Today's poet

[Alf]

I am still reading Edna Millay's biography she really was a one off

The Return

Earth does not understand her child,
Who from the loud gregarious town
Returns, depleted and defiled,
To the still woods, to fling him down.

Earth cannot count the sons she bore:
The wounded lynx, the wounded man
Come trailing blood unto her door;
She shelters both as best she can.

But she is early up and out,
To trim the year or strip its bones;
She has no time to stand about
Talking of him in undertones

Who has no aim but to forget
Be left in peace, be lying thus
For days, for years, for centuries yet,
Unshaven and anonymous;

Who, marked for failure, dulled by grief,
Has traded in his wife and friend
For this warm ledge, this alder leaf:
Comfort that does not comprehend.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

[Hes]

I like that Alf. I don't know much about her but she wrote one of my favourite poems about loss and grief.

I am still reading Edna Millay's biography she really was a one off

The Return

Earth does not understand her child,
Who from the loud gregarious town
Returns, depleted and defiled,
To the still woods, to fling him down.

Earth cannot count the sons she bore:
The wounded lynx, the wounded man
Come trailing blood unto her door;
She shelters both as best she can.

But she is early up and out,
To trim the year or strip its bones;
She has no time to stand about
Talking of him in undertones

Who has no aim but to forget
Be left in peace, be lying thus
For days, for years, for centuries yet,
Unshaven and anonymous;

Who, marked for failure, dulled by grief,
Has traded in his wife and friend
For this warm ledge, this alder leaf:
Comfort that does not comprehend.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

[Hes]

I Heard a Bird Sing

I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.

We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.

- Oliver Herford

[Stevie]

DECEMBER by John Clare

GLAD Christmas comes, and every hearth
Makes room to give him welcome now,
E’en want will dry its tears in mirth,
And crown him with a holly bough;
Though tramping ’neath a winter sky,
O’er snowy paths and rimy stiles,
The housewife sets her spinning by
To bid him welcome with her smiles.

Each house is swept the day before,
And windows stuck with ever-greens,
The snow is besom’d from the door,
And comfort crowns the cottage scenes.
Gilt holly, with its thorny pricks,
And yew and box, with berries small,
These deck the unused candlesticks,
And pictures hanging by the wall.

Neighbours resume their annual cheer,
Wishing, with smiles and spirits high,
Glad Christmas and a happy year,
To every morning passer-by;
Milkmaids their Christmas journeys go,
Accompanied with favour’d swain;
And children pace the crumping snow,
To taste their granny’s cake again.

The shepherd, now no more afraid,
Since custom doth the chance bestow,
Starts up to kiss the giggling maid
Beneath the branch of misletoe
That ’neath each cottage beam is seen,
With pearl-like berries shining gay;
The shadow still of what hath been,
Which fashion yearly fades away.

The singing wates, a merry throng,
At early morn, with simple skill,
Yet imitate the angels song,
And chant their Christmas ditty still;
And, ’mid the storm that dies and swells
By fits—in hummings softly steals
The music of the village bells,
Ringing round their merry peals.

When this is past, a merry crew,
Bedeck’d in masks and ribbons gay,
The “Morris-dance,” their sports renew,
And act their winter evening play.
The clown turn’d king, for penny-praise,
Storms with the actor’s strut and swell;
And Harlequin, a laugh to raise,
Wears his hunch-back and tinkling bell.

And oft for pence and spicy ale,
With winter nosegays pinn’d before,
The wassail-singer tells her tale,
And drawls her Christmas carols o’er.
While ’prentice boy, with ruddy face,
And rime-bepowder’d, dancing locks,
From door to door with happy pace,
Runs round to claim his “Christmas box.”

The block upon the fire is put,
To sanction custom’s old desires;
And many a fagot's bands are cut,
For the old farmers’ Christmas fires;
Where loud-tongued Gladness joins the throng,
And Winter meets the warmth of May,
Till feeling soon the heat too strong,
He rubs his shins, and draws away.

While snows the window-panes bedim,
The fire curls up a sunny charm,
Where, creaming o’er the pitcher’s rim,
The flowering ale is set to warm;
Mirth, full of joy as summer bees,
Sits there, its pleasures to impart,
And children, ’tween their parent’s knees,
Sing scraps of carols o’er by heart.

And some, to view the winter weathers,
Climb up the window-seat with glee,
Likening the snow to falling feathers,
In Fancy’s infant ecstasy;
Laughing, with superstitious love,
O’er visions wild that youth supplies,
Of people pulling geese above,
And keeping Christmas in the skies.

