Poem of the Day

This is the last poem I culled from Sons and Lovers.

Fair Ines
By Thomas Hood

O saw ye not fair Ines?
She’s gone into the West,
To dazzle when the sun is down,
And rob the world of rest:
She took our daylight with her,
The smiles that we love best,
With morning blushes on her cheek,
And pearls upon her breast.

O turn again, fair Ines,
Before the fall of night,
For fear the Moon should shine alone,
And stars unrivall’d bright;
And blessèd will the lover be
That walks beneath their light,
And breathes the love against thy cheek
I dare not even write!

Would I had been, fair Ines,
That gallant cavalier,
Who rode so gaily by thy side,
And whisper’d thee so near!
Were there no bonny dames at home,
Or no true lovers here,
That he should cross the seas to win
The dearest of the dear?

I saw thee, lovely Ines,
Descend along the shore,
With bands of noble gentlemen,
And banners waved before;
And gentle youth and maidens gay,
And snowy plumes they wore:
It would have been a beauteous dream,—
If it had been no more!

Alas, alas! fair Ines,
She went away with song,
With Music waiting on her steps,
And shoutings of the throng;
But some were sad, and felt no mirth,
But only Music’s wrong,
In sounds that sang Farewell, farewell,
To her you’ve loved so long.

Farewell, farewell, fair Ines!
That vessel never bore
So fair a lady on its deck,
Nor danced so light before,—
Alas for pleasure on the sea,
And sorrow on the shore!
The smile that bless’d one lover’s heart
Has broken many more!

This was apparently a popular song back in the day, but I’ve not heard it set to music.

Mary Morison
By Robert Burns

O Mary, at thy window be,
It is the wish’d, the trysted hour!
Those smiles and glances let me see,
That make the miser’s treasure poor:
How blythely was I bide the stour,
A weary slave frae sun to sun,
Could I the rich reward secure,
The lovely Mary Morison.

Yestreen, when to the trembling string
The dance gaed thro’ the lighted ha’,
To thee my fancy took its wing,
I sat, but neither heard nor saw:
Tho’ this was fair, and that was braw,
And yon the toast of a’ the town,
I sigh’d, and said among them a’,
“Ye are na Mary Morison.”

Oh, Mary, canst thou wreck his peace,
Wha for thy sake wad gladly die?
Or canst thou break that heart of his,
Whase only faut is loving thee?
If love for love thou wilt na gie,
At least be pity to me shown;
A thought ungentle canna be
The thought o’ Mary Morison.

This poem was also mentioned in Sons and Lovers. Check out Bartleby if you’d like definitions of unfamiliar terms. (Incidentally, Jane Elliot is the false name Jane Eyre gives the Rivers’ when she’s seeking shelter from them. I’m such a dork!)

A Lament for the Flodden
By Jane Elliot

I’ve heard them lilting at our ewe-milking,
   Lasses a’ lilting before dawn o’ day;
But now they are moaning on ilka green loaning—
   The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

At bughts, in the morning, nae blythe lads are scorning,
   Lasses are lonely and dowie and wae;
Nae daffing, nae gabbing, but sighing and sabbing,
   Ilk ane lifts her leglin and hies her away.

In hairst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,
   Bandsters are lyart, and runkled, and gray:
At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching—
   The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

At e’en, in the gloaming, nae swankies are roaming
   ’Bout stacks wi’ the lasses at bogle to play;
But ilk ane sits eerie, lamenting her dearie—
   The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

Dool and wae for the order sent our lads to the Border!
   The English, for ance, by guile wan the day;
The Flowers of the Forest, that fought aye the foremost,
   The prime of our land, lie cauld in the clay.

We’ll hear nae mair lilting at our ewe-milking;
   Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning—
   The Flowers of the Forest are a’ wede away.

Here’s another one mentioned in Sons and Lovers. This version has been translated by William Aggeler, but you may read the original French and other translations here if you wish.

The Balcony
By Charles Baudelaire

Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses,
O you, all my pleasure, O you, all my duty!
You’ll remember the sweetness of our caresses,
The peace of the fireside, the charm of the evenings.
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses!

The evenings lighted by the glow of the coals,
The evenings on the balcony, veiled with rose mist;
How soft your breast was to me! how kind was your heart!
We often said imperishable things,
The evenings lighted by the glow of the coals.

