Poem of the Day

I came across a poem written by Sarah Helen Whitman to Edgar Allan Poe, and the intro said that he had written her one back. Of course, I was familiar with Poe’s To Helen, but it turns out that the poem I knew was not the same To Helen, since he wrote two of them. The one included here is the one he actually wrote to Whitman.

To Edgar Allan Poe
By Sarah Helen Whitman

If thy sad heart, pining for human love,
In its earth solitude grew dark with fear,
Lest the high Sun of Heaven itself should prove
Powerless to save from that phantasmal sphere
Wherein thy spirit wandered,— if the flowers
That pressed around thy feet, seemed but to bloom
In lone Gethsemanes, through starless hours,
When all who loved had left thee to thy doom,—
Oh, yet believe that in that hollow vale
Where thy soul lingers, waiting to attain
So much of Heaven’s sweet grace as shall avail
To lift its burden of remorseful pain,
My soul shall meet thee, and its Heaven forego
Till God’s great love, on both, one hope, one Heaven bestow.

To Helen
By Edgar Allan Poe

I saw thee once—once only—years ago:
I must not say how many—but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
Upon the upturned faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe—
Fell on the upturn’d faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death—
Fell on the upturn’d faces of these roses
That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
Fell on the upturn’d faces of the roses,
And on thine own, upturn’d—alas, in sorrow!

Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight—
Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,)
That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
No footstep stirred: the hated world an slept,
Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!—oh, God!
How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)
Save only thee and me. I paused—I looked—
And in an instant all things disappeared.
(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)

The pearly lustre of the moon went out:
The mossy banks and the meandering paths,
The happy flowers and the repining trees,
Were seen no more: the very roses’ odors
Died in the arms of the adoring airs.
All—all expired save thee—save less than thou:
Save only the divine light in thine eyes—
Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
I saw but them—they were the world to me!
I saw but them—saw only them for hours,
Saw only them until the moon went down.
What wild heart-histories seemed to he enwritten
Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
How dark a woe, yet how sublime a hope!
How silently serene a sea of pride!
How daring an ambition; yet how deep—
How fathomless a capacity for love!

But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,
Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;
And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained;
They would not go—they never yet have gone;
Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,
They have not left me (as my hopes have) since;
They follow me—they lead me through the years.
They are my ministers—yet I their slave.
Their office is to illumine and enkindle—
My duty, to be saved by their bright light,
And purified in their electric fire,
And sanctified in their elysian fire.
They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),
And are far up in Heaven—the stars I kneel to
In the sad, silent watches of my night;
While even in the meridian glare of day
I see them still—two sweetly scintillant
Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!

I love the stars.

Stars
By Robert Frost

How countlessly they congregate
O’er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
When wintry winds do blow!—

As if with keenness for our fate,
Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
Invisible at dawn,—

And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those starts like some snow-white
Minerva’s snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.

I came across this poem while listening to From the North by Runrig. Both make me think of Lord of the Rings because areas (especially the North and the West) are referred to by relative geographical location. This poem makes me think of what the North must have been like after the fall of the Númenoreans.

Speak of the North
By Charlotte Brontë

Speak of the North! A lonely moor
Silent and dark and tractless swells,
The waves of some wild streamlet pour
Hurriedly through its ferny dells.

Profoundly still the twilight air,
Lifeless the landscape; so we deem
Till like a phantom gliding near
A stag bends down to drink the stream.

And far away a mountain zone,
A cold, white waste of snow-drifts lies,
And one star, large and soft and lone,
Silently lights the unclouded skies.

I’m kind of cranky due to excessive grading of lab reports.

Song (of Egla)
By Maria Gowen Brooks

Day, in melting purple dying,
Blossoms, all around me sighing,
Fragrance, from the lilies straying,
Zephyr, with my ringlets playing,
      Ye but waken my distress;
      I am sick of loneliness.

Thou, to whom I love to hearken,
Come, ere night around me darken;
Though thy softness but deceive me,
Say thou’rt true, and I’ll believe thee;
      Veil, if ill, thy soul’s intent:
      Let me think it innocent!

Save thy toiling, spare thy treasure:
All I ask is friendship’s pleasure;
Let the shining ore lie darkling,
Bring no gem in lustre sparkling!
      Gifts and gold are nought to me;
      I would only look on thee!

