Poem of the Day

Today’s selection is another poem from Ted Kooser’s website.

To Play Pianissimo
Lola Haskins

Does not mean silence.
The absence of moon in the day sky
for example.

Does not mean barely to speak,
the way a child’s whisper
makes only warm air
on his mother’s right ear.

To play pianissimo
is to carry sweet words
to the old woman in the last dark row
who cannot hear anything else,
and to lay them across her lap like a shawl.

I see it’s time for another ESVM poem. See if you can guess what this one makes me think of.

The Betrothal
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

Oh, come, my lad, or go, my lad,
And love me if you like.
I shall not hear the door shut
Nor the knocker strike.

Oh, bring me gifts or beg me gifts,
And wed me if you will.
I’d make a man a good wife,
Sensible and still.

And why should I be cold, my lad,
And why should you repine,
Because I love a dark head
That never will be mine?

I might as well be easing you
As lie alone in bed
And waste the night in wanting
A cruel dark head.

You might as well be calling yours
What never will be his,
And one of us be happy.
There’s few enough as is.

One more from Jane Eyre.

From Jane Eyre
CHAPTER III
By Charlotte Brontë

My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary;
Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;
Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary
Over the path of the poor orphan child.

Why did they send me so far and so lonely,
Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled?
Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only
Watch o’er the steps of a poor orphan child.

Yet distant and soft the night-breeze is blowing,
Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild,
God, in His mercy, protection is showing,
Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.

Ev’n should I fall o’er the broken bridge passing,
Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled,
Still will my Father, with promise and blessing,
Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.

There is a thought that for strength should avail me,
Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled;
Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me;
God is a friend to the poor orphan child.

I finished Jane Eyre this morning and thought I’d post this because Jane read it, after St. John (FIE!) gave it to her.

Marmion
CANTO I
By Sir Walter Scott

I.

THE CASTLE

Day set on Norham’s castled steep,
And Tweed’s fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot’s mountains lone;
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loophole grates where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow lustre shone.
The warriors on the turrets high,
Moving athwart the evening sky,
Seemed forms of giant height;
Their armor, as it caught the rays,
Flashed back again the western blaze,
In lines of dazzling light.

II.

Saint George’s banner, broad and gay,
Now faded, as the fading ray
Less bright, and less, was flung;
The evening gale had scarce the power
To wave it on the donjon tower,
So heavily it hung.
The scouts had parted on their search,
The castle gates were barred;
Above the gloomy portal arch,
Timing his footsteps to a march,
The warder kept his guard,
Low humming, as he paced along,
Some ancient Border gathering song.

III.

A distant trampling sound he hears;
He looks abroad, and soon appears,
O’er Horncliff-hill, a plump of spears
Beneath a pennon gay;
A horseman, darting from the crowd
Like lightning from a summer cloud,
Spurs on his mettled courser proud,
Before the dark array.
Beneath the sable palisade
That closed the castle barricade,
His bugle-horn he blew;
The warder hasted from the wall,
And warned the captain in the hall,
For well the blast he knew;
And joyfully that knight did call
To sewer, squire, and seneschal.

IV.

‘Now broach ye a pipe of Malvoisie,
Bring pasties of the doe,
And quickly make the entrance free,
And bid my heralds ready be,—
And every minstrel sound his glee,
And all our trumpets blow;
And, from the platform, spare ye not
To fire a noble salvo-shot;
Lord Marmion waits below!’
Then to the castle’s lower ward
Sped forty yeomen tall,
The iron-studded gates unbarred,
Raised the portcullis’ ponderous guard,
The lofty palisade unsparred,
And let the drawbridge fall.

V.

Along the bridge Lord Marmion rode,
Proudly his red-roan charger trode,
His helm hung at the saddle bow;
Well by his visage you might know
He was a stalworth knight and keen,
And had in many a battle been;
The scar on his brown cheek revealed
A token true of Bosworth field;
His eyebrow dark and eye of fire
Showed spirit proud and prompt to ire,
Yet lines of thought upon his cheek
Did deep design and counsel speak.
His forehead, by his casque worn bare,
His thick moustache and curly hair,
Coal-black, and grizzled here and there,
But more through toil than age,
His square-turned joints and strength of limb,
Showed him no carpet knight so trim,
But in close fight a champion grim,
In camps a leader sage.

VI.

Well was he armed from head to heel,
In mail and plate of Milan steel;
But his strong helm, of mighty cost,
Was all with burnished gold embossed.
Amid the plumage of the crest
A falcon hovered on her nest,
With wings outspread and forward breast;
E’en such a falcon, on his shield,
Soared sable in an azure field:
The golden legend bore aright,
‘Who checks at me, to death is dight.’
Blue was the charger’s broidered rein;
Blue ribbons decked his arching mane;
The knightly housing’s ample fold
Was velvet blue and trapped with gold.

VII.

Behind him rode two gallant squires,
Of noble name and knightly sires:
They burned the gilded spurs to claim,
For well could each a war-horse tame,
Could draw the bow, the sword could sway,
And lightly bear the ring away;
Nor less with courteous precepts stored,
Could dance in hall, and carve at board,
And frame love-ditties passing rare,
And sing them to a lady fair.

VIII.

Four men-at-arms came at their backs,
With halbert, bill, and battle-axe;
They bore Lord Marmion’s lance so strong,
And led his sumpter-mules along,
And ambling palfrey, when at need
Him listed ease his battle-steed.
The last and trustiest of the four
On high his forky pennon bore;
Like swallow’s tail in shape and hue,
Fluttered the streamer glossy blue,
Where, blazoned sable, as before,
The towering falcon seemed to soar.
Last, twenty yeomen, two and two,
In hosen black and jerkins blue,
With falcons broidered on each breast,
Attended on their lord’s behest.
Each, chosen for an archer good,
Knew hunting-craft by lake or wood;
Each one a six-foot bow could bend,
And far a cloth-yard shaft could send;
Each held a boar-spear tough and strong,
And at their belts their quivers rung.
Their dusty palfreys and array
Showed they had marched a weary way.

IX.

‘T is meet that I should tell you now,
How fairly armed, and ordered how,
The soldiers of the guard,
With musket, pike, and morion,
To welcome noble Marmion,
Stood in the castle-yard;
Minstrels and trumpeters were there,
The gunner held his linstock yare,
For welcome-shot prepared:
Entered the train, and such a clang
As then through all his turrets rang
Old Norham never heard.

X.

The guards their morrice-pikes advanced,
The trumpets flourished brave,
The cannon from the ramparts glanced,
And thundering welcome gave.
A blithe salute, in martial sort,
The minstrels well might sound,
For, as Lord Marmion crossed the court,
He scattered angels round.
‘Welcome to Norham, Marmion!
Stout heart and open hand!
Well dost thou brook thy gallant roan,
Thou flower of English land!’

