Poem of the Day

I’m posting this even though we don’t get much of an autumn in Austin.

Immortal Autumn
By Archibald MacLeish

I speak this poem now with grave and level voice
In praise of autumn, of the far-horn-winding fall.

I praise the flower-barren fields, the clouds, the tall
Unanswering branches where the wind makes sullen noise.

I praise the fall: it is the human season.
                                                          Now
No more the foreign sun does meddle at our earth,
Enforce the green and bring the fallow land to birth,
Nor winter yet weigh all with silence the pine bough,

But now in autumn with the black and outcast crows
Share we the spacious world: the whispering year is gone:
There is more room to live now: the once secret dawn
Comes late by daylight and the dark unguarded goes.

Between the mutinous brave burning of the leaves
And winter’s covering of our hearts with his deep snow
We are alone: there are no evening birds: we know
The naked moon: the tame stars circle at our eaves.

It is the human season. On this sterile air
Do words outcarry breath: the sound goes on and on.
I hear a dead man’s cry from autumn long since gone.

I cry to you beyond upon this bitter air.

I have less than 100 pages left in Possession, but there are a couple poems quoted therein still to post.

Sick Love
By Robert Graves

O Love, be fed with apples while you may,
And feel the sun and go in royal array,
A smiling innocent on the heavenly causeway,

Though in what listening horror for the cry
That soars in outer blackness dismally,
The dumb blind beast, the paranoiac fury:

Be warm, enjoy the season, lift your head,
Exquisite in the pulse of tainted blood,
That shivering glory not to be despised.

Take your delight in momentariness,
Walk between dark and dark—a shining space
With the grave’s narrowness, though not its peace.

Here’s another poem quoted in Possession.

Faith
By George Herbert

Lord, how couldst thou so much appease
Thy wrath for sinne as, when mans sight was dimme,
And could see little, to regard his ease,
And bring by Faith all things to him?

Hungrie I was, and had no meat:
I did conceit a most delicious feast;
I had it straight, and did as truly eat,
As ever did a welcome guest.

There is a rare outlandish root,
Which when I could not get, I thought it here:
That apprehension cur’d so well my foot,
That I can walk to heav’n well neare.

I owed thousands and much more:
I did beleeve that I did nothing owe,
And liv’d accordingly; my creditor
Beleeves so too, and lets me go.

Faith makes me any thing, or all
That I beleeve is in the sacred storie:
And where sinne placeth me in Adams fall,
Faith sets me higher in his glorie.

If I go lower in the book,
What can be lower then the common manger?
Faith puts me there with him, who sweetly took
Our flesh and frailtie, death and danger.

If blisse had lein in art or strength,
None but the wise or strong had gained it:
Where now by Faith all arms are of a length;
One size doth all conditions fit.

A peasant may beleeve as much
As a great Clerk, and reach the highest stature.
Thus dost thou make proud knowledge bend & crouch,
While grace fills up uneven nature.

When creatures had no reall light
Inherent in them, thou didst make the sunne
Impute a lustre, and allow them bright;
And in this shew, what Christ hath done.

That which before was darkned clean
With bushie groves, pricking the lookers eie,
Vanisht away, when Faith did change the scene:
And then appear’d a glorious skie.

What though my bodie runne to dust?
Faith cleaves unto it, counting evr’y grain
With an exact and most particular trust,
Reserving all for flesh again.

Here’s another Shel Silverstein for Ryan, though I should dedicate it to my dear (and messy) roommate Heather. (hee hee)

Messy Room
By Shel Silverstein

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater’s been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or—
Huh? You say it’s mine? Oh dear,
I knew it looked familiar!

Here’s another selection from Possession.

A Valediction: Forbidden Mourning
By John Donne

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 aery 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 th’ other do.

And though it in the centre 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.

I’m still reading Possession (somehow I don’t have nearly as much time to read for pleasure as I did over the summer!) so here’s another selection mentioned therein. It’s interesting that when I read the entire poem (only the last part of it was quoted in Possession), I immediately thought of this sonnet by Shakespeare, which is one of my favorites. Though both speak of the decay of buildings, Shakespeare’s maintains that the recipient of the poem can live on forever in memory (because of the sonnet), while Wordsworth’s implies that all can be lost.