How splendid the sunsets are on warm evenings!
How deep space is! how potent is the heart!
In bending over you, queen of adored women
I thought I breathed the perfume in your blood.
How splendid the sunsets are on warm evenings!

The night was growing dense like an encircling wall,
My eyes in the darkness felt the fire of your gaze
And I drank in your breath, O sweetness, O poison!
And your feet nestled soft in my brotherly hands.
The night was growing dense like an encircling wall.

I know the art of evoking happy moments,
And live again our past, my head laid on your knees,
For what’s the good of seeking your languid beauty
Elsewhere than in your dear body and gentle heart?
I know the art of evoking happy moments.

Those vows, those perfumes, those infinite kisses,
Will they be reborn from a gulf we may not sound,
As rejuvenated suns rise in the heavens
After being bathed in the depths of deep seas?
—O vows! O perfumes! O infinite kisses!

I think this poem is just lovely. The scene is so vividly described, I feel as if I was there.

The Solitary Reaper
By William Wordsworth

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending;—
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

Another from Sons and Lovers. I haven’t read it aloud, but I think it would lend itself well to being heard rather than read silently.

The Song of the Shirt
By Thomas Hood

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the “Song of the Shirt.”

“Work! work! work!
While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work—work—work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It’s Oh! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!

“Work—work—work
Till the brain begins to swim;
Work—work—work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!

“Oh, Men, with Sisters dear!
Oh, Men, with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you’re wearing out,
But human creatures’ lives!
Stitch—stitch—stitch,
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once with a double thread,
A Shroud as well as a Shirt.

But why do I talk of Death?
That Phantom of grisly bone,
I hardly fear its terrible shape,
It seems so like my own—
It seems so like my own,
Because of the fasts I keep;
Oh, God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!

“Work—work—work!
My Labour never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread—and rags.
That shatter’d roof—and this naked floor—
A table—a broken chair—
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!

“Work—work—work!
From weary chime to chime,
Work—work—work!
As prisoners work for crime!
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb’d,
As well as the weary hand.

“Work—work—work,
In the dull December light,
And work—work—work,
When the weather is warm and bright—
While underneath the eaves
The brooding swallows cling
As if to show me their sunny backs
And twit me with the spring.

Oh! but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet—
With the sky above my head,
And the grass beneath my feet
For only one short hour
To feel as I used to feel,
Before I knew the woes of want
And the walk that costs a meal!

Oh! but for one short hour!
A respite however brief!
No blessed leisure for Love or Hope,
But only time for Grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart,
But in their briny bed
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!”

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,—
Would that its tone could reach the Rich!—
She sang this “Song of the Shirt!”

Today we have another one from Sons and Lovers, of course. As Paul is teaching French to Miriam, the poems of Verlaine are mentioned a couple times. I chose this one to share. You may read the original French here. I chose a translation by Gertrude Hall from Project Gutenberg.

Clair de Lune
By Paul Verlaine

Your soul is as a moonlit landscape fair,
   Peopled with maskers delicate and dim,
That play on lutes and dance and have an air
   Of being sad in their fantastic trim.

The while they celebrate in minor strain
   Triumphant love, effective enterprise,
They have an air of knowing all is vain,—
   And through the quiet moonlight their songs rise,

The melancholy moonlight, sweet and lone,
   That makes to dream the birds upon the tree,
And in their polished basins of white stone
   The fountains tall to sob with ecstasy.

Another one mentioned in Sons and Lovers.

The Blessed Damozel
By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary’s gift,
For service meetly worn;
Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.

Her seemed she scarce had been a day
One of God’s choristers;
The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;
Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.

(To one, it is ten years of years.
…Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she leaned o’er me—her hair
Fell all about my face…
Nothing: the autumn-fall of leaves.
The whole year sets apace.)

It was the rampart of God’s house
That she was standing on;
By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun;
So high, that looking downward thence
She scarce could see the sun.

It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.
Beneath, the tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge
The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge.

Around her, lovers, newly met
Mid deathless love’s acclaims,
Spoke evermore among themselves
Their heart-remembered names;
And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.

And still she bowed herself and stooped
Out of the circling charm;
Until her bosom must have made
The bar she leaned on warm,
And the lilies lay as if asleep
Along her bended arm.

