Just a rainy day or two
In a windy tower,
That was all I had of you—
Saving half an hour.
Marred by greeting passing groups
In a cinder walk,
Near some naked blackberry hoops
Dim with purple chalk.
I remember three or four
Things you said in spite,
And an ugly coat you wore,
Plaided black and white.
Just a rainy day or two
And a bitter word.
Why do I remember you
As a singing bird?
Edna St. Vincent Millay – Souvenir
Posted by daddybear71 on February 22, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/02/22/a-year-of-poetry-day-305/
That we’ve broken their statues,
that we’ve driven them out of their temples,
doesn’t mean at all that the gods are dead.
O land of Ionia, they’re still in love with you,
their souls still keep your memory.
When an August dawn wakes over you,
your atmosphere is potent with their life,
and sometimes a young ethereal figure
indistinct, in rapid flight,
wings across your hills.
— Gaius Valerius Catullus, Ionic
Posted by daddybear71 on February 21, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/02/21/a-year-of-poetry-day-304/
Posted by daddybear71 on February 20, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/02/20/a-year-of-poetry-day-303/
Posted by daddybear71 on February 19, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/02/19/a-year-of-poetry-day-302/
Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal,
Offspring of Elysium,
Mad with rapture, to the portal
Of thy holy fame we come!
Fashion’s laws, indeed, may sever,
But thy magic joins again;
All mankind are brethren ever
‘Neath thy mild and gentle reign.
CHORUS.
Welcome, all ye myriad creatures!
Brethren, take the kiss of love!
Yes, the starry realms above
Hide a Father’s smiling features!
He, that noble prize possessing–
He that boasts a friend that’s true,
He whom woman’s love is blessing,
Let him join the chorus too!
Aye, and he who but one spirit
On this earth can call his own!
He who no such bliss can merit,
Let him mourn his fate alone!
CHORUS.
All who Nature’s tribes are swelling
Homage pay to sympathy;
For she guides us up on high,
Where the unknown has his dwelling.
From the breasts of kindly Nature
All of joy imbibe the dew;
Good and bad alike, each creature
Would her roseate path pursue.
‘Tis through her the wine-cup maddens,
Love and friends to man she gives!
Bliss the meanest reptile gladdens,–
Near God’s throne the cherub lives!
CHORUS.
Bow before him, all creation!
Mortals, own the God of love!
Seek him high the stars above,–
Yonder is his habitation!
Joy, in Nature’s wide dominion,
Mightiest cause of all is found;
And ’tis joy that moves the pinion,
When the wheel of time goes round;
From the bud she lures the flower–
Suns from out their orbs of light;
Distant spheres obey her power,
Far beyond all mortal sight.
CHORUS.
As through heaven’s expanse so glorious
In their orbits suns roll on,
Brethren, thus your proud race run,
Glad as warriors all-victorious!
Joy from truth’s own glass of fire
Sweetly on the searcher smiles;
Lest on virtue’s steeps he tire,
Joy the tedious path beguiles.
High on faith’s bright hill before us,
See her banner proudly wave!
Joy, too, swells the angels’ chorus,–
Bursts the bondage of the grave!
CHORUS.
Mortals, meekly wait for heaven
Suffer on in patient love!
In the starry realms above,
Bright rewards by God are given.
To the Gods we ne’er can render
Praise for every good they grant;
Let us, with devotion tender,
Minister to grief and want.
Quenched be hate and wrath forever,
Pardoned be our mortal foe–
May our tears upbraid him never,
No repentance bring him low!
CHORUS.
Sense of wrongs forget to treasure–
Brethren, live in perfect love!
In the starry realms above,
God will mete as we may measure.
Joy within the goblet flushes,
For the golden nectar, wine,
Every fierce emotion hushes,–
Fills the breast with fire divine.
Brethren, thus in rapture meeting,
Send ye round the brimming cup,–
Yonder kindly spirit greeting,
While the foam to heaven mounts up!
