A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

feargale · 23-02-2017 06:27PM

An Arab's Farewell to his Horse

MY beautiful! my beautiful! that standest meekly by
With thy proudly arched and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye;
Fret not to roam the desert now, with all thy winged speed-
I may not mount on thee again-thou'rt sold, my Arab steed!
Fret not with that impatient hoof-snuff not the breezy wind-
The further that thou fliest now, so far am I behind;
The stranger hath thy bridle rein-thy master hath his gold-
Fleet-limbed and beautiful! farewell! -thou'rt sold, my steed-thou'rt sold!

Farewell! those free untired limbs, full many a mile must roam,
To reach the chill and wintry sky, which clouds the stranger's home;
Some other hand, less fond, must now thy corn and bed prepare;
The silky mane I braided once, must be another's care!
The morning sun shall dawn again, but never more with thee
Shall I gallop through the desert paths, where we were wont to be:
Evening shall darken on the earth; and o'er the sandy plain
Some other steed, with slower step, shall bear me home again.

Yes, thou must go! the wild free breeze, the brilliant sun and sky,
Thy master's home-from all of these, my exiled one must fly.
Thy proud dark eye will grow less proud, thy step become less fleet,
And vainly shalt thou arch thy neck, thy master's hand to meet.
Only in sleep shall I behold that dark eye, glancing bright
Only in sleep shall hear again that step so firm and light:

And when I raise my dreaming arm to check or cheer thy speed,
Then must I starting wake, to feel-thou'rt sold, my Arab steed!

Ah! rudely then, unseen by me, some cruel hand may chide,
Till foam-wreaths lie, like crested waves, along thy panting side:
And the rich blood, that is in thee swells, in thy indignant pain,
Till careless eyes, which rest on thee, may count each started vein.
Will they ill-use thee? If I thought-but no, it cannot be-
Thou art so swift, yet easy curbed; so gentle, yet so free.
And yet, if haply when thou'rt gone, my lonely heart should yearn-
Can the hand which casts thee from it now, command thee to return?

Return! -alas! my Arab steed! what shall thy master do,
When thou who wert his all of joy, hast vanished from his view?
When the dim distance cheats mine eye, and through the gath'ring tears
Thy bright form, for a moment, like the false mirâge appears.
Slow and unmounted will I roam, with weary foot alone,
Where with fleet step, and joyous bound, thou oft hast borne me on;
And, sitting down by that green well, I'll pause and sadly think,
'It was here he bowed his glossy neck, when last I saw him drink! '

When last I saw thee drink! -away! the fevered dream is o'er-
I could not live a day, and know, that we should meet no more!
They tempted me, my beautiful! for hunger's power is strong-
They tempted me, my beautiful! but I have loved too long.
Who said that I had given thee up? Who said that thou wert sold?
'Tis false-'tis false, my Arab steed! I fling them back their gold!
Thus, thus, I leap upon thy back, and scour the distant plains;
Away! who overtakes us now, shall claim thee for his pains!

- Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton

marienbad · 26-02-2017 01:12PM

Death of an Irishwoman

Ignorant, in the sense
she ate monotonous food
and thought the world was flat,
and pagan, in the sense
she knew the things that moved
at night were neither dogs nor cats
but púcas and darkfaced men,
she nevertheless had fierce pride.
But sentenced in the end
to eat thin diminishing porridge
in a stone-cold kitchen
she clenched her brittle hands
around a world
she could not understand.
I loved her from the day she died.
She was a summer dance at the crossroads.
She was a card game where a nose was broken.
She was a song that nobody sings.
She was a house ransacked by soldiers.
She was a language seldom spoken.
She was a child’s purse, full of useless things.

Michael Hartnett

Swiper the fox · 26-02-2017 01:31PM

marienbad wrote: »

Death of an Irishwoman

Ignorant, in the sense
she ate monotonous food
and thought the world was flat,
and pagan, in the sense
she knew the things that moved
at night were neither dogs nor cats
but púcas and darkfaced men,
she nevertheless had fierce pride.
But sentenced in the end
to eat thin diminishing porridge
in a stone-cold kitchen
she clenched her brittle hands
around a world
she could not understand.
I loved her from the day she died.
She was a summer dance at the crossroads.
She was a card game where a nose was broken.
She was a song that nobody sings.
She was a house ransacked by soldiers.
She was a language seldom spoken.
She was a child’s purse, full of useless things.

