Exempli Gratia: Classic Poetry

[quasimodo1]

The Force That through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower


The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.


The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.


The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime. ...{excerpt}

[Silas Thorne]

Thanks q1! That Dylan Thomas one is one of my all-time favorites!

[Silas Thorne]

'Acquainted with the Night', by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

(excerpt)

[Silas Thorne]

'The Darkling Thrush', by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
(excerpt)

[Duskwaith]

O'Captain, My Captain-Walt Whitman

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Personal favourite of mine

[quasimodo1]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/bo...pagewanted=all ----- The Solitary Life -- By PETER CAMPION
Published: December 17, 2010 ----- The Solitary Life -- By PETER CAMPION


"In one of his notebooks from 1820, Giacomo Leopardi, the greatest Italian poet of the 19th century, wrote that “it is not enough to understand a true proposition; one must also feel the truth of it.” Writers of the Romantic age are supposed to make such statements. Theirs was the era of “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” and “the holiness of the heart’s affections.” Coming from Leopardi, however, that credo can seem a little peculiar. Stunted by scoliosis, wearied from melancholy and badgered throughout his 38 years by his mother, a reactionary marchesa who stormed around the family palazzo in her riding boots, Leopardi was never an adventurer of felt experience. He spent most of his life confined by his parents to their home in the provincial hill town of Recanati, nestled above the Adriatic Sea."



Getty Images/DeAgostini
Giacomo Leopardi
CANTI

By Giacomo Leopardi

Translated and annotated by Jonathan Galassi.

498 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $35

[quasimodo1]

The Afternoon of a Faun

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

by Stephane Mallarme'

Translation from French by Roger Fry

Paintings by Rebecca A. Barrington

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


These nymphs I would perpetuate.

So clear

Their light carnation, that it floats in the air

Heavy with tufted slumbers.


Was it a dream I loved?

My doubt, a heap of ancient night, is finishing

In many a subtle branch, which, left the true

Wood itself, proves, alas! that all alone I gave

Myself for triumph the ideal sin of roses.

Let me reflect


. . .if the girls of which you tell

Figure a wish of your fabulous senses!

Faun, the illusion escapes from the blue eyes

And cold, like a spring in tears, of the chaster one:

But, the other, all sighs, do you say she contrasts

Like a breeze of hot day in your fleece!

But no! through the still, weary faintness

Choking with heat the fresh morn if it strives,

No water murmurs but what my flute pours

On the chord sprinkled thicket; and the sole wind


Prompt to exhale from my two pipes, before

It scatters the sound in a waterless shower,

Is, on the horizon's unwrinkled space,

The visible serene artificial breath

Of inspiration, which regains the sky.


Oh you, Sicilian shores of a calm marsh

That more than the suns my vanity havocs,

Silent beneath the flowers of sparks, RELATE

"That here I was cutting the hollow reeds tamed

By talent, when on the dull gold of the distant

Verdures dedicating their vines to the springs,


There waves an animal whiteness at rest:

And that to the prelude where the pipes first stir .... {excerpt}

{ http://www.angelfire.com/art/doit/mallarme.html }

[quasimodo1]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertai...,1160186.story ---Mysterious Poe visitor doesn't show for 2nd year
On the 202nd anniversary of Poe's birth, the tradition of quietly leaving three roses and a bottle of cognac at his graveside may be gone for good
--- By Chris Kaltenbach, The Baltimore Sun

4:14 p.m. EST, January 19, 2011

[quasimodo1]

LULLABY

Hush, lullay.
Your treasures all
Encrust with rust,
Your trinket pleasures fall
To dust.
Beneath the sapphire arch,
Upon the grassy floor,
Is nothing more
To hold,
And play is over-old.
Your eyes
In sleepy fever gleam,
Their lids droop
To their dream.
You wander late alone,
The flesh frets on the bone,
Your love fails in your breast,
Here is the pillow.
Rest.

[Pierre Menard]

I wanna bring this thread back from the dead!

