Poem of the Week

[blp]

Friday, January 19th.

I know that there is an hour and half left before I can post this, but I'll be
asleep by then, and won't get to post one all through Friday. The poem of thes week this week happens to fall on my b-day. I decided to share a poem
that has always been clear as crystal in my memory; because of the way it
was written.

I knew that it was written with a lot of heart and mind; and it tells a story in
poem form:

The Talking Leaves
- Written by John R. Cash

Sequoia's winters were sixteen
Silent tongue spirit clean
He walked at his father's side
Across the smoking battleground
Where red and white men lay all around
So many here had died

The wind had scattered around
Snow-white leaves upon the ground
Not leaves like leaves from trees
Sequoia said "What can this be?
What's this strange thing here I see?
From where come leaves like these?"

Sequoia turned to his father's eyes,
And he said: "Father you are wise,
From where come such snow-white leaves?
With such strange marks upon these squares
Not even the wise owl could put them there.
So strange these snow-white leaves."

His father shielding his concern
Resenting the knowledge Sequoia yearned
Crumbled the snow-white leaves
He said "When I explain then it's done.
These are talking leaves my son;
The white man's talking leaves.

"The white man takes a berry of black and red
And an eagle's feather from the eaglett's bed
And he makes bird track marks
And the marks on the leaves they say
Carry messages to his brother far away
And his brother knows what's in his heart.

"They see these marks and they understand
The truth and the heart of the far-off man.
The enemies can't hear them."
Said Sequoia's father "Son they weave bad medicine on these talking leaves.
Leave such things to them."

Then Sequoia walking lightly
Followed his father quietly
But so amazed was he
If the white man talks on leaves
Why not the Cherokee

Banished from his father's face
Sequoia went from place to place
But he could not forget
Year after year he worked on and on
Til finally he cut into stone
The Cherokee alphabet

Sequoia's hair by know was white
His eyes begin to lose their light
But he taught all who would believe
That the Indian's thoughts could be written down
Just as the white man's there on the ground
And he left us these talking leaves

This is a poem (not a song), which Johnny Cash wrote and recited
on his 1964 album:
"Bitter Tears: Ballads Of The American Indian."
(Fact about the author: Johnny Cash was partly of Cherokee ancestry.)

Coincidentally, my neighbour is playing Johnny Cash right now.

[genoveva]

Okay, it's Friday, and it seems like this thread needs to be revived. I'm in an Opal Whiteley kind of mood:

The Clan Of The Lichens

We will be gray
For the dumbness of old things,
And we will be
Without form that can be measured
As are old longings.
And we will be like petals
As are new yearnings.
And we will be
Gray with a little green
As are old hopes
That live on with a fore-seeing
And a dream.

And we will cling
That no wind may part us
As old friends.

We will be a symbol
Of things grown old
And the beauty that yet is
When youth glory sleeps.

-Opal Whiteley

[quasimodo1]

Sojourns in the Parallel World
by Denise Levertov


We live our lives of human passions,
cruelties, dreams, concepts,
crimes and the exercise of virtue
in and beside a world devoid
of our preoccupations, free
from apprehension--though affected,
certainly, by our actions. A world
parallel to our own though overlapping.
We call it "Nature"; only reluctantly
admitting ourselves to be "Nature" too.
Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,
our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,
an hour even, of pure (almost pure)
response to that insouciant life:
cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing
pilgrimage of water, vast stillness
of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,
animal voices, mineral hum, wind
conversing with rain, ocean with rock, stuttering
of fire to coal--then something tethered
in us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch
of gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free.
No one discovers
just where we've been, when we're caught up again
into our own sphere (where we must
return, indeed, to evolve our destinies)
--but we have changed, a little.

[quasimodo1]

(I'm A Fool To Love You by Cornelius Eady)
Some folks will tell you the blues is a woman,
Some type of supernatural creature.
My mother would tell you, if she could,
About her life with my father,
A strange and sometimes cruel gentleman.
She would tell you about the choices
A young black woman faces.
Is falling in love with some man
A deal with the devil
In blue terms, the tongue we use
When we don't want nuance
To get in the way,
When we need to talk straight.
My mother chooses my father
After choosing a man
Who was, as we sing it,
Of no account.
This man made my father look good,
That's how bad it was.
He made my father seem like an island
In the middle of a stormy sea,
He made my father look like a rock.
And is the blues the moment you realize
You exist in a stacked deck,
You look in a mirror at your young face,
The face my sister carries,
And you know it's the only leverage
You've got.
Does this create a hurt that whispers
How you going to do?
Is the blues the moment
You shrug your shoulders
And agree, a girl without money
Is nothing, dust
To be pushed around by any old breeze.
Compared to this,
My father seems, briefly,
To be a fire escape.
This is the way the blues works
Its sorry wonders,
Makes trouble look like
A feather bed,
Makes the wrong man's kisses
A healing.