CHORUS.
He whom seraphs worship ever;
Whom the stars praise as they roll,
Yes to him now drain the bowl
Mortal eye can see him never!
Courage, ne’er by sorrow broken!
Aid where tears of virtue flow;
Faith to keep each promise spoken!
Truth alike to friend and foe!
‘Neath kings’ frowns a manly spirit!–
Brethren, noble is the prize–
Honor due to every merit!
Death to all the brood of lies!
CHORUS.
Draw the sacred circle closer!
By this bright wine plight your troth
To be faithful to your oath!
Swear it by the Star-Disposer!
Safety from the tyrant’s power!
Mercy e’en to traitors base!
Hope in death’s last solemn hour!
Pardon when before His face!
Lo, the dead shall rise to heaven!
Brethren hail the blest decree;
Every sin shall be forgiven,
Hell forever cease to be!
CHORUS.
When the golden bowl is broken,
Gentle sleep within the tomb!
Brethren, may a gracious doom
By the Judge of man be spoken!
— Friedrich Schiller, Hymn to Joy
Posted by daddybear71 on February 18, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/02/18/a-year-of-poetry-day-301/
Posted by daddybear71 on February 17, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/02/17/a-year-of-poetry-day-300/
I
1 Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us …
2 Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent …
3 Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient …
4 Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
5 But nothing happens.
6 Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.
7 Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.
8 Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles,
9 Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.
10 What are we doing here?
11 The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow …
12 We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.
13 Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
14 Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray,
15 But nothing happens.
16 Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.
17 Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,
18 With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew,
19 We watch them wandering up and down the wind’s nonchalance,
20 But nothing happens.
II
21 Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces–
22 We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,
23 Deep into grassier ditches. So we drowse, sun-dozed,
24 Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses.
25 Is it that we are dying?
26 Slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires glozed
27 With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;
28 For hours the innocent mice rejoice: the house is theirs;
29 Shutters and doors all closed: on us the doors are closed–
30 We turn back to our dying.
31 Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;
32 Now ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.
33 For God’s invincible spring our love is made afraid;
34 Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born,
35 For love of God seems dying.
36 To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us,
37 Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp.
38 The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp,
39 Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,
40 But nothing happens.
— Wilfred Owen, Exposure
Posted by daddybear71 on February 16, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/02/16/a-year-of-poetry-day-299/
I.
Of Februar the fiftene nicht
Full lang before the dayis licht
I lay intill a trance
And then I saw baith Heaven and Hell
Me thocht, amang the fiendis fell
Mahoun gart cry ane dance
Of shrews that were never shriven,
Agains the feast of Fastern’s even,
To mak their observance.
He bad gallants gae graith a gyis,
And cast up gamountis in the skies,
As varlets do in France.
II.
Helie harlots on hawtane wise,
Come in with mony sundry guise,
But yet leuch never Mahoun,
While priests come in with bare shaven necks;
Then all the fiends leuch, and made gecks,
Black-Belly and Bawsy Brown.
III.
Let see, quoth he, now wha begins:
With that the foul Seven Deadly Sins
Begoud to leap at anis.
And first of all in Dance was Pride,
With hair wyld back, and bonnet on side,
Like to make vaistie wanis;
And round about him, as a wheel,
Hang all in rumples to the heel
His kethat for the nanis:7
Mony proud trumpour with him trippit;
Through scalding fire, aye as they skippit
They girned with hideous granis.
IV.
Then Ire came in with sturt and strife;
His hand was aye upon his knife,
He brandished like a beir:
Boasters, braggars, and bargainers,
After him passit in to pairs,
All bodin in feir of weir;
In jacks, and scryppis, and bonnets of steel,
Their legs were chainit to the heel,
Frawart was their affeir:
Some upon other with brands beft,
Some jaggit others to the heft,
With knives that sharp could shear.
V.
