I enjoyed that Harry I will have to look that article up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill
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I enjoyed that Harry I will have to look that article up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill
I thought Hamlet should get out more. He had far too much introspection for a lad his age. Drove his girlfiend round the twist. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Stolly
Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
That was great freckle! Half poet-Half stand-up comedian !:D
I always think I should go back and reread all the Shakespeare plays that I studied at school for my literature A'level and Drama GCSE but somehow never get around to it. I would probably appreciate them more now. I did see a brilliant version of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Minnack theatre in Cornwall. A basking shark rose to the surface in the sea beyond during the show and it was amazing....oh yes, the actors were very good too! :)
He is really funny isn't he? The sperm whale poem was brilliant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
We've had it before but I have been listening to Nitin Sawhney's version of this Shakespeare sonnet and it is lovely (grab love and passion while you can...hmmm, bit quiet around here!):
O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies not plenty;
Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
I just reread this last night. I love the highlighted lines.
Like the Touch of Rain
by Edward Thomas
Like the touch of rain she was
On a man's flesh and hair and eyes
When the joy of walking thus
Has taken him by surprise:
With the love of the storm he burns,
He sings, he laughs, well I know how,
But forgets when he returns
As I shall not forget her 'Go now'.
Those two words shut a door
Between me and the blessed rain
That was never shut before
And will not open again.
Have to admit , never fully appreciated Shakespeare at High school the way I do now . Think it's a really good idea to start at the beginning and work through all his plays .It's quite surprising how time alters perception and ability to grasp things that were once somewhat of a challenge ..... definitely got me thinking .
Hes , love the Edward Thomas poem and the Shakespeare sonnet , very thought provoking .
Here is Sonnet 47 , which is one of my favorites
Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other:
When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
With my love's picture then my eye doth feast
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
Another time mine eye is my heart's guest
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
So, either by thy picture or my love,
Thyself away art resent still with me;
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them and they with thee;
Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Loved the Twelfth Night there Hes.
The shortness of life/love is a recurring theme in poetry
VITAE SUMMA BREVIS SPEM NOS VETAT INCOHARE LONGHAM
(The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long - Horace)
They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.
Ernest Dowson
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Originally Posted by MachGirl
Enjoyed that MachGirl the Bard is getting a good run out today :D
A bit from Antony and Cleopatra I like where Enobarbus is describing Cleopatra on her royal barge:
Enobarbas
I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion - cloth-of-gold of tissue -
O'er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.
Alf sorry to blow a hole in your quote but that bit was apparently stolen whole by Shakespeare from Plutarch :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Wiki says:
Quote:
The principal source for the story is Plutarch's "Life of Mark Antony" from Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Compared Together, in the translation made by Sir Thomas North in 1579. A large number of phrases within Shakespeare's play are taken directly from North's prose, including Ahenobarbus's famous description of Cleopatra's barge, beginning "The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne/Burned on the water." However, Shakespeare also adds scenes, including many of the ones portraying Cleopatra's domestic life, and the role of Enobarbus is greatly developed. Historical facts are also sometimes changed: in Plutarch Antony's final defeat was many weeks after the battle of Actium, and Octavia lived with Antony for several years and bore him two children: Antonia Major, paternal grandmother of the Emperor Nero and maternal grandmother of the Empress Valeria Messalina, and Antonia Minor, the sister-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, mother of the Emperor Claudius, and paternal grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger.
You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming toooo town :D
:o Sorry.
:0)
I wouldn't have had a clue myself, regarding Shakespeare's snaffling of Thomas North's work ...... actually quite surprised !
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Originally Posted by Alf
There you go...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musi...ng?INTCMP=SRCH
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
That's the best Hamlet synopsis I've ever read! :-)
It works some much better when he reads it. I'm just looking forward to his book next year. Can't wait to see what he made of us!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
I've got that on my favourite compilation CDs. Always sets off the journey to work well on a cold morning. I embarrased myself once by not realising it was Shakespeare! Oops!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Maybe a good think for me to start in the new year. Last year's resolution of writing a haiku a day didn't last long though mind you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MachGirl
Like it!Quote:
Originally Posted by OneHillWonder
Some really lovely choices on here today, I love the idea of a shakespeare thread tho i reckon it would take me an age to work my way through them!