Michael Hartnett

What's a poem, unbelievable. I'm pretty sure I posted that here before but you could never read that enough times.

marienbad · 26-02-2017 02:10PM

Swiper the fox wrote: »

What's a poem, unbelievable. I'm pretty sure I posted that here before but you could never read that enough times.

I have always had a soft spot for Michael Hartnett , from my part of the country . Still very underrated

Lady Chatterton · 27-02-2017 01:03AM

The Mistake

With the mistake your life goes in reverse.
Now you can see exactly what you did
Wrong yesterday and wrong the day before
And each mistake leads back to something worse

And every nuance of your hypocrisy
Towards yourself, and every excuse
Stands solidly on the perspective lines
And there is perfect visibility.

What an enlightenment. The colonnade
Rolls past on either side. You needn't move.
The statues of your errors brush your sleeve.
You watch the tale turn back — and you're dismayed.

And this dismay at this, this big mistake
Is made worse by the sight of all those who
Knew all along where these mistakes would lead —
Those frozen friends who watched the crisis break.

Why didn't they say? Oh, but they did indeed —
Said with a murmur when the time was wrong
Or by a mild refusal to assent
Or told you plainly but you would not heed.

Yes, you can hear them now. It hurts. It's worse
Than any sneer from any enemy.
Take this dismay. Lay claim to this mistake.
Look straight along the lines of this reverse.”

James Fenton

Lady Chatterton · 28-02-2017 11:30PM

Atlas

There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

U.A. Fanthorpe

barney4001 · 01-03-2017 07:19AM

RENDEZOUS

In a quaint old chateau garden
stood a shepherdess of carven stone
and over by the sleeping fountain
stood a little shepherd all alone
but when moonlight floods the alleys
and the nightingale sings all night through
they waken and they meet together
in a sentimental rendezvous
ah,ma belle,at last we meet!
Oshepherd mine,speak lower i entreat
theres none to hear ,my own,my sweet!
how the nightingale above
is singing dearest,of our love!
will you dance with me my love?
softly plays moonlight fountain
making music in the lonly spot

as the shephedess and shepherd mingle
in the places of an old gavotte
and the little marble cupid
laughs to see the lovers dancing so
and keeping to the quaint old measure
he is beating with his broken bow!
and now the night is still
the fountain waves into silince
the bird has ceased her trill
the shepherds pair can murmer what they will
when one oclock is tolled
their hour of magic life is over their arms must now unfold
and love turns marble cold
through the garden goes the shepherd
stepping ever where the shadows fall
his shepherdress is left all lonely
on her little marble pedestal
and the gardener on the morrow
passes by the two and never knows
the little shepherd now is holding fast
the sherpherdess'smarble rose

barney4001 · 01-03-2017 07:33AM

The Ballad of the Tinker’s Daughter
by Sigerson Clifford

When rooks ripped home at eventide and trees pegged their shadows to the ground
The tinkers came to Carhan Bridge and camped beside the Famine mound.
With long-eared ass and bony horse and with blue-wheeled cart and caravan
And she the fairest of them all the daughter of the tinker clan.

O the sun flamed in her red, red hair and in her eyes there were stars of mirth
Her body held the willow’s grace and her feet scarce touched the springing earth.
The night spread its star-tasseled shawls; the river gossiped to her stones
She sat beside the camping fire and she sang the songs the tinker owns.

All the songs as old as turning wheels and sweet as the bird-throats after rain
Deep wisdom of the wild wet earth; the pain of joy, the joy of pain.
A farmer going by the road to tend his cattle in the byre
He saw her like some fairy queen between the river and the fire.

And her beauty stirred his brooding blood; her magic mounted all in his head.
He stole her from the tinker clan and on the morrow they were wed.
And when the sunlight swamped the hills and bird-song drowned the river’s bells
The tinkers quenched their hazel fires and climbed the pallid road to Kells.

