A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

Eliot Rosewater · 09-06-2010 6:22pm

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

One of the interpretations of this poem is that the "second coming" is the "sceptre of communism" haunting Europe. It was written in 1919. In light of the way the USSR turned out, as opposed to the workers' utopia promised, the line "what rough beast" resonates very strongly with me. It is effectively saying: we don't know what is going to come.

nompere · 10-06-2010 2:15pm

This has been one of my favourite poems for some years.

Naming of Parts

"Vixi duellis nuper idoneus
Et militavi non sine glori"

Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today we have naming of parts.

from Lessons of the War

by Henry Reed

Polynomial · 11-06-2010 8:33pm

Transparency

Cherry Smyth

In Japan, in a laboratory in the hills, a man is whispering to water.
A man, whose wife has left him, is focusing on structure through
a powerful microscope. He’s astounded when each isolated drop
seems to listen, absorb the words, change like a face transformed
by smiling or a splash of shock. He studies how words like ‘family’
or ‘betrayal’ alter the crystalline mandala, as if the vibration
of his heart shakes and resets each miniscule aquatic form.

He mouths ‘eternity’ in Arabic and ‘goodbye’ in French and manages
to photograph the crystal as it clouds inside like a blown fuse. Now
others will believe him, will apply the knowledge he’s not built for,
why these lexigrams appear, as if water held the capacity of mind
and how minds change when love’s ear hears nothing anymore:
how different from the first unspoken, this last not speaking.

He’s tired. He doesn’t mean to murmur ‘mercy’. It’s almost a
forgotten word. The droplet he is viewing becomes a spiky lattice,
with a strange core, like the trapped blue-white sea of a cataract.
His vision softens. He asks mercy for himself, from himself, until
the mantra rises to a song from the southern shore his wife would sing,
a song of waves and Bo trees, whose words he’s no idea he knew,
and he sees the water tremble as if for the body that once carried it.
‘Forgive me’, he says. He photographs the feeling.

lordgoat · 15-06-2010 7:03pm

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

-- William Carlos Williams

Polynomial · 16-06-2010 9:14pm

Not too late to put one up for today, I hope.
Another one from Cherry Smyth, a contemporary Irish poet:

These Parts

Cherry Smyth

It was a howl to start myth, like Demeter without her
daughter, up along the track lined with orange groves.
To walk into it was to walk into the way life is,
the two girls, fists in their mouths, shoulders peaked,
eyes unlearning a secret. It was a fattened, hairy sow
held across a wooden table by seven men. It was hard
to see what they were doing - bleeding or skinning it alive -
some surgery the mountains had a taste for, hands busy
with it, stroking, touching - their words a quiet, loving hymn.
The thyme and the rosemary grew on. To step in
would have been to convulse scenery, speak in gravel.
The track rose into the hills. The woman I was walked on it.
Her throat was closed, her ears seared with death's bellow,
the men's patter. Only then did she reach up to a tree,
steal her first orange.

nompere · 22-06-2010 11:50pm

I posted Henry Reed a couple of weeks ago.

By contrast I offer you this:

The King's Breakfast

The King asked
The Queen, and
The Queen asked
The Dairymaid:
"Could we have some butter for
The Royal slice of bread?"
The Queen asked the Dairymaid,
The Dairymaid
Said, "Certainly,
I'll go and tell the cow
Now
Before she goes to bed."

The Dairymaid
She curtsied,
And went and told
The Alderney:
"Don't forget the butter for
The Royal slice of bread."
The Alderney
Said sleepily:
"You'd better tell
His Majesty
That many people nowadays
Like marmalade
Instead."

The Dairymaid
Said, "Fancy!"
And went to
Her Majesty.
She curtsied to the Queen, and
She turned a little red:
"Excuse me,
Your Majesty,
For taking of
The liberty,
But marmalade is tasty, if
It's very
Thickly
Spread."