[quasimodo1]

"Bards of Passion and of Mirth, written on the Blank Page before Beaumont and Fletcher's Tragi-Comedy 'The Fair Maid of the Inn'" by JOHN KEATS
BARDS of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Doubled-lived in regions new?
Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wondrous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease
Seated on Elysian lawns
Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, tranced thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then
On the earth ye live again;
And the souls ye left behind you
Teach us, here, the way to find you,
Where your other souls are joying,
Never slumber'd, never cloying.
Here, your earth-born souls still speak
To mortals, of their little week;
Of their sorrows and delights;
Of their passions and their spites;
Of their glory and their shame;
What doth strengthen and what maim.
Thus ye teach us, every day,
Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Ye have souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new!

[quasimodo1]

THE SURFACE
It has a hole in it. Not only where I

concentrate.

The river still ribboning, twisting up,

into its re-

arrangements, chill enlightenments, tight-knotted

quickenings

and loosenings--whispered messages dissolving

the messengers--

the river still glinting-up into its handfuls, heapings.

glassy

forgettings under the river of

my attention--

and the river of my attention laying itself down--

bending,

reassembling--over the quick leaving-offs and windy

obstacles--

and the surface rippling under the wind's attention--

rippling over the accumulations, the slowed-down drifting

permanences

of the cold

bed.

I say iridescent and I look down.

The leaves very still as they are carried.

{Jorie Graham does not fall into any neat category; educated at the Sorbonne, lived in France, went on to other universities, won the Pulitzer, influenced by Milton, Wallace Stevens, T.S.Eliot and others}

[quasimodo1]

CONSOLATION

MIST clogs the sunshine.
Smoky dwarf houses
Hem me round everywhere;
A vague dejection
Weighs down my soul.

Yet, while I languish,
Everywhere countless
Prospects unroll themselves,
And countless beings
Pass countless moods.

Far hence, in Asia,
On the smooth convent-roofs,
On the gilt terraces,
Of holy Lassa,
Bright shines the sun.

Grey time-worn marbles
Hold the pure Muses;
In their cool gallery,
By yellow Tiber,
They still look fair.

Strange unloved uproar
Shrills round their portal;
Yet not on Helicon
Kept they more cloudless
Their noble calm.

Through sun-proof alleys
In a lone, sand-hemm'd
City of Africa,
A blind, led beggar,
Age-bow'd, asks alms.

No bolder robber
Erst abode ambush'd
Deep in the sandy waste;
No clearer eyesight
Spied prey afar.

Saharan sand-winds
Sear'd his keen eyeballs;
Spent is the spoil he won.
For him the present
Holds only pain.

Two young, fair lovers,
Where the warm June-wind,
Fresh from the summer fields
Plays fondly round them,
Stand, tranced in joy.

With sweet, join'd voices,
And with eyes brimming:
"Ah," they cry, "Destiny,
Prolong the present!
Time, stand still here!"

The prompt stern Goddess
Shakes her head, frowning;
Time gives his hour-glass
Its due reversal;
Their hour is gone.

With weak indulgence
Did the just Goddess
Lengthen their happiness,
She lengthen'd also
Distress elsewhere.

The hour, whose happy
Unalloy'd moments
I would eternalise,
Ten thousand mourners
Well pleased see end.

The bleak, stern hour,
Whose severe moments
I would annihilate,
Is pass'd by others
In warmth, light, joy.

Time, so complain'd of,
Who to no one man
Shows partiality,
Brings round to all men
Some undimm'd hours.

Matthew Arnold

[quasimodo1]

EARLIEST SPRING
TOSSING his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles,
Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath,
Through all the moaning chimneys, and 'thwart all the hollows and
angles
Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death.

But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow
Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift
Bud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow,
Deep in the oak's chill core, under the gathering drift.

Nay, to earth's life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire
(How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes--
Rapture of life ineffable, perfect--as if in the brier,
Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose.
.................................................. ........by William Dean Howells

[Virgil]

Not sure if today is the start of the new poem of the week, but here is one:


Journey Into The Interior
by Theodore Roethke

In the long journey out of the self,
There are many detours, washed-out interrupted raw places
Where the shale slides dangerously
And the back wheels hang almost over the edge
At the sudden veering, the moment of turning.
Better to hug close, wary of rubble and falling stones.
The arroyo cracking the road, the wind-bitten buttes, the canyons,
Creeks swollen in midsummer from the flash-flood roaring into the narrow valley.
Reeds beaten flat by wind and rain,
Grey from the long winter, burnt at the base in late summer.
-- Or the path narrowing,
Winding upward toward the stream with its sharp stones,
The upland of alder and birchtrees,
Through the swamp alive with quicksand,
The way blocked at last by a fallen fir-tree,
The thickets darkening,
The ravines ugly.

