Poem of the Day

The Comforters
By Dora Sigerson Shorter

When I crept over the hill, broken with tears,
When I crouched down on the grass, dumb in despair,
I heard the soft croon of the wind bend to my ears,
I felt the light kiss of the wind touching my hair.

When I stood lone on the height, my sorrow did speak,
As I went down the hill, I cried and I cried,
The soft little hands of the rain stroking my cheek,
The kind little feet of the rain ran by my side.

When I went to thy grave, broken with tears,
When I crouched down in the grass, dumb in despair,
I heard the soft croon of the wind soft in my ears,
I felt the kind lips of the wind touching my hair.

When I stood lone by thy cross, sorrow did speak,
When I went down the long hill, I cried and I cried,
The soft little hands of the rain stroked my pale cheek,
The kind little feet of the rain ran by my side.

A friend just sent this to me, so here you go…

ABC
By Wislawa Szymborska

I’ll never find out now
What A. thought of me.
If B. ever forgave me in the end.
Why C. pretended everything was fine.
What part D. played in E.’s silence.
What F. had been expecting, if anything.
Why G. forgot when she knew perfectly well.
What H. had to hide.
What I. wanted to add.
If my being around
meant anything
to J. and K. and the rest of the alphabet.

(Translated, from the Polish, by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh.)

I love this poem. My sister and I used to read it to each other, complete with voices.

The Little Boy and the Old Man
By Shel Silverstein

Said the little boy, “Sometimes I drop my spoon.”
Said the old man, “I do that too.”
The little boy whispered, “I wet my pants.”
“I do that too,” laughed the little old man.
Said the little boy, “I often cry.”
The old man nodded, “So do I.”
“But worst of all,” said the boy, “it seems
Grown-ups don’t pay attention to me.”
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
“I know what you mean,” said the little old man.

I really need to get a book of Sara Teasdale’s poetry…

The Answer
By Sara Teasdale

When I go back to earth
And all my joyous body
Puts off the red and white
That once had been so proud,
If men should pass above
With false and feeble pity,
My dust will find a voice
To answer them aloud:

“Be still, I am content,
Take back your poor compassion,
Joy was a flame in me
Too steady to destroy.
Lithe as a bending reed
Loving the storm that sways her—
I found more joy in sorrow
Than you could find in joy.”

One more from Little Women…

In the Garret
FROM LITTLE WOMEN, CHAPTER 46
By Louisa May Alcott

Four little chests all in a row,
Dim with dust, and worn by time,
All fashioned and filled, long ago,
By children now in their prime.
Four little keys hung side by side,
With faded ribbons, brave and gay
When fastened there, with childish pride,
Long ago, on a rainy day.
Four little names, one on each lid,
Carved out by a boyish hand,
And underneath there lieth hid
Histories of the happpy band
Once playing here, and pausing oft
To hear the sweet refrain,
That came and went on the roof aloft,
In the falling summer rain.

Meg on the first lid, smooth and fair.
I look in with loving eyes,
For folded here, with well-known care,
A goodly gathering lies,
The record of a peaceful life
Gifts to gentle child and girl,
A bridal gown, lines to a wife,
A tiny shoe, a baby curl.
No toys in this first chest remain,
For all are carried away,
In their old age, to join again
In another small Meg’s play.
Ah, happy mother! Well I know
You hear, like a sweet refrain,
Lullabies ever soft and low
In the falling summer rain.

Jo on the next lid, scratched and worn,
And within a motley store
Of headless, dolls, of schoolbooks torn,
Birds and beasts that speak no more,
Spoils brought home from the fairy ground
Only trod by youthful feet,
Dreams of a future never found,
Memories of a past still sweet,
Half-writ poems, stories wild,
April letters, warm and cold,
Diaries of a wilful child,
Hints of a woman early old,
A woman in a lonely home,
Hearing, like a sad refrain
Be worthy, love, and love will come,
In the falling summer rain.

My Beth! the dust is always swept
From the lid that bears your name,
As if by loving eyes that wept,
By careful hands that often came.
Death cannonized for us one saint,
Ever less human than divine,
And still we lay, with tender plaint,
Relics in this household shrine
The silver bell, so seldom rung,
The little cap which last she wore,
The fair, dead Catherine that hung
By angels borne above her door.
The songs she sang, without lament,
In her prison-house of pain,
Forever are they sweetly blent
With the falling summer rain.