From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
Time like a pulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce
Its path; and now she spoke as when
The stars sang in their spheres.

The sun was gone now; the curled moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together.

(Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird’s song,
Strove not her accents there,
Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
Possessed the midday air,
Strove not her steps to reach my side
Down all the echoing stair?)

“I wish that he were come to me,
For he will come,” she said.
“Have I not prayed in Heaven?—on earth,
Lord, Lord, has he not prayed?
Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
And shall I feel afraid?

“When round his head the aureole clings,
And he is clothed in white,
I’ll take his hand and go with him
To the deep wells of light;
As unto a stream we will step down,
And bathe there in God’s sight.

“We two will stand beside that shrine,
Occult, withheld, untrod,
Whose lamps are stirred continually
With prayer sent up to God;
And see our old prayers, granted, melt
Each like a little cloud.

“We two will lie i’ the shadow of
That living mystic tree
Within whose secret growth the Dove
Is sometimes felt to be,
While every leaf that His plumes touch
Saith His Name audibly.

“And I myself will teach to him,
I myself, lying so,
The songs I sing here; with his voice
Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
And find some knowledge at each pause,
Or some new thing to know.”

(Alas! we two, we two, thou sayst!
Yea, one wast thou with me
That once of old. But shall God lift
To endless unity
The soul whose likeness with thy soul
Was but its love for thee?)

“We two,” she said, “will seek the groves
Where the lady Mary is,
With her five handmaidens, whose names
Are five sweet symphonies,
Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
Margaret and Rosalys.

“Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
And foreheads garlanded;
Into the fine cloth white like flame
Weaving the golden thread,
To fashion the birth-robes for them
Who are just born, being dead.

“He shall fear, haply, and be dumb:
Then will I lay my cheek
To his, and tell about our love,
Not once abashed or weak:
And the dear Mother will approve
My pride, and let me speak.

“Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
To Him round Whom all souls
Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
Bowed with their aureoles:
And angels meeting us shall sing
To their citherns and citoles.

“There will I ask of Christ the Lord
Thus much for him and me:—
Only to live as once on earth
With Love,—only to be,
As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he.”

She gazed and listened and then said,
Less sad of speech than mild,—
“All this is when he comes.” She ceased.
The light thrilled towards her, filled
With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smiled.

(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres:
And then she cast her arms along
The golden barriers,
And laid her face between her hands,
And wept. (I heard her tears.)

I finished Sons and Lovers yesterday and it’s given me much fodder for the PotD. Expect many selections mentioned in that novel in the days to come. Hugo’s The Rose and the Tomb was referred to in Sons and Lovers. I found a translation here, which must be a little different from the one Lawrence quoted.

The Grave and the Rose
By Victor Hugo

The Grave said to the Rose,
“What of the dews of dawn,
Love’s flower, what end is theirs?”
“And what of spirits flown,
The souls whereon doth close
The tomb’s mouth unawares?”
The Rose said to the Grave.

The Rose said, “In the shade
From the dawn’s tears is made
A perfume faint and strange,
Amber and honey sweet.”
“And all the spirits fleet
Do suffer a sky-change,
More strangely than the dew,
To God’s own angels new,”
The Grave said to the Rose.

I’m reading Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence and one of the characters read this to his family and friends. I snagged the text from Project Gutenberg.

The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire
By Jean Ingelow

The old mayor climbed the belfry tower,
   The ringers ran by two, by three;
“Pull, if ye never pulled before;
   Good ringers, pull your best,” quoth he.
“Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells!
Ply all your changes, all your swells,
      Play uppe ‘The Brides of Enderby.’”

Men say it was a stolen tyde—
   The Lord that sent it, He knows all;
But in myne ears doth still abide
   The message that the bells let fall:
And there was nought of strange, beside
The nights of mews and peewits pied
      By millions crouched on the old sea wall.

I sat and spun within the doore,
   My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes;
The level sun, like ruddy ore,
   Lay sinking in the barren skies;
And dark against day’s golden death
She moved where Lindis wandereth,
My sonne’s faire wife, Elizabeth.