Next in the Dance followit Envy,
Filled full of feud and felony,
Hid malice and despite:
For privy hatred that traitor tremlit;
Him followit mony freik dissemlit,
With fenyeit wordis quhyte:
And flatterers in to men’s faces;
And backbiters in secret places,
To lie that had delight;
And rownaris of false lesings,
Alace! that courts of noble kings
Of them can never be quit.
VI.
Next him in Dance came Covetyce,
Root of all evil, and ground of vice,
That never could be content:
Catives, wretches, and ockeraris,
Hudpikes, hoarders, gatheraris,
All with that warlock went:
Out of their throats they shot on other
Het, molten gold, me thocht, a futher
As fire-flaucht maist fervent;
Aye as they toomit them of shot,
Fiends filled them new up to the throat
With gold of all kind prent.
VII.
Syne Sweirness, at the second bidding,
Came like a sow out of a midding,
Full sleepy was his grunyie:
Mony swear bumbard belly huddroun,
Mony slut, daw, and sleepy duddroun,
Him servit aye with sonnyie;
He drew them furth intill a chain,
And Belial with a bridle rein
Ever lashed them on the lunyie:
In Daunce they were so slaw of feet,
They gave them in the fire a heat,
And made them quicker of cunyie.
VIII.
Then Lechery, that laithly corpse,
Came berand like ane baggit horse,
And Idleness did him lead;
There was with him ane ugly sort,
And mony stinking foul tramort,
That had in sin been dead:
When they were enterit in the Dance,
They were full strange of countenance,
Like torches burning red.
IX.
Then the foul monster, Gluttony,
Of wame insatiable and greedy,
To Dance he did him dress:
Him followit mony foul drunkart,
With can and collop, cup and quart,
In surfit and excess;
Full mony a waistless wally-drag,
With wames unweildable, did furth wag,
In creesh that did incress:
Drink! aye they cried, with mony a gaip,
The fiends gave them het lead to laip,
Their leveray was na less.
X.
Nae minstrels played to them but doubt,
For gleemen there were halden out,
Be day, and eke by nicht;
Except a minstrel that slew a man,
So to his heritage he wan,
And enterit by brieve of richt.
Then cried Mahoun for a Hieland Padyane:
Syne ran a fiend to fetch Makfadyane,
Far northwast in a neuck;
Be he the coronach had done shout,
Ersche men so gatherit him about,
In hell great room they took:
Thae tarmigants, with tag and tatter,
Full loud in Ersche begoud to clatter,
And roup like raven and rook.
The Devil sae deaved was with their yell;
That in the deepest pot of hell
He smorit them with smoke!
William Dunbar, The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins
Posted by daddybear71 on February 15, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/02/15/a-year-of-poetry-day-298/
Loud sounded the music in Fridthjof’s hall,
His ancestors’ praises sang poets all.
O’erwhelmed with sadness
Is Fridthjof, he hears not their songs of gladness.
The earth has again donned her mantle of green
And dragon-ships breasting the waves are seen
But Fridthjof, pondering,
Is at the moon gazing or in the woods wandering.
How fortunate was he but lately, and glad,
For Helge and Halfdan as guests he had;
And with the brothers,
Came Ingeborg; Fridthjof scarce saw the others.
He sat by her side and her soft hand he pressed;
He felt in the pressure returned him thrice blest,
Enraptured gazing
On her whom he honored beyond all praising.
In glad conversation recalling their plays,
When life’s morning dew presaged bright future days
For memory truthful
Keeps life’s rosy gardens in noble minds youthful.
How fondly she greets him from dale and from park,
From loving names growing in White birchen bark,
From hills where flourish
The oaks which the ashes of heroes nourish.
“‘Tis never so pleasant at home as here,
For Halfdan is childish and Helge severe;
Tho kings attending
To nothing but prayers and praise unending.
“And no one (nor could she her blushes hide)
To whom my complainings I may confide.
The palace building,
How stifling compared with the groves of Hilding.
