poem above by Michael Field
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poem above by Michael Field
I like this , is it just me or is there a bit of a melancholy feel to it in that when flowers come into full bloom they are beautiful but they are also on the cusp of an irretrievable deterioration?....Mmmm probably just me!!!!!!!!....nice one mossyQuote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
Good evening all...
If like me you are having a quiet saturday night you might not mind reading such a very long poem...its well worth hanging in there I think even though its long, i think it reads like a little story
The Buried Life
Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
And turn those limpid eyes on mine,
And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.
Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?
I knew the mass of men conceal'd
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
I knew they lived and moved
Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest
Of men, and alien to themselves—and yet
The same heart beats in every human breast!
But we, my love!—doth a like spell benumb
Our hearts, our voices?—must we too be dumb?
Ah! well for us, if even we,
Even for a moment, can get free
Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd;
For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!
Fate, which foresaw
How frivolous a baby man would be—
By what distractions he would be possess'd,
How he would pour himself in every strife,
And well-nigh change his own identity—
That it might keep from his capricious play
His genuine self, and force him to obey
Even in his own despite his being's law,
Bade through the deep recesses of our breast
The unregarded river of our life
Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
And that we should not see
The buried stream, and seem to be
Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,
Though driving on with it eternally.
But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us—to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.
And many a man in his own breast then delves,
But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.
And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;
But hardly have we, for one little hour,
Been on our own line, have we been ourselves—
Hardly had skill to utter one of all
The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on for ever unexpress'd.
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well—but 't#is not true!
And then we will no more be rack'd
With inward striving, and demand
Of all the thousand nothings of the hour
Their stupefying power;
Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!
Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
From the soul's subterranean depth upborne
As from an infinitely distant land,
Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey
A melancholy into all our day.
Only—but this is rare—
When a belov{'e}d hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
When our world-deafen'd ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd—
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.
A man becomes aware of his life's flow,
And hears its winding murmur; and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.
And there arrives a lull in the hot race
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the sea where it goes.
Joy.
Life is short,
But it should be long enough,
Love is what counts,
Not the boring stuff.
Fill up your soul,
Until it's chock full of glee,
Laugh with others,
Let your heart run free.
By Leonidas.
It does indeed read like a little story Freckle, and a rather sad one I think; not only for the claimed ubiquity of deeply repressed emotions, but also for the assumption that such emotions, once revealed, are typically melancholic too. Yet this poem is well worth the read, and such an excellent choice. You are very perceptive/empathic to the prevailing mood, but then I'd expect no less from such an adroit poet.Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
a jolly little poem leonidas and a nice one to wake to!Quote:
Originally Posted by Leonidas
Mossy...glad you enjoyed the buried life poem and thank you for the compliment you are sweet :o
Casting and gathering
Seamus Heaney*
Years and years ago, these sounds took sides:
On the left bank, a green silk tapered cast
Went whispering through the air, saying hush
And lush, entirely free, no matter whether
It swished above the hayfield or the river.
On the right bank, like a speeded-up corncrake,
A sharp ratcheting went on and on
Cutting across the stillness as another
Fisherman gathered line-lengths off his reel.
I am still standing there, awake and dreamy,
I have grown older and can see them both
Moving their arms and rods, working away,
Each one absorbed, proofed by the sounds he's making.
One sound is saying. "You are not worth tuppence,
but neither is anybody. Watch it! Be severe."
The other says, "Go with it! Give and swerve.
You are everything you feel beside the river."
I love hushed air. I trust contrariness.
Years and years go past and I do not move
For I see that when one man casts, the others gathers
And then vice versa, without changing sides.
*apparently this poem was written for ted hughes.
Sunday service
Rythmic non think
holds thoughts and fears
For now at least
I am a welcome
NOTHING
but
breath,
pulsation
sweat
and movement
a beguiling amalgam
of FORWARD
I do like Heaney's poems freckle so thanks for posting that.:cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
I have just read 'Buried life' as well and there's certainly food for thought there. One thing is certain we all have a buried life but some of us may have buried it more deeper than others.
It reminds me of that passage in Middlemarch where Dorothea wonders what it would be like to be sensitive to other people's personal feelings.
"If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence."
- George Eliot, Middlemarch
I like that freckle it is very rhythmic which I think is what you wanted to achieve :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
I don't know what activity you are doing though ?