Monastery of Old Bangor
XII FROM ECCLESIASTICAL SONNETS
By William Wordsworth

‘The oppression of the tumult—wrath and scorn—
The tribulation—and the gleaming blades’—
Such is the impetuous spirit that pervades
The song of Taliesin;—Ours shall mourn
The ‘unarmed’ Host who by their prayers would turn
The sword from Bangor’s walls, and guard the store
Of Aboriginal and Roman lore,
And Christian monuments, that now must burn
To senseless ashes. Mark! how all things swerve
From their known course, or vanish like a dream;
Another language spreads from coast to coast;
Only perchance some melancholy Stream
And some indignant Hills old names preserve,
When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost!

I do believe it’s time for another Vassar Miller poem. Since it’s finally cooler than 90F here, I may just keep posting poems referring to cold.

Apology
By Vassar Miller

My mortal love’s a rabbit skin
That will not reach around your bones
To charm the chill, to wrap you in
Against the wind whose undertones
Are death, or snow whose flakes are stones.
My word will never do for thread
To knit you garments snug and tight
Though I would fold you foot and head
Against the frost-fangs of the night
Killing whatever rose they bite.
My will is not enough to stretch
The tattered pelt around us two.
Pity, with each of us a wretch,
Comes dyed my hurt’s deceitful hue
As rag for me, not robe for you.
The only cover from heart’s weather,
The only comfort under which
Our naked souls may crouch together
Only immortal love, all-rich
In warmer wool than fleece, can stitch.

I don’t think we’re done with hot weather for the year, but since a cold front just came through and the highs are supposed to be in the 70s this week and it was somewhat chilly last night (for Austin at least), I thought I’d post this poem. I didn’t think it was right to post it while it was still in the 90s, so I’ve been waiting…

Exeunt
By Richard Wilbur

   Piecemeal the summer dies;
At the field’s edge a daisy lives alone;
   A last shawl of burning lies
      On a gray field-stone.

   All cries are thin and terse;
The field has droned the summer’s final mass;
   A cricket like a dwindled hearse
      Crawls from the dry grass.

I thought this was a nice poem to post on a lovely Sunday.

Eleven Addresses to the Lord, #1
By John Berryman

Master of beauty, craftsman of the snowflake,
inimitable contriver,
endower of Earth so gorgeous & different from the boring Moon,
thank you for such as it is my gift.

I have made up a morning prayer to you
containing with precision everything that most matters.
‘According to Thy will’ the thing begins.
It took me off & on two days. It does not aim at eloquence.

You have come to my rescue again & again
in my impassable, sometimes despairing years.
You have allowed my brilliant friends to destroy themselves
and I am still here, severely damaged, but functioning.

Unknowable, as I am unknown to my guinea pigs:
how can I ‘love’ you?
I only as far as gratitude & awe
confidently & absolutely go.

I have no idea whether we live again.
It doesn’t seem likely
from either the scientific or the philosophical point of view
but certainly all things are possible to you,

and I believe as fixedly in the Resurrection-appearances to Peter and to Paul
as I believe I sit in this blue chair.
Only that may have been a special case
to establish their initiatory faith.

Whatever your end may be, accept my amazement.
May I stand until death forever at attention
for any your least instruction or enlightenment.
I even feel sure you will assist me again, Master of insight & beauty.

Here is another selection from Ted Kooser’s column.

Children in a Field
By Angela Shaw

They don’t wade in so much as they are taken.
Deep in the day, in the deep of the field,
every current in the grasses whispers hurry
hurry, every yellow spreads its perfume
like a rumor, impelling them further on.
It is the way of girls. It is the sway
of their dresses in the summer trance—
light, their bare calves already far-gone
in green. What songs will they follow?
Whatever the wood warbles, whatever storm
or harm the border promises, whatever
calm. Let them go. Let them go traceless
through the high grass and into the willow—
blur, traceless across the lean blue glint
of the river, to the long dark bodies
of the conifers, and over the welcoming
threshold of nightfall.

