The Dead Poets Society

[Tharmáras]

It has returned, the beloved repository of our favorite verses from poets who have crossed the bar long ago. Submissions in type or in meme are acceptable. Of course, discussion is welcome.

So without further ado... Shakespeare's Sonnet 64.

[Lirimaer]

All I ask of a woman is that she shall feel gently towards me
when my heart feels kindly towards her,
and there shall be the soft, soft tremor as of unheard bells between us.
It is all I ask.

I am so tired of violent women lashing out and insisting on being loved, when there is no love in them.

DH Lawrence

[Yávië]

A Wolf
Jorge Louis Borges

Grey and furtive in the final twilight,
he lopes by, leaving his spoor along the bank
of this nameless river that has quenched the thirst
of his throat, the water that repeats no stars.
Tonight, the wolf is a shade who runs alone
and searches for his mate and feels cold.
He is the last wolf in all of Angle-land.
Odin and Thor know him. In a commanding
house of stone a king has made up his mind
to put an end to wolves. The powerful
blade of your death has already been forged.
Saxon wolf, your seed has come to nothing.
To be cruel isn’t enough. You are the last.
A thousand years will pass and an old man
will dream of you in America. What use
can that future dream possibly be to you?
Tonight the men who followed through the woods
the spoor you left are closing in on you,
grey and furtive in the final twilight.

(Trans. by Robert Mezey)

[KingODuckingham]

A single line, attributed to Hannibal (unlikely):

te tero, Roma, manu nuda. date tela, latete!

[Vorondir]

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.

you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter, its
the only good fight
there is.

“Roll the Dice” by Charles Bukowski from What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through The Fire

[Lychfield Ghoul]

Some of the things I can't share, because of language barriers, but this one has been a favourite for a couple of years. And I can actually add it because the old man has passed a couple of years ago. To be honest, his whole "you want it darker" is a worth listening to...

Steer your Way

Steer your way through the ruins
Of the altar and the mall
Steer your way through the fables
Of creation and the fall
Steer your way past the palaces
That rise above the rot
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought

Steer your heart past the truth
You believed in yesterday
Such as fundamental goodness
And the wisdom of the way
Steer your heart, precious heart
Past the women whom you bought
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought

Steer your path through the pain
That is far more real than you
That smashed the cosmic model
That blinded every view
And please don't make me go there
Tho' there be a god or not
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought

They whisper still, the ancient stones
The blunted mountains weep
As he died to make men holy
Let us die to make things cheap
And say the Mea Culpa which you've probably forgot
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought

Steer your way, o my heart
Tho' I have no right to ask
To the one who was never
Never equal to the task
Who knows he's been convicted
Who knows he will be shot
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought

They whisper still, the ancient stones
The blunted mountains weep
As he died to make men holy
Let us die to make things cheap
And say the Mea Culpa which you gradually forgot
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought
Leonard Cohen

[Bereth]

I’ve collected Native American poetry, or at least I hope they are truly works of theirs. Simple but lovely.


…… There were never enough hours in a day to exhaust the pleasure of observing every living creature . .
Chief Red Fox
Sioux
(101 years old)

Song of the Butterfly

In the coming heat
of the day
I stood there . . .

~ Ojibway


Polar Star

The circuit of earth which you see
The gathering of stars in the sky which you see
All that is a place for my hair . .

~ Winter


An Overhanging Cloud

An overhanging cloud
Repeats my words
With pleasing sound . .

~Ojibway


Listening

The noise of passing feet
On the prairie
Is it men
Or gods
Who came out of silence?

~ Mandan

The sun is coming up . .
It is time to go out and see the clouds.

~ Yaqui


The Secret of Humanity

Because I am poor,
I pray for every living creature . .

~ Kiowa

[Lirimaer]

Gather out of Star-Dust
Earth-Dust
Cloud-Dust
Storm-Dust
And splinters of hail,
One handful of Dream-Dust
Not for sale.

~ Langston Hughes

[ilwe_rana]

Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might,
The breath of the moist earth is light,
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,
The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.

I see the Deep's untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone,—
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that content surpassing wealth
The sage in meditation found,
And walked with inward glory crowned—
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.
Others I see whom these surround—
Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

Yet now despair itself is mild,
Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

Some might lament that I were cold,
As I, when this sweet day is gone,
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
Insults with this untimely moan;
They might lament—for I am one
Whom men love not,—and yet regret,
Unlike this day, which, when the sun
Shall on its stainless glory set,
Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.

[Lirimaer]

Welcome, @ilwe_rana - I love your choice of poem! Bittersweet.

[ilwe_rana]

Thanks @Lirimaer . Yes, it is very bittersweet, but lovely. It's nice to be back - I was around for quite a few years starting back in 2003. It's nice to see folks still around.

[Ercassie]

Emmonsail’s Heath in Winter
By John Clare


I love to see the old heath's withered brake
Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze and ling,
While the old heron from the lonely lake
Starts slow and flaps its melancholy wing,
An oddling crow in idle motion swing
On the half-rotten ash-tree's topmost twig,
Beside whose trunk the gypsy makes his bed.
Up flies the bouncing woodcock from the brig
Where a black quagmire quakes beneath the tread;
The fieldfares chatter in the whistling thorn
And for the haw round fields and closen rove,
And coy bumbarrels, twenty in a drove,
Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain
And hang on little twigs and start again.

[Tharmáras]

I
The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

II
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

- from Robert Browning's, Meeting at Night

[Thalionwen Hunigfolm]

Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water, and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets
are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are
thrillingly gluttonous.

For one thing leads to another.
Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.

And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.

And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs.

***
The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you, my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.

Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.

It's more than bones.
It's more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It's more than the beating of the single heart.
It's praising.
It's giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life—just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe
still another.