XI.

Two pursuivants, whom tabards deck,
With silver scutcheon round their neck,
Stood on the steps of stone
By which you reach the donjon gate,
And there, with herald pomp and state,
They hailed Lord Marmion:
They hailed him Lord of Fontenaye,
Of Lutterward, and Scrivelbaye,
Of Tamworth tower and town;
And he, their courtesy to requite,
Gave them a chain of twelve marks’ weight,
All as he lighted down.
‘Now, largesse, largesse, Lord Marmion,
Knight of the crest of gold!
A blazoned shield, in battle won,
Ne’er guarded heart so bold.’

XII.

They marshalled him to the castle-hall,
Where the guests stood all aside,
And loudly flourished the trumpet-call,
And the heralds loudly cried,—
‘Room, lordlings, room for Lord Marmion,
With the crest and helm of gold!
Full well we know the trophies won
In the lists at Cottiswold:
There, vainly Ralph de Wilton strove
‘Gainst Marmion’s force to stand;
To him he lost his lady-love,
And to the king his land.
Ourselves beheld the listed field,
A sight both sad and fair;
We saw Lord Marmion pierce his shield,
And saw his saddle bare;
We saw the victor win the crest
He wears with worthy pride,
And on the gibbet-tree, reversed,
His foeman’s scutcheon tied.
Place, nobles, for the Falcon-Knight!
Room, room, ye gentles gay,
For him who conquered in the right,
Marmion of Fontenaye!’

XIII.

Then stepped, to meet that noble lord,
Sir Hugh the Heron bold,
Baron of Twisell and of Ford,
And Captain of the Hold;
He led Lord Marmion to the deas,
Raised o’er the pavement high,
And placed him in the upper place—
They feasted full and high:
The whiles a Northern harper rude
Chanted a rhyme of deadly feud,
‘How the fierce Thirwalls, and Ridleys all,
Stout Willimondswick,
And Hardriding Dick,
And Hughie of Hawdon, and Will o’ the Wall,
Have set on Sir Albany Featherstonhaugh,
And taken his life at the Deadman’s-shaw.’
Scantly Lord Marmion’s ear could brook
The harper’s barbarous lay,
Yet much he praised the pains he took,
And well those pains did pay;
For lady’s suit and minstrel’s strain
By knight should ne’er be heard in vain.

XIV.

‘Now, good Lord Marmion,’ Heron says,
‘Of your fair courtesy,
I pray you bide some little space
In this poor tower with me.
Here may you keep your arms from rust,
May breathe your war-horse well;
Seldom hath passed a week but joust
Or feat of arms befell.
The Scots can rein a mettled steed,
And love to couch a spear;—
Saint George! a stirring life they lead
That have such neighbors near!
Then stay with us a little space,
Our Northern wars to learn;
I pray you for your lady’s grace!’
Lord Marmion’s brow grew stern.

XV.

The captain marked his altered look,
And gave the squire the sign;
A mighty wassail-bowl he took,
And crowned it high with wine.
‘Now pledge me here, Lord Marmion;
But first I pray thee fair,
Where hast thou left that page of thine
That used to serve thy cup of wine,
Whose beauty was so rare?
When last in Raby-towers we met,
The boy I closely eyed,
And often marked his cheeks were wet—
With tears he fain would hide.
His was no rugged horse-boy’s hand,
To burnish shield or sharpen brand,
Or saddle battle-steed,
But meeter seemed for lady fair,
To fan her cheek, or curl her hair,
Or through embroidery, rich and rare,
The slender silk to lead;
His skin was fair, his ringlets gold,
His bosom—when he sighed,
The russet doublet’s rugged fold
Could scarce repel its pride!
Say, hast thou given that lovely youth
To serve in lady’s bower?
Or was the gentle page, in sooth,
A gentle paramour?’

XVI.

Lord Marmion ill could brook such jest;
He rolled his kindling eye,
With pain his rising wrath suppressed,
Yet made a calm reply:
‘That boy thou thought so goodly fair,
He might not brook the Northern air.
More of his fate if thou wouldst learn,
I left him sick in Lindisfarne.
Enough of him.—But, Heron, say,
Why does thy lovely lady gay
Disdain to grace the hall to-day?
Or has that dame, so fair and sage,
Gone on some pious pilgrimage?’—
He spoke in covert scorn, for fame
Whispered light tales of Heron’s dame.

XVII.

Unmarked, at least unrecked, the taunt,
Careless the knight replied:
‘No bird whose feathers gayly flaunt
Delights in cage to bide;
Norham is grim and grated close,
Hemmed in by battlement and fosse,
And many a darksome tower,
And better loves my lady bright
To sit in liberty and light
In fair Queen Margaret’s bower.
We hold our greyhound in our hand,
Our falcon on our glove,
But where shall we find leash or band
For dame that loves to rove?
Let the wild falcon soar her swing,
She’ll stoop when she has tired her wing.’—

XVIII.

‘Nay, if with Royal James’s bride
The lovely Lady Heron bide,
Behold me here a messenger,
Your tender greetings prompt to bear;
For, to the Scottish court addressed,
I journey at our king’s behest,
And pray you, of your grace, provide
For me and mine a trusty guide.
I have not ridden in Scotland since
James backed the cause of that mock prince,
Warbeck, that Flemish counterfeit,
Who on the gibbet paid the cheat.
Then did I march with Surrey’s power,
What time we razed old Ayton tower.’—

XIX.

‘For such-like need, my lord, I trow,
Norham can find you guides enow;
For here be some have pricked as far
On Scottish ground as to Dunbar,
Have drunk the monks of Saint Bothan’s ale,
And driven the beeves of Lauderdale,
Harried the wives of Greenlaw’s goods,
And given them light to set their hoods.’—

XX.

‘Now, in good sooth,’ Lord Marmion cried,
‘Were I in warlike wise to ride,
A better guard I would not lack
Than your stout forayers at my hack;
But as in form of peace I go,
A friendly messenger, to know,
Why, through all Scotland, near and far,
Their king is mustering troops for war,
The sight of plundering Border spears
Might justify suspicious fears,
And deadly feud or thirst of spoil
Break out in some unseemly broil.
A herald were my fitting guide;
Or friar, sworn in peace to bide;
Or pardoner, or travelling priest,
Or strolling pilgrim, at the least.’

XXI.