[Petrarch's Love]

Haven't looked at this thread in dragon's years. Looks like Quasi's been holding down the fort solo up until now. Maybe we can get some discussion going again with this one Virg. has just posted.

Roethke isn't a poet I know very well, but he certainly wrote some interesting stuff from what little I've seen of it. One thing that struck me about this poem is the way he devotes the first line to stating that he is talking about a journey "out of the self" and then spends the rest of the poem developing this lush natural imagery. There are a lot of poems that describe something, like the path in this poem, and then reveal at the end that it is a metaphor for the self. There are also a lot of poems that would continue to refer to the self throughout the poem and clearly show how the metaphor and the subject of the metaphor correlate at each point. Roethke only refers to the subject of his metaphor at the beginning and, especially because his imagery is so vivid and detailed, the reader could almost forget that this poem is a metaphor and not just the description of an actual road. It's almost as though there's a metamorphosis from the metaphorical into the real, and the "self" no longer exists as strongly as the images describing it. You get to those ugly ravines at the end and then you think back and realise that this has something to do with a journey out of the self, and suddenly there's the question, why is this journey ending in such a bleak landscape? The way this poem is written makes it the kind that compels you to go back and look at it again to answer such questions.

Incidently, my first thought after reading this was that it reminded me of a self portrait by Ansel Adams that I used for the picture poetry contest thread awhile back (Virg. may remember this image since I think he won that round). I think the photograph somehow mirrors the conceit of self as landscape that runs through the poem as well. I've pasted the image below:

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e386/LeonardoD/ansel1.jpg

[quasimodo1]

EROS TURANNOS



She fears him, and will always ask
What fated her to choose him;
She meets in his engaging mask
All reasons to refuse him;
But what she meets and what she fears
Are less than are the downward years,
Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs
Of age, were she to lose him.


Between a blurred sagacity
That once had power to sound him,
And Love, that will not let him be
The seeker that she found him,
Her pride assuages her, almost,
As if it were alone the cost.
He sees that he will not be lost,
And waits, and looks around him.


A sense of ocean and old trees
Envelops and allures him;
Tradition, touching all he sees
Beguiles and reassures him;
And all her doubts of what he says
Are dimmed with what she knows of days,
Till even prejudice delays,
And fades—and she secures him.


The falling leaf inaugurates
The reign of her confusion;
The pounding wave reverberates
The crash of her illusion;
And home, where passion lived and died,
Becomes a place where she can hide,—
While all the town and harbor side
Vibrate with her seclusion.



{excerpt from this poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, who has been referred to as the poet laureate of unhappiness}

[quasimodo1]

from "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"
.................................................


Of asphodel, that greeny flower,
like a buttercup
upon its branching stem-
save that it's green and wooden-
I come, my sweet,
to sing to you.
We lived long together
a life filled,
if you will,
with flowers. So that
I was cheered
when I came first to know
that there were flowers also
in hell.
Today
I'm filled with the fading memory of those flowers
that we both loved,
even to this poor
colorless thing-
I saw it
when I was a child-
little prized among the living
but the dead see,
asking among themselves:
What do I remember
that was shaped
as this thing is shaped?
while our eyes fill
with tears.
Of love, abiding love
it will be telling
though too weak a wash of crimson
colors it
to make it wholly credible.
There is something
something urgent
I have to say to you
and you alone
but it must wait
while I drink in
the joy of your approach,
perhaps for the last time.
And so
with fear in my heart
I drag it out
and keep on talking
for I dare not stop.


{excerpt from this poem by William Carlos Williams}

[symphony]

The Poet’s Death

He lay. His high-propped face could only peer
in pale rejection at the silent cover,
now that the world and all this knowledge of her,
torn from the senses of her lover,
had fallen back to the unfeeling year.

Those who had seen him living saw no trace
of his deep unity with all that passes;
for these, these valleys here, these meadow-grasses,
these streams of running water, were his face.

Oh yes, his face was this remotest distance,
that seeks him still and woos him in despair;
and his mere mask, timidly dying there,
tender and open, has no more consistence
than broken fruit corrupting in the air.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

[Virgil]

Very nice Symphony. "broken fruit corrupting the air" -outstanding!

[symphony]

Too bad i couldnt find the name of the translator.

[Beverly S]

Does the road wind uphill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labor you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

[quasimodo1]

The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill
by: Robert W. Service

I took a contract to bury the body
Of blasphemous Bill MacKie,
Whenever, wherever or whatsoever
The manner of death he die --
Whether he die in the light o' day
Or under the peak-faced moon;
In cabin or dance-hall, camp or dive,
Mucklucks or patent shoon;
On velvet tundra or virgin peak,
By glacier, drift or draw;
In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom,
By avalanche, fang or claw;
By battle, murder or sudden wealth,
By pestilence, hooch or lead --
I swore on the Book I would follow and look
Till I found my tombless dead.