Since it’s nighttime, I thought I’d post this. I love the last line.

Nightclub
By Billy Collins

You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don’t hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts of love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else’s can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o’clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

I like this one. It’s a bit different from Mending Wall and The Road Not Taken.

The Investment
By Robert Frost

Over back where they speak of life as staying
(’You couldn’t call it living, for it ain’t'),
There was an old, old house renewed with paint,
And in it a piano loudly playing.

Out in the plowed ground in the cold a digger,
Among unearthed potatoes standing still,
Was counting winter dinners, one a hill,
With half an ear to the piano’s vigor.

All that piano and new paint back there,
Was it some money suddenly come into?
Or some extravagance young love had been to?
Or old love on an impulse not to care—

Not to sink under being man and wife,
But get some color and music out of life?

I think this is a wonderful poem. It really struck home with me because sometimes I have a hard time remembering things I never thought I’d forget. I especially like the line: Sometimes I feel the mind’s thin shavings scattering the minute they fall.

The Music Box
By Naomi Shihab Nye

I don’t know who gave me this instrument,
what happened to the box that once housed
this now-bare motor… I turn the knob,
again, again, till the thing is tightly wound,
then watch the intricate wheels spin against one another
clicking out tiny metallic notes.
It is a familiar song but I couldn’t name it.
It repeats over and over, a miniature anthem
vibrating in my hand.
I feel there is something I should remember,
at least who gave it to me, but this memory has fallen away
like so many others. Sometimes I feel the mind’s
thin shavings scattering the minute they fall,
like the notes of this music-box disappearing into Monday,
even the ones that play together, the highest note,
even the pause.

The hunting poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt were mentioned in Possession so I went looking for one. This is the first one I came across and sure enough, the phrase noli me tangere (which was mentioned in the book) is in this poem.

By the way, according to Wikipedia:

“Noli Me Tangere is the Latin version of the words spoken, according to the Gospel of John, by Jesus to Mary Magdalen, meaning “touch me not” (the quotation appears in John 20:17). The words were a popular trope in Gregorian chant, and the moment in which they were spoken was a popular subject for paintings.

Its modern English meaning is Do not disturb/interfere. It has been argued that the Greek original is better represented by a translation of cease from holding on to me, signifying that Jesus is saying that although he is risen he has not returned in the same form that he left and that he will soon ascend, but presaging the sending of the Spirit.

See John 20:16 for a discussion of the preceding verse.”

Whoso list to hunt? I know where is an hind!
By Sir Thomas Wyatt

Whoso list to hunt? I know where is an hind!
But as for me, alas! I may no more,
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore;
I am of them that furthest come behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer; but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow; I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt
As well as I, may spend his time in vain!
And graven with diamonds in letters plain,
There is written her fair neck round about;
‘Noli me tangere; for Cæsar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.’

I read this poem yesterday and I was kind of amused by it so I thought I’d share.

Dilemma
By David Budbill

I want to be
famous
so I can be
humble
about being
famous.

What good is my
humility
when I am
stuck
in this
obscurity?

I’ve been saving this since I read it on Ted Kooser’s website because it has a nice autumn feel to it. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s autumn for most people I know, even though it still seems like summer in Austin. Enjoy!

Neighbors in October
By David Baker

All afternoon his tractor pulls a flat wagon
with bales to the barn, then back to the waiting
chopped field. It trails a feather of smoke.
Down the block we bend with the season:
shoes to polish for a big game,
storm windows to batten or patch.
And how like a field is the whole sky now
that the maples have shed their leaves, too.
It makes us believers — stationed in groups,
leaning on rakes, looking into space. We rub blisters
over billows of leaf smoke. Or stand alone,
bagging gold for the cold days to come.

I really like Wendell Berry’s simple style of writing.

What We Need Is Here
By Wendell Berry

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

Definitely time for another ESVM! I love this one because it’s so deliciously devilish!