It was from her house she watched them fade and vanish in the yellow furze
A cold wind blew across the sun and it silenced all the singing birds.
She saw the months run on and on, she saw the river fret and foam
At break of day the roosters called; at dim of dusk the cows came home.

The crickets strummed their heated harps in hidden halls all behind the hob
And they told of distant waterways where the black moorhens dive and bob
And shoot the glassy bubbles up to smash their windows on the stones
And brown trout hide their spots of gold among the river’s pebbled bones.

And too the ebbing sea that flung a net of sound all about the stars,
It set strange hills dancing in her dreams and it meshed her to the wandering cars.
She stole out from her sleeping man; she fled the fields that tied her down
Her face moved towards the rising sun; her back was to the tired town.

And she climbed the pallid road to Kells against the hill and all against the wind
In Glenbeigh of the mountain-streams she came upon her tinker-kind.
They bedded her between the wheels and there her son was born
She heard the tinker-woman’s praise before she died that morn.

Now the years flew by like frightened birds that spill a feather and then are gone
The farmer walked his weedful fields and he made the tinkers travel on.
No more they camped by Carhan Bridge or coaxed their fires to fragrant flame
They saw him with his dog and his gun; they spat and cursed his name.

And when May hid the hawthorn trees with stars she stole from out the skies
There came a barefoot tinker lad with red, red hair and laughing eyes.
He left the road, he crossed the fields; the farmer shot him in the side
The smile went from his twisting lips; he told his name and died.

And that evening when the neighbours came they found the son there upon the floor
They saw the farmer swinging low between the window and the door.
They placed the son upon a cart and they cut the swaying farmer down
They swear a tinker woman came with them all the way to town.

And the sun flamed in her red, red hair and in her eyes there danced stars of mirth
Her body held the willow’s grace and her feet scarced touched the springing earth.
They buried them in Keelvarnogue and eyes were moist and lips were wan
And when the mound was patted down the tinker maid was gone.

barney4001 · 01-03-2017 07:35AM

THE TRAMP
In a lonely part of Ireland,near the town of Mullingar
We were gathered in the evening,in a little village bar
Through the door there came a stranger,just a tramp
he seemed to be
In his face the sign of hunger,almost anyone could see
But he brought a breath of summer,as he slowly wandered in
Dressed in rags that someone gave him,and the boots
now worn so thin
Someones son my mind was thinking,someone fallen
by the way
Or perhaps a long lost father,who had seen a better day

Could i join you for a minute,just before i go my way
In a voice as sweet as music,mindful of a summer day
I have wandered o'er the moorland ,seen the rising of
the sun,And my poor old feet are weary ,lifes hard battle
must be won
To a seat i saw him totter,heard the whisper of a sigh,
Then i saw the old face brighted,with a twink.e in the eye
Lonely there he sat and listened,to the stories that were told
Someones son or father ,who had wandered from the fold

Surely there must be a story,hidden somewhere in the
breast,
Of a tramp who roams the moorland,something different
from the rest
As i made my wayto join him,something told me
he was glad
Folk around me gazed in wonder,some they even
thought me mad
Thank you sir,i heard him saying
Lonlinesscan bring a chill
Maybe i should tell a story
Though with tears my eyesthey fill
In my youth i was an artist,painted pictures by the score
Then one day i found an angel,married her in Annaghmore

I was happy with my ,sunshine came our way
And eack night we knelt together,just to meditate and pray
But a fhief he came and stle her ,took the flower I
cherished rare,
Isn,t there a god in heaven to protect a life so fair
Did you ever lose a fortune,did you lose your only friend
Did the sunshine never bless you,nor the lonely not bend
Did you ever see the finger,pointed at you all the day
Broken hearts are never mended,in this hard and cruel way

I left home with all its sadness,left the place where i
was born
Made the sky my onlt blanket,and my friend a
sundecked morn
When they told me she was dying,even after all
the years
Like a baby i was crying,finding solace in my tears
To the place where she is lying,every year i
make my way
And i place a wreath of roses, on that brown and
sacred clay
Roses plucked from out the hedgerows,but she seen
them just the same
And i know she hears me whisper,as i quietly breathe
her name

