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power--
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on--it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one--and here he lies.
Lord Byron
Inscription on the monument of his
Newfoundland dog, 1808
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Beautiful, Won. Thank you for these contributions. And please accept my condolences; I know what grief you must feel. Our boxer, Beau, will soon be 12 -- a great age for a boxer, and I dread losing him.
Regarding the notion that animals have no souls and no place in Heaven, C.S. Lewis remarked that we really do not know that animals, or at least the higher ones like simians and the ones we make pets of, have no souls. Indeed, he thought it more likely that they do and that they might have as good a chance of going to heaven as we do. And he also thought that maybe one of the responsibilities of humans was to make our animals more like us.
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he also thought that maybe one of the responsibilities of humans was to make our animals more like us
Hmmm. Many of us would do better to learn from "our" animals.
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Just came across this one by an author not everyone realizes was a poet.
The wind, I hear it sighing
With Autumn's saddest sound;
Withered leaves as thick are lying
As spring-flowers on the ground.
This dark night has won me
To wander far away;
Old feelings gather fast upon me
Like vultures round their prey.
Kind were they once, and cherished,
But cold and cheerless now;
I would their lingering shades had perished
When their light left my brow.
'Tis like old age pretending
The softness of a child,
My altered, hardened spirit bending
To meet their fancies wild.
Yet could I with past pleasures
Past woe's oblivion buy,
That by the death of my dearest treasures
My deadliest pains might die,
O then another daybreak
Might haply dawn above,
Another summer gild my cheek,
My soul, another love.
-- Emily Bronte, The Wind, I Hear It Sighing
P.S.
I don't know what y'all think, but now that I've read over this, I'm sorry I posted it. I think that's one of the worst pieces of poetry I've read in a good while.
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of autumn
a sonted watch
of leaf unlocked
seems morescore years
since such a foiled scene unfolded
extra-hemispherical,
interequatorial,
cheating paid back in full
leaves hover about
rolling, meandering,
cushioned in
ordered visible sinuosity
some kind of, um,
plain matter of fact existence made visible.
most leaves flit by though -
thin drawn out swirls
or tight-crimped screws unperceived
so now caught up
dressed down
something other than just leaf is shed:
light, tears, blood...
is all motion in general,
the flow of the world's character
borne of infinite quiescence?
all is motion in general,
the flow of the world its character
and yet it is borne of infinite quiescence.
all acoiled round
frizzly crepe sound
waging through another autumn
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Hi, BoYB:
I'm glad you posted the poem. The subject is certainly a valid one--and the emotional state one that probably visits people when they've given up their best dreams. It's harsh; it's cold; it's bitter. And it anticipates the cruelty of April, doesn't it? Even though overly dramatic in stroke with a couple of the images--the old feelings as vultures, for instance--it's still good in showing that state of mind in which the review of something lost once considered valuable can cause so much anguish and bitterness.
I'd give this one a "B."
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
by, this is really good! What is sonted, please?
I LOVE the rhythm of this:
extra-hemispherical,
interequatorial,
cheating paid back in full
Share some more any time, Sweetie.
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Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
DARKLING SUMMER, OMINOUS DUSK, RUMOROUS RAIN
by Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966)
1.
A tattering of rain and then the reign
Of pour and pouring-down and down,
Where in the westward gathered the filming gown
Of grey and clouding weakness, and, in the mane
Of the light's glory and the day's splendor, gold and vain,
Vivid, more and more vivid, scarlet, lucid and more luminous,
Then came a splatter, a prattle, a blowing rain!
And soon the hour was musical and rumorous:
A softness of dripping lipped the isolated houses,
A gaunt grey somber softness licked the glass of hours.
2.
Again, after a catbird squeaked in the special silence,
And clouding vagueness fogged the windowpane
And gathered blackness and overcast, the mane
Of light's story and light's glory surrendered and ended
--A pebble--a ring--a ringing on the pane,
A blowing and a blowing in: tides of the blue and cold
Moods of the great blue bay, and slates of grey
Came down upon the land's great sea, the body of this day
--Hardly an atom of silence amid the roar
Allowed the voice to form appeal--to call:
By kindled light we thought we saw the bronze of fall.