Anyhow, I think my internet connection may be temporarily disconnected soon for a fews days....just wanted to say thanks to all for their kind and supportive words over the past couple of weeks...hope to be back sooner rather than later, but until then....
The Journey
Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already lateenough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Freckle ,
What a very brave , positive and inspiring poem !
Although I hardly know you , infact don't know you at all really .... I have read your posts and todays poem and feel something very familiar . Maybe it's the journey .....maybe we are on the same journey ....
Hope you are back online soon , stay determined x
Great choice freckle. Get yourself down your local internet cafe in the meantime. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Aw thank you that so very sweet Machgirl! and thanks Alf too...not long now! xQuote:
Originally Posted by MachGirl
Brilliant choice. Totally apt and takes me back a few months too. Painful as it may be, if you dont look after yourself, you'll be no use to anyone else. Good luck with the move.Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Getting chilly again. Laces frozen stiff after tonight's head-torch run.
I always think of this 1st verse of Eve of St Agnes as a wonderful description of a bitterly cold night. I can't really be arsed with the next 41 verses though! Too romantic and meandering for this impatient old hound.
John Keats (1795–1821). The Poetical Works of John Keats. 1884.
39. The Eve of St. Agnes
I.
ST. AGNES’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told 5
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death,
Past the sweet Virgin’s picture, while his prayer he saith.
This is a really good choice OW! Although I did have to study the whole poem at school, it is the first verse that I remember and it is bitterly cold here tonight. Nice to see you on here too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Whippet
Good luck Freckle! Thinking of you and wishing you all the happiness possible in your new abode and life. My mum gave me the Mary Oliver poem to take on my travels in 2003 and it echoed so well how I felt at that time. Stay strong and positive.xxx
Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
In lieu of a Christmas Card to all formites....
[little tree]
BY E. E. CUMMINGS
little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid
look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,
put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy
then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud
and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"
Have a 'good one' and here's to looking forward to a bounty of verse next year.:)
and here's a Christmas pressie..er....but only if you've got an iphone (sorry)...
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/poetr...on/id370143863
And for those of you (like me :boohoo:) who remain iphoneless..here's a 'Christmas cracker'...Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
Happy Christmas Auntie Peggy
For Christmas I bought my Auntie
A brand new wooden leg
I didn’t have it specially made
No I just got it off the peg
You may say it’s not a nice gift
Or even that it’s a killer
It wasn’t her main present though
It was just a stocking filler
Paul Curtis
NOthing seasonal, but how about something Classical.. ie 5th C BC... to remind me and others of those Classics lessons in musky wooden-panelled classrooms, with teachers wearing corduroy jackets with velvet elbow patches... (I can feel a tear in my eye!)
From Aristophanes' "The Birds"... the Chorus of the Birds may resonate with us fell-runners, who have a finer appreciation of nature's prowess compared with our lowly/petty struggles...
Ye Children of Man! whose life is a span,
Protracted with sorrow from day to day,
Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous,
Sickly calamitous creatures of clay!
Attend to the words of the Sovereign Birds,
(Immortal, illustrious, lords of the air),
Who survey from on high, with a merciful eye,
Your struggles of misery, labor, and care.
Whence you may learn and clearly discern
Such truths as attract your inquisitive turn;
Which is busied of late with a mighty debate,
A profound speculation about the creation,
And organical life, and chaotical strife,
With various notions of heavenly motions,
And rivers and oceans, and valleys and mountains,
And sources of fountains, and meteors on high,
And stars in the sky . . . We propose by and by,
(If you'll listen and hear,) to make it all clear.
And Prodicus henceforth shall pass for a dunce,
When his doubts are explained and expounded at once.
Our antiquity proved, it remains to be shown
That Love is our author and master alone;
Like him we can ramble, and gambol and fly
O'er ocean and earth, and aloft to the sky;
And all the world over, we're friends to the lover,
And when other means fail, we are found to prevail,
When a Peacock or Pheasant is sent as a present.
All lessons of primary daily concern
You have learnt from the Birds, and continue to learn,
Your best benefactors and early instructors;
We give you the warning of seasons returning.
When the Cranes are arranged, and muster afloat
In the middle air, with a creaking note,
Steering away to the Libyan sands,
Then careful farmers sow their lands;
The crazy vessel is hauled ashore,
The sail, the ropes, the rudder and oar
Are all unshipped and housed in store.
The shepherd is warned, by the Kite reappearing,
To muster his flock, and be ready for shearing.