The captain mused a little space,
And passed his hand across his face.—
‘Fain would I find the guide you want,
But ill may spare a pursuivant,
The only men that safe can ride
Mine errands on the Scottish side:
And though a bishop built this fort,
Few holy brethren here resort;
Even our good chaplain, as I ween,
Since our last siege we have not seen.
The mass he might not sing or say
Upon one stinted meal a-day;
So, safe he sat in Durham aisle,
And prayed for our success the while.
Our Norham vicar, woe betide,
Is all too well in case to ride;
The priest of Shoreswood—he could rein
The wildest war-horse in your train,
But then no spearman in the hall
Will sooner swear, or stab, or brawl.
Friar John of Tillmouth were the man;
A blithesome brother at the can,
A welcome guest in hall and bower,
He knows each castle, town, and tower,
In which the wine and ale is good,
‘Twixt Newcastle and Holy-Rood.
But that good man, as ill befalls,
Hath seldom left our castle walls,
Since, on the vigil of Saint Bede,
In evil hour he crossed the Tweed,
To teach Dame Alison her creed.
Old Bughtrig found him with his wife,
And John, an enemy to strife,
Sans frock and hood, fled for his life.
The jealous churl hath deeply swore
That, if again he venture o’er,
He shall shrieve penitent no more.
Little he loves such risks, I know,
Yet in your guard perchance will go.’

XXII.

Young Selby, at the fair hall-board,
Carved to his uncle and that lord,
And reverently took up the word:
‘Kind uncle, woe were we each one,
If harm should hap to brother John.
He is a man of mirthful speech,
Can many a game and gambol teach;
Full well at tables can he play,
And sweep at bowls the stake away.
None can a lustier carol bawl,
The needfullest among us all,
When time hangs heavy in the hall,
And snow comes thick at Christmas tide,
And we can neither hunt nor ride
A foray on the Scottish side.
The vowed revenge of Bughtrig rude
May end in worse than loss of hood.
Let Friar John in safety still
In chimney-corner snore his fill,
Roast hissing crabs, or flagons swill;
Last night, to Norham there came one
Will better guide Lord Marmion.’—
‘Nephew,’ quoth Heron, ‘by my fay,
Well hast thou spoke; say forth thy say.’—

XXIII.

‘Here is a holy Palmer come,
From Salem first, and last from Rome;
One that hath kissed the blessed tomb,
And visited each holy shrine
In Araby and Palestine;
On hills of Armenie hath been,
Where Noah’s ark may yet be seen;
By that Red Sea, too, hath he trod,
Which parted at the Prophet’s rod;
In Sinai’s wilderness he saw
The Mount where Israel heard the law,
Mid thunder-dint, and flashing levin,
And shadows, mists, and darkness, given.
He shows Saint James’s cockle-shell,
Of fair Montserrat, too, can tell;
And of that Grot where Olives nod,
Where, darling of each heart and eye,
From all the youth of Sicily,
Saint Rosalie retired to God.

XXIV.

‘To stout Saint George of Norwich merry,
Saint Thomas, too, of Canterbury,
Cuthbert of Durham and Saint Bede,
For his sins’ pardon hath he prayed.
He knows the passes of the North,
And seeks far shrines beyond the Forth;
Little he eats, and long will wake,
And drinks but of the stream or lake.
This were a guide o’er moor and dale;
But when our John hath quaffed his ale,
As little as the wind that blows,
And warms itself against his nose,
Kens he, or cares, which way he goes.’—

XXV.

‘Gramercy!’ quoth Lord Marmion,’
Full loath were I that Friar John.
That venerable man, for me
Were placed in fear or jeopardy:
If this same Palmer will me lead
From hence to Holy-Rood,
Like his good saint, I’ll pay his meed,
Instead of cockle-shell or bead,
With angels fair and good.
I love such holy ramblers; still
They know to charm a weary hill
With song, romance, or lay:
Some jovial tale, or glee, or jest,
Some lying legend, at the least,
They bring to cheer the Way.’—

XXVI.

‘Ah! noble sir,’ young Selby said,
And finger on his lip he laid,
‘This man knows much, perchance e’en more
Than he could learn by holy lore.
Still to himself he’s muttering,
And shrinks as at some unseen thing.
Last night we listened at his cell;
Strange sounds we heard, and, sooth to tell,
He murmured on till morn, howe’er
No living mortal could be near.
Sometimes I thought I heard it plain,
As other voices spoke again.
I cannot tell—I like it not—
Friar John hath told us it is wrote,
No conscience clear and void of wrong
Can rest awake and pray so long.
Himself still sleeps before his beads
Have marked ten aves and two creeds.’—

XXVII.

‘Let pass,’ quoth Marmion; ‘by my fay,
This man shall guide me on my way,
Although the great arch-fiend and he
Had sworn themselves of company.
So please you, gentle youth, to call
This Palmer to the castle-hall.’
The summoned Palmer came in place:
His sable cowl o’erhung his face;
In his black mantle was he clad,
With Peter’s keys, in cloth of red,
On his broad shoulders wrought;
The scallop shell his cap did deck;
The crucifix around his neck
Was from Loretto brought;
His sandals were with travel tore,
Staff, budget, bottle, scrip, he wore;
The faded palm-branch in his hand
Showed pilgrim from the Holy Land.

XXVIII.

Whenas the Palmer came in hall,
Nor lord nor knight was there more tall,
Or had a statelier step withal,
Or looked more high and keen;
For no saluting did he wait,
But strode across the hall of state,
And fronted Marmion where he sate,
As he his peer had been.
But his gaunt frame was worn with toil;
His cheek was sunk, alas the while!
And when he struggled at a smile
His eye looked haggard wild:
Poor wretch, the mother that him bare,
If she had been in presence there,
In his wan face and sunburnt hair
She had not known her child.
Danger, long travel, want, or woe,
Soon change the form that best we know—
For deadly fear can time outgo,
And blanch at once the hair;
Hard toil can roughen form and face,
And want can quench the eye’s bright grace,
Nor does old age a wrinkle trace
More deeply than despair.
Happy whom none of these befall,
But this poor Palmer knew them all.

XXIX.

Lord Marmion then his boon did ask;
The Palmer took on him the task,
So he would march with morning tide,
To Scottish court to be his guide.
‘But I have solemn vows to pay,
And may not linger by the way,
To fair Saint Andrew’s bound,
Within the ocean-cave to pray,
Where good Saint Rule his holy lay,
From midnight to the dawn of day,
Sung to the billows’ sound;
Thence to Saint Fillan’s blessed well,
Whose spring can frenzied dreams dispel,
And the crazed brain restore.
Saint Mary grant that cave or spring
Could back to peace my bosom bring,
Or bid it throb no more!’

XXX.