© 1959 by Delmore Schwartz
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 4,189 |
AUTUMN
by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933- )
Inside me the season is autumn,
the chill is in me, you can see through me,
and I am sad, but not altogether cheerless,
and filled with humility and goodness.
But if I rage sometimes
then I am the one whose rage is shedding my leaves,
and the simple thought comes sadly to me
that raging isn't really what is needed.
The main need is that I should be able
to see myself and the struggling, shocked world
in autumnal nakedness,
when even you, and the world, can be seen right through.
Flashes of insight are the children of silence.
It doesn't matter, if we don't rage aloud.
We must calmly cast off all mere noise
in the name of the new foliage.
Something has apparently happened to me,
and I am relying on nothing but silence,
when the leaves laying themselves one on another
inaudibly become the earth.
And you can see it all, as if from a height,
when you can shed your leaves at the right time,
when without passion your inner autumn
lays its airy fingers on your forehead...
--from Bratsk Station and other new poems © 1967 by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
[Note: Yevgeny Yevtushenko is regarded as the foremost Russian poet of the late 20th century, whose work is viewed with the same special esteem by his countrymen as Pasternak and Pushkin before him.]
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 4,189 |
ELECTION DAY IS A HOLIDAY
by Ogden Nash
People on whom I do not bother to dote
Are people who do not bother to vote.
Heaven forbid that they should ever be exempt
From contumely, obloguy and various kinds of contempt.
Some of them like Toscanini and some like Rudy Vallée,
But all of them take about as much interest in their right to ballot as their right to ballet.
They haven't voted since the heyday of Miss Russell (Lillian)
And excuse themselves by saying What's the difference of one vote in fifty million?
They have such fine and delicate palates
That they can discover no one worthy of their ballots,
And then when someone terrible gets elected
They say, There, that's just what I expected!
And they go around for four years spouting discontented criticisms
And contented witticisms,
And then when somebody to oppose the man they oppose gets nominated
They say Oh golly golly he's the kind of man I've always
abominated,
And they have discovered that if you don't take time out to go to the polls
You can manage very nicely to get through thirty-six holes.
Oh let us cover these clever people very conspicuously with
loathing,
For they are un-citizens in citizens' clothing.
They attempt to justify their negligence
On the grounds that no candidate appeals to people of their integligence,
But I am quite sure that if Abraham Lincoln (Rep.) ran against Thomas Jefferson (Dem.)
Neither man would be appealing enough to squeeze a vote out of them.
© 1947 by Ogden Nash
[Note: The first Tuesday in November is US election day (hint,hint)]
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Carpal Tunnel
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Along this way
No travellers.
Dusk in autumn.
--Basho¯ (1644-1694)
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Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 11,613 |
Inside me the season is autumn,
the chill is in me, you can see through me,
and I am sad, but not altogether cheerless,
and filled with humility and goodness.
Ohh, thank you, Sweet WO'N--this is me right now. What an utterly lovely, insightful piece.
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Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
Fortelling
amber colors
leave no doubt
leaves will be falling.
Icy winds soon
notorize winter's
gloom.
Me - Now
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Heavy-hearted, i watch
ever more leaves of brown
a-spiraling down, down;
leaping now, around and around as
i look unseeingly into the chill,
noting nothing but the
gnawing not-here-any-more.
Me - Now
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Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
the crisp swish of leaves,
the smile of the sound.
the smile of my son,
the crisp swish as he leaves.
Me - now
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,346 |
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Posts: 261
enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Posts: 261 |
Flora Inferno
The leaves are aflame,
The leaves are aflame,
The heat of the summer is burning away.
The trees are on fire,
The trees are on fire,
And each leaf is falling to add to the pyre.
This flora inferno
Is chilling the air,
The trees are burnt out,
Their branches are bare.
The leaves are all gone,
The leaves are all gone,
Summer's retreated, the autumn has won.
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Posts: 5,400 |
i just posted a december poem in the winter thread, but in NYC, the fall colors are just about at prime.. so even though this is an october poem and its now november...i am posting..
October's Party
by George Cooper
October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came-
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.
The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.
Then, in the rustic hollow,
At hide-and-seek they played,
The party closed at sundown,
And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
In jolly "hands around."
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