Tell to thee the highwrought feeling,
Ecstasy but in revealing;
Paint to thee the deep sensation,
Rapture in participation,
      Yet but torture, if comprest
      In a lone unfriended breast.

Absent still? Ah, come and bless me!
Let these eyes again caress thee;
Once, in caution, I could fly thee:
Now I nothing could deny thee;
      In a look if death there be,
      Come, and I will gaze on thee!

Okay, so I’m totally on a zombie kick (Thanks Shaun of the Dead!) right now. This poem doesn’t really have anything to do with that, but the title jumped out at me. I didn’t even know Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote poetry until I came across this in a women’s poetry anthology.

The Other World
By Harriet Beecher Stowe

It lies around us like a cloud,
   A world we do not see;
Yet the same closing of an eye
   May bring us there to be.

Its gentle breezes fan our cheek;
   Amid our worldly cares,
Its gentle voices whisper love,
   And mingle with our prayers.

Sweet hearts around us throb and beat,
   Sweet helping hands are stirred,
And palpitates the veil between
   With breathings almost heard.

The silence, awful, sweet, and calm,
   They have no power to break;
For mortal words are not for them
   To utter or partake.

So thin, so soft, so sweet, they glide,
   So near to press they seem,
They lull us gently to our rest,
   They melt into our dream.

And in the hush of rest they bring
   ’T is easy now to see
How lovely and how sweet a pass
   The hour of death may be;—

To close the eye, and close the ear,
   Wrapped in a trance of bliss,
And, gently drawn in loving arms,
   To swoon to that from this:—

Scarce knowing if we wake or sleep,
   Scarce asking where we are,
To feel all evil sink away,
   All sorrow and all care.

Sweet souls around us! watch us still;
   Press nearer to our side;
Into our thoughts, into our prayers,
   With gentle helpings glide.

Let death between us be as naught,
   A dried and vanished stream;
Your joy be the reality,
   Our suffering like the dream.

We read Phillis Wheatley’s works in my women’s history class in college and my fourth graders had to memorize one of her poems. This seemed appropriate to post since it’s morning (though long past dawn).

An Hymn to the Morning
By Phillis Wheatley

Attend my lays, ye ever honour’d nine,
Assist my labours, and my strains refine;
In smoothest numbers pour the notes along,
For bright Aurora now demands my song.
Aurora hail, and all the thousand dies,
Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies:
The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev’ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays;
Harmonious lays the feather’d race resume,
Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.
Ye shady groves, your verdant gloom display
To shield your poet from the burning day:
Calliope awake the sacred lyre,
While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire:
The bow’rs, the gales, the variegated skies
In all their pleasures in my bosom rise.
See in the east th’ illustrious king of day!
His rising radiance drives the shades away–
But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong,
And scarce begun, concludes th’ abortive song.

I’m kind of tired and kind of cranky, so I’m posting a sad poem.

If This Be All
By Anne Brontë

O God! if this indeed be all
   That Life can show to me;
If on my aching brow may fall
   No freshening dew from Thee;

If with no brighter light than this
   The lamp of hope may glow,
And I may only dream of bliss,
   And wake to weary woe;

If friendship’s solace must decay,
   When other joys are gone,
And love must keep so far away,
   While I go wandering on,—

Wandering and toiling without gain,
   The slave of others’ will,
With constant care, and frequent pain,
   Despised, forgotten still;

Grieving to look on vice and sin,
   Yet powerless to quell
The silent current from within,
   The outward torrent’s swell:

While all the good I would impart,
   The feelings I would share,
Are driven backward to my heart,
   And turned to wormwood there;

If clouds must ever keep from sight
   The glories of the Sun,
And I must suffer Winter’s blight,
   Ere Summer is begun;

If Life must be so full of care,
   Then call me soon to thee;
Or give me strength enough to bear
   My load of misery.

Even though we didn’t pick any apples, we went to the orchard, so I thought I’d post this poem, which was recommended by Heather.

Orchard
By H.D.

I saw the first pear
As it fell –
The honey-seeking, golden-banded,
The yellow swarm
Was not more fleet than I,
(Spare us from loveliness)
And I fell prostrate
Crying:
You have flayed us
With your blossoms,
Spare us the beauty
Of fruit-trees.

The honey-seeking
Paused not,
The air thundered their song,
And I alone was prostrate.