“The doves that we petted, and tamed and fed,
By hawks oft affrighted away have fled;
One pair remaineth,
Let Fridthjof take one, one Ing’borg retaineth.
“She’ll long like another her friend to see,—
And homeward returning will fly to me:
Your message, bind it
Beneath her flee pinion,—there none will find it.”
All day they sat whispering side by side,
Nor ceased the low murmur at eventide;
So breathe in whispers
The zephyrs through lindens at twilight vespers.
But now she has gone, and his joy forsooth
Has gone with the maiden. The blood of youth
His cheek is mounting,
He silently sighs while the past recounting.
His grief at her absence he sent by the dove,
Which joyous set out with its message of love;
But oh! new sorrow,
It stayed with its mate, nor returned on the morrow.
His conduct to Bjorn was displeasing; said he:
“What ails our young eagle, he seems to be
Like some shy sparrow,—
Has his breast or his pinion been pierced by an arrow?
“What wilt thou, Fridthjof? We have for need
The yellow bacon, and the good, brown mead;
And poets singing,
Their jubilant music forever ringing.
“The steeds impatiently stamp in the stalls,—
To the chase! to the chase! the falcon calls;
But Fridthjof retaineth
His gloom. He hunteth in clouds and complaineth.
“Ellide is restless upon the main,—
She frets and she chafes at her cable chain;
Lie still my treasure!
Our Fridthjof is peaceable. Strife is no pleasure.
“Who dies on his pallet,, is dead indeed;
By the lance, as did Odin, we’ll die, if need,—
And thus ensure us
A welcome to Hel, and heaven secure us.”
Then Fridthjof unloos’d the dragon,—and proud,
With full swelling canvas, the waves she plowed,
And swiftly over
The bay to the palace she bore the lover.
The kings were at Bele’s grave met that day,—
To administer justice and counsel weigh;
Fridthjof advances,—
His voice sounds afar like clashing lances.
“Ye kings, lovely Ing’borg, the people’s pride,
I choose, from all women, to be my bride;
The king intended
Our lives thus united in one should be blended.
“He reared us together in Hilding’s sight,—
As two forest saplings whose tops unite,—
A golden cover
Of lace bindeth Freyja the green tops over.
“My sire was a peasant, no earl nor king,—
Yet his memory will live while the poets sing;
In runic story
The grave-mounds are telling my ancestors’ glory.
“I could easily win me a crown and land,
But choose to remain on my native strand:
In battle wielding
My sword for the king, and the peasant shielding.
“On king Bele’s grave we are standing now,
He hears every word in the grave below,
With me he pleadeth,—
A dead father’s counsel a wise son heedeth.”
Then Helge uprose, and replied with scorn,
“Our sister was not for a peasant born,
To kings ’tis given
To strive for our Ingeborg, daughter of heaven.
“You boastfully call yourself chief of swords,—
Win men by violence, women bv words;
Boast not of slaughter,
For arrogance winneth not Odin’s daughter.
“My kingdom doth not seek protection from thee,
I shield it myself. My man wouldst thou be,—
A situation
Among my domestics befits thy station.”
“Thy servant! no, never!” was Fridthjof’s reply,
“My father had never a master—shall I?
From thy silver dwelling
Now fly, Angervadil, the insult repelling.”
In sunshine now glitters the blue steel blade,—
Displaying its letters in flaming red.
“My good sword loyal,
Thy lineage at least,” said Fridthjof, “is royal.
“And were it not now for the high grave’s renown,
Right here would I hew thee, swarthy king, down:
Yet will I teach thee
To come not again where my sword can reach thee.”
So saying, be severed at one fell blow
The gold shield of Helge which hung on a bough.
It fell asunder,—
Its clang on the grave-mound was echoed under.
“Well done, Angervadil. lie still and dream
Of high achievements,— meanwhile the gleam
Of rune-fires paling!
And now we’ll go home o’er the blue waters sailing.”