Upon the last lid’s polished field
Legend now both fair and true
A gallant knight bears on his shield,
Amy in letters gold and blue.
Within lie snoods that bound her hair,
Slippers that have danced their last,
Faded flowers laid by with care,
Fans whose airy toils are past,
Gay valentines, all ardent flames,
Trifles that have borne their part
In girlish hopes and fears and shames,
The record of a maiden heart
Now learning fairer, truer spells,
Hearing, like a blithe refrain,
The silver sound of bridal bells
In the falling summer rain.

Four little chests all in a row,
Dim with dust, and worn by time,
Four women, taught by weal and woe
To love and labor in their prime.
Four sisters, parted for an hour,
None lost, one only gone before,
Made by love’s immortal power,
Nearest and dearest evermore.
Oh, when these hidden stores of ours
Lie open to the Father’s sight,
May they be rich in golden hours,
Deeds that show fairer for the light,
Lives whose brave music long shall ring,
Like a spirit-stirring strain,
Souls that shall gladly soar and sing
In the long sunshine after rain.

We’re going to see Little Women on Broadway today! WHEEEEE!!! I nearly finished the book last night, and bawled my eyes out over this poem.

My Beth
FROM LITTLE WOMEN, CHAPTER 40
By Louisa May Alcott

Sitting patient in the shadow
   Till the blessed light shall come,
A serene and saintly presence
   Sanctifies our troubled home.
Earthly joys and hopes and sorrows
   Break like ripples on the strand
Of the deep and solemn river
   Where her willing feet now stand.

O my sister, passing from me,
   Out of human care and strife,
Leave me, as a gift, those virtues
   Which have beautified your life.
Dear, bequeath me that great patience
   Which has power to sustain
A cheerful, uncomplaining spirit
   In its prison-house of pain.

Give me, for I need it sorely,
   Of that courage, wise and sweet,
Which has made the path of duty
   Green beneath your willing feet.
Give me that unselfish nature,
   That with charity devine
Can pardon wrong for love’s dear sake—
   Meek heart, forgive me mine!

Thus our parting daily loseth
   Something of its bitter pain,
And while learning this hard lesson,
   My great loss becomes my gain.
For the touch of grief will render
   My wild nature more serene,
Give to life new aspirations,
   A new trust in the unseen.

Henceforth, safe across the river,
   I shall see forevermore
A beloved, household spirit
   Waiting for me on the shore.
Hope and faith, born of my sorrow,
   Guardian angels shall become,
And the sister gone before me
   By their hands shall lead me home.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

How far is it to Bethlehem
By Frances Chesterton

How far is it to Bethlehem?
   Not very far.
Shall we find the stable-room
   Lit by a star?

Can we see the little Child,
   Is He within?
If we lift the wooden latch
   May we go in?

May we stroke the creatures there,
   Ox, ass, or sheep?
May we peep like them and see
   Jesus asleep?

If we touch His tiny hand
   Will He awake?
Will He know we’ve come so far
   Just for His sake?

Great Kings have precious gifts,
   And we have naught;
Little smiles and little tears
   Are all we brought.

For all weary children
   Mary must weep,
Here, on His bed of straw,
   Sleep, children, sleep.

God, in His Mother’s arms
   Babes in the byre,
Sleep, as they sleep who find
   Their heart’s desire.

To go with yesterday’s poem…

On the Death of Anne Brontë
By Charlotte Brontë

There’s little joy in life for me,
   And little terror in the grave;
I’ve lived the parting hour to see
   Of one I would have died to save.

Calmly to watch the failing breath,
   Wishing each sigh might be the last;
Longing to see the shade of death
   O’er those beloved features cast;

The cloud, the stillness that must part
   The darling of my life from me;
And then to thank God from my heart,
   To thank Him well and fervently;

Although I knew that we had lost
   The hope and glory of our life;
And now, benighted, tempest-tossed,
   Must bear alone the weary strife.

I’m not sad, but I’m going to post a sad poem anyway. Poor Charlotte…

On the Death of Emily Jane Brontë
By Charlotte Brontë

My darling, thou wilt never know
The grinding agony of woe
   That we have borne for thee.
Thus may we consolation tear
E’en from the depth of our despair
   And wasting misery.

The nightly anguish thou art spared
When all the crushing truth is bared
   To the awakening mind,
When the galled heart is pierced with grief,
Till wildly it implores relief,
   But small relief can find.

Nor know’st thou what it is to lie
Looking forth with streaming eye
   On life’s lone wilderness.
‘Weary, weary, dark and drear,
How shall I the journey bear,
   The burden and distress?’

