Poem of the Day

Quote:

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Originally Posted by genoveva

Laughing Song

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;

When the meadows laugh with lively green,
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene,
When Mary and Susan and Emily
With their sweet round mouths sing "Ha, Ha, He!"

When the painted birds laugh in the shade,
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread,
Come live & be merry, and join with me,
To sing the sweet chorus of "Ha, Ha, He!"

~William Blake

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I agree with chmpman that there is a lot of laughing going on and that is unusual for a Blake poem... Far too 'merry'? OK, it is repeat 3 times.

I like the way he changed the last 'ha' to 'he' to rhyme! :)

Inspiration for David Bowies' 'The Laughing Gnome'?!

Ever since we had an Emily Dickinson poem on Poem of the Week thread, I've been reading a few more of her poems. I really like her as a poet. Here is on of her rare love poems, which I've become infatuated with. Most of her poems are not titled, but this one comes with a title "In Vain." What else would a love poem by Dickinson be about? I don't know if an editor titled or if she did herself.

Quote:

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In Vain by Emily Dickinson

I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf

The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup

Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.

I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down,
You could not.

And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus',
That new grace

Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.

They'd judge us-how?
For you served Heaven, you know,
Or sought to;
I could not,

Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise.

And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame.

And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.

So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!

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Thanks, Virgil. I've never read this one. Was she in love with a priest or something? It sounds like religion is proving an obstacle to her love for this person. Imagine, Emily Dickinson as a more prudent Hester Prynne! I really love the sound of this poem too, and the way it flows together. As with all her verse I feel like I need to read it over and over and I'll slowly unfold layers of subtle meaning that I just missed the first time.

I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down,
You could not.

This part is most profound to me. Emily.

There's a lot profound here. I was attracted at first to two parts, the openning metaphor and the closing stanza. She cannot live with him, because it would be life, and life is like a broken cup hidden on a shelf. Wow! and the wow refers to both halves of that statement. (a) She doesn't want life because (b) life becomes mundane, quaint. And then the closing stanza is touching to me, that it is better to keep apart, and feed on the despair. It seems it would be better to live in separation.

The center of the poem she uses to dramatize the inability for the two individuals to connect in life and death, and the failure of religion to bring the two together. It seems to me a statement of the imperviousness of individuality. What she seems to be saying is that it is so imposssible her and him to harmonize (perhaps there's a better word, but it doesn't come to me) in life, that even in death it is impossible. The stanza that Jack highlights is very nice.

Petrarch, I don't know if there really was a person she's referring to. As far as I know, she was reclusive all her life, and this could refer to either a one time house guest, a family friend, a frequent visitor, or someone she imagined.

I guess Im abit late to post this but there isnt a new one yet soo I like the last bit best. especially

And that pale sustenance,
Despair!

Its what the word(??) palitable? You can almost touch and feel the despair.

yupp I definetly like this :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Virgil

There's a lot profound here.

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Simply to add, I could not help being drawn back to "On the death of Anne Bronte". Its one of those poems that plagues me everytime I think on these things. There is no one phrase in Charlotte's piece that mirrors this in any way, but I sense the notion of death of one, while the other is left, in just these few lines, and similar as Charlotte could have suggested in her own.

Nor could I rise with you,

I'm bored, and it's late, so:

Elements of Composition
A.K. Ramanujan

Composed as I am, like others,
of elements on certain well-known lists,
father's seed and mother's egg

gathering earth, air, fire, mostly
water, into a mulberry mass,
moulding calcium,

carbon, even gold, magnesium and such,
into a chattering self tangled
in love and work,

scary dreams, capable of eyes that can see,
only by moving constantly,
the constancy of things

like Stonehenge or cherry trees;


add uncle's eleven fingers
making shadow-plays of rajas
and cats, hissing,

becoming fingers again, the look
of panic on sister's face
an hour before

her wedding, a dated newspaper map
of a place one has never seen, maybe
no longer there

after the riots, downtown Nairobi,
that a friend carried in his passport
as others would

a woman's picture in their wallets;


add the lepers of Maduri,
male, female, married,
with children,

lion faces, crabs for claws,
clotted on their shadows
under the stone-eyed

goddesses of dance, mere pillars,
moving as nothing on earth
can move--

I pass through them
as they pass through me
taking and leaving

affections, seeds, skeletons,


millennia of fossil records
of insects that do not last
a day,

body-prints of mayflies,
a legend half-heard
in a train

of the half-man searching
for an ever-fleeing
other half

through Muharram tigers,
hyacinths in crocodile waters,
and the sweet

twisted lives of epileptic saints,


and even as I add,
I lose, decompose
into my elements,

into other names and forms,
past, and passing, tenses
without time,

caterpillar on a leaf, eating,
being eaten.



Now, no complaints on how long it is - it's only one sentence.

chmpman - That is a really fine poem. I've never heard of Ramnujan. It's a poem of definition; he's defining himself, and wonderfully imaginative. Almost every line is a winner, but I love the humor in this:

Quote:

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add uncle's eleven fingers
making shadow-plays of rajas
and cats, hissing,

becoming fingers again, the look
of panic on sister's face
an hour before

her wedding,

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I'm going to assume he was Hindu. He captures the circularity of the Hindu perspective of life in the closing lines:

Quote:

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caterpillar on a leaf, eating,
being eaten.

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I enjoyed that.

can i post my own poem or song?

You can do that in the personal poetry section. Just start a thread with your poem or song. Poem of the Day and Poem of the Week is for analysis of published poems.

Welcome to lit net, by the way.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chmpman

and even as I add,
I lose, decompose
into my elements,

into other names and forms,
past, and passing, tenses
without time,

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I especially like the above. Nice, all around. Is he an Indian poet?

He grew up in India. He was anthologized in my Norton of British Lit. We didn't discuss him in class, but I came across a few of his poems while just perusing the book. I liked this one a lot. Especially the lines quoted above by both Virgil and Genoveva.

I also like:

and the sweet
twisted lives of epileptic saints