Poetry

A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.
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ansuchin
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Poetry

Post by ansuchin »

For What Binds Us
There are names for what binds us:
Strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailing on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they’ve been set down –
and gravity, scientists say, is weak.

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There’s a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh,
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest –

And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.

~ Jane Hirshfield
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Typhoon
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Re: Poetry

Post by Typhoon »

As I Walked Out One Evening

As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
'Love has no ending.

'I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,

'I'll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.

'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

'Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver's brilliant bow.

'O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you've missed.


'The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

'Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.

'O look, look in the mirror?
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

'O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

~ W. H. Auden
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Typhoon
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Re: Poetry

Post by Typhoon »

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

~ Robert Frost
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Typhoon
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Re: Poetry

Post by Typhoon »

Sea Fever 

I must go down to the seas again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song
and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and
a grey dawn breaking,

I must down to the seas again,
for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call
that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day
with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again,
to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way
where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn
from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream
when the long trick’s over.

~ John Masefield
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Typhoon
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Re: Poetry

Post by Typhoon »

I Must Go Down To The Sea Again

I must go down to the sea again,
to the lonely sea and the sky;
I left my shoes and socks there -
I wonder if they're dry?

~ Spike Milligan
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Typhoon
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Re: Poetry

Post by Typhoon »

I am His Majesty's dog at Kew.
Pray tell me, sir,
whose dog are you?
Engraved on the Collar of a Dog, Which I Gave to His Royal Highness
- Alexander Pope
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Typhoon
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Re: Poetry

Post by Typhoon »

You Who Wronged

You who wronged a simple man
Bursting into laughter at the crime,
And kept a pack of fools around you
To mix good and evil, to blur the line,

Though everyone bowed down before you,
Saying virtue and wisdom lit your way,
Striking gold medals in your honor,
Glad to have survived another day,

Do not feel safe. The poet remembers.
You can kill one, but another is born.
The words are written down, the deed, the date.

And you’d have done better with a winter dawn,
A rope, and a branch bowed beneath your weight.

~ Czesław Miłosz

[Translation: Richard Lourie]
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
AzariLoveIran

Re: Poetry

Post by AzariLoveIran »

.


Exploring Khayyâm

.

این کوزه چو من عاشق زاری بوده است

در بند سر زلف نگاری بوده است

این دسته که بر گردن وی می بینی

دستی است که در گردن یاری بوده است

Dashti, quatrain 44, p. 252



'in kuze cho man 'aasheq-e zaari budast
dar band-e sar-e zolf-e negaari budast
'in daste ke bar gardan-e vay mi bini
dastist ke dar gardan-e yaari budast

A lover like me was this jug, in snare
Of beauty's tousled tresses long and fair;
The handle 'round its neck you see was once
The hand that fondly twined her lovely hair.
Saidi, quatrain 99

The jug did once, like me, love's sorrows taste,
And bonds of beauty's tresses once embraced,
This handle, which you see upon its side,
Has many a time twined round a slender waist!
Whinfield, quatrain 32

I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer'd, once did live,
And drink: and Ah! the passive Lip I kiss'd,
How many Kisses might it take--and give!
FitzGerald, stanza 36, 5th ed.


Translation & Discussion of the quatrain :

1. This jug like me was a lover distraught 2. It was chained to the tresses of some beauty -- در بند, dar band-e (sar-e zolf-e negaari), suggests a fastening there's no escape from. I think of Yeat's 'looped in the loops of her hair' 3. This handle you see on its neck 4. Is the hand which was on the neck of a sweetheart
There is very little variation in the texts of Dashti, Forughi-Ghani and Hedayat.
Aminrazavi (118) quotes Saidi's translation above, which he introduces by saying: 'Khayyam uses the imagery of a jug to exp0und upon the phenomenon of death, perhaps because the clay from which a jug is made symbolizes recycled bodies [see also quatrain 14 in this weblog]. Yet the primary function of a jug is to contain water which itself is the symbol of life': FitzGerald's rendition superbly expresses life and death in this quatrain attributed to Khayyam.

This jug once lived a lover distraught
and like me tress-bound to some sweetheart.
See how jug handle conforms to jug neck,
hand on the neck of someone he loved.

.

.
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ansuchin
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Re: Poetry

Post by ansuchin »

Circe's Power
I never turned anyone into a pig.
Some people are pigs; I make them
Look like pigs.

I'm sick of your world
That lets the outside disguise the inside. Your men weren't bad men;
Undisciplined life
Did that to them. As pigs,

Under the care of
Me and my ladies, they
Sweetened right up.