      ”Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!” calling,
      Ere the early dews were falling,
      Farre away I heard her song.
      ”Cusha! Cusha!” all along;
      Where the reedy Lindis floweth,
         Floweth, floweth.
      From the meads where melick groweth
      Faintly came her milking song—

      ”Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!” calling,
      ”For the dews will soone be falling;
      Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
         Mellow, mellow;
      Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;
      Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot
      Quit the stalks of parsley hollow,
         Hollow, hollow;
      Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,
      From the clovers lift your head;
      Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot,
      Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow,
      Jetty, to the milking shed.”

If it be long, ay, long ago,
   When I beginne to think howe long,
Againe I hear the Lindis flow,
   Swift as an arrowe, sharpe and strong;
And all the aire, it seemeth mee,
Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee),
That ring the tune of Enderby.

Alle fresh the level pasture lay,
   And not a shadowe mote be seene,
Save where full fyve good miles away
   The steeple towered from out the greene;
And lo! the great bell farre and wide
Was heard in all the country side
That Saturday at eventide.

The swanherds where their sedges are
   Moved on in sunset’s golden breath.
The shepherde lads I heard afarre,
   And my sonne’s wife, Elizabeth;
Till floating o’er the grassy sea
Came downe that kyndly message free,
The “Brides of Mavis Enderby.”

Then some looked uppe into the sky,
   And all along where Lindis flows
To where the goodly vessels lie,
   And where the lordly steeple shows.
They sayde, “And why should this thing be?
What danger lowers by land or sea?
They ring the tune of Enderby!

“For evil news from Mablethorpe,
      Of pyrate galleys warping down;
For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe,
      They have not spared to wake the towne
But while the west bin red to see,
And storms be none, and pyrates flee,
Why ring ‘The Brides of Enderby’?”

I looked without, and lo! my sonne
      Came riding downe with might and main
He raised a shout as he drew on,
      Till all the welkin rang again,
“Elizabeth! Elizabeth!”
(A sweeter woman ne’er drew breath
Than my sonne’s wife, Elizabeth.)

“The olde sea wall (he cried) is downe,
      The rising tide comes on apace,
And boats adrift in yonder towne
      Go sailing uppe the market-place.”
He shook as one that looks on death:
“God save you, mother!” straight he saith;
“Where is my wife, Elizabeth?”

“Good sonne, where Lindis winds away,
      With her two bairns I marked her long;
And ere yon bells beganne to play
      Afar I heard her milking song.”
He looked across the grassy lea,
To right, to left, “Ho Enderby!”
They rang “The Brides of Enderby!”

With that he cried and beat his breast;
   For, lo! along the river’s bed
A mighty eygre reared his crest,
   And uppe the Lindis raging sped.
It swept with thunderous noises loud;
Shaped like a curling snow-white cloud,
Or like a demon in a shroud.

And rearing Lindis backward pressed,
   Shook all her trembling bankes amaine;
Then madly at the eygre’s breast
   Flung uppe her weltering walls again.
Then bankes came downe with ruin and rout—
Then beaten foam flew round about—
Then all the mighty floods were out.

So farre, so fast the eygre drave,
   The heart had hardly time to beat,
Before a shallow seething wave
   Sobbed in the grasses at oure feet:
The feet had hardly time to flee
Before it brake against the knee,
And all the world was in the sea.

Upon the roofe we sate that night,
   The noise of bells went sweeping by;
I marked the lofty beacon light
   Stream from the church tower, red and high—
A lurid mark and dread to see;
And awsome bells they were to mee,
That in the dark rang “Enderby.”

They rang the sailor lads to guide
   From roofe to roofe who fearless rowed;
And I—my sonne was at my side,
   And yet the ruddy beacon glowed;
And yet he moaned beneath his breath,
“O come in life, or come in death!
O lost! my love, Elizabeth.”

And didst thou visit him no more?
   Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare;
The waters laid thee at his doore,
   Ere yet the early dawn was clear.
Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace,
The lifted sun shone on thy face,
Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place.

That flow strewed wrecks about the grass,
   That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea;
A fatal ebbe and flow, alas!
   To manye more than myne and me:
But each will mourn his own (she saith).
And sweeter woman ne’er drew breath
Than my sonne’s wife, Elizabeth.

I shall never hear her more
By the reedy Lindis shore,
“Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!” calling,
Ere the early dews be falling;
I shall never hear her song,
“Cusha! Cusha!” all along
Where the sunny Lindis floweth,
   Goeth, floweth;
From the meads where melick groweth,
When the water winding down,
Onward floweth to the town.