For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss,
And his mind was mighty sot
On a dinky patch with flowers and grass
In a civilized bone-yard lot.
And where he died or how he died,
It didn't matter a damn
So long as he had a grave with frills
And a tombstone "epigram".
So I promised him, and he paid the price
In good cheechako coin
(Which the same I blowed in that very night
Down in the Tenderloin).
Then I painted a three-foot slab of pine:
"Here lies poor Bill MacKie",
And I hung it up on my cabin wall
And I waited for Bill to die.

Years passed away, and at last one day
Came a squaw with a story strange,
Of a long-deserted line of traps
'Way back of the Bighorn range;
Of a little hut by the great divide,
And a white man stiff and still,
Lying there by his lonesome self,
And I figured it must be Bill.
So I thought of the contract I'd made with him,
And I took down from the shelf
The swell black box with the silver plate
He'd picked out for hisself;
And I packed it full of grub and "hooch",
And I slung it on the sleigh;
Then I harnessed up my team of dogs
And was off at dawn of day.

You know what it's like in the Yukon wild
When it's sixty-nine below;
When the ice-worms wriggle their purple heads
Through the crust of the pale blue snow;
When the pine-trees crack like little guns
In the silence of the wood,
And the icicles hang down like tusks
Under the parka hood;
When the stove-pipe smoke breaks sudden off,
And the sky is weirdly lit,
And the careless feel of a bit of steel
Burns like a red-hot spit;
When the mercury is a frozen ball,
And the frost-fiend stalks to kill --
Well, it was just like that that day when I
Set out to look for Bill.

Oh, the awful hush that seemed to crush
Me down on every hand,
As I blundered blind with a trail to find
Through that blank and bitter land;
Half dazed, half crazed in the winter wild,
With its grim heart-breaking woes,
And the ruthless strife for a grip on life
That only the sourdough knows!
North by the compass, North I pressed;
River and peak and plain
Passed like a dream I slept to lose
And I waked to dream again.

River and plain and mighty peak --
And who could stand unawed?
As their summits blazed, he could stand undazed
At the foot of the throne of God.
North, aye, North, through a land accurst,
Shunned by the scouring brutes,
And all I heard was my own harsh word
And the whine of the malamutes,
Till at last I came to a cabin squat,
Built in the side of a hill,
And I burst in the door, and there on the floor,
Frozen to death, lay Bill.

Ice, white ice, like a winding-sheet,
Sheathing each smoke-grimed wall;
Ice on the stove-pipe, ice on the bed,
Ice gleaming over all;
Sparkling ice on the dead man's chest,
Glittering ice in his hair,
Ice on his fingers, ice in his heart,
Ice in his glassy stare;
Hard as a log and trussed like a frog,
With his arms and legs outspread.
I gazed at the coffin I'd brought for him,
And I gazed at the gruesome dead,
And at last I spoke: "Bill liked his joke;
But still, goldarn his eyes,
A man had ought to consider his mates
In the way he goes and dies."

Have you ever stood in an Arctic hut
In the shadow of the Pole,
With a little coffin six by three
And a grief you can't control?
Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse
That looks at you with a grin,
And that seems to say: "You may try all day,
But you'll never jam me in"?
I'm not a man of the quitting kind,
But I never felt so blue
As I sat there gazing at that stiff
And studying what I'd do.
Then I rose and I kicked off the husky dogs
That were nosing round about,
And I lit a roaring fire in the stove,
And I started to thaw Bill out.

Well, I thawed and thawed for thirteen days,
But it didn't seem no good;
His arms and legs stuck out like pegs,
As if they was made of wood.
Till at last I said: "It ain't no use --
He's froze too hard to thaw;
He's obstinate, and he won't lie straight,
So I guess I got to -- saw."
So I sawed off poor Bill's arms and legs,
And I laid him snug and straight
In the little coffin he picked hisself,
With the dinky silver plate;
And I came nigh near to shedding a tear
As I nailed him safely down;
Then I stowed him away in my Yukon sleigh,
And I started back to town.

So I buried him as the contract was
In a narrow grave and deep,
And there he's waiting the Great Clean-up,
When the Judgment sluice-heads sweep;
And I smoke my pipe and I meditate
In the light of the Midnight Sun,
And sometimes I wonder if they was,
The awful things I done.
And as I sit and the parson talks,
Expounding of the Law,
I often think of poor old Bill --
And how hard he was to saw.

by Robert W. Service

[Beverly S]

This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
The smiles of Joy, the fears of Woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow -
There's nothing true but Heaven!

And false the light on Glory's plume,
As fading hues of Even;
And Love, and Hope, and Beauty's bloom,
Are blossoms gathered for the tomb
There's nothing bright but Heaven!

Poor wanderers of a stormy day!
From wave to wave we're driven,
And Fancy's flash, and Reason's ray,
Serve but to light the troubled way -
There's nothing calm but Heaven!