You quit your old cloak at the Swallow's behest,
In assurance of summer, and purchase a vest.
For Delphi, for Ammon, Dodona, in fine
For every oracular temple and shrine,
The Birds are a substitute equal and fair,
For on us you depend, and to us you repair
For counsel and aid when a marriage is made,
A purchase, a bargain, a venture in trade:
Unlucky or lucky, whatever has struck ye,
An ox or an ass that may happen to pass,
A voice in the street, or a slave that you meet,
A name or a word by chance overheard,
If you deem it an omen, you call it a Bird;
And if birds are your omens, it clearly will follow
That birds are a proper prophetic Apollo.
Some great selections from Skarsnik, OW and Mossy.
As I grew older
It was a long time ago.
I have almost forgotten my dream.
But it was there then,
In front of me,
Bright like a sun--
My dream.
And then the wall rose,
Rose slowly,
Slowly,
Between me and my dream.
Rose until it touched the sky--
The wall.
Shadow.
I am black.
I lie down in the shadow.
No longer the light of my dream before me,
Above me.
Only the thick wall.
Only the shadow.
My hands!
My dark hands!
Break through the wall!
Find my dream!
Help me to shatter this darkness,
To smash this night,
To break this shadow
Into a thousand lights of sun,
Into a thousand whirling dreams
Of sun!
Langston Hughes
There Ain't No Santa Claus On The Evenin' Stage
There ain’t no Santa Claus on the evenin’ stage
There ain’t no way t’ pull the curtain
‘N hide from hunger’s rage
There ain’t no town t’ stop in
There ain’t no time t’ stop in
There ain’t no straw for my horse
There ain’t no straw for my bed
There ain’t no comfort in cold boards
There ain’t no rumours or food for my stomach
‘N someday I’m gonna be saved
‘Cause I gotta eat ‘n drink ‘n breathe ‘n sleep
‘N I’m ah slave
Down in hominy’s grotto there’s ah soul die’n ‘n leavin’
Every second on the evenin’ stage
There’s ah soul die’n ‘n rottin’ ‘n pickin’
Some new kinda cotton
With his fingers broken ‘n his heart ‘n back forgotten
There ain’t no Santa Claus on the evenin’ stage
Captain Beefheart
That's wonderful, thanks Mossie and a very merry Christmas to you too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
No Iphone here either! This made me laugh.
Thanks to Alf and Skarsnik too for some good choices. I think my appreciation of nature carried me through the testing run out today. 17 miles of snow and ice in a winter wonderland was enough reward despite my bruised bum and knee...not sure if it was for the friend that cracked his ribs though. :(
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
I know you are a fan of Plath Mossy so here's one for you. I came across it in one of my favourite anthologies by Common Ground called Trees Be Company.
Winter Trees
The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve.
On their blotter of fog the trees
Seem a botanical drawing—
Memories growing, ring on ring,
A series of weddings.
Knowing neither abortions nor bitchery,
Truer than women,
They seed so effortlessly!
Tasting the winds, that are footless,
Waist-deep in history—
Full of wings, otherworldliness.
In this, they are Ledas.
O mother of leaves and sweetness
Who are these pietàs?
The shadows of ringdoves chanting, but easing nothing.
Sylvia Plath
Winter
The tree still bends over the lake,
And I try to recall our love,
Our love that had a thousand leaves.
Sheila Wingfield
You know it's cold when there's ice on the high water mark As promised weeks ago here is something from George Mackay Brown.
Beachcomber
Monday I found a boot -
Rust and salt leather.
I gave it back to the sea, to dance in.
Tuesday a spar of timber worth thirty bob.
Next winter
It will be a chair, a coffin, a bed.
Wednesday, a half can of Swedish spirits.
I tilted my head.
The shore was cold with mermaids and angels.
Thursday I got nothing, seaweed,
A whale bone,
Wet feet and a lud cough.
Friday I held a seaman's skull,
Sand spilling from it
The way time is told on Kirkyard stones.
Saturday a barrel of sodden oranges.
A Spanish ship
was wrecked last month at The Kame.
Sunday, for fear of the elders,
I sit on my bum.
What's Heavan? A sea chest with a thousand gold coins.
By George Mackay Brown
Fantastic Alf and, for me, very apposite - cheersQuote:
Originally Posted by Alf