And now the midnight draught of sleep,
Where wine and spices richly steep,
In massive bowl of silver deep,
The page presents on knee.
Lord Marmion drank a fair good rest,
The captain pledged his noble guest,
The cup went through among the rest,
Who drained it merrily;
Alone the Palmer passed it by,
Though Selby pressed him courteously.
This was a sign the feast was o’er;
It hushed the merry wassail roar,
The minstrels ceased to sound.
Soon in the castle nought was heard
But the slow footstep of the guard
Pacing his sober round.

XXXI.

With early dawn Lord Marmion rose:
And first the chapel doors unclose;
Then, after morning rites were done—
A hasty mass from Friar John—
And knight and squire had broke their fast
On rich substantial repast,
Lord Marmion’s bugles blew to horse.
Then came the stirrup-cup in course:
Between the baron and his host,
No point of courtesy was lost;
High thanks were by Lord Marmion paid,
Solemn excuse the captain made,
Till, filing from the gate, had passed
That noble train, their lord the last.
Then loudly rung the trumpet call;
Thundered the cannon from the wall,
And shook the Scottish shore;
Around the castle eddied slow
Volumes of smoke as white as snow
And hid its turrets hoar,
Till they rolled forth upon the air,
And met the river breezes there,
Which gave again the prospect fair.

I’m still reading Jane Eyre and loving it (all over again)!

From Jane Eyre
CHAPTER XXIV
By Charlotte Brontë

The truest love that ever heart
   Felt at its kindled core
Did through each vein, in quickened start,
   The tide of being pour.

Her coming was my hope each day,
   Her parting was my pain;
The chance that did her steps delay
   Was ice in every vein.

I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,
   As I loved, loved to be;
And to this object did I press
   As blind as eagerly.

But wide as pathless was the space
   That lay, our lives, between,
And dangerous as the foamy race
   Of ocean-surges green.

And haunted as a robber path
   Through wilderness or wood;
For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,
   Between our spirits stood.

I dangers dared; I hind’rance scorned;
   I omens did defy:
Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,
   I passed impetuous by.

On sped my rainbow, fast as light;
   I flew as in a dream;
For glorious rose upon my sight
   That child of Shower and Gleam.

Still bright on clouds of suffering dim
   Shines that soft, solemn joy;
Nor care I now, how dense and grim
   Disasters gather nigh.

I care not in this moment sweet,
   Though all I have rushed o’er
Should come on pinion, strong and fleet,
   Proclaiming vengeance sore:

Though haughty Hate should strike me down,
   Right, bar approach to me,
And grinding Might, with furious frown,
   Swear endless enmity.

My love has placed her little hand
   With noble faith in mine,
And vowed that wedlock’s sacred band
   Our nature shall entwine.

My love has sworn, with sealing kiss,
   With me to live—to die;
I have at last my nameless bliss.
   As I love—loved am I!

I love the last sentence of this one!

Anti-Father
By Rita Dove

Contrary to
tales you told us

summer nights when
the air conditioner

broke—the stars
are not far

apart. Rather
they draw

closer together
with years.

And houses
shrivel, un-lost,

and porches sag;
neighbors phone

to report cracks
in the cellar floor,

roots of the willow
coming up. Stars

speak to a child.
The past

is silent….
Just between

me and you,
woman to man,

outer space is
inconceivably

intimate.

Stephen Crane seems to write a lot of short, yet poignant poems.

I explain the silvered passing of a ship at night
By Stephen Crane

I explain the silvered passing of a ship at night,
The sweep of each sad lost wave,
The dwindling boom of the steel thing’s striving,
The little cry of a man to a man,
A shadow falling across the greyer night,
And the sinking of the small star;
Then the waste, the far waste of waters,
And the soft lashing of black waves
For long and in loneliness.

Remember, thou, O ship of love,
Thou leavest a far waste of waters,
And the soft lashing of black waves
For long and in loneliness.

Here’s one from Maya Angelou.

Just for a Time
By Maya Angelou

Oh how you used to walk
With that insouciant smile
I liked to hear you talk
And your style
Pleased me for a while.

You were my early love
New as a day breaking in Spring
You were the image of
Everything
That caused me to sing.

I don’t like reminiscing
Nostalgia is not my forte
I don’t spill tears
On yesterday’s years
But honesty makes me say,
You were a precious pearl
How I loved to see you shine,
You were the perfect girl.
And you were mine.
For a time.
For a time.
Just for a time.

This one’s from Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems.

First Love
By John Clare

I ne’er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale.
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked, what could I ail?
My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away,
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start—
They spoke as chords do from the string,
And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter’s choice?
Is love’s bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice,
And love’s appeal to know.
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before.
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more.

I’ve been dying to have this poem since Thanksgiving, when Monte read it! Thanks to Cheryl for sending it along!

God Says Yes To Me
By Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I’m telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

Today’s poem was suggested by a reader.

Necromancy
AFTER THE PROSE OF BAUDELAIRE
By Alfred Noyes

This necromantic palace, dim and rich,
Dim as a dream, rich as a reverie,
I knew it all of old, surely I knew
This floating twilight tinged with rose and blue,
This moon-soft carven niche
Whence the calm marble, wan as memory,
Slopes to the wine-brimmed bath of cold dark fire
Perfumed with old regret and dead desire.

There the soul, slumbering in the purple waves
Of indolence, dreams of the phantom years,
Dreams of the wild sweet flower of red young lips
Meeting and murmuring in the dark eclipse
Of joy, where pain still craves
One tear of love to mingle with their tears,
One passionate welcome ere the wild farewell,
One flash of heaven across the fires of hell.

* * * * * * *

Queen of my dreams, queen of my pitiless dreams,
Dim idol, moulded of the wild white rose,
Coiled like a panther in that silken gloom
Of scented cushions, where the rich hushed room
Breaks into soft warm gleams,
As from her slumbrous clouds Queen Venus glows,
Slowly thine arms up-lift to me, thine eyes
Meet mine, without communion or surmise.

Here, at thy feet, I watched, I watched all day
Night floated in thine eyes, then with my hands
Covered my face from that dumb cry of pain:
And when at last I dared to look again
My heart was far away,
Wrapt in the fragrant gloom of Eastern lands,
Under the flower-white stars of tropic skies
Where soft black floating flowers turned to…thine eyes.

I breathe, I breathe the perfume of thine hair:
Bury in thy deep hair my fevered face,
Till as to men athirst in desert dreams
The savour and colour and sound of cool dark streams
Float round me everywhere,
And memories float from some forgotten place,
Fulfilling hopeless eyes with hopeless tears
And fleeting light of unforgotten years.

