Today's poet

[Stolly]

Enjoyed that MachGirl the Bard is getting a good run out today

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

Wiki says:

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.

[OneHillWonder]

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming toooo town


























Sorry.

[MachGirl]

:0)

I wouldn't have had a clue myself, regarding Shakespeare's snaffling of Thomas North's work ...... actually quite surprised !

[Harry H Howgill]

I enjoyed that Harry I will have to look that article up.

There you go...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musi...ng?INTCMP=SRCH

[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.

That's the best Hamlet synopsis I've ever read! :-)

[Harry H Howgill]

He is really funny isn't he? The sperm whale poem was brilliant.

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!

[Harry H Howgill]

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!

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.

[Harry H Howgill]

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.

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.

[Harry H Howgill]

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming toooo town

Like it!

[freckle]

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 late

enough, 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.