Edmund Spenser: Amoretti LXII

The weary yeare his race now having run,
The new begins his compast course anew:
With shew of morning mylde he hath begun,
Betokening peace and plenty to ensew.
So let us, which this chaunge of weather vew,
Chaunge eeke our mynds and former lives amend,
The old yeares sinnes forepast let us eschew,
And fly the faults with which we did offend.
Then shall the new yeares joy forth freshly send,
Into the glooming world his gladsome ray:
And all these stormes which now his beauty blend,
Shall turne to caulmes and tymely cleare away.
So likewise love cheare you your heavy spright,
And chaunge old yeares annoy to new delight.

[Pierre Menard]

Thomas Wyatt: Unstable Dream


Unstable dream, according to the place,
Be steadfast once, or else at least be true.
By tasted sweetness make me not to rue
The sudden loss of thy false feignèd grace.
By good respect in such a dangerous case
Thou broughtest not her into this tossing mew
But madest my sprite live, my care to renew,
My body in tempest her succour to embrace.
The body dead, the sprite had his desire,
Painless was th'one, th'other in delight.
Why then, alas, did it not keep it right,
Returning, to leap into the fire?
And where it was at wish, it could not remain,
Such mocks of dreams they turn to deadly pain.

[stlukesguild]

PM... you tempt me with the poem from Spenser's Amoretti... long one of my favorite works. I'm tied up today... but hopefully you'll keep this alive long enough to drag myself and others into the fray.

[North Star]

Robert Herrick - Hesperides

The Argument of His Book

I sing of Brooks, of Blossomes, Birds, and Bowers:
Of April, May, of June, and July-Flowers.
I sing of May-poles, Hock-carts, Wassails, Wakes,
Of Bride-grooms, Brides, and of their Bridall-cakes.
I write of Youth, of Love;—and have Accesse
By these, to sing of cleanly-Wantonnesse.
I sing of Dewes, of Raines, and, piece by piece
Of Balme, of Oyle, of Spice, and Amber-Greece.
I sing of Times trans-shifting; and I write
How Roses first came Red, and Lilies White.
I write of Groves, of Twilights, and I sing
The Court of Mab, and of the Fairie-King.
I write of Hell; I sing (and ever shall)
Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all.

[Pierre Menard]

PM... you tempt me with the poem from Spenser's Amoretti... long one of my favorite works. I'm tied up today... but hopefully you'll keep this alive long enough to drag myself and others into the fray.

It would be fantastic if we could get some more people to participate in the thread. There's a wealth of older poetry that I feel doesn't get talked about enough (guys like Traherne, Herrick, Spenser, Herbert, etc) so it'd be cool if there were more and more samples - not that it has to be only from that sort of era, I actually quite like the free-wheeling nature of the thread and how it seemed to range from Ancient times to the 19th century.

I only just recently discovered Spenser's Amoretti. I was aware of it for a long time, but only just started properly reading it. It's stunning, and very beautiful. I'm a little ways off approaching The Faerie Queene, but his shorter poetry more than suffices for now as it's really great!

[Pierre Menard]

Robert Herrick - Hesperides

The Argument of His Book

I sing of Brooks, of Blossomes, Birds, and Bowers:
Of April, May, of June, and July-Flowers.
I sing of May-poles, Hock-carts, Wassails, Wakes,
Of Bride-grooms, Brides, and of their Bridall-cakes.
I write of Youth, of Love;—and have Accesse
By these, to sing of cleanly-Wantonnesse.
I sing of Dewes, of Raines, and, piece by piece
Of Balme, of Oyle, of Spice, and Amber-Greece.
I sing of Times trans-shifting; and I write
How Roses first came Red, and Lilies White.
I write of Groves, of Twilights, and I sing
The Court of Mab, and of the Fairie-King.
I write of Hell; I sing (and ever shall)
Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all.

Nice choice North Star. I like Herrick a lot, and I think I will go with one of his poems myself:

Delight in Disorder:

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.