Exempli Gratia: Classic Poetry

[erminia]

I love this - thankyou

and for you - not so joyous I can still feel the sea air in my hair

As I sing Time, the colossus of the world
Shall totter by
And sweep dead mortals with it.
As I sing Time, the colossus of the world
That strides with each foot plunged
in darkness silent glides
And puffs death's cloud upon us.

It is vain to struggle with the tide
We all must sink still grasping the thin air
With frantic pain grappling with fame to bouy us.

[quasimodo1]

ON WHITMAN

By C. K. Williams

187 pp. Princeton University Press. $19.95 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/bo..._r=1&ref=books --- "Singing the Poet Electric" by Helen Vendler - a review - 6/24/10

[quasimodo1]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/bo..._r=1&ref=books --- Explosive Inheritance
By CHRISTOPHER BENFEY
Published: July 30, 2010 --- LIVES LIKE LOADED GUNS

Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds

By Lyndall Gordon

Illustrated. 491 pp. Viking. $32.95

[DanielBenoit]

YE learned sisters, which have oftentimes
Beene to me ayding, others to adorne,
Whom ye thought worthy of your gracefull rymes,
That even the greatest did not greatly scorne
To heare theyr names sung in your simple layes,
But joyed in theyr praise;
And when ye list your owne mishaps to mourne,
Which death, or love, or fortunes wreck did rayse,
Your string could soone to sadder tenor turne,
And teach the woods and waters to lament
Your dolefull dreriment:
Now lay those sorrowfull complaints aside;
And, having all your heads with girlands crownd,
Helpe me mine owne loves prayses to resound;
Ne let the same of any be envide:
So Orpheus did for his owne bride!
So I unto my selfe alone will sing;
The woods shall to me answer, and my Eccho ring.

continued at http://www.poetryconnection.net/poet..._Spenser/18127

[DanielBenoit]

1.

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-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
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,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

2.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

3.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
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;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

[DanielBenoit]

The Song of songs, which is Solomon's.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth:

for thy love is better than wine.
Because of the savor of thy good ointments

thy name is as ointment poured forth,
therefore do the virgins love thee.
Draw me, we will run after thee:

the King hath brought me into his chambers:
we will be glad and rejoice in thee,
we will remember thy love more than wine:
the upright love thee.
I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,

as the tents of Kedar,
as the curtains of Solomon.
Look not upon me, because I am black,

because the sun hath looked upon me:
my mother's children were angry with me;
they made me the keeper of the vineyards;
but mine own vineyard have I not kept.
Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest,

where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon:
for why should I be as one that turneth aside
by the flocks of thy companions?
If thou know not, O thou fairest among women,

go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock,
and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.

continued at http://204.232.255.211/108/22/

[stlukesguild]

Epithalamion by Spenser
YE learned sisters, which have oftentimes
Beene to me ayding, others to adorne,
Whom ye thought worthy of your gracefull rymes,
That even the greatest did not greatly scorne
To heare theyr names sung in your simple layes,
But joyed in theyr praise;
And when ye list your owne mishaps to mourne,
Which death, or love, or fortunes wreck did rayse,
Your string could soone to sadder tenor turne,
And teach the woods and waters to lament
Your dolefull dreriment:
Now lay those sorrowfull complaints aside;
And, having all your heads with girlands crownd,
Helpe me mine owne loves prayses to resound;
Ne let the same of any be envide:
So Orpheus did for his owne bride!
So I unto my selfe alone will sing;
The woods shall to me answer, and my Eccho ring.

continued at http://www.poetryconnection.net/poet..._Spenser/18127

Ack!!! Spenser's Epithalimion!!! One of my absolute favorite poems.

[DanielBenoit]

Ack!!! Spenser's Epithalimion!!! One of my absolute favorite poems.

Indeed, mine too. It certainly has one of the best and most musical refrains in all of literature.

Apparently Cummings also wrote an epithalamion, which of course is nothing compared to Spenser's, but is still quite clever:

I

Thou aged unreluctant earth who dost
with quivering continual thighs invite
the thrilling rain the slender paramour
to toy with thy extraordinary lust,
(the sinuous rain which rising from thy bed
steals to his wife the sky and hour by hour
wholly renews her pale flesh with delight)
-immortally whence are the high gods fled?

Speak elm eloquent pandar with thy nod
significant to the ecstatic earth
in token of his coming whom her soul
burns to embrace-and didst thou know the god
from but the imprint of whose cloven feet
the shrieking dryad sought her leafy goal,
at the mere echo of whose shining mirth
the furious hearts of mountains ceased to beat?