You may ask why i remember,why she's always in
my dreams
But true love is ne'er forgotten,and a fond smile
always beams
I forgave and granted pardon,even in my prayers i say
That a souls not lost to heaven,just for erring
on the way
Summer brings its gladness,and the birds
sing high above
Just to bring me consolation,an an atmosphere
of love
But a tramp in lonely exilemstill within his native land
Must keep trying,just keep trying,only god can understand

Thank you, sir, for all your goodness,i must now be on
my way
I have many miles to wander,ere i meditate and pray
God alone now brings me comfort,only he can give
me peace
Till this worldshall mark me absent,ans all worry
it shall cease
In a lonely part od Ireland,near the town of Mullingar
We were gathered in the evening ,in a little village bar,
Through the door there passed a stranger,just a tramp
he seemed to be
In his face the sign of heaven ,almost anyone could see

Lady Chatterton · 02-03-2017 01:09AM

Paris

A table for two will scarcely seat

The pair of us! All the people we have been

Are here as guests, strategically deployed

As to who will go best with whom.

A convent girl, a crashing bore, the couple

Who aren’t quite all they seem.

A last shrimp curls and winces on your plate

Like an embryo. “Is that a little overdone?”

And these country faces at the window

That were once our own. They study the menu,

Smile faintly, and are gone.

Chicken Marengo! It’s a far cry from the Moy.

“There’s no such person as St Christopher,

Father Talbot gave it out at Mass.

Same as there’s no such place as Limbo.”

The world’s less simple for being travelled,

Though. In each fresh, neutral place

Where our differences might have been settled

There were men sitting down to talk of peace

Who began with the shape of the table.

Paul Muldoon

Lady Chatterton · 03-03-2017 01:03AM

This is one of the first poems I learned at school......and all these years later I still love it ............ I often find myself reciting it like a prayer.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Lady Chatterton · 08-03-2017 01:41AM

Happy International Women's Day

Postcards

At first I sent you a postcard
From every city I went to.
Grüsse aus Bath, aus Birmingham,
Aus Rotterdam, aus Tel Aviv.
Mit Liebe. Cards from you arrived
In English, with many commas.
Hope, you're fine and still alive,
Says one from Hong Kong. By that time
We weren't writing quite as often.

Now we're nearly nine years away
From the lake and the blue mountains,
And the room with the balcony,
But the heat and light of those days
Can reach this far from time to time.
Your latest was from Senegal,
Mine from Helsinki. I don't know
If we'll meet again. Be happy.
If you hear this, send a postcard.

Wendy Cope

08-03-2017 12:57PM

Advice to Myself

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.

Louise Erdich

Lady Chatterton · 11-03-2017 04:26PM

An Unseen

I watched love leave, turn, wave, want not to go,
depart, return;
late spring, a warm slow blue of air, old-new.
Love was here; not; missing, love was there;
each look, first, last.

Down the quiet road, away, away, towards
the dying time,
love went, brave soldier, the song dwindling;
walked to the edge of absence; all moments going,
gone; bells through rain

to fall on the carved names of the lost.
I saw love's child uttered,
unborn, only by rain, then and now, all future
past, an unseen. Has forever been then? Yes,
forever has been.

Carol Ann Duffy

Lady Chatterton · 18-03-2017 03:03AM

The Soul Kisses Goodbye

I am the soul
who leaves your body
but at the door comes back
to kiss you once
then lonely, comes back
again and again,
my grief, jagged petals falling
on the floor of your mouth
that was always mine.

Again and again, I turn
to trawl the water caves
of your mind
where your lovers
have often drowned
trying, one last time, to catch
all those thoughts
you so assuredly pouched
in your eyes now fallen
to a desperate close.

Twice, three times
I become,
where the devil of pain
tries to dig its claws,
an angel at rest
on shoulders -
a definite breeze
cooling down the heat
of your people's loss.

They lift their heads
from the side of your bed
gone suddenly cold
and feel me kissing
your body goodbye,
over and over -
you who harboured me
so well in life
with love.