Then I reversed the spell, showing you my goodness
As well as my power. I saw

We could be happy here,
As men and women are
When their needs are simple. In the same breath,

I foresaw your departure,
Your men with my help braving
The crying and pounding sea. You think

A few tears upset me? My friend,
Every sorceress is
A pragmatist at heart; nobody sees essence who can't
Face limitation. If I wanted only to hold you

I could hold you prisoner

~ Louise Gluck
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AzariLoveIran

Re: Poetry

Post by AzariLoveIran »

.


"The Mirror" .. by Edmund Burke .. Irish philosopher .. 18-th Century

.

I look in the mirror
And what do I see?
A strange looking person
That cannot be me.

For I am much younger
And not nearly so fat
As that face in the mirror
I am looking at.

Oh, where are the mirrors
That I used to know
Like the ones which were
Made thirty years ago?

Now all things have changed
And I`m sure you`ll agree
Mirrors are not as good
As they used to be.

So never be concerned,
If wrinkles appear
For one thing I`ve learned
Which is very clear,

Should your complexion
Be less than perfection,
It is really the mirror
That needs correction!!

.

.
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ansuchin
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Re: Poetry

Post by ansuchin »

Hello Azari

:)

The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

جلال‌الدین محمد رومی

(Jalal ad-Din Muḥammad Rumi)
Last edited by ansuchin on Sun Jan 01, 2012 12:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Hoosiernorm
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Re: Poetry

Post by Hoosiernorm »

Antigonish - William Hughes Mearns

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away
Been busy doing stuff
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Azrael
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I Cultivate A White Rose

Post by Azrael »

I cultivate a white rose
In July as in January
For the sincere friend
Who gives me his hand frankly.

And for the cruel person who tears out
the heart with which I live,
I cultivate neither nettles nor thorns:
I cultivate a white rose.

Image

Cultivo Una Rosa Blanca

Por Jose Marti

Cultivo una rosa blanca
En julio como en enero,
Para el amigo sincero
Que me da su mano franca.

Y para el cruel que me arranca
El corazon con que vivo,
Cardo ni ortiga cultivo,
Cultivo una rosa blanca.
cultivate a white rose
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ansuchin
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Re: Poetry

Post by ansuchin »

IF.....
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

~ Rudyard Kipling
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Antipatros
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Re: Poetry

Post by Antipatros »

A.F. Moritz, Bedivere/Horatio
Each living thing is like a kingdom
that rises not quite out of nothing: April stirrings
of some boy and the May beauty
of a generous princess. Then came children—
who could calculate their splendor?
And there were factories in valleys, mile after mile,
dragons of purple smoke, blue flames at night,
castles hidden in forests equally hidden
where a shining company rode through flowers
to pacify the dangerous land. Triangular sails,
violet, saffron, and rose, glowed beyond coves
under cliffs dangling silver torques of waterfall.
Later the parents aged and grew more grateful,
more full of a certainty that could not be glimpsed
or dismayed, and then the children
were gone to some other land
as if to heaven, yet the mourning
was not for death. Now by a quiet wall
buckled cement gives a bright home
to milkweeds like strange skeletons,
pale green, intact and upright, and tall white grasses
that never wave. The sole survivor—
a duty was laid on him
to tell the tale among new minds, other ways,
and how do we imagine him,
wherever he’s gone—all that remains,
scholar of an unread book,
beggar of an unfilled cup,
an unknown variation,
the thought of the kingdom in a lost man?
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Antipatros
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Re: Poetry

Post by Antipatros »

The forum's eponymous poem:

Titus Lucretius Carus, De Rerum Natura

Trans. Cyril Bailey, 1910
This terror then, this darkness of the mind, must needs be scattered not by the rays of the sun and the gleaming shafts of day, but by the outer view and the inner law of nature; whose first rule shall take its start for us from this, that nothing is ever begotten of nothing by divine will. Fear forsooth so constrains all mortal men, because they behold many things come to pass on earth and in the sky, the cause of whose working they can by no means see, and think that a divine power brings them about. Therefore, when we have seen that nothing can be created out of nothing, then more rightly after that shall we discern that for which we search, both whence each thing can be created, and in what way all things come to be without the aid of gods.

