Poem of the Day

I (re)read Hamlet over the weekend because my book club was going to discuss The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I must admit that I liked it better than I thought I would, based on my memory of it (from reading it in college, I think). I still think I’m more of a Macbeth girl, though…

Tis now the very witching time of night
FROM HAMLET, ACT III, SCENE II
By William Shakespeare

Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
How in my words soever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

Saved by my poetry buddy again! He sent an excerpt from this, but I decided to post the whole speech by Theseus.

More strange than true: I never may believe
FROM A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, ACT V, SCENE I
By William Shakespeare

More strange than true: I never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

This one was recommended by a reader.

Full fathom five
FROM THE TEMPEST, ACT I, SCENE II
By William Shakespeare

Full fathom five thy father lies;
   Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
   Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
      Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell.

A fan of the PotD sent me this CD, and it’s quite wonderful. (THANK YOU!) Today’s poem is read by Susannah York (who I will always associate with a rather poor adaptation of Jane Eyre from 1970).

O, never say that I was false of heart
By William Shakespeare

O, never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify.
As easy might I from my self depart
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie.
That is my home of love; if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe though in my nature reigned
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call
Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

Heather oh-so-graciously sent me this link, and I promptly melted into a puddle on the floor after I visited it. Since I’ve already posted that poem, I thought I’d share another one of Will’s today.

When I do count the clock that tells the time
By William Shakespeare

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

Current Tea: ginger lime rooibos

It’s that time of year in Austin when the weather fluctuates from 85F one day to 60F the next. Though we haven’t had the riot of fall coloring on the trees, leaves are falling and there is often a nice breeze. I’ve kind of been saving this poem until it was weather appropriate (for me at least), but I don’t think that will really happen, so here it is now.

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
By William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
   This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
   To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Somehow I never quite believe the tone of humility in many of Shakespeare’s sonnets, but I still like the language.

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing
By William Shakespeare

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgment making.
Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

As J.K. Rowling has professed her love for Macbeth, and it’s my favorite play, I thought I’d post an excerpt.

Let’s have one from old Will, shall we?

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
By William Shakespeare

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
   I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
   And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
   Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
   With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
   Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
   From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
      For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
      That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Current Tea: Tangawizi ginger (Kenyan black tea blended with pure ground ginger)

This is for Jennifer because I would be lost without her. May we never be as regretful as old Will and always turn to each other for friendship, especially during bouts of melancholy. You’re fabulous!!!

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
By William Shakespeare

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long-since cancell’d woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight.
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.

I have to admit this one made me laugh…

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
By William Shakespeare

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground;
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Someday I’ll get around to reading all Shakespeare’s sonnets. Until then…

As a decrepit father takes delight
By William Shakespeare

As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by fortune’s dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store:
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am sufficed
And by a part of all thy glory live.
Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee:
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!

As my file of poems is getting sparse, I turned to my Riverside Shakespeare for inspiration. I found a nice depressing sonnet…

Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye
By William Shakespeare

Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye
That thou consum’st thyself in single life?
Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow, and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep,
By children’s eyes, her husband’s shape in mind.
Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty’s waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused, the user so destroys it.
   No love toward others in that bosom sits
   That on himself such murd’rous shame commits.

Even though this is one of his most famous (and I tend to like more obscure stuff), it’s one of my favorite of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
By William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
   So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

This makes me think of Sense and Sensibility… Ah, Colonel Brandon…

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
By William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
   I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

I was taking it easy last night and making blanket squares while listening to the awesome Celtic mixes that my dear Heather made for me. When we got to From the North by Runrig, I had to pop in the RotK EE because that song makes me think of Aragorn. I’ve also been reading a book of sonnets, and came across this one, which I studied in high school. I’ve always liked it and now that I’ve become immersed in the world of LotR, I realized how much it makes me think of Gondor and all the statues of kings and such.

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
By William Shakespeare

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room,
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

Since I’m going to see this on Thursday, I decided to reread Macbeth tonight. This is probably my favorite Shakespearean play, possibly because we spent months studying it in AP English in HS. Blood? Violence? Betrayal? Insanity? Ambition? Crazy Scots killing each other? Macbeth has it all, not to mention freaky witches, from whom we get today’s selection. (I previously posted my favorite passage.)

Double, double, toil and trouble
FROM MACBETH, ACT IV, SCENE I
By William Shakespeare

FIRST WITCH
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw;
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelt’red venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ th’ charmed pot.
ALL
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
SECOND WITCH
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of pow’rful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
THIRD WITCH
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witch’s mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ th’ dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab.
Add thereto a tiger’s chawdron,
For th’ ingredience of our cau’dron.
ALL
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
SECOND WITCH
Cool it with a baboon’s blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

We spent the greater part of my AP English class in high school reading Macbeth (I kid you not - about four months). We had to memorize a passage and recite it. I chose this one because it’s so dark and Lady Macbeth is a psycho. It’s my favorite!

From Macbeth
ACT I, SCENE V
By William Shakespeare

                                       Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts! Unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top full
Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry “Hold, hold!”