Then since thou art spared such pain
We will not wish thee here again;
   He that lives must mourn.
God help us through our misery
And give us rest and joy with thee
   When we reach our bourne!

Yep, still sick…

The Widow’s Wooer
By Emma C. Embury

He woos me with those honeyed words
   That women love to hear,
Those gentle flatteries that fall
   So sweet on every ear:
He tells me that my face is fair,
   Too fair for grief to shade;
My cheek, he says, was never meant
   In sorrow’s gloom to fade.

He stands beside me when I sing
   The songs of other days,
And whispers, in love’s thrilling tones,
   The words of heartfelt praise;
And often in my eyes he looks,
   Some answering love to see;
In vain—he there can only read
   The faith of memory.

He little knows what thoughts awake
   With every gentle word;
How, by his looks and tones, the founts
   Of tenderness are stirred:
The visions of my youth return,
   Joys far too bright to last,
And while he speaks of future bliss,
   I think but of the past.

Like lamps in eastern sepulchers,
   Amid my heart’s deep gloom,
Affection sheds its holiest light
   Upon my husband’s tomb:
And as those lamps, if brought once more
   To upper air grow dim,
So my soul’s love is cold and dead,
   Unless it glow for him.

Time for more ESVM! It’s definitely winter here, by the way… still in the single digits!

Alms
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

My heart is what it was before,
A house where people come and go;
But it is winter with your love,
The sashes are beset with snow.

I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
I blow the coals to blaze again;
But it is winter with your love,
The frost is thick upon the pane.

I know a winter when it comes:
The leaves are listless on the boughs;
I watched your love a little while,
And brought my plants into the house.

I water them and turn them south,
I snap the dead brown from the stem;
But it is winter with your love,
I only tend and water them.

There was a time I stood and watched
The small, ill-natured sparrows’ fray;
I loved the beggar that I fed,
I cared for what he had to say,

I stood and watched him out of sight:
Today I reach around the door
And set a bowl upon the step;
My heart is what it was before,

But it is winter with your love;
I scatter crumbs upon the sill,
And close the window,—and the birds
May take or leave them, as they will.

My dearest darling roommate Heather recommended this poem and I love it!

Helen
By H.D.

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

Greece sees, unmoved,
God’s daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.

My first post from frigid NJ…

My Mother’s House
By Eunice Tietjens

“It’s strange,” my mother said, “to think
Of the old house where we were born.
I can remember every chink
And every board our feet had worn.

“It’s gone now. Many years ago
They tore it down. It was too old,
And none too grand as houses go,
Not like a new house, bought or sold.

“And so they tore it down. But we
Could just talk about it still, and say
‘Just so the kitchen used to be,
And the stairs turned in such a way.’

“But we’re gone too now. Everyone
Who knew the house is dead and buried.
And I’ll not last so long alone
With all my children grown and married.

“There’s not a living soul can tell,
Except myself, just how the grass
Grew round the pathway to the well,
Or where the china-closet was.

“Yet while I live you cannot say
That the old house is quite, quite dead.
It still exists in some dim way
While I remember it,” she said.

I’m leaving to catch a plane to NJ in 20 minutes. EEK!

The Heart of a Woman
By Georgia Douglas Johnson

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,
As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,
Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam
In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.

The heart of a woman falls back with the night,
And enters some alien cage in its plight,
And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars
While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.

One of my favorite books is My Antonia by Willa Cather, but I’d never read any of her poetry until I came across this poem. I think I will have to read more of her poetry.

Grandmither, Think Not I Forget
By Willa Cather

Grandmither, think not I forget, when I come back to town,
An’ wander the old ways again, an’ tread them up and down.
I never smell the clover bloom, nor see the swallows pass,
Without I mind how good ye were unto a little lass.
I never hear the winter rain a-pelting all night through,
Without I think and mind me of how cold it falls on you.
And if I come not often to your bed beneath the thyme,
Mayhap ’tis that I’d change wi’ ye, and gie my bed for thine,
      Would like to sleep in thine.

I never hear the summer winds among the roses blow,
Without I wonder why it was ye loved the lassie so.
Ye gave me cakes and lollipops and pretty toys a score,—
I never thought I should come back and ask ye now for more.
Grandmither, gie me your still, white hands, that lie upon your breast,
For mine do beat the dark all night, and never find me rest;
They grope among the shadows, an’ they beat the cold black air,
They go seekin’ in the darkness, an’ they never find him there,
      They never find him there.