The Queen said
"Oh!:
And went to
His Majesty:
"Talking of the butter for
The royal slice of bread,
Many people
Think that
Marmalade
Is nicer.
Would you like to try a little
Marmalade
Instead?"

The King said,
"Bother!"
And then he said,
"Oh, deary me!"
The King sobbed, "Oh, deary me!"
And went back to bed.
"Nobody,"
He whimpered,
"Could call me
A fussy man;
I only want
A little bit
Of butter for
My bread!"

The Queen said,
"There, there!"
And went to
The Dairymaid.
The Dairymaid
Said, "There, there!"
And went to the shed.
The cow said,
"There, there!
I didn't really
Mean it;
Here's milk for his porringer,
And butter for his bread."

The Queen took
The butter
And brought it to
His Majesty;
The King said,
"Butter, eh?"
And bounced out of bed.
"Nobody," he said,
As he kissed her
Tenderly,
"Nobody," he said,
As he slid down the banisters,
"Nobody,
My darling,
Could call me
A fussy man -
BUT
I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!"

A A Milne

Polynomial · 22-06-2010 11:54pm

Thanks, nompere, for the Henry Reed and for keeping this thread alive!

ragalag · 23-06-2010 12:14am

Just want to say how much I've enjoyed reading through all these poems.
This thread is like a little treasure trove! I look forward to reading more posts!!

ragalag · 23-06-2010 12:18am

And just to keep its spirit alive:

He wishes for the cloths of heaven
William Butler Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Simply adore the last two lines.

nompere · 23-06-2010 1:02am

Ragalag - you've pinched what was going to be my next post! I think cloths of heaven is truly wonderful.

Eliot Rosewater · 23-06-2010 11:49am

ragalag wrote: »

Simply adore the last two lines.

I was watching a TED video on children's education and creativity by Sir Ken Robinson. He finished his speech by reading that poem and saying "Children put their dreams at our feet. Tread carefully".

ragalag · 23-06-2010 8:25pm

Well nompere you'll just have to make some space for a newbie!

Yeats is definitely one of my favourite poets though.:cool:

nompere · 28-06-2010 12:06pm

I've always had a soft spot for this one as well:

Sonnets from the Portuguese
XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

--Kaiser-- · 30-06-2010 4:23pm

William Blake
The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

ragalag · 01-07-2010 2:34pm

I thought in light of his new appointment as Ireland Professor of Poetry we should have some Clifton. It's a little summery too..:D

The Park

BY HARRY CLIFTON

Because anyone sitting still attracts desire,
Even this will not be given you, the park
In June, the silence of a bench at eleven o’clock

On a Monday morning, or four on a Thursday afternoon.
Someone will drift toward you, unattached
And lonely. The spell will be broken, the wrong word said.

It is cool, but there is no death in the few token leaves
That must have come down last night, in the rain that freshened,
The tree-smell that remains. For this season there is no name,

Not summer, and none of the months of the year—
A something inside you. Search your mind
For the green arboriferous Word the boys and girls swing out of

Like a tree, and the lovers
On the grass in tantric mode, in an ecstasy
Of untouching, and the human buddhas, legs infolded, reading.

Branches, sheer translucent leaves—
You would die to get under them forever, if it were given you,
The park, on this, a day like any other day,

And not the knowledge of everyone ever met
Who will come upon you, sooner or later,
If only you stay here. No, not people, or the walkways

Made in another century, or the murmur of the great city
Everywhere in the distance, but this breathing-space
Where the void no longer terrible

But to be relaxed in, the depressions
Which anyway here are mild, incoming from the west,
Slow-acting, chronic, lifelong not acute

Are there to be sat through, waited out
On a damp bench, as a man sweeps up around you
And the sun comes out in real time, stealing over the ground.

filmfan · 03-07-2010 6:13pm

this is a great thread, sets you up for the day or nice to contemplate at night

OxfordComma · 05-07-2010 5:57pm

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

I've always loved this poem, and I think it's one of Bishop's best. A very original and interesting meditation on loss.