[quasimodo1]

BOAZ ASLEEP
Boaz, overcome with weariness, by torchlight
made his pallet on the threshing floor
where all day he had worked, and now he slept
among the bushels of threshed wheat.

The old man owned wheatfields and barley,
and though he was rich, he was still fair-minded.
No filth soured the sweetness of his well.
No hot iron of torture whitened in his forge.

His beard was silver as a brook in April.
He bound sheaves without the strain of hate
or envy. He saw gleaners pass, and said,
Let handfuls of the fat ears fall to them.

The man's mind, clear of untoward feeling,
clothed itself in candor. He wore clean robes.
His heaped granaries spilled over always
toward the poor, no less than public fountains.

Boaz did well by his workers and by kinsmen.
He was generous, and moderate. Women held him
worthier than younger men, for youth is handsome,
but to him in his old age came greatness.

An old man, nearing his first source, may find
the timelessness beyond times of trouble.
And though fire burned in young men's eyes,
to Ruth the eyes of Boaz shone clear light.
By Victor Hugo

[Beverly S]

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

[Beverly S]

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

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

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

[iyad79]

:) hello

[quasimodo1]

Ode to Psyche

O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft-conchèd ear:
Surely I dream'd to-day, or did I see
The wingèd Psyche with awaken'd eyes?
I wander'd in a forest thoughtlessly,
And, on the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw two fair creatures, couchèd side by side
In deepest grass, beneath the whisp'ring roof
Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
A brooklet, scarce espied:
'Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,
Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian
They lay calm-breathing on the bedded grass;
Their arms embracèd, and their pinions too;
Their lips touch'd not, but had not bade adieu,
As if disjoinèd by soft-handed slumber,
And ready still past kisses to outnumber
At tender eye-dawn of aurorean love:
The wingèd boy I knew;
But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?
His Psyche true!


O latest-born and loveliest vision far
Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy!
Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-region'd star,
Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;
Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,
Nor altar heap'd with flowers;
Nor Virgin-choir to make delicious moan
Upon the midnight hours;
No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet
From chain-swung censer teeming;
No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat
Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

O brightest! though too late for antique vows,
Too, too late for the fond believing lyre,
When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
Yet even in these days so far retired
From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired.
So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
Upon the midnight hours;
Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
From swingèd censer teeming:
Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
In some untrodden region of my mind,
Where branchèd thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:
Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees
Fledge the wild-ridgèd mountains steep by steep;
And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and bees,
The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep;
And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain,
With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign,
Who breeding flowers, will never breed the same;
And there shall be for thee all soft delight
That shadowy thought can win,
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
To let the warm Love in!





- By: John Keats

[mukta581]

For You Are The One

For you I would climb
The highest mountain peak
Swim the deepest ocean
Your love I do seek.

For you I would cross
The rivers most wide
Walk the hottest desert sand
To have you by my side.

For you are the one
Who makes me whole
You've captured my heart
And touched my soul.

For you are the one
That stepped out of my dreams
Gave me new hope
Showed me what love means.

For you alone
Are my reason to live
For the compassion you show
And the care that you give.

You came into my life
And made me complete
Each time I see you
My heart skips a beat.

For you define beauty
In both body and mind
Your soft, gentle face
More beauty I'll ne'er find.

For you are the one
God sent from above
The angel I needed
For whom I do love.

[quasimodo1]

Another Firefly


In a turning instant, my head
Catches light of a leaping star
Over my left shoulder in a
Green region of space darkened,
Into distance beyond distance,
A cold, green star, not rising like
Sons and empires, slow as breath,
In the way of stars, but as no
Darkened water could have mirrored
The partly glimpsed meteor in
Surging reversal of falling --- {excerpt from this poem}

[quasimodo1]

PD: One of my favorite sonnets from Powers of Thirteen is number 97, "The Old Tale":

"No sun shone for so long during that long summer that
Candles everywhere in the land burned with a gray flame.
Gold had become dull, and lead like tar, and the demesne
Of sunny meadows shivered under a foreign reign;
Master craftsman downed their tools halfway through every piece
Of work, not for enjoyments, but to start on the next
Slightly inferior one; the standard musical
Pitch wandered through a major second from town to town,
And as for numbers, weights and measures – But then you came
Surveyed the hopeless scene, and, yawning, closed the Big Book
In which all this had been written, shelved it heavily,
And wrote a laughing letter to the whole afternoon
Of great enterprise and beauty (yesterday, this was)."

[quasimodo1]

Fleming Helphenstine


At first I thought there was a superfine
Persuasion in his face; but the free glow
That filled it when he stopped and cried, "Hollo!"
Shone joyously, and so I let it shine.
He said his name was Fleming Helphenstine,
But be that as it may;--I only know
He talked of this and that and So-and-so,
And laughed and chaffed like any friend of mine.

