Today's poet

[Harry H Howgill]

I really really like this Tri...being torn is one of the most uncomfortable psychological states I think and one which I can relate to...

On a different note...

I have just been given a book by Stephen Fry "The Ode Less Traveled"; Unlocking the Poet Within so plan on educating myself this evening!...lovely

The Ode Less Travelled is a brilliant book by a real poetry fanatic. I've just bought a second copy as can't find the first copy I bought. I'm determined to give more writing a try this time I read it as he sets little tasks in each style. It certainly helped me appreciate just how darned clever some of these poets are. Well worth reading.

[Harry H Howgill]

Out in the Dark

by Edward Thomas

Out in the dark over the snow
The fallow fawns invisible go
With the fallow doe ;
And the winds blow
Fast as the stars are slow.
Stealthily the dark haunts round
And, when the lamp goes, without sound
At a swifter bound
Than the swiftest hound,
Arrives, and all else is drowned ;
And star and I and wind and deer,
Are in the dark together, - near,
Yet far, - and fear
Drums on my ear
In that sage company drear.
How weak and little is the light,
All the universe of sight,
Love and delight,
Before the might,
If you love it not, of night.

[Harry H Howgill]

At Night

Home, home from the horizon far and clear,
Hither the soft wings sweep;
Flocks of the memories of the day draw near
The dovecote doors of sleep.

Oh which are they that come through sweetest light
Of all these homing birds?
Which with the straightest and the swiftest flight?
Your words to me, your words!

Alice Alice Meynell

[Nathaniel Lee]

On a roll Harry enjoying the choices.

[Harry H Howgill]

On a roll Harry enjoying the choices.

I liked your one about being torn. I can empathise.

[Harry H Howgill]

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL

by: Robert Louis Stevenson

• 
  
  • NAKED house, a naked moor,
  • A shivering pool before the door,
  • A garden bare of flowers and fruit
  • And poplars at the garden foot:
  • Such is the place that I live in,
  • Bleak without and bare within.
  • Yet shall your ragged moor receive
  • The incomparable pomp of eve,
  • And the cold glories of dawn
  • Behind your shivering trees be drawn;
  • And when the wind from place to place
  • Doth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase,
  • Your garden gloom and gleam again,
  • With leaping sun, with glancing rain.
  • Here shall the wizard moon ascend
  • The heavens, in the crimson end
  • Of day's declining splendour; here
  • The army of the stars appear.
  • The neighbor hollows dry or wet,
  • Spring shall with tender flowers beset;
  • And oft the morning muser see
  • Larks rising from the broomy lea,
  • And every fairy wheel and thread
  • Of cobweb dew-bediamonded.
  • When daisies go, shall winter time
  • Silver the simple grass with rime;
  • Autumnal frosts enchant the pool
  • And make the cart-ruts beautiful;
  • And when snow-bright the moor expands,
  • How shall your children clap their hands!

[freckle]

Always be drunk
That's it
The great imperative
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
Bruise your shoulders grinding you into the earth
Get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever
But get drunk
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
On the porches of a palace,
In the green grass of a ditch
In the dismal loneliness of your own room
Your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
Ask the wind,
the wave
the star
the bird,
the clock,
Ask everything that flees,
everything that groans or rolls or sings,
everything that speaks,
Ask what time it is;
and the wind, the wave, the star the bird, the clock
will answer you
"Time to get drunk
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk
Stay drunk
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"

Charles Baudelaire

Oh I is liking that A LOT!...quite brutal in a way...or is that just my interpretation?

[freckle]

At Night

Home, home from the horizon far and clear,
Hither the soft wings sweep;
Flocks of the memories of the day draw near
The dovecote doors of sleep.

Oh which are they that come through sweetest light
Of all these homing birds?
Which with the straightest and the swiftest flight?
Your words to me, your words!

Alice Alice Meynell

Evening Harry, this is really nice, i found it quite moving

[Harry H Howgill]

From morn to midnight, all day through,
I laugh and play as others do,
I sin and chatter, just the same
As others with a different name.

And all year long upon the stage
I dance and tumble and do rage
So vehemently, I scarcely see
The inner and eternal me.

I have a temple I do not
Visit, a heart I have forgot,
A self that I have never met,
A secret shrine -- and yet, and yet

This sanctuary of my soul
Unwitting I keep white and whole,
Unlatched and lit, if Thou should'st care
To enter or to tarry there.

With parted lips and outstretched hands
And listening ears Thy servant stands,
Call Thou early, call Thou late,
To Thy great service dedicate.

Charles Hamilton Sorley

[Derby Tup]

Oh I is liking that A LOT!...quite brutal in a way...or is that just my interpretation?

I read it as a light hearted call to enjoy your life but agree its open to a huge range of interpretation. I loved the idea of being drunk on poetry!