You're right; they are metronomic. Sadly few around these parts though as yet. Like it OW.Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Whippet
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You're right; they are metronomic. Sadly few around these parts though as yet. Like it OW.Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Whippet
April Aubade
Worship this world of watercolor mood
in glass pagodas hung with veils of green
where diamonds jangle hymns within the blood
and sap ascends the steeple of the vein.
A saintly sparrow jargons madrigals
to waken dreamers in the milky dawn,
while tulips bow like a college of cardinals
before that papal paragon, the sun.
Christened in a spindrift of snowdrop stars,
where on pink-fluted feet the pigeons pass
and jonquils sprout like solomon's metaphors,
my love and I go garlanded with grass.
Again we are deluded and infer
that somehow we are younger than we were.
Sylvia P
WARNING: A bit heavy this one, so if you're in a good mood give it a miss for now. But Phil does have a point and it's only the hysterically (and probably clinically!) jolly who have never experienced this situation.
Aubade
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
Philip Larkin
On a Portrait of Wordsworth by B. R. Haydon
Wordsworth upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud
Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind,
Then break against the rock, and show behind
The lowland valleys floating up to crowd
The sense with beauty. He with forehead bowed
And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined
Before the sovran thought of his own mind,
And very meek with inspirations proud,
Takes here his rightful place as poet-priest
By the high altar, singing prayer and prayer.
To the higher Heavens. A noble vision free
Our Haydon's hand has flung out from the mist:
No portrait this, with Academic air!
This is the poet and his poetry.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
And this is Haydon's portrait.
http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/t...Wordsworth.jpg
Its a bit of an EBB evening tonight so another one of her sonnets:
Sonnet 35
If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home-talk and blessings and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
When I look up, to drop on a new range
Of walls and floors, another home than this?
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change?
That's hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,
To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove;
For grief indeed is love and grief beside.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Yet love me--wilt thou? Open thine heart wide,
And fold within the wet wings of thy dove.
Elizabeth Barratt Browning
Some really great choices in the last couple days. Mossy, I loved the Plath and the Larkin was very dark but nothing can dispel my mood today so I read it anyway! I'm not sure what has happened...I haven't slept nearly enough, worked all weekend and have more work to do tonight but I just blasted round the river and feel on top of the world. Its like being in love but its not a man...its spring. Hurray!!!
...and that was a poem in itself Hes! I Like! :thumbup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
beautiful and stunning, there is something about spring that makes you feel that little bit sprightlier! thanks mossyQuote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
another gorgeous choice, there si aomething quite elusive and poignant about it
go Hes-power go!!:DQuote:
Originally Posted by hes
:thumbup: cheers Mossy!
spring has sprung
the grass is ris
I wonder where the birdies is
the birdies on the wing
but that's absurd
I always thought the wing
was on the bird
(from memory so probably wrong but it makes me laugh anyway!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
April
The sweetest thing, I thought
At one time, between earth and heaven
Was the first smile
When mist has been forgiven
And the sun has stolen out,
Peered, and resolved to shine at seven
On dabbled lengthening grasses,
Thick primroses and early leaves uneven,
When earth's breath, warm and humid, far surpasses
The richest oven's, and loudly rings 'cuckoo'
And sharply the nightingale's 'tsoo, tsoo, tsoo, tsoo':
To say 'God bless it' was all that I could do.
But now I know one sweeter
By far since the day Emily
Turned weeping back
To me, still happy me,
To ask forgiveness, -
Yet smiled with half a certainty
To be forgiven, - for what
She had never done; I knew not what it might be,
Nor could she tell me, having now forgot,
By rapture carried with me past all care
As to an isle in April lovelier
Than April's self. 'God bless you' I said to her.
Edward Thomas
Lovely choice Alf.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Indeed a lovely choice Alf, I have really enjoyed all of the Spring inspired verse...
and now for something completely different...I have been looking up the poems of Anne Sexton, a contemporary of Slyvia Plath I believe and one who suffered the same sad fate...i really liked this poem which I thought gave a powerful insight into what it might be like to be in a psychiatric ward in the 1960s...ish
Anne Sexton - Lullaby
It is a summer evening.
The yellow moths sag
against the locked screens
and the faded curtains
suck over the window sills
and from another building
a goat calls in his dreams.
This is the TV parlor
in the best ward at Bedlam.
The night nurse is passing
out the evening pills.
She walks on two erasers,
padding by us one by one.
MY sleeping pill is white.
It is a splendid pearl;
it floats me out of myself,
my stung skin as alien
as a loose bolt of cloth.
I will ignore the bed.
I am linen on a shelf.
Let the others moan in secret;
let each lost butterfly go home.
Old woolen head,
take me like a yellow moth
while the goat calls hush-a-bye.
Late Fragment
Raymond Carver
And did you get what
you wanted from this life,even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
Ohh I had forgotten all about this Freckle and I love it. Thanks. I was interested in the Anne Sexton poem too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Barn Owl
heart faced and silent
fluttering above its prey
the ghost hunter waits
Happy the Man
Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.
John Dryden
Like that, makes me glad i'm not a vole:eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
gorgeous Hes!!!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
night all x
Thanks Freckle, night, sleep tight.xx
Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Excellent Haiku Hes :cool:
Aye there's not many V40 voles about Steve :DQuote:
Originally Posted by stevefoster
Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Lush that choice freckle. That first verse really sucks you in to the poem :cool:
I deserted the fells for a run on country lanes on Saturday and enjoyed the Blackthorn blossom emerging along the road side. The buds were breaking on the Silver Birches in my garden and it seemed as though the recent showers of rain had reminded them all that it was spring.