Grandmither, gie me your sightless eyes, that I may never see
His own a-burnin’ full o’ love that must not shine for me.
Grandmither, gie me your peaceful lips, white as the kirkyard snow,
For mine be tremblin’ wi’ the wish that he must never know.
Grandmither, gie me your clay-stopped ears, that I may never hear
My lad a-singin’ in the night when I am sick wi’ fear;
A-singin’ when the moonlight over a’ the land is white—
Ah, God! I’ll up an’ go to him a-singin’ in the night,
      A-callin’ in the night.

Grandmither, gie me your clay-cold heart that has forgot to ache,
For mine be fire within my breast and yet it cannot break.
Wi’ every beat it’s callin’ for things that must not be,—
An’ can ye not let me creep in an’ rest awhile by ye?
A little lass afeard o’ dark slept by ye years agone—
Ah, she has found what night can hold ‘twixt sundown an’ the dawn!
So when I plant the rose an’ rue above your grave for ye,
Ye’ll know it’s under rue an’ rose that I would like to be,
      That I would like to be.

I’m not sure why I forgot to post a poem this morning…

Learning to Read
By Frances E. W. Harper

Very soon the Yankee teachers
   Came down and set up school;
But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,—
   It was agin’ their rule.

Our masters always tried to hide
   Book learning from our eyes;
Knowledge didn’t agree with slavery—
   ’Twould make us all too wise.

But some of us would try to steal
   A little from the book,
And put the words together,
   And learn by hook or crook.

I remember Uncle Caldwell,
   Who took pot-liquor fat
And greased the pages of his book,
   And hid it in his hat.

And had his master ever seen
   The leaves up on his head,
He’d have thought them greasy papers,
   But nothing to be read.

And there was Mr. Turner’s Ben,
   Who heard the children spell,
And picked the words right up by heart,
   And learned to read ‘em well.

Well, the Northern folks kept sending
   The Yankee teachers down;
And they stood right up and helped us,
   Though Rebs did sneer and frown.

And, I longed to read my Bible,
   For precious words it said;
But when I begun to learn it,
   Folks just shook their heads,

And said there is no use trying,
   Oh! Chloe, you’re too late;
But as I was rising sixty,
   I had no time to wait.

So I got a pair of glasses,
   And straight to work I went,
And never stopped till I could read
   The hymns and Testament.

Then I got a little cabin
   A place to call my own—
And I felt as independent
   As the queen upon her throne.

Well, I have woken up and miraculously don’t feel like death. I’ll take this as a good sign.

Hope is the Thing with Feathers
By Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Gotta love Dorothy Parker…

One Perfect Rose
By Dorothy Parker

A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet—
One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret;
“My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose.”
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

Still on my deathbed…

Epitaph
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Heap not on this mound
Roses that she loved so well:
Why bewilder her with roses,
That she cannot see or smell?

She is happy where she lies
With the dust upon her eyes.

Most people are only familiar with the end of this poem, but I think the whole thing is fantastic.

The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

I guess I was too ill to post this morning. I’m even more ill now, but this is a distraction from the misery…

Faith and Despondency
By Emily Brontë

“The winter wind is loud and wild,
Come close to me, my darling child;
Forsake thy books, and mateless play;
And, while the night is gathering grey,
We’ll talk its pensive hours away;—

   ”Iernë, round our sheltered hall
November’s gusts unheeded call;
Not one faint breath can enter here
Enough to wave my daughter’s hair,
And I am glad to watch the blaze
Glance from her eyes, with mimic rays;
To feel her cheek so softly pressed,
In happy quiet on my breast.

   ”But, yet, even this tranquillity
Brings bitter, restless thoughts to me;
And, in the red fire’s cheerful glow,
I think of deep glens, blocked with snow;
I dream of moor, and misty hill,
Where evening closes dark and chill;
For, lone, among the mountains cold,
Lie those that I have loved of old.
And my heart aches, in hopeless pain
Exhausted with repinings vain,
That I shall greet them ne’er again!”

   ”Father, in early infancy,
When you were far beyond the sea,
Such thoughts were tyrant over me!
I often sat, for hours together,
Through the long nights of angry weather,
Raised on my pillow, to descry
The dim moon struggling in the sky;
Or, with strained ear, to catch the shock,
Of rock with wave, and wave with rock;
So would I fearful vigil keep,
And, all for listening, never sleep.
But this world’s life has much to dread,
Not so, my Father, with the dead.