O rough-hewn
God of the orchard,
I bring you an offering –
Do you, alone unbeautiful,
Son of the god,
Spare us from loveliness:

These fallen hazel-nuts,
Stripped late of their green sheaths,
Grapes, red-purple,
Their berries
Dripping with wine,
Pomegranates already broken,
And shrunken figs
And quinces untouched,
I bring you as offering.

My mother read this (among many other poems) to me when I was a little girl. I’m posting it today in honor of the pirate RenFest and my darling godson Killian!

Pirate Story
By Robert Louis Stevenson

Three of us afloat in the meadow by the swing,
   Three of us abroad in the basket on the lea.
Winds are in the air, they are blowing in the spring,
   And waves are on the meadow like the waves there are at sea.

Where shall we adventure, to-day that we’re afloat,
   Wary of the weather and steering by a star?
Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,
   To Providence, or Babylon or off to Malabar?

Hi! but here’s a squadron a-rowing on the sea—
   Cattle on the meadow a-charging with a roar!
Quick, and we’ll escape them, they’re as mad as they can be,
   The wicket is the harbour and the garden is the shore.

I brought this poem to breakfast with the ladies a while ago. It’s very simple, but I love it.

Motherhood
By Agnes Lee

Mary, the Christ long slain, passed silently,
Following the children joyously astir
Under the cedrus and the olive-tree,
Pausing to let their laughter float to her.
Each voice an echo of a voice more dear,
She saw a little Christ in every face.
Then came another woman gliding near
To watch the tender life that filled the place.
And Mary sought the woman’s hand, and spoke:
“I know thee not, yet know thy memory tossed
With all a thousand dreams their eyes evoke
Who bring to thee a child beloved and lost.

“I, too, have rocked my Little One.
And He was fair!
Oh, fairer than the fairest sun,
And like its rays through amber spun
His sun-bright hair.
Still I can see it shine and shine.”
“Even so,” the woman said, “was mine.”

“His ways were ever darling ways”—
And Mary smiled—
“So soft, so clinging! Glad relays
Of love were all His precious days.
My Little Child!
My vanished star! My music fled!”
“Even so was mine,” the woman said.

Then Mary whispered: “Tell me, thou,
Of thine.” And she:
“Oh, mine was rosy as a bough
Blooming with roses, sent, somehow,
To bloom for me!
His balmy fingers left a thrill
Deep in my breast that warms me still.”
Then she gazed down some wilder, darker hour,
And said—when Mary questioned, knowing not:
“Who art thou, mother of so sweet a flower?”—
“I am the mother of Iscariot.”

This seemed appropriate since teaching seems to be ruling my life at the moment. Plus, I love CB!

The Teacher’s Monologue
By Charlotte Brontë

The room is quiet, thoughts alone
People its mute tranquillity;
The yoke put on, the long task done,—
I am, as it is bliss to be,
Still and untroubled. Now, I see,
For the first time, how soft the day
O’er waveless water, stirless tree,
Silent and sunny, wings its way.
Now, as I watch that distant hill,
So faint, so blue, so far removed,
Sweet dreams of home my heart may fill,
That home where I am known and loved:
It lies beyond; yon azure brow
Parts me from all Earth holds for me;
And, morn and eve, my yearnings flow
Thitherward tending, changelessly.
My happiest hours, aye ! all the time,
I love to keep in memory,
Lapsed among moors, ere life’s first prime
Decayed to dark anxiety.

Sometimes, I think a narrow heart
Makes me thus mourn those far away,
And keeps my love so far apart
From friends and friendships of to-day;
Sometimes, I think ’tis but a dream
I measure up so jealously,
All the sweet thoughts I live on seem
To vanish into vacancy:
And then, this strange, coarse world around
Seems all that’s palpable and true;
And every sight, and every sound,
Combines my spirit to subdue
To aching grief, so void and lone
Is Life and Earth—so worse than vain,
The hopes that, in my own heart sown,
And cherished by such sun and rain
As Joy and transient Sorrow shed,
Have ripened to a harvest there:
Alas ! methinks I hear it said,
“Thy golden sheaves are empty air.”

All fades away; my very home
I think will soon be desolate;
I hear, at times, a warning come
Of bitter partings at its gate;
And, if I should return and see
The hearth-fire quenched, the vacant chair;
And hear it whispered mournfully,
That farewells have been spoken there,
What shall I do, and whither turn?
Where look for peace? When cease to mourn?