The Penitent
By Edna St. Vincent Millay
I had a little Sorrow,
   Born of a little Sin,
I found a room all damp with gloom
   And shut us all within;
And, “Little Sorrow, weep,” said I,
“And, Little Sin, pray God to die,
And I upon the floor will lie
   And think how bad I’ve been!”

Alas for pious planning–
   It mattered not a whit!
As far as gloom went in that room,
   The lamp might have been lit!
My little Sorrow would not weep,
My little Sin would go to sleep–
To save my soul I could not keep
   My graceless mind on it!

So up I got in anger,
   And took a book I had,
And put a ribbon on my hair
   To please a passing lad.
And, “One thing there’s no getting by—
I’ve been a wicked girl,” said I:
“But if I can’t be sorry, why,
I might as well be glad!”

At the bookstore I also got a book of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry (as translated by Robert Bly), which I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Here’s the first poem I opened up to and it seemed appropriate. (The German title is Herbsttag. You can find other translations here.)

October Day
By Rainer Maria Rilke

Oh Lord, it’s time, it’s time. It was a great summer.
Lay your shadow now on the sundials,
and on the open fields let the winds go!

Give the tardy fruits the hint to fill;
give them two more Mediterranean days,
Drive them on into their greatness, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house by now will not build.
Whoever is alone now will remain alone,
will wait up, read, write long letters,
and walk along sidewalks under large trees,
not going home, as the leaves fall and blow away.

I went to a bookstore with Jennifer and Killy and got a book of Mary Oliver’s poetry. Here’s a selection.

Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me
By Mary Oliver

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,

what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again

in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,

smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches

and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing

under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,

and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment

my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars

and the soft rain—
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.

I’m still reading Possession (slowly) and I came across the first stanza of this poem, so I thought I’d share the whole thing.

For Anne Gregory
By William Butler Yeats

‘Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.’

‘But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.’

‘I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.’

I love this poem. My mother used to read it us when we were little.

P.S. We’re going to the KC Ren Fest today! Hooray!

The Owl and the Pussy-cat
By Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
   In a beautiful pea-green boat:
They took some honey, and plenty of money
   Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
   And sang to a small guitar,
“O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
   What a beautiful Pussy you are,
      You are,
      You are!
   What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!
   How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
   But what shall we do for a ring?”
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
   To the land where the bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
   With a ring at the end of his nose,
      His nose,
      His nose,
   With a ring at the end of his nose.

“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
   Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”
So they took it away, and were married next day
   By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
   Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
   They danced by the light of the moon,
      The moon,
      The moon,
   They danced by the light of the moon.

Here’s another from my cache of poems I saved to post while in KC, in honor of my darling Killian.

Little Boy Blue
By Eugene Field

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
   But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
   And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
   And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
   Kissed them and put them there.

“Now, don’t you go till I come,” he said,
   ”And don’t you make any noise!”
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed,
   He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
   Awakened our Little Boy Blue—
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
   But the little toy friends are true!

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
   Each in the same old place,
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
   The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
   In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
   Since he kissed them and put them there.

I think this is a cute poem! Killy’s been wearing socks since it’s getting cool outside, but this is still for him!

P.S. My Horns beat the pants off OU! YEE-HAW!!!

The Barefoot Boy
By John Greenleaf Whittier

Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
With thy turned-up pantaloons,
And thy merry whistled tunes;
With thy red lip, redder still
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face,
Through thy torn brim’s jaunty grace;
From my heart I give thee joy,—
I was once a barefoot boy!
Prince thou art,—the grown-up man
Only is republican.
Let the million-dollared ride!
Barefoot, trudging at his side,
Thou hast more than he can buy
In the reach of ear and eye,—
Outward sunshine, inward joy:
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!

Oh for boyhood’s painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor’s rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools,
Of the wild bee’s morning chase,
Of the wild-flower’s time and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell,
And the ground-mole sinks his well;
How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole’s nest is hung;
Where the whitest lilies blow,
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the ground-nut trails its vine,
Where the wood-grape’s clusters shine;
Of the black wasp’s cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay,
And the architectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans!
For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks;
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy,—
Blessings on the barefoot boy!