Dim clouds of music in the dim rich hours
Float to me thro’ the twilight of thine hair,
And sails like blossoms float o’er purple seas,
And under dark green skies the soft warm breeze
Washes dark fruit, dark flowers,
Dark tropic maidens in some island lair
Crouched on the warm sand nigh the creaming foam
To dream and sing their tawny lovers home.

Lost in the magic ocean of thine hair
I find the haven of the heart of song:
There tired ships rest against the pale red sky!
And yet again there comes a thin sad cry
And all the shining air
Fades, where the tall dark singing seamen throng
From many generations, many climes,
Fades, fades, as it has faded many times.

I hear the sweet cool whispering of the waves!
Drowned in the slumbrous billows of thine hair,
I dream as one that sinks thro’ passionate hours
In a strange ship’s wild fraughtage of dark flowers
Culled for pale poets’ graves;
And opiate odours load the empurpled air
That flows and droops, a dark resplendent pall
under the floating wreaths funereal.

Under the heavy midnight of thine hair
An alter flames with spices of the south
Burning my flesh and spirit in the flame;
Till, looking tow’rds the land from whence I came
I find no comfort there,
And all the darkness to my thirsty mouth
Is fire, but always and in every place
Blossoms the secret wonder of thy face.

* * * * * * *

The walls, the very walls are woven of dreams,
All undefined by blasphemies of art!
Here, pure from finite hues the very night
Conceives the mystic harmonies of light,
Delicious glooms and gleams;
And sorrow falls in rose-leaves on the heart,
And pain that yearns upon the passing hour
Is but a perfume haunting a dead flower.

Hark, as a hammer on a coffin falls
A knock upon the door! the colours wane,
The dreams vanish! And leave that foul white scar,
Tattoo’d with the dreadful marks, the old calendar
Blotching the blistered walls!
The winter whistles thro’ a shivered pane,
And scatters on the bare boards at my feet
These poor soiled manuscripts, torn, incomplete…

The scent of opium floats about my breath;
But Time resumes his dark and hideous reign;
And, with him, hideous memories troop, I know.
Hark, how the battered clock ticks, to and fro,—
Life, Death—Life, Death—Life, Death—
O fool to cry! O slave to bow to pain,
Coward to live thus tortured with desire
By demon nerves in hells of sensual fire.

I think I found this one during our poetry extravaganza at Thanksgiving, but I can’t be sure. At any rate, I really like it!

Ars Poetica
By Archibald MacLeish

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean
But be.

I’m reading a book for my book club (that I’m not enjoying) which quoted The Raven, but since I already posted that, I’m going with something by Yeats, since he was quoted in Equilibrium, which I watched the other night. This was the quoted poem, but today’s selection was recommended by a reader.

The Second Coming
By William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Vassar Miller can write some really depressing stuff, but it’s so real and seems so honest that I’m really drawn to her work.

Bedtime Prayer
By Vassar Miller

Thank you for Holy Communion this morning,
although it was the ritual I enjoy most—
the bowing at the right time, the crossing myself at the right place,
missing no trick—
like a child with a new toy.
Thank You that I could visit my sick friend, Frances,
though she was such a bore that I felt rather good about it
till my feeling of goodness gave me a feeling of badness
and I was tossed to and fro on the pinpricks of pride and shame
like the Christian martyrs on the Roman spears
(but they at least knew whose martyrs they were, while I wasn’t sure).
Thank You, too, that the masks are fixed back
on the face of my love and on mine,
although for a moment we had burst through them
as from the webs of a spider.
Naked and frightened our faces stared at each other,
ugly with sticky membrane still clinging about them.
But soon we spun them once more as though we were breathing them out.
Finally, thank You, O Lord, that I, am so sleepy.
I thank You for this without reservation,
my need urging my gratitude, my gratitude urging my need,
ready to sink into sleep as a drowning man into water,
in whom, as both actor and audience,
his role is the real.

Here’s the last one I have from Longitude by Dava Sobel.

Tam o’ Shanter
By Robert Burns

When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neibors, neibors, meet;
As market days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate,
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An’ getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

This truth fand honest Tam o’ Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter:
(Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonie lasses).

O Tam! had’st thou but been sae wise,
As taen thy ain wife Kate’s advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was na sober;
That ilka melder wi’ the Miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That ev’ry naig was ca’d a shoe on
The Smith and thee gat roarin’ fou on;
That at the Lord’s house, ev’n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi’ Kirkton Jean till Monday,
She prophesied that late or soon,
Thou wad be found, deep drown’d in Doon,
Or catch’d wi’ warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway’s auld, haunted kirk.

Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen’d, sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises!

But to our tale: Ae market night,
Tam had got planted unco right,
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi reaming sAats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, Souter Johnie,
His ancient, trusty, drougthy crony:
Tam lo’ed him like a very brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi’ sangs an’ clatter;
And aye the ale was growing better:
The Landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi’ favours secret, sweet, and precious:
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The Landlord’s laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.

Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E’en drown’d himsel amang the nappy.
As bees flee hame wi’ lades o’ treasure,
The minutes wing’d their way wi’ pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious!

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white-then melts for ever;
Or like the Borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the Rainbow’s lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.—
Nae man can tether Time nor Tide,
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That hour, o’ night’s black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in,
As ne’er poor sinner was abroad in.

The wind blew as ‘twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow’d;
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow’d:
That night, a child might understand,
The deil had business on his hand.

Weel-mounted on his grey mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,
Tam skelpit on thro’ dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet,
Whiles crooning o’er some auld Scots sonnet,
Whiles glow’rin round wi’ prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares;
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Where ghaists and houlets nightly cry.

By this time he was cross the ford,
Where in the snaw the chapman smoor’d;
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Where drunken Charlie brak’s neck-bane;
And thro’ the whins, and by the cairn,
Where hunters fand the murder’d bairn;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Where Mungo’s mither hang’d hersel’.
Before him Doon pours all his floods,
The doubling storm roars thro’ the woods,
The lightnings flash from pole to pole,
Near and more near the thunders roll,
When, glimmering thro’ the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem’d in a bleeze,
Thro’ ilka bore the beams were glancing,
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi’ tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi’ usquabae, we’ll face the devil!
The swats sae ream’d in Tammie’s noddle,
Fair play, he car’d na deils a boddle,
But Maggie stood, right sair astonish’d,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish’d,
She ventur’d forward on the light;
And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!