   ”Oh! not for them, should we despair,
The grave is drear, but they are not there;
Their dust is mingled with the sod,
Their happy souls are gone to God!
You told me this, and yet you sigh,
And murmur that your friends must die.
Ah! my dear father, tell me why?
For, if your former words were true,
How useless would such sorrow be;
As wise, to mourn the seed which grew
Unnoticed on its parent tree,
Because it fell in fertile earth,
And sprang up to a glorious birth—
Struck deep its root, and lifted high
Its green boughs, in the breezy sky.

   ”But, I’ll not fear, I will not weep
For those whose bodies rest in sleep,—
I know there is a blessed shore,
   Opening its ports for me, and mine;
And, gazing Time’s wide waters o’er,
   I weary for that land divine,
Where we were born, where you and I
Shall meet our Dearest, when we die;
From suffering and corruption free,
Restored into the Deity.”

   ”Well hast thou spoken, sweet, trustful child!
   And wiser than thy sire;
And worldly tempests, raging wild,
   Shall strengthen thy desire—
Thy fervent hope, through storm and foam,
   Through wind and ocean’s roar,
To reach, at last, the eternal home,
   The steadfast, changeless, shore!”

I had to read some of Anne Bradstreet’s poetry for a women’s history class, and I really like this poem.

The Author to Her Book
By Anne Bradstreet

Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did’st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad expos’d to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call.
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight,
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet.
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i’ th’ house I find.
In this array, ‘mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam.
In Critics’ hands, beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known.
If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none;
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caus’d her thus to send thee out of door.

This poem has some great images and it really jumped out at me when I read it.

The Letter
By Amy Lowell

Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper
Like draggled fly’s legs,
What can you tell of the flaring moon
Through the oak leaves?
Of or my uncurtained window and the bare floor
Spattered with moonlight?
Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them
Of blossoming hawthorns,
And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness
Beneath my hand.

I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire
Of the great moon.

I need to read more of Emerson’s poetry…

Emerson
By Mary Mapes Dodge

We took it to the woods, we two,
   The book well worn and brown,
To read his words where stirring leaves
   Rained their soft shadows down.

Yet as we sat and breathed the scene,
   We opened not a page;
Enough that he was with us there,
   Our silent, friendly sage!

His fresh “Rhodora” bloomed again;
   His “Humble-bee” buzzed near;
And oh, the “Wood-notes” beautiful
   He taught our souls to hear.

So our unopened book was read;
   And so, in restful mood,
We and our poet, arm in arm,
   Went sauntering through the wood.

I really need to read more of Elinor Wylie’s poetry…

Pretty Words
By Elinor Wylie

Poets make pets of pretty, docile words:
I love smooth words, like gold-enamelled fish
Which circle slowly with a silken swish,
And tender ones, like downy-feathered birds:
Words shy and dappled, deep-eyed deer in herds,
Come to my hand, and playful if I wish,
Or purring softly at a silver dish,
Blue Persian kittens fed on cream and curds.

I love bright words, words up and singing early;
Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing;
Warm lazy words, white cattle under trees;
I love words opalescent, cool, and pearly,
Like midsummer moths, and honied words like bees,
Gilded and sticky, with a little sting.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been listening to pirate music, but I’m on a nautical kick at the moment…

The Bell of the Wreck
By Lydia Huntley Sigourney

Toll!—Toll!—Toll!
   Thou bell by billows swung,
And night and day thy warning lore
   Repeat with mournful tongue:
Toll for the queenly boat,
   Wrecked on yon rocky shore;
Sea-weed is in her palace halls,
   She rides the surge no more.

Toll for the master bold,
   The high-souled and the brave,
Who ruled her like a thing of life
   Amid the crested wave;
Toll for the hardy crew,
   Sons of the storm and blast,
Who long the tyrant Ocean dared—
   It vanquished them at last.

Toll for the man of God,
   Whose hallowed voice of prayer
Rose calm above the gathered groan
   Of that intense despair,—
How precious were those tones
   On the sad verge of life,
Amid the fierce and freezing storm,
   And the mountain-billows’ strife!

Toll for the lover lost
   To the gay bridal train—
Bright glows a picture on his breast,
   Beneath the unfathomed main;—
One from her casement bendeth
   Long, o’er the misty sea,—
He cometh not—pale maiden—
   His heart is cold to thee.

Toll for the absent sire,
   Who to his home drew near
To bless that glad expecting group—
   Fond wife, and children dear.
They heap the blazing hearth,
   The festal board is spread,
But a fearful guest is at the gate,—
   Room for the sheeted dead!