‘Tis not the air I wished to play,
   The strain I wished to sing;
My wilful spirit slipped away
   And struck another string.
I neither wanted smile nor tear,
   Bright joy nor bitter woe,
But just a song that sweet and clear,
   Though haply sad, might flow.

A quiet song, to solace me
   When sleep refused to come;
A strain to chase despondency,
   When sorrowful for home.
In vain I try; I cannot sing;
   All feels so cold and dead;
No wild distress, no gushing spring
   Of tears in anguish shed;

But all the impatient gloom of one
   Who waits a distant day,
When, some great task of suffering done,
   Repose shall toil repay.
For youth departs, and pleasure flies,
   And life consumes away,
And youth’s rejoicing ardour dies
   Beneath this drear delay;

And Patience, weary with her yoke,
   Is yielding to despair,
And Health’s elastic spring is broke
   Beneath the strain of care.
Life will be gone ere I have lived;
   Where now is Life’s first prime?
I’ve worked and studied, longed and grieved,
   Through all that rosy time.

To toil, to think, to long, to grieve,—
   Is such my future fate?
The morn was dreary, must the eve
   Be also desolate?
Well, such a life at least makes Death
   A welcome, wished-for friend;
Then, aid me, Reason, Patience, Faith,
   To suffer to the end!

This is another poem I came across in the anthology of American women’s poetry I’m reading. I like it because it’s comforting.

Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep
By Emma Hart Willard

Rocked in the cradle of the deep
I lay me down in peace to sleep;
Secure I rest upon the wave,
For Thou, O Lord! hast power to save.
I know Thou wilt not slight my call,
For Thou dost mark the sparrow’s fall;
And calm and peaceful shall I sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.

When in the dead of night I lie
And gaze upon the trackless sky,
The star-bespangled heavenly scroll,
The boundless waters as they roll,—
I feel Thy wondrous power to save
From perils of the stormy wave:
Rocked in the cradle of the deep,
I calmly rest and soundly sleep.

And such the trust that still were mine,
Though stormy winds swept o’er the brine,
Or though the tempest’s fiery breath
Roused me from sleep to wreck and death.
In ocean cave, still safe with Thee
The germ of immortality!
And calm and peaceful shall I sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.

I couldn’t really find a poem to reflect my mood (since I’m tired), but I like this poem anyway.

Walk Slowly
By Adelaide Love

If you should go before me, dear, walk slowly
Down the ways of death, well-worn and wide,
For I would want to overtake you quickly
And seek the journey’s ending by your side.

I would be so forlorn not to descry you
Down some shining highroad when I came;
Walk slowly, dear, and often look behind you
And pause to hear if someone calls your name.

I’m currently reading an anthology of American women’s poetry, and I came across this poem.

The World I Am Passing Through
By Lydia Maria Child

Few, in the days of early youth,
Trusted like me in love and truth.
I’ve learned sad lessons from the years;
But slowly, and with many tears;
For God made me to kindly view
The world that I was passing through.

How little did I once believe
That friendly tones could e’er deceive!
That kindness, and forbearance long,
Might meet ingratitude and wrong!
I could not help but kindly view
The world that I was passing through.

And though I’ve learned some souls are base,
I would not, therefore, hate the race;
I still would bless my fellow men,
And trust them, though deceived again.
God help me still to kindly view
The world that I am passing through!

Through weary conflicts I have passed,
And struggled into rest at last;
Such rest as when the rack has broke
A joint, or nerve, at every stroke.
The wish survives to kindly view
The world that I am passing through.

From all that fate has brought to me
I strive to learn humility,
And trust in Him who rules above,
Whose universal law is love.
Thus only can I kindly view
The world that I am passing through.

When I approach the setting sun,
And feel my journey nearly done,
May earth be veiled in genial light,
And her last smile to me seem bright!
Help me till then to kindly view
The world that I am passing through!

And all who tempt a trusting heart
From faith and hope to drift apart,—
May they themselves be spared the pain
Of losing power to trust again!
God help us all to kindly view
The world that we are passing through!