Oh for boyhood’s time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw,
Me, their master, waited for.
I was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming-birds and honey-bees;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade;
For my taste the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;
Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!
Still as my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy!

Oh for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread;
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the door-stone, gray and rude!
O’er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold,
Looped in many a wind-swung fold;
While for music came the play
Of the pied frogs’ orchestra;
And, to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!

Cheerily, then, my little man,
Live and laugh, as boyhood can!
Though the flinty slopes be hard,
Stubble-speared the new-mown sward,
Every morn shall lead thee through
Fresh baptisms of the dew;
Every evening from thy feet
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat:
All too soon these feet must hide
In the prison cells of pride,
Lose the freedom of the sod,
Like a colt’s for work be shod,
Made to tread the mills of toil,
Up and down in ceaseless moil:
Happy if their track be found
Never on forbidden ground;
Happy if they sink not in
Quick and treacherous sands of sin.
Ah! that thou couldst know thy joy,
Ere it passes, barefoot boy!

Since I’m now happily ensconced in Kansas City, I wanted to post a poem dedicated to David, even though he’s not trying to write an ode to Killy. However, he does work from home, and I imagine it can be distracting at times!

A Parental Ode to my Son
AGED THREE YEARS AND FIVE MONTHS
By Thomas Hood

   Thou happy, happy elf!
(But stop,—first let me kiss away that tear!)
   Thou tiny image of myself!
(My love, he’s poking peas into his ear!)
Thou merry, laughing sprite,
With spirits feather-light,
Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin,—
(My dear, the child is swallowing a pin!)

Thou little tricksy Puck!
With antic toys so funnily bestuck,
Light as the singing bird that wings the air,—
(The door! the door! he’ll tumble down the stair!)
Thou darling of thy sire!
(Why, Jane, he’ll set his pinafore afire!)
   Thou imp of mirth and joy!
In Love’s dear chain so strong and bright a link,
   Thou idol of thy parents,—(Drat the boy!
There goes my ink!)

   Thou cherub,—but of earth;
Fit playfellow for Fays, by moonlight pale,
   In harmless sport and mirth,
(That dog will bite him, if he pulls its tail!)
   Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey
From every blossom in the world that blows,
   Singing in youth’s Elysium ever sunny.—
(Another tumble! That’s his precious nose!)

Thy father’s pride and hope!
(He’ll break the mirror with that skipping-rope!)
With pure heart newly stamped from nature’s mint,
(Where did he learn that squint?)
Thou young domestic dove!
(He’ll have that jug off with another shove!)
Dear nursling of the hymeneal nest!
(Are these torn clothes his best?)
Little epitome of man!
(He’ll climb upon the table, that’s his plan!)
Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life,—
    (He’s got a knife!)

Thou enviable being!
No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing,
   Play on, play on,
   My elfin John!
Toss the light ball, bestride the stick,—
(I knew so many cakes would make him sick!)
   With fancies, buoyant as the thistle-down,
Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk,
With many a lamb-like frisk!
    (He’s got the scissors, snipping at your gown!)

Thou pretty opening rose!
(Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!)
Balmy and breathing music like the South,—
(He really brings my heart into my mouth!)
Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star,—
(I wish that window had an iron bar!)
Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove;—
(I’ll tell you what, my love,
I cannot write unless he’s sent above.)

Vassar Miller has such an ability to write descriptively about pain.

From an Old Maid
By Vassar Miller

You come and say that it is restful here
to speak your pain into my silences,
wafting your words across them like the hair
of drowning sailors lost in churning seas.

And if I ever told you, you would laugh
to think I made your moment’s reef of calm
by holding up your listless body, half
submerged in water, lightly on my palm.

Digging into my flesh with terror’s claws
until the times you hope you hear the oar
of your salvation, do you never pause
to wonder when or where I drift to shore?

Ogden Nash just cracks me up.

So That’s Who I Remind Me Of
By Ogden Nash

When I consider men of golden talents,
I’m delighted, in my introverted way,
To discover, as I’m drawing up the balance,
How much we have in common, I and they.