Enda Wyley

feargale · 22-03-2017 02:49AM

Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on

- Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

Harry Angstrom · 23-03-2017 02:43AM

A Book

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

Emily Dickinson

B00! · 24-03-2017 12:11AM

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

Harry Angstrom · 27-03-2017 02:14AM

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

Lady Chatterton · 27-03-2017 02:26AM

Thank you very much Harry for posting this poem ^^^^

It's one that means a lot to me at the moment

Lady Chatterton · 28-03-2017 05:31PM

For James (RIP) He had a great love of poetry and literature throughout his life x

Funeral Blues

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.

W.H. Auden

B00! · 28-03-2017 06:22PM

Ta LC ^ one of my absolute favourites, hits close to my heart and always very touching.

12-04-2017 03:56PM

(with apologies to fluent Czech speakers)

OBITUARY KNELL FOR OTOKAR BÅ˜EZINA

When in death lost the soul encircling closed and whole
by which God ever holds his Temple Blue becalming
in golden gnat-swarm shoal the coffin's ribboned scroll
to its sleep heedless goal by holy Grail embalming

The priest prays on his knees as bone dry rattling peas
by lengthy vesper pleas the rosaries are tolling
possessed by drawn out fears godly dust kissing sees
the royal bier appeased by the quad gate extolling

The King is without heir though long processions share
a sobbing silent care struck down by blow unseemly
the lunar Grail is there and light now plies the prayer
and tolling everywhere to all four corners dimly

Now the throne vacant owed to heartstrings mournful bowed
as crownless king's heads slow now into dust are crumbling
the septilunar glow that guards the runes bestowed
caught on the portal's snare fades out in scattered tumbling

The King is without heir so whither herald, where
to heavy shadowed go on death's horse loping doleful
in coronations bare hall sparkling rainbowed flair
the holy Grail in air bestarred by poet soulful

marienbad · 16-04-2017 10:53AM

Silent Noon

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, --
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky: --
So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
When twofold silence was the song of love

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

https://youtu.be/2FGeLUQQH6w

donegal_man · 16-04-2017 03:37PM

D G Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Buried all of his libretti,
Thought the matter over - then
Went and dug them up again.

Dorothy Parker

Following the death of Rossetti's wife Elizabeth Siddal in 1862 he placed his unpublished manuscripts in her coffin. Telling a friend, “I have often been writing at these poems when Lizzie was ill and suffering, and I might have been attending to her, and now they shall go.” Some seven years later his agent Charles Augustus Howell, with Rossetti's consent, arranged for them to exhumed and published.

B00! · 17-04-2017 09:02PM

A Poison Tree
By William Blake

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretchd beneath the tree.

feargale · 19-04-2017 06:27PM

Resumé

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

- Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

marienbad · 20-04-2017 04:24PM

While We Were Fearing It

While we were fearing it, it came—
But came with less of fear
Because that fearing it so long
Had almost made it fair—
There is a Fitting—a Dismay—
A Fitting—a Despair
’Tis harder knowing it is Due
Than knowing it is Here.
They Trying on the Utmost
The Morning it is new
Is Terribler than wearing it
A whole existence through.

Emily Dickinson

Lady Chatterton · 23-04-2017 04:41PM

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann

B00! · 26-04-2017 04:06AM

Release

Does it matter who I am?
To have a Definition
to make me stand out
or blend in
to have a set Life Plan.

Walking in the storm
sky breaking overhead
it is easier if "I" am simply here
on the pavement walking
in the company of leaves
blowing about.

It is easier if I am not Someone
fighting against the wind
talking to myself about how
soaked my new boots are getting
kicking myself for not bringing
an umbrella.

If I don't have to be Someone
I don't have anything to cling to
or defend.
This used to scare me
I can't be nothing!
I can't be no one!

But now?
Give me Nobody
over Somebody
any day.

After the storm
the leaves will settle,
fall where they will,
their curled browned
bodies will greet us
in the morning
drops of grace on
our way to school and work.

A colleague asks me,
Hey, what's new?
and I reply,
Everything.

— Tammy Hanna

A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

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