Emily Brontë wrote some amazing poetry, and this is just one example. I love this poem because it flies in the face of the belief that hope can get one through all trials and tribulations. I certainly don’t discount that hope can be wonderful, but I hardly think that’s a foregone conclusion. This poem reminds me of a line from The Shawshank Redemption (a fantastic film!): “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”

Hope
By Emily Brontë

Hope was but a timid friend;
   She sat without the grated den,
Watching how my fate would tend,
   Even as selfish-hearted men.

She was cruel in her fear;
   Through the bars one dreary day,
I looked out to see her there,
   And she turned her face away!

Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
   Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
She would sing while I was weeping;
   If I listened, she would cease.

False she was, and unrelenting;
   When my last joys strewed the ground,
Even Sorrow saw, repenting,
   Those sad relics scattered round;

Hope, whose whisper would have given
   Balm to all my frenzied pain,
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
   Went, and ne’er returned again!

So Margo, Mark and Adrienne killed me tonight when they sang this song as their encore. I don’t generally post song lyrics, but I’m making an exception in this particular case. Somehow I always cry when I hear this song, yet I am incredibly comforted.

Guardians
By Adrienne Jones

After a morning there is an evening
And when the evening’s gone, another day.
If your heart’s broken, it will be mended,
For we will rise for you like guardians.

And we will sing your soul to keep
And we will keep the dark at bay
And we will lift you up to greet the morning.

If in your lifetime this world of troubles
Should come to peace among the nations,
Your heart, in gladness, would leap to heaven
And nevermore you’d need your guardians.

But we will sing our world to keep
And we will keep the dark at bay
And we will lift you up to greet the morning.

This poem was recommended by Heather and I quite like it!

Aerialist
By Sylvia Plath

Each night, this adroit young lady
Lies among sheets
Shredded fine as snowflakes
Until dream takes her body
From bed to strict tryouts
In tightrope acrobatics.

Nightly she balances
Cat-clever on perilous wire
In a gigantic hall,
Footing her delicate dances
To whipcrack and roar
Which speak her maestro’s will.

Gilded, coming correct
Across that sultry air,
She steps, halts, hung
In dead center of her act
As great weights drop all about her
And commence to swing.

Lessoned thus, the girl
Parries the lunge and menace
Of every pendulum;
By deft duck and twirl
She draws applause; bright harness
Bites keen into each brave limb

Then, this tough stint done, she curtsies
And serenely plummets down
To traverse glass floor
And get safe home; but, turning with trained eyes,
Tiger-tamer and grinning clown
Squat, bowling black balls at her.

Tall trucks roll in
With a thunder like lions; all aims
And lumbering moves

To trap this outrageous nimble queen
And shatter to atoms
Her nine so slippery lives.

Sighting the stratagem
Of black weight, black bail, black truck,
With a last artful dodge she leaps
Through hoop of that hazardous dream
To sit up stark awake
As the loud alarmclock stops.

Now as penalty for her skill,
By day she must walk in dread
Steel gaunticts of traffic, terror-struck
Lest, out of spite, the whole
Elaborate scaffold of sky overhead
Fall racketing finale on her luck.

I thought I’d give Anne Brontë a chance to redeem herself after the disappointment of Agnes Grey. Yep, she did. I totally cried when I read this poem.

Last Lines
By Anne Brontë

I hoped, that with the brave and strong,
My portioned task might lie;
To toil amid the busy throng,
With purpose pure and high.

But God has fixed another part,
And He has fixed it well;
I said so with my bleeding heart,
When first the anguish fell.

A dreadful darkness closes in
On my bewildered mind;
Oh, let me suffer and not sin,
Be tortured, yet resigned.

Shall I with joy thy blessings share
And not endure their loss?
Or hope the martyr’s crown to wear
And cast away the cross?

Thou, God, hast taken our delight,
Our treasured hope away;
Thou bidst us now weep through the night
And sorrow through the day.

These weary hours will not be lost,
These days of misery,
These nights of darkness, anguish-tost,
Can I but turn to Thee.

Weak and weary though I lie,
Crushed with sorrow, worn with pain,
I may lift to Heaven mine eye,
And strive to labour not in vain;

That inward strife against the sins
That ever wait on suffering
To strike whatever first begins:
Each ill that would corruption bring;

That secret labour to sustain
With humble patience every blow;
To gather fortitude from pain,
And hope and holiness from woe.