I shall never see her more
Where the reeds and rushes quiver,
   Shiver, quiver;
Stand beside the sobbing river,
Sobbing, throbbing, in its falling
To the sandy lonesome shore;
I shall never hear her calling,
“Leave your meadow grasses mellow.
   Mellow, mellow;
Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;
Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot;
Quit your pipes of parsley hollow,
   Hollow, hollow;
Come uppe Lightfoot, rise and follow;
   Lightfoot, Whitefoot,
From your clovers lift the head;
Come uppe Jetty, follow, follow,
Jetty, to the milking shed.”

I’m still listening to Loreena McKennitt (concert in two weeks!) and she adapted a couple of Padraic Colum’s poems to songs, so I thought I’d post one of them. Margo Hennebach (among countless others I’m sure) has also recorded an arrangement of this one. Yay! As I don’t have any textual evidence, I’ve relied on the internet (which is fraught with erroneous information). This version came from Wikipedia, which claims that Colum didn’t write the last verse. As I’ve seen it attributed to him in other places and Loreena McKennitt included it, I’ve put it here, with the caveat that perhaps it shouldn’t be included.

She Moved Through the Fair
By Padraic Colum

My young love said to me my mother won’t mind
And my father won’t slight you for your lack of kind
And she laid her hand on me and this she did say
It will not be long now ’til our wedding day

And she went away from me, she moved through the fair
And fondly I watched her move here and move there
And then she went onward, just one star awake
Like the swan in the evening moves over the lake

The people were saying no two e’er were wed
But one had a sorrow that never was said
And I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear
And that was the last that I saw of my dear

Last night she came to me, my dead love came in
So softly she came her feet made no din
And she laid her hand on me and this she did say
It will not be long now ’til our wedding day

Suddenly I found myself in the mood for Wilde…

Theoretikos
By Oscar Wilde

This mighty empire hath but feet of clay:
Of all its ancient chivalry and might
Our little island is forsaken quite:
Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay,
And from its hills that voice hath passed away
Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it,
Come out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit
For this vile traffic-house, where day by day
Wisdom and reverence are sold at mart,
And the rude people rage with ignorant cries
Against an heritage of centuries.
It mars my calm: wherefore in dreams of Art
And loftiest culture I would stand apart,
Neither for God, nor for his enemies.

César Vallejo was mentioned in The Summer Snow so I found a poem of his to post. I got the English translation (by Thomas Merton) here and the Spanish is here.

Black Stone on Top of a White Stone
By César Vallejo

I shall die in Paris, in a rainstorm,
On a day I already remember.
I shall die in Paris—it does not bother me—
Doubtless on a Thursday, like today, in autumn.
It shall be a Thursday, because today, Thursday
As I put down these lines, I have set my shoulders
To the evil. Never like today have I turned,
And headed my whole journey to the ways where I am alone.
César Vallejo is dead. They struck him,
All of them, though he did nothing to them,
They hit him hard with a stick and hard also
With the end of a rope. Witnesses are: the Thursdays,
The shoulder bones, the loneliness, the rain, and the roads…

So I went to see 300 again tonight (hey, I went with a friend who hadn’t seen it yet) and it rocked even more the second time. YEE-HAW!

The Oracles
By A.E. Housman

‘Tis mute, the word they went to hear on high Dodona mountain
   When winds were in the oakenshaws and all the cauldrons tolled,
And mute’s the midland navel-stone beside the singing fountain,
   And echoes list to silence now where gods told lies of old.

I took my question to the shrine that has not ceased from speaking,
   The heart within, that tells the truth and tells it twice as plain;
And from the cave of oracles I heard the priestess shrieking
   That she and I should surely die and never live again.

Oh priestess, what you cry is clear, and sound good sense I think it;
   But let the screaming echoes rest, and froth your mouth no more.
‘Tis true there’s better boose than brine, but he that drowns must drink it;
   And oh, my lass, the news is news that men have heard before.

The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning;
   Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air,
And he that stands will die for nought, and home there’s no returning.
   The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.