Toll for the loved and fair,
   The whelmed beneath the tide,
The broken harps, around whose strings
   The dull sea-monsters glide.
Mother, and nursling sweet
   Reft from the household throng,
There’s bitter weeping in the nest
   Where breathed their soul of song.

Toll for the hearts that bleed,
   ’Neath misery’s furrowed trace,
For the lone, hapless orphan, left
   The last of all his race.
Yea, with thine heaviest knell,
   From surge to echoing shore,
Toll for the living—not the dead
   Whose mortal woes are o’er.

Toll! Toll!—Toll
   O’er the breeze and billow free,
And with thy startling voice instruct
   Each rover of the sea;
Tell how o’er proudest joys
   May swift destruction sweep,
And bid him build his hopes on high,
   Lone teacher of the deep.

Time for more Brontë!

Appeal
By Anne Brontë

Oh, I am very weary,
Though tears no longer flow;
My eyes are tired of weeping,
My heart is sick of woe;

My life is very lonely
My days pass heavily,
I’m weary of repining;
Wilt thou not come to me?

Oh, didst thou know my longings
For thee, from day to day,
My hopes, so often blighted,
Thou wouldst not thus delay!

I can’t imagine feeling this way, but I really love this poem.

The Solitary
By Sara Teasdale

My heart has grown rich with the passing of years,
   I have less need now than when I was young
To share myself with every comer
   Or shape my thoughts into words with my tongue.

It is one to me that they come or go
   If I have myself and the drive of my will,
And strength to climb on a summer night
   And watch the stars swarm over the hill.

Let them think I love them more than I do,
   Let them think I care, though I go alone;
If it lifts their pride, what is it to me
   Who am self-complete as a flower or a stone.

This is another poem I found in the women’s poetry anthology. I like it a lot.

Virtuosa
By Mary Ashley Townsend

As by the instrument she took her place,
The expectant people, breathing sigh nor word,
Sat hushed, while o’er the waiting ivory stirred
Her supple hands with their suggestive grace.
With sweet notes they began to interlace,
And then with lofty strains their skill to gird,
Then loftier still, till all the echoes heard
Entrancing harmonies float into space.
She paused, and gaily trifled with the keys
Until they laughed in wild delirium,
Then, with rebuking fingers, from their glees
She led them one by one till all grew dumb,
And music seemed to sink upon its knees,
A slave her touch could quicken or benumb.

I started buying Christmas presents last night (finally!).

Gifts
By Emma Lazarus

“O World-God, give me Wealth!” the Egyptian cried.
His prayer was granted. High as heaven, behold
Palace and Pyramid; the brimming tide
Of lavish Nile washed all his land with gold.
Armies of slaves toiled ant-wise at his feet,
World-circling traffic roared through mart and street,
His priests were gods, his spice-balmed kings enshrined
Set death at naught in rock-ribbed charnels deep.
Seek Pharaoh’s race today and ye shall find
Rust and the moth, silence and dusty sheep.

“O World-God, give me Beauty!” cried the Greek.
His prayer was granted. All the earth became
Plastic and vocal to his sense; each peak,
Each grove, each stream, quick with Promethean flame
Peopled the world with imaged grace and light.
The lyre was his, and his the breathing might
Of the immortal marble, his the play
of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue.
Go seek the sun-shine race, ye find today
A broken column and a lute unstrung.

“O World-God, give me Power!” the Roman cried.
His prayer was granted. The vast world was chained
A captive to the chariot of his pride.
The blood of myriad provinces was drained
To feed that fierce, insatiable red heart.
Invulnerably bulwarked every part
With serried legions and with close-meshed code,
Within, the burrowing worm has gnawed its home
A roofless ruin stands where once abode
The imperial race of everlasting Rome.

“O Godhead, give me Truth!” the Hebrew cried.
His prayer was granted; he became the slave
Of the Idea, a pilgrim far and wide,
Cursed, hated, spurned, and scourged with none to save.
The Pharaohs knew him, and when Greece beheld
His wisdom wore the hoary crown of Eld.
Beauty he hath forsworn, and wealth and power.
Seek him today, and find in every land.
No fire consumes him, neither floods devour;
Immortal through the lamp within his hand.

I haven’t posted an ESVM in a while…

An Ancient Gesture
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can’t keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don’t know where, for years.
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.

And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture,—a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope…
Penelope, who really cried.