Warlocks and witches in a dance:
Nae cotillon, brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw’d the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl.—
Coffins stood round, like open presses,
That shaw’d the Dead in their last dresses;
And (by some devilish cantraip sleight)
Each in its cauld hand held a light.
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table,
A murderer’s banes, in gibbet-airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,
Wi’ his last gasp his gabudid gape;
Five tomahawks, wi’ blude red-rusted:
Five scimitars, wi’ murder crusted;
A garter which a babe had strangled:
A knife, a father’s throat had mangled.
Whom his ain son of life bereft,
The grey-hairs yet stack to the heft;
Wi’ mair of horrible and awfu’,
Which even to name wad be unlawfu’.

As Tammie glowr’d, amaz’d, and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;
The Piper loud and louder blew,
The dancers quick and quicker flew,
The reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they cleekit,
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,
And coost her duddies to the wark,
And linkit at it in her sark!

Now Tam, O Tam! had they been queans,
A’ plump and strapping in their teens!
Their sarks, instead o’ creeshie flainen,
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen!—
Thir breeks o’ mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush o’ guid blue hair,
I wad hae gien them off my hurdies,
For ae blink o’ the bonie burdies!
But wither’d beldams, auld and droll,
Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal,
Louping an’ flinging on a crummock.
I wonder did na turn thy stomach.

But Tam kent what was what fu’ brawlie:
There was ae winsome wench and waulie
That night enlisted in the core,
Lang after ken’d on Carrick shore;
(For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perish’d mony a bonie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,
And kept the country-side in fear);
Her cutty sark, o’ Paisley harn,
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude tho’ sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie.
Ah! little ken’d thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,
Wi twa pund Scots (’twas a’ her riches),
Wad ever grac’d a dance of witches!

But here my Muse her wing maun cour,
Sic flights are far beyond her power;
To sing how Nannie lap and flang,
(A souple jade she was and strang),
And how Tam stood, like ane bewithc’d,
And thought his very een enrich’d:
Even Satan glowr’d, and fidg’d fu’ fain,
And hotch’d and blew wi’ might and main:
Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tint his reason a thegither,
And roars out, “Weel done, Cutty-sark!”
And in an instant all was dark:
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied.
When out the hellish legion sallied.

As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke;
As open pussie’s mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When “Catch the thief!” resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi’ mony an eldritch skreich and hollow.

Ah, Tam! Ah, Tam! thou’ll get thy fairin!
In hell, they’ll roast thee like a herrin!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin!
Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman!
Now, do thy speedy-utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stone o’ the brig;
There, at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the keystane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie’s mettle!
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain grey tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.

Now, wha this tale o’ truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother’s son, take heed:
Whene’er to Drink you are inclin’d,
Or Cutty-sarks rin in your mind,
Think ye may buy the joys o’er dear;
Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mare.

I read Mary Oliver’s Why I Wake Early yesterday and it’s a lovely collection of poems (published in 2004). I thought I’d post the title poem today.

Why I Wake Early
By Mary Oliver

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety—

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light—
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

As I just finished A House in Corfu by Emma Tennant, I thought I’d post a poem by one of the poets mentioned therein.

An Old Man
By Constantine P. Cavafy

At the back of the noisy café
bent over a table sits an old man;
a newspaper in front of him, without company.

And in the scorn of his miserable old age
he ponders how little he enjoyed the years
when he had strength, and the power of the word, and good looks.

He knows he has aged much; he feels it, he sees it.
And yet the time he was young seems
like yesterday. How short a time, how short a time.

And he ponders how Prudence deceived him;
and how he always trusted her—what a folly!—
that liar who said: “Tomorrow. There is ample time.”

He remembers the impulses he curbed; and how much
joy he sacrificed. Every lost chance
now mocks his senseless wisdom.

…But from so much thinking and remembering
the old man gets dizzy. And falls asleep
bent over the café table.

Here is another Lewis Carroll poem recommended by a reader.

A Sea Dirge
By Lewis Carroll

There are certain things—as, a spider, a ghost,
   The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three—
That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most
      Is a thing they call the Sea.

Pour some salt water over the floor—
   Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be:
Suppose it extended a mile or more,
      That’s very like the Sea.

Beat a dog till it howls outright—
   Cruel, but all very well for a spree:
Suppose that he did so day and night,
      That would be like the Sea.

I had a vision of nursery-maids;
   Tens of thousands passed by me—
All leading children with wooden spades,
      And this was by the Sea.

Who invented those spades of wood?
   Who was it cut them out of the tree?
None, I think, but an idiot could—
      Or one that loved the Sea.

It is pleasant and dreamy, no doubt, to float
   With “thoughts as boundless, and souls as free”:
But, suppose you are very unwell in the boat,
      How do you like the Sea?

There is an insect that people avoid
    (Whence is derived the verb “to flee”).
Where have you been by it most annoyed?
      In lodgings by the Sea.

If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,
   A decided hint of salt in your tea,
And a fishy taste in the very eggs—
      By all means choose the Sea.

And if, with these dainties to drink and eat,
   You prefer not a vestige of grass or tree,
And a chronic state of wet in your feet,
      Then—I recommend the Sea.

For I have friends who dwell by the coast—
   Pleasant friends they are to me!
It is when I am with them I wonder most
      That anyone likes the Sea.

They take me a walk: though tired and stiff,
   To climb the heights I madly agree;
And, after a tumble or so from the cliff,
      They kindly suggest the Sea.

I try the rocks, and I think it cool
   That they laugh with such an excess of glee,
As I heavily slip into every pool
      That skirts the cold cold Sea.

Here’s another one quoted in Longitude by Dava Sobel.

The Crystal Cabinet
By William Blake

The Maiden caught me in the wild,
Where I was dancing merrily;
She put me into her Cabinet,
And lock’d me up with a golden key.

This cabinet is form’d of gold
And pearl and crystal shining bright,
And within it opens into a world
And a little lovely moony night.

Another England there I saw
Another London with its Tower,
Another Thames and other hills,
And another pleasant Surrey bower.

Another Maiden like herself,
Translucent, lovely, shining clear,
Threefold each in the other clos’d
O, what a pleasant trembling fear!

O, what a smile! a threefold smile
Fill’d me, that like a flame I burn’d;
I bent to kiss the lovely Maid,
And found a threefold kiss return’d.

I strove to seize the inmost form
With ardor fierce and hands of flame,
But burst the Crystal Cabinet,
And like a weeping Babe became—

A weeping Babe upon the wild,
And weeping Woman pale reclin’d,
And in the outward air again,
I fill’d with woes the passing wind.

Today is my dad’s birthday (happy birthday, Dad!). I have to post this poem because of my sister’s former philosophy that if she did her chores badly, Dad would do them for her. (To be fair, she’s grown up quite a bit since those days.)