But soon, with a queer, quick frown, he looked at me,
And I looked hard at him; and there we gazed
In a strained way that made us cringe and wince:
Then, with a wordless clogged apology
That sounded half confused and half amazed,
He dodged,--and I have never seen him since.

[Urizen]

What the
Ancients Taught

In the end!
The world awaken,
Traditions of the past
Forever forsaken.
Man infest the world,
Man see the light,
Man banished
In a single night.
The Earth's natural cycle
Unfold the mind;
Obtained ability:
Of space,
Of time.
The soul carrying beyond,
The reverberation
Of the poetic ryhme
To live on;
In a physical blight
Man doth fall
But out of the darkness
Come light to ye all.

[AuntShecky]

This is a "pattern" poem in which the lines on the page take the shape of the poem's subject. Try this site (http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/herbert/wings.htm), tilt your head sideways, and look.

Easter Wings
by George Herbert
(1593-1633)

Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:

With Thee
O let me rise,
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day Thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne;
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.

With Thee
Let me combine,
And feel this day Thy victorie;
For, if I imp my wing on Thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

[Kafka's Crow]

From TS Eliot's East Coker (second of the Four Quartets)

IV

The wounded surgeon plies the steel
That quesions the distempered part;
Beneath the bleeding hands we feel
The sharp compassion of the healer's art
Resolving the enigma of the fever chart.

Our only health is the disease
If we obey the dying nurse
Whose constant care is not to please
But to remind us of our, and Adam's curse,
And that, to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.

The whole earth is our hospital
Endowed by the ruined millionaire,
Wherein, if we do well, we shall
Die of the absolute paternal care
That will not leave us, but prevents us everywhere.

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

The dripping blood our only drink,
The bloody flesh our only food:
In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

[quasimodo1]

SUMMER
Some men there are who find in nature all
Their inspiration, hers the sympathy
Which spurs them on to any great endeavor,
To them the fields and woods are closest friends,
And they hold dear communion with the hills;
The voice of waters soothes them with its fall,
And the great winds bring healing in their sound.
To them a city is a prison house
Where pent up human forces labour and strive,
Where beauty dwells not, driven forth by man;
But where in winter they must live until
Summer gives back the spaces of the hills.
To me it is not so. I love the earth
And all the gifts of her so lavish hand:
Sunshine and flowers, rivers and rushing winds,
Thick branches swaying in a winter storm,
And moonlight playing in a boat's wide wake;
But more than these, and much, ah, how much more,
I love the very human heart of man.
Above me spreads the hot, blue mid-day sky,
Far down the hillside lies the sleeping lake
Lazily reflecting back the sun,
And scarcely ruffled by the little breeze
Which wanders idly through the nodding ferns.
The blue crest of the distant mountain, tops
The green crest of the hill on which I sit;
And it is summer, glorious, deep-toned summer,
The very crown of nature's changing year
When all her surging life is at its full.
To me alone it is a time of pause,
A void and silent space between two worlds,
When inspiration lags, and feeling sleeps,
Gathering strength for efforts yet to come.
For life alone is creator of life,
And closest contact with the human world
Is like a lantern shining in the night
To light me to a knowledge of myself.
I love the vivid life of winter months
In constant intercourse with human minds,
When every new experience is gain
And on all sides we feel the great world's heart;
The pulse and throb of life which makes us men!
{by Amy Lowell}

[AuntShecky]

A Shropshire Lad II "Loveliest of Trees"

by A.E. Housman

(1839-1936)


A. E. Housman


Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.


Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.


And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

[Virgil]

A Shropshire Lad II "Loveliest of Trees"

by A.E. Housman

(1839-1936)


A. E. Housman


Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.


Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.


And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Lovely choice Auntie. Yes, twenty will not come again. :( Ah to be young again.

[quasimodo1]

The Progress of Poetry


The Farmer's Goose, who in the Stubble,
Has fed without Restraint, or Trouble;
Grown fat with Corn and Sitting still,
Can scarce get o'er the Barn-Door Sill:
And hardly waddles forth, to cool
Her Belly in the neighb'ring Pool:
Nor loudly cackles at the Door;
For Cackling shews the Goose is poor.

But when she must be turn'd to graze,
And round the barren Common strays,
Hard Exercise, and harder Fare
Soon make my Dame grow lank and spare:
Her Body light, she tries her Wings,
And scorns the Ground, and upward springs,
While all the Parish, as she flies,
Hear Sounds harmonious from the Skies.

Such is the Poet, fresh in Pay,
(The third Night's Profits of his Play;)
His Morning-Draughts 'till Noon can swill,
Among his Brethren of the Quill:
With good Roast Beef his Belly full,
Grown lazy, foggy, fat, and dull:
Deep sunk in Plenty, and Delight,
What Poet e'er could take his Flight?
Or stuff'd with Phlegm up to the Throat,
What Poet e'er could sing a Note?
Nor Pegasus could bear the Load,
Along the high celestial Road;
The Steed, oppress'd, would break his Girth,
To raise the Lumber from the Earth.