For if things came to being from nothing, every kind might be born from all things, nought would need a seed. fixed seeds. First men might arise from the sea, and from the land the race of scaly creatures, and birds burst forth from the sky; cattle and other herds, and all the tribe of wild beasts, with no fixed law of birth, would haunt tilth and desert. Nor would the same fruits stay constant to the trees, but all would change: all trees might avail to bear all fruits. Why, were there not bodies to bring each thing to birth, how could things have a fixed unchanging mother? But as it is, since all things are produced from fixed seeds, each thing is born and comes forth into the coasts of light, out of that which has in it the substance and first-bodies of each; and 'tis for this cause that all things cannot be begotten of all, because in fixed things there dwells a power set apart. Or again, why do we see the roses jn spring, and the corn in summer's heat, and the vines bursting out when autumn summons them, if it be not that when, in their own time, the fixed seeds of things have flowed together, then is disclosed each thing that comes to birth, while the season is at hand, and the lively earth in safety brings forth the fragile things into the coasts of light?...
See also: http://classics.mit.edu/Carus/nature_things.html
Last edited by Antipatros on Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Antipatros
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Re: Poetry

Post by Antipatros »

...and another Classical masterpiece:

Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses

Trans. John Dryden et al.
Of bodies chang'd to various forms I sing:
Ye gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with celestial heat,
Till I my long, laborious work complete:
And add perpetual tenor to my rhymes,
Deduc'd from Nature's birth to Caesar's times.

Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And heav'n's high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of nature—if a face;
Rather a rude and indigested mass;
A lifeless lump, unfashion'd and unfram'd,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam'd.
No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew;
Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky;
Nor pois'd, did on her own foundations lie:
Nor seas about their shores the arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water's dark abyss unnavigable.
No certain form on any was imprest;
All were confus'd, and each disturb'd the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fixt;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.

But God, or Nature, while they thus contend,
To these intestine discords put an end:
Then earth from air, and seas from earth were driv'n,
And grosser air sunk from ethereal heav'n.
Thus disembroil'd, they take their proper place;
The next of kin, contiguously embrace;
And foes are sunder'd, by a larger space....
LibriVox audiobook
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Antipatros
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Re: Poetry

Post by Antipatros »

William Shakespeare, Sonnet LXXIII: That Time of Year thou mayst in me Behold

http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1864.html
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.
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Antipatros
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Re: Poetry

Post by Antipatros »

Robert Browning, My Last Duchess

http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/288.html
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-last-duchess/
FERRARA.

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart--how shall I say?--too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace--all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,--good! but thanked
Somehow--I know not how--as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech--(which I have not)--to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark"--and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
--E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
Demon of Undoing
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Re: Poetry

Post by Demon of Undoing »

There's a woman walking barefoot
On the blowing beachside sands,
Holding a fragile shattered thing
That's been cutting up her hands.
She's tired from so much walking
And sick from soul travails
So she's picked up all her bleeding
And she's giving it to the whales.

She doesn't really know how hard
It's been to get to this;
She forgets most of the pain so that
She isn't robbed of bliss.
She never quite got hold of what went wrong
And so she tried
To make more sense of what's living
Before it, too, died.

Her lacerated fingers now bleed into the waves,
And her feet the leave the shore
Like spirits out the grave
She pours out all the things
That cut and bite and hate,
Little swirls of dead concern
Spinning in her wake.

A siren song from lungs gone down
A thousand feet or more
Speaks of fluid healing
And what she came here for.
The shards all ground by loving wave
Turn crystal in her hand,
And the cuts have all glossed over now
That the whales came close to land.


-DoU
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Antipatros
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Re: Poetry

Post by Antipatros »

Thanks for that, Demon.

Strange Meeting ~ Wilfred Owen ~ Kenneth Branagh
i1pSwnr4Sfc

Wilfred Owen, Strange Meeting

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176833
Analysis
It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now ...
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Re: Poetry

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John Donne, A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173387
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/mourning.php
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Re: Poetry

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Image

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline (1847)

A Tale of Acadie

http://www.archive.org/details/longfellowsevang00long
http://theotherpages.org/poems/books/lo ... ine00.html
LibriVox audiobook
PART THE FIRST

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Gcand-Pré
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant,
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to the northward
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended.
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of chestnut,
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting
Over the basement below protected and shaded the door-way.
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset
Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors
Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens.
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them.
Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons and maidens,
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome.
Then came the laborers home from the field, and serenely the sun sank
Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from the belfry
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending,
Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment.
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers,—
Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were they free from
Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of republics.
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners;
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Re: Poetry

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Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach

http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/89.html
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dover-beach/
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits;--on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Re: Poetry

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I know Marcuws is fond of this one:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm of Life

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173910
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw232.html
http://www.bartleby.com/102/55.html
What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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