Wind beautifully who wanderest
over smooth pages of forgotten joy
proving the peaceful theorems of the flowers
-didst e'er depart upon more exquisite quest?
and did thy fortunate fingers sometime dwell
(within a greener shadow of secret bowers)
among the curves of that delicious boy
whose serious grace one goddess loved too well?

Chryselephantine Zeus Olympian
sceptred colossus of the Pheidian soul
whose eagle frights creation,in whose palm
Nike presents the crown sweetest to man,
whose lilied robe the sun's white hands emboss,
betwixt whose absolute feet anoint with calm
of intent stars circling the acerb pole
poises,smiling,the diadumenos

in whose young chiseled eyes the people saw
their once again victorious Pantarkes
(whose grace the prince of artists made him bold
to imitate between the feet of awe),
thunderer whose omnipotent brow showers
its curls of unendured eternal gold
over the infinite breast in bright degrees,
whose pillow is the graces and the hours,

father of gods and men whose subtle throne
twain sphinxes bear each with a writhing youth
caught to her brazen breasts,whose foot-stool tells
how fought the looser of the warlike zone
of her that brought forth tall Hippolytus,
lord on whose pedestal the deep expels
(over Selene's car closing uncouth)
of Helios the sweet wheels tremulous-

are there no kings in Argos,that the song
is silent,of the steep unspeaking tower
within whose brightening strictness Danae
saw the night severed and the glowing throng
descend,felt on her flesh the amorous strain
of gradual hands and yielding to that fee
her eager body's unimmortal flower
knew in the darkness a more burning rain?

continued at http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/11899

[quasimodo1]

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all the springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
–I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.
{– A. E. Housman, from A Shropshire Lad}

[quasimodo1]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...090806543.html

[quasimodo1]

SONG OF THE WESTERN COUNTRIES
Oh the nighttime beating of the soul’s wings:
Herders of sheep once, we walked along the forests
that were growing dark,
And the red deer, the green flower and the speaking
river followed us
In humility. Oh the old old note of the cricket,
Blood blooming on the altarstone,
And the cry of the lonely bird over the green silence
of the pool.
And you Crusades, and glowing punishment
Of the flesh, purple fruits that fell to earth
In the garden at dusk, where young and holy men
walked,
Enlisted men of war now, waking up out of wounds
and dreams about stars.
Oh the soft cornflowers of the night.
And you long ages of tranquillity and golden
harvests,
When as peaceful monks we pressed out the purple
grapes;
And around us the hill and forest shone strangely.
The hunts for wild beasts, the castles, and at night,
the rest,
When man in his room sat thinking justice,
And in noiseless prayer fought for the living head
of God.
And this bitter hour of defeat,
When we behold a stony face in the black waters.
But radiating light, the lovers lift their silver eyelids:
They are one body. Incense streams from rose-
colored pillows
And the sweet song of those risen from the dead.

[quasimodo1]

ABEND IN LANS


Our travels through the fading summer
Toward bundles of ripened grain are over.
Under white-washed arches
Where the swallows flew in and out,
we drink fiery wine.

Beautiful: o melancholy and purple
laughter.
Evening and the dark perfume
of green
Cools with showers our burning foreheads.

Silver water runs down
stairs in the forest,
The night and the wordless,
forgotten life.
Friend: the leaf-covered path
from the village.

{translated from the Germann by Parker Smathers}

[quasimodo1]

http://chronicle.com/article/William...a-2010/125024/ --- "Blake suggests that if you want to understand the moral state of a country, you had better check first and see how it deals with its children. Does it treat them with loving kindness, or does it exploit them? Does it look down upon them from the perspective of the greedy and frightened Selfhood, or regard them with the generosity of the enlightened Soul? Blake's verdict on his own nation is not hard to discern. Can our own nation claim to be doing better?"

[quasimodo1]

Poem by Hadrian
According to the Historia Augusta Hadrian composed shortly before his death the following poem:[64]

Animula, vagula, blandula
Hospes comesque corporis
Quae nunc abibis in loca
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis iocos...
P. Aelius Hadrianus Imp.
Roving amiable little soul,
Body's companion and guest,
Now descending for parts
Colorless, unbending, and bare
Your usual distractions no more shall be there...

[Silas Thorne]

Song.
by John Wilmot, the 2nd Earl of Rochester

Leave this gaudy guilded stage,
From custom more than use frequented,
Where fools of either sex and age
Crowd to see themselves presented.
To Love's theatre, the bed,
Youth and beauty fly together,
And act so well it may be said
The laurel there was due to either.
Twixt strifes of love and war, the difference lies in this:
When neither overcomes, love's triumph greater is.