How Not To Have To Dry the Dishes
By Shel Silverstein

If you have to dry the dishes
(Such an awful, boring chore)
If you have to dry the dishes
(‘Stead of going to the store)
If you have to dry the dishes
And you drop one on the floor—
Maybe they won’t let you
Dry the dishes anymore.

I’m reading A House in Corfu by Emma Tennant and she’s mentioned several times that Edward Lear spent time there painting. I thought I’d post one of his poems.

The Jumblies
By Edward Lear

I

They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
   In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,
   In a Sieve they went to sea!
And when the Sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be drowned!’
They called aloud, ‘Our Sieve ain’t big,
But we don’t care a button! we don’t care a fig!
   In a Sieve we’ll go to sea!’
      Far and few, far and few,
         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

II

They sailed away in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they sailed so fast,
   With only a beautiful pea-green veil
Tied with a riband by way of a sail,
   To a small tobacco-pipe mast;
And every one said, who saw them go,
‘O won’t they be soon upset, you know!
For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long,
And happen what may, it’s extremely wrong
   In a Sieve to sail so fast!’
      Far and few, far and few,
         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

III

The water it soon came in, it did,
   The water it soon came in;
So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet
In a pinky paper all folded neat,
   And they fastened it down with a pin.
And they passed the night in a crockery-jar,
And each of them said, ‘How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
   While round in our Sieve we spin!’
      Far and few, far and few,
         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

IV

And all night long they sailed away;
   And when the sun went down,
They whistled and warbled a moony song
To the echoing sound of a coppery gong,
   In the shade of the mountains brown.
‘O Timballo! How happy we are,
When we live in a Sieve and a crockery-jar,
And all night long in the moonlight pale,
We sail away with a pea-green sail,
   In the shade of the mountains brown!’
      Far and few, far and few,
         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

V

They sailed to the Western Sea, they did,
   To a land all covered with trees,
And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart,
And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,
   And a hive of silvery Bees.
And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws,
And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,
And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,
   And no end of Stilton Cheese.
      Far and few, far and few,
         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

VI

And in twenty years they all came back,
   In twenty years or more,
And every one said, ‘How tall they’ve grown!
For they’ve been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,
   And the hills of the Chankly Bore!’
And they drank their health, and gave them a feast
Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast;
And every one said, ‘If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,—
   To the hills of the Chankly Bore!’
      Far and few, far and few,
         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

I finished reading Longitude by Dava Sobel last night. Each chapter had a short verse or quote at the beginning. I thought I’d use a few for the PotD.

My Father’s Watch
By John Ciardi

One night I dreamed I was locked in my Father’s watch
With Ptolemy and twenty-one ruby stars
Mounted on spheres and the Primum Mobile
Coiled and gleaming to the end of space
And the notched spheres eating each other’s rinds
To the last tooth of time, and the case closed.

Here’s another poem Ted Kooser posted on his American Life in Poetry website. It really struck me, especially after spending two weeks with my family and looking at a lot of pictures.

Family Album
By Diane Thiel

I like old photographs of relatives
in black and white, their faces set like stone.
They knew this was serious business.
My favorite album is the one that’s filled
with people none of us can even name.

I find the recent ones more difficult.
I wonder, now, if anyone remembers
how fiercely I refused even to stand
beside him for this picture — how I shrank
back from his hand and found the other side.

Forever now, for future family,
we will be framed like this, although no one
will wonder at the way we are arranged.
No one will ever wonder, since we’ll be
forever smiling there — our mouths all teeth.

This was recommended by a reader and I like it!

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
By John Keats

I

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

II

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

III

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

IV

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

V

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

VI

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

VII

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.

VIII

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

IX

And there she lulled me asleep
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

X

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—’La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!’

XI

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

XII

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

It’s been quite a while since I posted one by Naomi Shihab Nye…

Jerusalem
By Naomi Shihab Nye

“Let’s be the same wound if we must bleed.
Let’s fight side by side, even if the enemy
is ourselves: I am yours, you are mine.”
—Tommy Olofsson

I’m not interested in
who suffered the most.
I’m interested in
people getting over it.

Once when my father was a boy
a stone hit him on the head.
Hair would never grow there.
Our fingers found the tender spot
and its riddle: the boy who has fallen
stands up. A bucket of pears
in his mother’s doorway welcomes him home.
The pears are not crying.
Later his friend who threw the stone
says he was aiming at a bird.
And my father starts growing wings.

Each carries a tender spot:
something our lives forgot to give us.
A man builds a house and says,
“I am native now.”
A woman speaks to a tree in place
of her son. And olives come.
A child’s poem says,
“I don’t like wars,
they end up with monuments.”
He’s painting a bird with wings
wide enough to cover two roofs at once.

Why are we so monumentally slow?
Soldiers stalk a pharmacy:
big guns, little pills.

If you tilt your head just slightly
it’s ridiculous.

There’s a place in this brain
where hate won’t grow.
I touch its riddle: wind, and seeds.
Something pokes us as we sleep.

It’s late but everything comes next.

I came across this in the end notes to Hard Times by Dickens.

The Cry of the Children
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Alas, my children, why do you look at me?”
—Medea

I

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
   Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
   And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
   The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
   The young flowers are blowing toward the west—
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
   They are weeping bitterly!
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
   In the country of the free.

II

Do you question the young children in the sorrow
   Why their tears are falling so?
The old man may weep for his to-morrow
   Which is lost in Long Ago.
The old tree is leafless in the forest,
   The old year is ending in the frost,
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,
   The old hope is hardest to be lost:
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
   Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
   In our happy Fatherland?

III

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
   And their looks are sad to see,
For the man’s hoary anguish draws and presses
   Down the cheeks of infancy;
“Your old earth,” they say, “is very dreary,
   Our young feet,” they say, “are very weak!
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary—
   Our grave-rest is very far to seek.
Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children;
   For the outside earth is cold;
And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,
   And the graves are for the old.”

IV

“True,” say the children, “it may happen
   That we die before our time.
Little Alice died last year—her grave is shapen
   Like a snowball, in the rime.
We looked into the pit prepared to take her.
   Was no room for any work in the close clay!
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
   Crying, ‘Get up, little Alice! it is day.’
If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,
   With your ear down, little Alice never cries.
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
   For the smile has time for growing in her eyes.
And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in
   The shroud by the kirk-chime!
It is good when it happens,” say the children,
   ”That we die before our time.”

V

Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking
   Death in life, as best to have.
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,
   With a cerement from the grave.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city,
   Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do.
Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty.
   Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!
But they answer, “Are your cowslips of the meadows
   Like our weeds anear the mine?
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
   From your pleasure fair and fine!