The Blackthorn
The blackthorn was his father's,
a piece of Ireland
that the old man could still get his hands around
even as his hands grew weak,
refused to hold. My father
never knew Ireland;
when he gripped the walking stick
it was something else he was holding on to.
I watched my father
get old; he would stare at his hand
and open and close his fist,
try to fight the arthritis.
By then he had lost the stick,
and he could have used it
to work his grip, to beat
at the hard knot that was tying him up.
When he died he was laid in the ground
only a few feet from his father,
while in Ireland the sturdy blackthorns
were defying that sad land
and bursting with white blossoms.
Louis McKee
This is one of my absolute favourites Hes. It is just perfect.
I liked the Barn Owl haiku too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
There's a strength in it's brevity. Thanks F. I missed some treats on this thread last night it seems.Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... well caught Hes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Soporifically disturbing somehow. And you're right, it contains echos of 'our' SylviaQuote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Great choice Alf. And have you seen the blackthorn this year? Magnificent, almost otherworldly in the way the starch-white blossoms contrast with the matt black branches below, with both, incongruous against the fresh sprouting green world that envelops them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Now that's a poem Mossy! :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
This was just on at the end of Cloudspotting on BBC4....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMP0H5DQJX4
Lovely!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill
Way too much cloud over here today. What a soggy day.
The Cloud by Percy Bysshe ShelleyI bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardors of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,--
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
Loved the Shelley HHH. It reminded me of those Joni Mitchell lyrics
"Rows and flows of angel hair,
And ice cream castles in the air,
And feather canyons everywhere,
I've looked at clouds that way. "
The Blackthorn Hare
On a cold and wild December morn
In a field down under old Blackthorn
In a rushy patch the brown hare slept
As through the field a dog fox crept.
The big red fox's cunning mate
A vixen waited by the gate
There by the gate she quietly lay
She knew the hare would come this way.
Upwind the fox was drawing near
He did not wish the hare to hear
For him it was a hungry night
And badly did he need a bite.
But the hare awoke and pricked one ear
He sensed danger was somewhere near
Then bolted from his cushy seat
This hare would not be easy meat.
Out of the rushes he did race
The angry fox was quick to chase
He ran the field up to the gate
Where the hidden vixen lay in wait.
The vicious vixen dived to kill
But missed the prey and took a spill
The vixen in a coat of mud
Chased with the fox thirsting for blood.
At Blackthorn bridge the hare turned right
He had travelled this way every night
His little heart began to pound
The foxes they were gaining ground.
The foxes quite a speedy pair
Drew level with the dodging hare
They thought the hare was going to yield
That they would kill him in this field.
But little did the foxes know
That two months short of a year ago
In coursing meetings throughout the Land
This hare had left fleet greyhounds stand.
A poacher caught him with a dazzler light
On a wild and dark october night
He blindly ran into the poacher's net
That night he never will forget.
The awful feeling of shock and fear
When the poacher seized him by the ears
Then put him in a brown cord sack
And carried him off on his back.
For him ten quid the poacher got
And to a poacher ten quid is a lot
He sold him to a Coursing Club
And drank the money in a pub.
He never ever could forget
The way he dodged and cheated death
The way he gave the hounds the slip
Their mouths wide open for to rip.
Those bitter nights so cold and dark
He spent in unsheltered Coursing Parks
With not much to eat and in poor shape
In a little plot called 'the escape'.
From the escape he heard his comrades die
He listened to their painfull cry
He listened with a throbbing heart
As the hounds they tore his friends apart.
The human faces all about
The way they used to cheer and shout
The judge upon a noble steed
Instilled in him great fear indeed.
The Coursing Season it was done
His well earned freedom he had won
They set him free in Blackthorn Dell
Since then he knew this country well.
He love the open Blackthorn range
The grassy fields of Kingston Grange
The sallies down by Hawthorn inn
The bushes in the furzy glen.
And better to be chased by foxes
Than in Coursing Meetings in small boxes
Waiting with a throbbing heart
For the hounds to tear your bones apart.
Again he faced a vital test
And to live he had to run his best
He could see the foxes razor teeth
Their mouths wide open for to eat.
His little legs began to tire
But the will to live it did inspire
He used his great side stepping skill
Each time the foxes closed to kill.
The vixen she began to flag
She galloped like a jaded nag
Her body ached her bones did rack
She quit the chase and turned back.
With weary legs and spirits dropping
The tiring fox he felt like stopping
On him the rapid pace did tell
As on they raced through blackthorn dell.
The gallant hare felt weary too
His little body felt like glue
He could even feel the fox's breath
But still he slipped away from death.
Blackthorn hill rose high and steep
The rapid pace slowed to a creep
The uphill journey it was tough
The dog fox stopped he'd had enough.
His race for life the hare had won
The fox and vixen he'd outrun
He had ran four miles at his outright best
And he took a badly needed rest.
Francis Duggan
Lovely Hes. I love owls, such mystical, stunning creatures xQuote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Wow...Alf, that was a gripping poem! I sat enthralled until the hare had outrun the foxes. The only thing better would have been to have had it read aloud to me. Thanks for that.
Thanks MG, me too, I find the ghostliness of barn owls particularly magical. I'm so lucky that there is currently one who hunts regularly just a mile from my house.x
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mountain Goatess
alight in the sun
the soft pink candelabra,
magnolia tree