Like Burns, I have a weakness for the bottle,
Like Shakespeare, little Latin and less Greek;
I bite my fingernails like Aristotle;
Like Thackeray, I have a snobbish streak.

I’m afflicted with the vanity of Byron,
I’ve inherited the spitefulness of Pope;
Like Petrarch, I’m a sucker for a siren,
Like Milton, I’ve a tendency to mope.

My spelling is suggestive of a Chaucer;
Like Johnson, well, I do not wish to die
(I also drink my coffee from the saucer);
And if Goldsmith was a parrot, so am I.

Like Villon, I have debits by the carload,
Like Swinburne, I’m afraid I need a nurse;
By my dicing is Christopher out-Marlowed,
And I dream as much as Coleridge, only worse.

In comparison with men of golden talents,
I am all a man of talent ought to be;
I resemble every genius in his vice, however heinous—
Yet I write so much like me.

Here is another poem posted by Ted Kooser. I think it’s hilarious! (P.S. I’m posting this from my brand new laptop! Yay!)

Peacock Display
By David Wagoner

He approaches her, trailing his whole fortune,
Perfectly cocksure, and suddenly spreads
The huge fan of his tail for her amazement.

Each turquoise and purple, black-horned, walleyed quill
Comes quivering forward, an amphitheatric shell
For his most fortunate audience: her alone.

He plumes himself. He shakes his brassily gold
Wings and rump in a dance, lifting his claws
Stiff-legged under the great bulge of his breast.

And she strolls calmly away, pecking and pausing,
Not watching him, astonished to discover
All these seeds spread just for her in the dirt.

This poem was in Possession, so I thought I’d share it.

She tells her love while half asleep
By Robert Graves

She tells her love while half asleep,
   In the dark hours,
      With half words whispered low:
As earth stirs in her winter sleep
   And puts out grass and flowers
      Despite the snow,
      Despite the falling snow.

This is kind of a cop out, but I’ve always laughed at this, so I’m posting it anyway. It’s from a Far Side comic entitled “Cow poetry”.

Distant Hills
FROM THE FAR SIDE
By Gary Larson

The distant hills call to me.
Their rolling waves seduce my heart.
Oh, how I want to graze in their lush valleys.
Oh, how I want to run down their green slopes.
Alas, I cannot.
Damn the electric fence!
Damn the electric fence!

I just started reading Possession by A.S. Byatt and this excerpt from a (very long) piece appeared at the beginning. I was going to post it in its entirety, but that is apparently too much for one post, so I’ll stick with the excerpt. You can find the full text here.

From Mr. Sludge, “The Medium”
By Robert Browning

And if at whiles the bubble, blown too thin,
Seem nigh on bursting,—if you nearly see
The real world through the false,—what do you see?
Is the old so ruined? You find you’re in a flock
O’ the youthful, earnest, passionate—genius, beauty,
Rank and wealth also, if you care for these:
And all depose their natural rights, hail you,
(That’s me, sir) as their mate and yoke-fellow,
Participate in Sludgehood—nay, grow mine,
I veritably possess them—…

And all this might be, may be, and with good help
Of a little lying shall be: so, Sludge lies!
Why, he’s at worst your poet who sings how Greeks
That never were, in Troy which never was,
Did this or the other impossible great thing!…

But why do I mount to poets? Take plain prose—
Dealers in common sense, set these at work,
What can they do without their helpful lies?
Each states the law and fact and face o’ the thing
Just as he’d have them, finds what he thinks fit,
Is blind to what missuits him, just records
What makes his case out, quite ignores the rest.
It’s a History of the World, the Lizard Age,
The Early Indians, the Old Country War,
Jerome Napoleon, whatsoever you please,
All as the author wants it. Such a scribe
You pay and praise for putting life in stones,
Fire into fog, making the past your world.
There’s plenty of ‘How did you contrive to grasp
The thread which led you through this labyrinth?
How build such solid fabric out of air?
How on so slight foundation found this tale?
Biography, narrative?’ or, in other words,
‘How many lies did it require to make
The portly truth you here present us with?’