— Esaias Tegne’r, Fridthjof’s Courting
Posted by daddybear71 on February 13, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/02/13/a-year-of-poetry-day-296/
Slowly, without force, the rain drops into the
city. It stops a moment
on the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping
and trickling
over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit
of a gargoyle,
and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral square.
Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep about
in the sky?
Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom,
again! After it, only water
rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil from the spout of the gargoyle.
Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom!
The room is damp, but warm. Little flashes swarm about
from the firelight.
The lustres of the chandelier are bright, and clusters of rubies
leap in the bohemian glasses on the `etagere’. Her hands
are restless,
but the white masses of her hair are quite still. Boom! Will
it never cease
to torture, this iteration! Boom! The vibration
shatters a glass
on the `etagere’. It lies there, formless and glowing,
with all its crimson gleams shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing
red,
blood-red. A thin bell-note pricks through the silence. A
door creaks.
The old lady speaks: “Victor, clear away that broken
glass.” “Alas!
Madame, the bohemian glass!” “Yes, Victor, one hundred
years ago
my father brought it –” Boom! The room shakes,
the servitor quakes.
Another goblet shivers and breaks. Boom!
It rustles at the window-pane, the smooth, streaming rain, and he
is shut
within its clash and murmur. Inside is his candle, his
table, his ink,
his pen, and his dreams. He is thinking, and the walls
are pierced with
beams of sunshine, slipping through young green. A fountain
tosses itself
up at the blue sky, and through the spattered water in the basin
he can see
copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp
in a cedar-tree
grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain, bubbled, iridescent,
shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and higher. Boom!
The flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The fountain
rears up
in long broken spears of dishevelled water and flattens into the
earth. Boom!
And there is only the room, the table, the candle, and the sliding
rain.
Again, Boom! — Boom! — Boom! He stuffs his fingers
into his ears.
He sees corpses, and cries out in fright. Boom! It
is night,
and they are shelling the city! Boom! Boom!
A child wakes and is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What
has made
the bed shake? “Mother, where are you? I am
awake.” “Hush, my Darling,
I am here.” “But, Mother, something so queer happened,
the room shook.”
Boom! “Oh! What is it? What is
the matter?” Boom! “Where is Father?
I am so afraid.” Boom! The child sobs and
shrieks. The house
trembles and creaks. Boom!
Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All
his trials
oozing across the floor. The life that was his choosing,
lonely, urgent,
goaded by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory,
that is his story. Boom! Gloom and ignorance,
and the jig of drunken brutes.
Diseases like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of
slime.
Wails from people burying their dead. Through the window,
he can see
the rocking steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead
of the roof,
and the sky tears apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire,
behind the lacings of stone, zigzagging in and out of the carved
tracings,
squirms the fire. It spouts like yellow wheat from the
gargoyles, coils round
the head of Saint John, and aureoles him in light. It
leaps into the night
and hisses against the rain. The Cathedral is a burning
stain on the white,
wet night.
Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to
it begin to scorch.
Boom! The bohemian glass on the `etagere’ is no longer
there.
Boom! A stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains.
The old lady cannot walk. She watches the creeping stalk
and counts.
Boom! — Boom! — Boom!
The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet
of silver.
But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads. The
city burns.
Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run the flames.
Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls. Smearing
its gold on the sky,
the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and lisps and
chuckles
along the floors.
The child wakes again and screams at the yellow petalled flower
flickering at the window. The little red lips of flame
creep along
the ceiling beams.
The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at
the burning Cathedral. Now the streets are swarming with
people.
They seek shelter and crowd into the cellars. They shout
and call,
and over all, slowly and without force, the rain drops into the
city.
Boom! And the steeple crashes down among the people. Boom! Boom,
again!
The water rushes along the gutters. The fire roars and
mutters. Boom!
— Amy Lowell, The Bombardment
Posted by daddybear71 on February 12, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/02/12/a-year-of-poetry-day-295/
DaddyBear’s Den 