Last night I finished The Summer Snow, the last of the Carlos Tejada Alfonso y Léon series. Several poets were mentioned, and here’s a selection from one of them. This translation was done by Robert Bly. If you’ve seen a Spanish translation, feel free to comment!

The wind, one brilliant day
By Antonio Machado

The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.

“In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I’d like all the odor of your roses.”

“I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead.”

“Well then, I’ll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain.”

The wind left. And I wept. And I said
“What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?”

Since I get to see Loreena McKennitt in concert in a few weeks, Heather was nice enough to lend me her entire collection (which is the entire collection). My new obsession is finetune.com and I’ve been trying to make a poetry/literature playlist, but had trouble getting up to 45 tracks (I made it, but some of the selections are not ideal). I, of course, included The Highwayman and The Lady of Shallott by Loreena McKennitt, and it turns out that she has several more I could include, but the limit is three per playlist. So I’ve chosen this one because I love Yeats.

The Two Trees
By William Butler Yeats
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody,
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
There the Loves a circle go,
The flaming circle of our days,
Gyring, spiring to and fro
In those great ignorant leafy ways;
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the wingèd sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.

Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile,
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives,
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For all things turn to barrenness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old.
There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought;
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings; alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
Gaze no more in the bitter glass.

Here’s another one inspired by the story of the 300.

We Die Proud
By William Hendry

Where is the honor of yesteryear,
Of Thermopylae, and the Spartan’s lack of fear?
Where is the ambition to give one’s life,
In the fight for Freedom, Truth, and Right?
Is to be honorable such a sin
That it brings scorn from friend and kin?
O God, to be a Man is such a struggle
That I wonder the meaning of this life of trouble.
Yet, from the back regions of my mind
I hear a lonely echo rise,
An echo that pierces my very soul
And helps me remember my goal:
“WE DIE PROUD……………WE DIE PROUD!”

I’m going to see 300 tonight, so this seemed appropriate. If you’d like to read it in Greek, here you go.

Thermopylae
By Constantine P. Cavafy

Honor to those who in their lives
have defined and guard their Thermopylae.
Never stirring from duty;
just and upright in all their deeds,
yet with pity and compassion too;
generous when they are rich, and when
they are poor, again a little generous,
again helping as much as they can;
always speaking the truth,
yet without hatred for those who lie.

And more honor is due to them
when they foresee (and many do foresee)
that Ephialtes will finally appear,
and that the Medes in the end will go through.

I still haven’t read much of Aiken’s work, though I’ve seen his house and grave in Savannah.

The Room
By Conrad Aiken

Through that window—all else being extinct
Except itself and me—I saw the struggle
Of darkness against darkness. Within the room
It turned and turned, dived downward. Then I saw
How order might—if chaos wished—become:
And saw the darkness crush upon itself,
Contracting powerfully; it was as if
It killed itself, slowly: and with much pain.
Pain. The scene was pain, and nothing but pain.
What else, when chaos draws all forces inward
To shape a single leaf?…
                    For the leaf came
Alone and shining in the empty room;
After a while the twig shot downward from it;
And from the twig a bough; and then the trunk,
Massive and coarse; and last the one black root.
The black root cracked the walls. Boughs burst
          the window:
The great tree took possession.
                    Tree of trees!
Remember (when time comes) how chaos died
To shape the shining leaf. Then turn, have courage,
Wrap arms and roots together, be convulsed
With grief, and bring back chaos out of shape.
I will be watching then as I watch now.
I will praise darkness now, but then the leaf.

Reading the Carlos Tejada Alfonso y Léon series put me in a Spanish mood, though I can’t read Spanish. Here is the original version of the following poem, and I got the translation here.

Tomorrow
By Lope de Vega

Lord, what am I, that with unceasing care
   Thou did’st seek after me, that Thou did’st wait
   Wet with unhealthy dews before my gate,
And pass the gloomy nights of winter there?
Oh, strange delusion, that I did not greet
   Thy blest approach, and oh, to heaven how lost
   If my ingratitude’s unkindly frost
Has chilled the bleeding wounds upon Thy feet.

How oft my guardian angel gently cried,
   ”Soul, from thy casement look, and thou shalt see
   How He persists to knock and wait for thee!”
   And oh, how often to that Voice of sorrow,
“Tomorrow we will open,” I replied,
   And when the morrow came I answered still “Tomorrow.”