Thus let me serve Thee from my heart,
Whate’er may be my written fate:
Whether thus early to depart,
Or yet a while to wait.

If Thou shouldst bring me back to life,
More humbled I should be;
More wise, more strengthened for the strife,
More apt to lean on Thee.

Should death be standing at the gate,
Thus should I keep my vow;
But, Lord! whatever be my fate,
Oh, let me serve Thee now!

Note by Charlotte Brontë: “These lines written, the desk was closed, the pen laid aside - for ever.”

It’s definitely time for another ESVM poem. How about a nice bitter one?

Scrub
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

If I grow bitterly,
Like a gnarled and stunted tree,
Bearing harshly of my youth
Puckered fruit that sears the mouth;
If I make of my drawn boughs
An Inshospitable House,
Out of which I never pry
Towards the water and the sky,
Under which I stand and hide
And hear the day go by outside;
It is that a wind too strong
Bent my back when I was young,
It is that I fear the rain
Lest it blister me again.

This has been in my file of poems to post since I started the poem of the day. I think it’s about time to share it!

Thanatopsis
By William Cullen Bryant

To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy that steals away
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice. Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.

So shalt thou rest—and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men—
The youth in life’s fresh spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn, shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Though I’m in a good mood, I’m going to post a rather sad poem, because I really like it and it’s food for thought.

If I Had Known
By Mary Carolyn Davies

If I had known what trouble you were bearing;
What griefs were in the silence of your face;
I would have been more gentle, and more caring,
And tried to give you gladness for a space.
I would have brought more warmth into the place,
          If I had known.

If I had known what thoughts despairing drew you;
(Why do we never try to understand?)
I would have lent a little friendship to you,
And slipped my hand within your hand,
And made your stay more pleasant in the land,
          If I had known.

I love this poem. I cry every time. It seemed appropriate today.

Funeral Blues
By W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

This is kind of how I felt this morning, and likely how I’ll feel tomorrow morning.

Prescience
By Margaret Widdemer

I went to sleep smiling,
   I wakened despairing—
Where was my soul,
   On what terror-path faring?
What grief shall befall me,
   By midnight or noon,
What thing has my soul learned
   That I shall know soon?

I think I definitely need to get some books of Benét poems (both Stephen Vincent and William Rose).

Gaspara Stampa
“Saffo de’ nostri tempi alta Gaspara”
VENICE—CINQUECENTO
By William Rose Benét

“I burned, I wept, I sang: I burn, sing, weep again,
And I shall weep and sing, I shall forever burn
Until or death or time or fortune’s turn
Shall still my eye and heart, still fire and pain.”

Like flame, like wine, across the still lagoon
The colors of the sunset stream.
Spectral in heaven as climbs the frail veiled moon,
So climbs my dream.
Out of the heart’s eternal torture fire
No eastern phœnix risen—
Only the naked soul, spent with desire,
Bursts its prison.

O love, magnificent and dreadful love
At last consuming heart and brain,
Palling all days with thoughts we weary of,
Weary of pain,—
O golden city set in the sun’s heart,
Isled in a golden sea,
Yet what a vague phantasmal counterpart
Of what might be.

Darkness comes down upon your domes and towers,
Dark gondolas gliding under evening bells.
Deep night spreads burning over faded hours
The hell of hells.
The shadows mock me with his step, his sigh.
The treacherous tapers flare
And flaw; but though I stare with burning eye
He is not there.

Collalto, my illustrious lord, it is
So strange! One word, one sign
Would turn, like Cana’s metamorphosis,
These tears to wine,
Wine from my heart—or shall my blood be shed
To seal the crumpled scroll,
Who gave you living, who would give you dead
Body and soul?

Capitals, columns, arches, sculptures fall,
The ivy crawls on Istrian stone;
Tower and palace, chapel drawbridge, all
Time leaves prone;
Only our Alps whose blue without one stain
Blends into higher light—
My namesake stream of the Trevisian plain—
Time finds bright.

Yet will not Time, kind to the Paduan, scroll
My name at last with yours
Vittoria, Veronica? If the soul
Of song endures
I grasp eternity. O barren bliss
Beside pomegranate flowers
Swayed in the moonlight, and one secret kiss,—
Bliss once ours.