VI

“For oh,” say the children, “we are weary,
   And we cannot run or leap.
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
   To drop in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,
   We fall on our faces, trying to go;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
   The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring
   Through the coal-dark, underground—
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
   In the factories, round and round.

VII

“For all day the wheels are droning, turning—
   Their wind comes in our faces,—
Till our hearts turn,—our heads with pulses burning,
   And the walls turn in their places.
Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,
   Turns the long light that drops adown the wall,
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling,
   All are turning, all the day, and we with all.
And all day the iron wheels are droning,
   And sometimes we could pray,
‘O ye wheels’ (breaking out in a mad moaning)
   ’Stop! be silent for to-day!’”

VIII

Ay! be silent! Let them hear each other breathing
   For a moment, mouth to mouth!
Let them touch each other’s hands, in a fresh wreathing
   Of their tender human youth!
Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
   Is not all the life God fashions or reveals.
Let them prove their living souls against the notion
   That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!—
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,
   Grinding life down from its mark;
And the children’s souls, which God is calling sunward,
   Spin on blindly in the dark.

IX

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,
   To look up to Him and pray;
So the blessèd One who blesseth all the others,
   Will bless them another day.
They answer, “Who is God that He should hear us,
   While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
   Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word.
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
   Strangers speaking at the door.
Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,
   Hears our weeping any more?

X

“Two words, indeed, of praying we remember,
   And at midnight’s hour of harm,
‘Our Father,’ looking upward in the chamber,
   We say softly for a charm.
We know no other words except ‘Our Father,’
   And we think that, in some pause of angels’ song,
God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
   And hold both within His right hand which is strong.
‘Our Father!’ If He heard us, He would surely
   (For they call Him good and mild)
Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,
   ’Come rest with me my child.’”

XI

“But, no!” say the children, weeping faster,
   ”He is speechless as a stone.
And they tell us, of His image is the master
   Who commands us to work on.
Go to!” say children,—”up in Heaven,
   Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find.
Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving—
   We look up of God, but tears have made us blind.”
Do you hear the children weeping and disproving,
   O my brothers, what ye preach?
For God’s possible is taught by His world’s loving,
   And the children doubt of each.

XII

And well may the children weep before you!
   They are weary ere they run.
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
   Which is brighter than the sun.
They know the grief of man, without his wisdom.
   They sink in man’s despair, without his calm;
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,
   Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm,—
Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly
   The harvest of its memories cannot reap,—
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly.
   Let them weep! let them weep!

XIII

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
   And their look is dread to see,
For they mind you of the angels in high places
   With eyes turned on Deity!—
“How long,” they say, “how long, O cruel nation,
   Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart,—
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
   And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,
   And your purple shows your path!
But the child’s sob in the silence curses deeper
   Than the strong man in his wrath.”

I’m currently reading Stand and Deliver! A History of Highway Robbery and, believe it or not, there is poetry in it!

Clever Tom Clinch Going to be Hanged, 1727
By Jonathan Swift

As clever Tom Clinch, while the rabble was bawling,
Rode stately through Holborn to die in his calling,
He stopt at the George for a bottle of sack,
And promised to pay for it when he came back.
His waistcoat, and stockings, and breeches, were white;
His cap had a new cherry ribbon to tie’t.
The maids to the doors and the balconies ran,
And said, “Lack-a-day, he’s a proper young man!”
But, as from the windows the ladies he spied,
Like a beau in the box, he bow’d low on each side!
And when his last speech the loud hawkers did cry,
He swore from his cart, “It was all a damn’d lie!”
The hangman for pardon fell down on his knee;
Tom gave him a kick in the guts for his fee:
Then said, I must speak to the people a little;
But I’ll see you all damn’d before I will whittle.
My honest friend Wild (may he long hold his place)
He lengthen’d my life with a whole year of grace.
Take courage, dear comrades, and be not afraid,
Nor slip this occasion to follow your trade;
My conscience is clear, and my spirits are calm,
And thus I go off, without prayer-book or psalm;
Then follow the practice of clever Tom Clinch,
Who hung like a hero, and never would flinch.

Time for more ESVM!

I know I am but summer to your heart
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

I know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of Spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail anew the bird and rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else will you seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.

Well, it’s snowing (and has been for some time) and I’m still sick. I’m home with my mother and she keeps making cups of tea for me (what a lovely mother!). I thought I’d post this poem I found in a children’s poetry collection because I love my mommy! (though I’m not a little boy, of course)

A Boy’s Mother
By James Whitcomb Riley

My mother she’s so good to me,
Ef I was good as I could be,
I couldn’t be as good—no, sir!—
Can’t any boy be good as her!

She loves me when I’m glad er sad;
She loves me when I’m good er bad;
An’, what’s a funniest thing, she says
She loves me when she punishes.

I don’t like her to punish me,—
That don’t hurt,—but it hurts to see
Her cryin’,—Nen I cry; an’ nen
We both cry an’ be good again.

She loves me when she cuts an’ sews
My little cloak an’ Sund’y clothes;
An’ when my Pa comes home to tea,
She loves him most as much as me.

She laughs an’ tells him all I said,
An’ grabs me up an’ pats my head;
An’ I hug her, an’ hug my Pa
An’ love him purt’ nigh as much as Ma.

My mother has a book of American poets and I remembered Conrad Aiken from my trip to Savannah (still haven’t gotten around to reading much of his stuff) so I chose one by him.

Music
By Conrad Aiken

The calyx of the oboe breaks,
silver and soft the flower it makes.
And next, beyond, the flute-notes seen
now are white and now are green.

What are these sounds, what daft device,
mocking at flame, mimicking ice?
Musicians, will you never rest
from strange translation of the breast?

The heart, from which all horrors come,
grows like a vine, its gourd a drum;
the living pattern sprawls and climbs
eager to bear all worlds and times:

trilling leaf and tinkling grass
glide into darkness clear as glass;
then the musicians cease to play
and the world is waved away.

Happy New Year!

Here’s another from a book found in the bookcase. The title of the book is the same as the title of this poem.

Phases of the Moon
By Lynn Kozma

Bright moon stares
from the great bowl of sky
sailing weightless
glowing with cold fire
impersonal as a stranger.
We say it shows the face
of a man, is made of green
cheese, sheds its skin,
or covetous, steals
the sun’s fire. One day
we calculate its distance
from earth, arrive on its
rocky, cratered plains,
at once dispel the mystery.

I prefer the inaccessible moon,
the maddening phantom moon,
the cabalistic, lopsided slipstream
Queen of Night, disappearing,
born again whole and new,
silvering my skin, turning
my heart back fifty years
to a dance in the woods
under its spell, aflame with
my first mad
                  fall
                             into love.