But, view him in another Scene,
When all his Drink is Hippocrene,
His Money spent, his Patrons fail,
His Credit out for Cheese and Ale;
His Two-Year's Coat so smooth and bare,
Through ev'ry Thread it lets in Air;
With hungry Meals his Body pin'd,
His Guts and Belly full of Wind;
And, like a Jockey for a Race,
His Flesh brought down to Flying-Case:
Now his exalted Spirit loaths
Incumbrances of Food and Cloaths;
And up he rises like a Vapour,
Supported high on Wings of Paper;
He singing flies, and flying sings,
While from below all Grub-street rings.

Jonathan Swift

[quasimodo1]

BOAZ ASLEEP
Boaz, overcome with weariness, by torchlight
made his pallet on the threshing floor
where all day he had worked, and now he slept
among the bushels of threshed wheat.

The old man owned wheatfields and barley,
and though he was rich, he was still fair-minded.
No filth soured the sweetness of his well.
No hot iron of torture whitened in his forge.

His beard was silver as a brook in April.
He bound sheaves without the strain of hate
or envy. He saw gleaners pass, and said,
Let handfuls of the fat ears fall to them.

The man's mind, clear of untoward feeling,
clothed itself in candor. He wore clean robes.
His heaped granaries spilled over always
toward the poor, no less than public fountains.

Boaz did well by his workers and by kinsmen.
He was generous, and moderate. Women held him
worthier than younger men, for youth is handsome,
but to him in his old age came greatness.

An old man, nearing his first source, may find
the timelessness beyond times of trouble.
And though fire burned in young men's eyes,
to Ruth the eyes of Boaz shone clear light.

[alakungfu]

The Clod and the Pebble

"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives at ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."

So sung a little clod of clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a pebble at the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:

"Love seetheth only itself to please,
To bind abother to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."

-- by William Blake

[alakungfu]

The Garden of Proserpine

Here, where the world is quiet,
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds’ and spent waves’ riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping fold and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.

I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires of dreams and powers
And everything by sleep.

Here life has death for neighbour,
And far from ear or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labout,
Weak winds and spirits steer;
They drive adrift and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.

No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale buds of blowing rushes
Where no leaf blooms or blushes,
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.

Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a seed belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.

Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep with pains in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.

Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands:
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love’s who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.

She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.

We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
To-day will die to-morrow;
Time stoops to no man’s lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful
With lips but half regretful
Sighs , and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear ser free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives forever;
That dead men rise up never,
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things dismal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.

--Algernon Charles Swinburne

[alakungfu]

The World is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us: late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
WE have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be bouncing at all hours,
And are un-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of turn;
It moves us not -- Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

-- by William Wordsworth

[alakungfu]