For France is far, so far, my dearest lord,
Beyond the Alps so far, men say.
One little word, even one little word
Loses its way.
Is it not piteous then to die, to live
In death, to gasp unheard
In thirst unslaked for what one word could give,
One little word?

And for a faith to tread consuming heat
And for a love to look on death
And to go robed in fire, in fire complete,
With sharp-drawn breath,
While the trapped heart, grown frenzied with its pain,
For joy once scorning fate
Storms with wild wings, again and yet again,
Your iron gate?

The gods returned to earth when Venice broke
Like Venus from the dawn-encircled sea.
Wide laughed the skies with light when Venice woke
Crowned of antiquity,
And as with spoil of gems bewildering earth,
Art in her glorious mind
Jewelled all Italy for joy’s rebirth
To all mankind.

And we were heirs, true bounden heirs of this
Epoch of glittering life and bannered love
Even as we whispered in our earliest kiss
The joy thereof,
Ere sunlight on a condottiere’s lance,
A bitter trumpet blown
Scattered your words and swept your heart toward France,
Left me alone.

The hyssop on the reed, this, this to drink
In this dark hour shall seal it as the last.
No word, my lord—and no more thoughts to think
When this is past.
Titian awhile his garden walk may tread
And Sansovino keep
My words, words you may read when I am dead,
But I—would sleep.

I can’t really think of something witty to post, so I’m posting this poem because I like it.

The Last Voyage
By Katharine Tynan Hinkson

Some morning I shall rise from sleep,
   When all the house is still and dark.
I shall steal down and find my ship
   By the dim quayside, and embark,

Nor fear the seas nor any wind.
   I have known Fear, but now no more.
The winds shall bear me safe and kind,
   Long-hoped for and long-waited for.

To no strange country shall I come,
   But to mine own delightful land,
With Love to bid me welcome home
   And Love to lead me by the hand.

Love, you and I shall cling together,
   And look long in each other’s eyes.
There shall be rose and violet weather
   Under the trees of Paradise.

We shall not hear the ticking clock,
   Nor the swift rustle of Time’s wings,
Nor dread the sharp dividing stroke
   Being come now to immortal things.

You of that beauty shall be fain,
   Being now no new inhabitant,
Its beauties to point out, explain,
   And all its dear delights to vaunt.

They will not end in a thousand years.
   Love, we shall be so long together
Withouten any sword to fear,
   Glad in the rose and violet weather.

With all those wonders to admire,
   And the heart’s hunger satisfied,
Given at the last the heart’s desire
   We shall forget we ever died.

Oh, in some morning dateless yet
   I shall steal out in the sweet dark
And find my ship with sails all set
   By the dim quayside, and embark.

In light of recent connections with friends, this poem seemed appropriate. Now I just need to talk to Alison and Eric (especially since he never updates his LJ!) and I’ll be all set!

Old Friendship
By Eunice Tietjens

Beautiful and rich is an old friendship,
Grateful to the touch as ancient ivory,
Smooth as aged wine, or sheen of tapestry
Where light has lingered, intimate and long.
Full of tears and warm is an old friendship
That asks no longer deeds of gallantry,
Or any deed at all - save that the friend shall be
Alive and breathing somewhere, like a song.

This is the poem my aunt brought to breakfast yesterday. I think it’s incredible.

Prayer upon Waking
By Vassar Miller

Give me, my God, this day
the simple human grace
and fortitude to face
my loneliness, small stray,
no wolf, no tiger,
no lion of ferocious roar,
no demon eager
for souls this at my door.
Only a little child
crying and lost, half wild
to be let in and listened to,
closer than my own kin,
she is my own,
and the sole creature who
tells me the truth so rendering You
what children by their nature do,
what long ago that stone,
my heart, was duty-bound to raise—
Your perfect praise.

Not a happy poem, but a good one…

When I have fears that I may cease to be
By John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be
   Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
   Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
   Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
   Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
   That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
   Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

This seemed appropriate since I’m feeling somewhat disgruntled at the moment.

The Pessimist
By Ben King

Nothing to do but work,
Nothing to eat but food;
Nothing to wear but clothes
To keep one from going nude.

Nothing to breathe but air,
Quick as a flash ’tis gone;
Nowhere to fall but off,
Nowhere to stand but on.

Nothing to comb but hair,
Nowhere to sleep but in bed;
Nothing to weep but tears,
Nothing to bury but dead.