I randomly came across this one and I’m still not sure how I feel about it, so I took that as a sign I should post it.

The Cruel Moon
By Robert Graves

The cruel Moon hangs out of reach
Up above the shadowy beech.
Her face is stupid, but her eye
Is small and sharp and very sly.
Nurse says the Moon can drive you mad?
No, that’s a silly story, lad!
Though she be angry, though she would
Destroy all England if she could,
Yet think, what damage can she do
Hanging there so far from you?
Don’t heed what frightened nurses say:
Moons hang much too far away.

As if I didn’t get little enough sleep, I’m losing an hour tonight. I thought I’d post a poem about time. Let’s hope my phone updates automatically and I’m not late to church!

We’re Late
By W.H. Auden

Clocks cannot tell our time of day
For what event to pray
Because we have no time, because
We have no time until
We know what time we fill,
Why time is other than time was.
Nor can our question satisfy
The answer in the statue’s eye:
Only the living ask whose brow
May wear the Roman laurel now;
The dead say only how.

What happens to the living when we die?
Death is not understood by Death; nor You, nor I.

I was introduced to this poem at Thanksgiving and I just love it! I think it’s hilarious how famous authors/poets/composers/historical figures/etc. are commercialized. P.S. I want an Edgar Allen Poe printed cotton blouse.

You Were Wearing
By Kenneth Koch

You were wearing your Edgar Allan Poe printed cotton blouse.
In each divided up square of the blouse was a picture of Edgar Allan Poe.
Your hair was blonde and you were cute. You asked me, “Do most boys think that most girls are bad?
I smelled the mould of your seaside resort hotel bedroom on your hair held in place by a John Greenleaf Whittier clip.
“No,” I said, “it’s girls who think that boys are bad.” Then we read Snowbound together.
And ran around in an attic, so that a little of the blue enamel was scraped off my George Washington, Father of His Country, shoes.

Mother was walking in the living room, her Strauss Waltzes comb in her hair.
We waited for a time and then joined her, only to be served tea in cups painted with pictures of Herman Melville
As well as with illustrations from his book Moby Dick and from his novella, Benito Cereno.
Father came in wearing his Dick Tracy necktie: “How about a drink, everyone?
I said, “Let’s go outside a while.” Then we went onto the porch and sat on the Abraham Lincoln swing.
You sat on the eyes, mouth, and beard part, and I sat on the knees.
In the yard across the street we saw a snowman holding a garbage can lid smashed into a likeness of the mad English king, George the Third.

Here’s another one from Lorca, courtesy of the lovely Katie.

Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint
By Federico García Lorca

Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my cheek at night.

I am afraid of being, on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.

If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my dampened pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone are my master,

never let me lose what I have gained,
and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.

Here’s one I snaked from Sonnet Central.

Incompatibility
By Aubrey de Vere

Forgive me that I love you as I do,
Friend patient long; too patient to reprove
The inconvenience of superfluous love.
You feel that it molests you, and ’tis true.
In a light bark you sit, with a full crew.
Your life full orbed, compelled strange love to meet,
Becomes, by such addition, incomplete:—
Because I love I leave you. O adieu!
Perhaps when I am gone the thought of me
May sometimes be your acceptable guest.
Indeed you love me: but my company
Old time makes tedious; and to part is best.
Not without Nature’s will are natures wed:—
O gentle Death, how dear thou makest the dead!

I’m going to see Mad Agnes tonight (yay!) so I thought I’d share something from Adrienne. This one’s from Walking Down the Street in the Spirit Place.

I haven’t had time to bake bread in quite a while and I miss it. I’m looking forward to baking this weekend.

Yeast
By Naomi Shihab Nye

Each morning from the dim secrecy
of the school kitchen, that single scent
sweetens the day—rectangles already baking,
legions of bread on long silver trays.
Like history, it won’t stop happening.
Bread spreading its succulent flesh
whatever we learn or unlearn
in the room with faded snapping maps.

Once the map flipped up so hard
Greenland caught me on the jaw
and I had to go to the health room.

Lying on the small cot,
closing my eyes under the ice bag,
I could smell the bread better from there.

Sometimes it seemed so obvious.
I should have been a slab of butter,
the knife that cuts, the door
to the oven.