Morte D’Arthur

So all day long the noise of battle roll’d
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur’s table, man by man,
Had fall’n in Lyonesse about their Lord,
King Arthur: then, because his would was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knight,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one
Lay a great water and the moon was full.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere;
“The sequel of to-day unsolders all
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep
They sleep -- the men I loved. I think that we
Shall never more, at any future time;
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,
Walking about the garden and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
I perish by this people which I made--
Tho’ Merlin sware that I should come again
To rule one more -- but let what will be ,be,
I am so deeply smitten thro’ the helm
That without help I cannot last till morn.
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,
Which was my pride: for thou remembers how
In those old days, one summer moon, an arm
Rose out from out the bosom of the lake,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
Holding trhe sword -- and how I row’d across
And took it, and have worn it, like a king:
And whosesoever I am sung or told
In aftertime, this also shall be known:
But now delay not: take Excalibur;
And fling him far into the middle mere:
Watch what though seest, and lightly bring me word.”
To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:
“It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro’ the helm
A little thing may harm a wonderful man.
Yet I thy best will all perform at full
Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.”
So saying, from the ruin’d shrine he stept
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,
Here lay the mighty bones of ancient men,
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down
By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock,
Came on the shining levels of the lake.
The drew he forth the brand Excalibur,
And o’er him, drawing it, the winter moon,
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth
An sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:
For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,
Myriads of topaz-lights and jacinth-work
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long
That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood,
This way and that dividing the swift mind,
In act to throw: but at the last it seem’d
Better to leave Excalibur conceal’d
There in the many knotted vatwrflags,
That whistled stiff and dry above the marge.
So strode he back slow to the wounded King.
Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
Hast thou perform’d my mission which I gave?
What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
“I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
And the wild water lapping on the crag.”
To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:
Thou hast betrayed thy nature and thy name,
Not rendering true answer, as beseem’d
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knieght:
For surer sign had follow’d, either hand,
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere.
This is a shameful thing for men to lie.
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing
I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word.”
Then went Sir Bedivere the second time
Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,
Counting the dewy pebbles, fix’d in thought
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt,
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote
His palms together, and he cried aloud.
“And if indeed I cast the brand away,
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note
Should thus be lost for ever from the earth,
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.
What good shall follow this, if this were done?
What harm, undone? Deep harm to disobey,
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule.
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand
An act unprofitable, against himself?
The King is sick, and knows not what he does.
What record, or what relic of my lord
Should be to aftertime, but empty breath
And rumours of a doubt? But were this kept,
Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,
Someone might show it at a joust of arms,
Saying, ‘King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur,
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake.
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps,
Upon the hidden bases of the hills.’
So might some old man speak in the aftertime
To all the people, winning reverence.
But now much honour, and much fame were lost.”
So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,
And hai Excalibur the second time,
And so strode back slow to the wounded King.
Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily
“What is it thou hast seen? Or what hast heard?”
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
“I heard the water lapping on the ctag,
And the long ripple washing in the reeds.”
To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:
“Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,
Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!
Authority forgets a dying king,
Laid widow’d of the power in his eye
That bow’d the will. I see thee what thou art,
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,
In whom should meet the offices of all,
Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;
Either from lust of gold, or like a girl
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes,
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice,
And the third time may prosper, get thee hence:
But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,
I will arise and slay thee with my hands.”
Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged
Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch’d the sword,
And strongly wheel’d and threw it. The great brand
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,
And flashing round and round, and whirl’d in an arch,
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
By night, with noises of the northern sea
So flash’d and fell the brand Excalibur:
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
And caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere
And lightly went the other to the King.
Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:
“Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.
Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?’
And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
“Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,
Not tho’ I live three lives of mortal men,
So great a miracle as yonder hilt.
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him;
But when I look’d again, behold an arm,
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
That caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere.”
And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard:
“My end draws nigh; ‘tis time that I were gone.
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,
And bear me to the margin; yet I fear
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.”
So saying, from the pavement he half rose,
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm,
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere
Remorsefully regarded thro’ his tears,
And would have spoken, but he found not words,
Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee,
O’er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,
And rising bore him thro’ the place of tombs.
But, as he walk’d, King Arthur panted hard,
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed
When all the house is mute. So sigh’d the King,
Muttering and murmuring at his ear, “Quick, quick!
I fear it is too late, and I shall die.”
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,
Cloth’d with his breath, and looking, as he walk’d
Larger than human on the frozen hills.
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry
Before. His own thought drove him like a goad.
Dry clash’d his harness in the icy caves
And barren charms, and all to left and right
The bare black cliff clang’d round him, as he based
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels --
And on a sudden, lo! The level lake,
And the long glories of the winter moon.
Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge,
Dark as a funeral scarf from stern to stern,
Beneath them; and descending they were ware
That all the deck were dense with stately forms
Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream -- by these
Three Queens with crowns of gold -- and from them rose
A cry that shiver’d in the tingling stars
And as it were one voice, an agony
Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills
All night in a waste land, where no one comes,
Or, hath come, since the making of the world.
Then murmur’d Arthur, ‘Place me in the barge.”
And to the barge they came. There those three queens
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.
But she, that rose the tallest of them all
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,,
And loos’d the shattered casque, and chafed his hands,
And call’d him by his name, complaining loud,
And dropping bitter tears against his brow
Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white
And colourless, and like the wither’d moon
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east:
And all his greaves and cuisses dash’d with drops
Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls --
That made his forehead like a rising sun
High from the dais-throne -- were parch’d with dust;
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,
Mix’d with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.
So like a shatter’d column lay the King;
Not like that Arthur who, lance in rest
From spur to plume a star of tournament,
Shot thro’ the lists at Camelot, and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.
Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:
“Ah! My lord Arthur, whither shall I go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead,
When every morning brought a noble chance,
And every chance brought out a noble knight,
Such times have been not since the light that led
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh,
And now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved
Which was an image of the mighty world;
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds.”
And slowly answered Arthur from the batge:
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfills Himself in many ways.,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within Himself make pure: but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul.. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for one night and day,
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seest -- if indeed I go --
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)
To the island-valley of Avalon;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea,
Where will I heal me of my grievous wound.”
So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull
Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn
And on the mere the wailing died away.




-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

[Wilde woman]

Yes, one of my favorites! I'm always awestruck by the image of the jewelled Excalibur whirling in the air above the Lake. And this passage always gets me...


“Ah! My lord Arthur, whither shall I go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead,
When every morning brought a noble chance,
And every chance brought out a noble knight,
Such times have been not since the light that led
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh,
And now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved
Which was an image of the mighty world;
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me,

What a wonderful lament! This passage always makes me doubt whether Arthur will ever come back from Avalon, though I hope he will and fulfill Merlin's prophecy.