Nothing to sing but songs;
Ah, well, alas! alack!
Nowhere to go but out,
Nowhere to come but back.

Nothing to see but sights,
Nothing to quench but thirst;
Nothing to have but what we’ve got;
Thus thro’ life we are cursed.

Nothing to strike but a gait;
Everything moves that goes.
Nothing at all but common sense
Can ever withstand these woes.

I just came across this in an old file of poems I had. I don’t really remember it, so it was cool to read it, as if for the first time.

The Woman I Am
By Glen Allen

The woman I am
Hides deep in me
Beneath the woman
I seem to be.

She hides away
From the stranger’s eye—
She is not known
To the passers-by.

She goes her way,
The woman I seem,
But the woman I am
Withdraws to the dream!

The woman I seem
Goes carelessly—
When love goes by
Does not seem to see.

But the woman I am
Knows sudden fear…
And hides more deeply
When love draws near!

For love might look closely
Perhaps… and see
Her beneath the woman
I seem to be!

If I was a nice person, I’d give you a short poem to go with a long post, but I’m not a nice person. This is another of my favorite ESVM poems and I can hardly read it without crying a bit. I’d love to hear it set to music.

The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

“Son,” said my mother,
When I was knee-high,
“You’ve need of clothes to cover you,
And not a rag have I.

“There’s nothing in the house
To make a boy breeches,
Nor shears to cut a cloth with,
Nor thread to take stitches.

“There’s nothing in the house
But a loaf-end of rye,
And a harp with a woman’s head
Nobody will buy,”
And she began to cry.

That was in the early fall.
When came the late fall,
“Son,” she said, “the sight of you
Makes your mother’s blood crawl,—

“Little skinny shoulder-blades
Sticking through your clothes!
And where you’ll get a jacket from
God above knows.

“It’s lucky for me, lad,
Your daddy’s in the ground,
And can’t see the way I let
His son go around!”
And she made a queer sound.

That was in the late fall.
When the winter came,
I’d not a pair of breeches
Nor a shirt to my name.

I couldn’t go to school,
Or out of doors to play.
And all the other little boys
Passed our way.

“Son,” said my mother,
“Come, climb into my lap,
And I’ll chafe your little bones
While you take a nap.”

And, oh, but we were silly
For half and hour or more,
Me with my long legs,
Dragging on the floor,

A-rock-rock-rocking
To a mother-goose rhyme!
Oh, but we were happy
For half an hour’s time!

But there was I, a great boy,
And what would folks say
To hear my mother singing me
To sleep all day,
In such a daft way?

Men say the winter
Was bad that year;
Fuel was scarce,
And food was dear.

A wind with a wolf’s head
Howled about our door,
And we burned up the chairs
And sat upon the floor.

All that was left us
Was a chair we couldn’t break,
And the harp with a woman’s head
Nobody would take,
For song or pity’s sake.

The night before Christmas
I cried with cold,
I cried myself to sleep
Like a two-year old.

And in the deep night
I felt my mother rise,
And stare down upon me
With love in her eyes.

I saw my mother sitting
On the one good chair,
A light falling on her
From I couldn’t tell where.

Looking nineteen,
And not a day older,
And the harp with a woman’s head
Leaned against her shoulder.

Her thin fingers, moving
In the thin, tall strings,
Were weav-weav-weaving
Wonderful things.

Many bright threads,
From where I couldn’t see,
Were running through the harp-strings
Rapidly,

And gold threads whistling
Through my mother’s hand.
I saw the web grow,
And the pattern expand.

She wove a child’s jacket,
And when it was done
She laid it on the floor
And wove another one.

She wove a red cloak
So regal to see,
“She’s made it for a king’s son,”
I said, “and not for me.”
But I knew it was for me.

She wove a pair of breeches
Quicker than that!
She wove a pair of boots
And a little cocked hat.

She wove a pair of mittens,
She wove a little blouse,
She wove all night
In the still, cold house.

She sang as she worked,
And the harp-strings spoke;
Her voice never faltered,
And the thread never broke,
And when I awoke,—

There sat my mother
With the harp against her shoulder,
Looking nineteen,
And not a day older,

A smile about her lips,
And a light about her head,
And her hands in the harp-strings
Frozen dead.

And piled beside her
And toppling to the skies,
Were the clothes of a king’s son,
Just my size.