Amazotheamazing · 06-07-2010 10:17am

The Hand That Signed The Paper

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five kings count the dead but do not soften
The crusted wound nor pat the brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.
-- Dylan Thomas

metrovelvet · 06-07-2010 9:47pm

1fahy4 wrote: »

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

I've always loved this poem, and I think it's one of Bishop's best. A very original and interesting meditation on loss.

I love this poem, Did you know it took her 15 years to write it?

Transit -Richard Wilbur

A woman I have never seen before
Steps from the darkness of her town-house door
At just that crux of time when she is made
So beautiful that she or time must fade.

What use to claim that as she tugs her gloves
A phantom heraldry of all the loves
Blares from the lintel? That the staggered sun
Forgets, in his confusion, how to run?

Still, nothing changes as her perfect feet
Click down the walk that issues in the street,
Leaving the stations of her body there
Like whips that map the countries of the air.

ragalag · 07-07-2010 11:35pm

metrovelvet wrote: »

So beautiful that she or time must fade.

What a striking line..:)
Wow ...i've never read that poem before...thanks!

Denerick · 08-07-2010 2:31pm

Leisure by W.H. Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

A bit of backstory here. I once saw the first two lines etched onto a fence post while sitting in Marley Park on my own one day. I was feeling rather down, not knowing quite what to do with myself. This lifted me right up at the time. Amazing.

Fox McCloud · 09-07-2010 2:48pm

To whom it may concern by Andrew Motion

This poem about ice cream
has nothing to do with government
with riot, with any political scheme

It is a poem about ice cream. You see ?
About how you might stroll into a shop
and ask; One Strawberry Split. One Mivvi.

What did I tell you ? No one will die.
No licking tongues will melt like candle wax.
This is a poem about ice cream. Do not cry.

I found this poem to be a nice antidote after too much time spent reading the news or studying horrible things for exams!

MarchDub · 12-07-2010 12:58pm

ABOU BEN ADHEM
by
James Henry Leigh Hunt

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said
"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

Love this poem!

George Orwell 1982 · 12-07-2010 8:43pm

Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

- Emily Dickinson

nompere · 13-07-2010 12:05am

I was watching the last episode of Morse earlier, when he quoted a verse of this Houseman poem. I went and looked it up, and read it. So here it is:

How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
Soars the delightful day.

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
I never kept before.

Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
Falls the remorseful day.

A E Houseman

George Orwell 1982 · 16-07-2010 11:04pm

Acquainted with the night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Robert Frost

George Orwell 1982 · 18-07-2010 1:40pm

I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.

And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb.

And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead,
Then space began to toll

As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.

And then a plank in reason, broke,
And I dropped down and down--
And hit a world at every plunge,
And finished knowing--then--

Emily Dickinson

Eliot Rosewater · 20-07-2010 12:11am

I happened to be present at a sing song the other night at which some 'auld rebel tunes were belted out. One of them referred to someone who had died in 19.., and at that point, rather naively, I wondered would it be 1914. The relationship between Ireland and WWI is strange, with those Irish people who fought in it nearly demonized. It made me think of this poem, by Phillip Larkin, written about the outbreak of the war and the British public's reaction to it, but written at a much later date.

MCMXIV
[1914]

Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;

And the countryside not caring
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat's restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

Denerick · 20-07-2010 10:01am

There have been some real hidden gems here. Maybe we should publish an anthology - 'The boards.ie literary pretensious society presents seminal poetry to the uneducated ruffian masses'. The title might be a bit much but we can work on it

nompere · 20-07-2010 11:47am

Denerick wrote: »

There have been some real hidden gems here. Maybe we should publish an anthology - 'The boards.ie literary pretensious society presents seminal poetry to the uneducated ruffian masses'. The title might be a bit much but we can work on it

It must surely be pretentious - in so many ways!

A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

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