As tho’ the homestead trees were drest,
In lieu of snow, with dancing leaves;
As tho’ the sun-dried martin’s nest,
Instead of i’cles hung the eaves;
The children hail the happy day—
As if the snow were April’s grass,
And pleas’d, as ’neath the warmth of May,
Sport o’er the water froze to glass.

Thou day of happy sound and mirth,
That long with childish memory stays,
How blest around the cottage hearth
I met thee in my younger days!
Harping, with rapture’s dreaming joys,
On presents which thy coming found,
The welcome sight of little toys,
The Christmas gift of cousins round.

The wooden horse with arching head,
Drawn upon wheels around the room;
The gilded coach of gingerbread,
And many-colour’d sugar plum;
Gilt cover’d books for pictures sought,
Or stories childhood loves to tell,
With many an urgent promise bought,
To get to-morrow’s lesson well.

And many a thing, a minute’s sport,
Left broken on the sanded floor,
When we would leave our play, and court
Our parents’ promises for more.
Tho’ manhood bids such raptures die,
And throws such toys aside as vain,
Yet memory loves to turn her eye,
And count past pleasures o’er again.

Around the glowing hearth at night,
The harmless laugh and winter tale
Go round, while parting friends delight
To toast each other o’er their ale;
The cotter oft with quiet zeal
Will musing o’er his Bible lean;
While in the dark the lovers steal
To kiss and toy behind the screen.

Old customs! Oh! I love the sound,
However simple they may be:
Whate’er with time hath sanction found,
Is welcome, and is dear to me.
Pride grows above simplicity,
And spurns them from her haughty mind,
And soon the poet’s song will be
The only refuge they can find.

[freckle]

I am still reading Edna Millay's biography she really was a one off

The Return

Earth does not understand her child,
Who from the loud gregarious town
Returns, depleted and defiled,
To the still woods, to fling him down.

Earth cannot count the sons she bore:
The wounded lynx, the wounded man
Come trailing blood unto her door;
She shelters both as best she can.

But she is early up and out,
To trim the year or strip its bones;
She has no time to stand about
Talking of him in undertones

Who has no aim but to forget
Be left in peace, be lying thus
For days, for years, for centuries yet,
Unshaven and anonymous;

Who, marked for failure, dulled by grief,
Has traded in his wife and friend
For this warm ledge, this alder leaf:
Comfort that does not comprehend.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

lovely Alf...these few lines of millay's have a certain resonance for me at the moment....

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.

[Mossdog]

SIMPLE

A break in the clouds. The blue
outline of the mountains.
Dark yellow of the fields.
Black river. What am I doing here,
lonely and filled with remorse?

I go on casually eating from the bowl
of raspberries. If I were dead,
I remind myself, I wouldn’t
be eating them. It’s not so simple.
It is that simple.

Raymond Carver

[Alf]

The last section of the narrative poem 'Renascence' written by Edna Millay when she was 19.

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.


The full poem has 214 lines so following link attached for that.
http://www.bartleby.com/131/1.html`

[Mossdog]

Stick Your Head in the Copier

Let the light seep into your eye sockets,
your pores. Illuminate your hair
with a flash as bright as Vegas.

And you, the you that is not you, the inverse of you,
will be tacked on every cubicle wall
as a reminder of courage. She took a chance, they'll say.

Stuck her head into the jaws of the great machine.
(It terrifies all of us, its mysterious appetites
and blinking impartations.)

Of course, you may simply be tossed
into the wastebasket, which gorges from nine to five
on a bleached coleslaw of trees.

Or recycled into a romance novel,
teeming with breathless heiresses and dark-eyed suitors,
your cracked lips and shadow hair barely recognizable.

In any case, you'll have felt the light in your veins.
For a moment, you'll have glowed like a saint.

Jessica Goodheart

[Stevie]

Thanks for posting this Mossdog, it is interesting. I like the idea that the copier has a mind and soul of its own. Well there has to be some reason copiers behave so badly!

I loved your Raymond Carver poem too. "It's not so simple. It is that simple."

[Stevie]

The last section of the narrative poem 'Renascence' written by Edna Millay when she was 19.

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.


The full poem has 214 lines so following link attached for that.
http://www.bartleby.com/131/1.html`

I like the the Edna Millay poems you have posted Alf. This section does read as though it was written by a younger poet, there is a kind of innocence in the attempted worldliness that seems to come from attempting to capture grand ideas with simple rhymes.