~From To Begin With, The Sweet Grass by Mary Oliver

[Jenny Harper]

This poem we studied for GCSE English and it's one of three poems I can remember from that time (and one of those three I was only reminded of recently) but this one has always stayed with me and I would class it as my favourite ever poem. So here it is:

The Five Students by Thomas Hardy

The sparrow dips in his wheel-rut bath,
The sun grows passionate-eyed,
And boils the dew to smoke by the paddock-path;
As strenuously we stride, —
Five of us; dark He, fair He, dark She, fair She, I,
All beating by.

The air is shaken, the high-road hot,
Shadowless swoons the day,
The greens are sobered and cattle at rest; but not
We on our urgent way, —
Four of us; fair She, dark She, fair He, I, are there,
But one - elsewhere.

Autumn moulds the hard fruit mellow,
And forward still we press
Through moors, briar-meshed plantations, clay-pits yellow,
As in the spring hours - yes,
Three of us; fair He, fair She, I, as heretofore,
But - fallen one more.

The leaf drops: earthworms draw it in
At night-time noiselessly,
The fingers of birch and beech are skeleton-thin
And yet on the beat are we, —
Two of us; fair She, I. But no more left to go
The track we know.

Icicles tag the church-aisle leads,
The flag-rope gibbers hoarse,
The home-bound foot-folk wrap their snow-flaked heads,
Yet I still stalk the course —
One of us..... Dark and fair He, dark and fair She, gone:
The rest - anon.

I love the idea of an actual physical journey being a metaphor for the journey through life, while the passing of seasons is also a metaphor for the passing of life (and various life stages). The number of travellers going down one by one, also I feel captures the fact that people lose touch with friends as they move school, leave school, leave jobs, etc, as well as the obvious suggestion of it representing people passing away which must be really strike you when as you get older, people you knew from school or university or whatever do pass away. It's quite melancholic, I feel.

[Tharmáras]

Eldorado

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old—
This knight so bold—
And o’er his heart a shadow—
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow—
‘Shadow,’ said he,
‘Where can it be—
This land of Eldorado?’

‘Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,’
The shade replied,—
‘If you seek for Eldorado!’

[Afird Splitax]

This is one of my favorite poems. I love reading it out loud.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
BY T. S. ELIOT
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma percioche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? ...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

[Tharmáras]

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

[Mattie]

@Ercassie I love John Clare's poetry! He was a true Romantic.

[Tharmáras]

For @Nessa Saelind , fellow admirer of Byron .

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

CLXXIX.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin—his control
Stops with the shore;—upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

CLXXX.

His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,—thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth:—there let him lay.


CLXXXI.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals.
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

CLXXXII.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters washed them power while they were free
And many a tyrant since: their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou,
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play—
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow—
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.


CLXXXIII.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving;—boundless, endless, and sublime—
The image of Eternity—the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.


CLXXXIV.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers—they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror—'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here.

[Dunulf]

Could I submit the Aeneid? It's technically an epic poem, so I don't even dare copy and paste it in here even if it is a reasonable submission

[Nessa Saelind]

@Dunulf - go for it! Maybe not the whole epic but certainly post your favourite parts. I must confess I've never read it in the English translation, so I'm curios to see.

[Dunulf]

All translations have been taken from the Robert Fagles translation of Virgil's Aeneid, simply because it is my favourite poetic translation (though there are many both verse and prose).

Bk II.686-92

Such was the fate of Priam, his death, his lot on earth,
with Troy blazing before his eyes, her ramparts down,
the monarch who once had ruled in all his glory
the many lands of Asia, Asia’s many tribes.
A powerful trunk is lying on the shore.
The head wrenched from the shoulders.
A corpse without a name.

There is a sense of brutal reality in this scene, with Virgil combining the beautiful poetic descriptions of Troy's demise with the unceremonious and harsh disposal of Priam's body - a corpse without a name - by Achilles' son. The death of Priam was particularly brutal, with Pyrrhus (also called Neoptolemos) dragging the old (about 80 years old!) king of Troy by his hair to an altar through the blood of Priam's own son Polites, where he dispatches his blade into the flank of Priam and turns the altar sacrificial. I find the nameless aspect of the corpse particularly compelling when thinking about the amount of cultural history lost to the ages and to the greed and violence of mankind.

Bk III.70-71

To what extremes won’t you compel our hearts,
you accursed lust for gold?

Again, the reality of this is quite startling. A lamentation of one of humanity's greatest weaknesses - greed - rooted in the brutal death of Polydorus, who had been betrayed by the very King of Thrace to whom Priam had entrusted the fortunes of Troy ... all for gold. However, it can be applied to many scenarios both within the Aeneid and outside, where greed leads to the downfall of a great many of us. It's human nature, at its barest and most frighteningly true.

Bk VII.364-65

I’ll plead for the help I need, wherever it may be—
if I cannot sway the heavens, I’ll wake the powers of hell!

A beautifully powerful and ominous quote here. Absolutely badass, for obvious reasons.

Bk IV.83-87

But, oh, how little they know, the omniscient seers.
What good are prayers and shrines to a person mad with love?
The flame keeps gnawing into her tender marrow hour by hour
and deep in her heart the silent wound lives on.
Dido burns with love—the tragic queen.

Once again, there's a painful reality to the poetry of Virgil. I'm sure many can relate to the second line of the quote, with a feeling of desperation and longing for the one they love and desire. Virgil touches brilliantly upon the human psyche (romantically and in warfare), and Fagles brings it out nicely here I feel.

Bk VI.835-39

So Aeneas pleaded, his face streaming tears.
Three times he tried to fling his arms around his neck,
three times he embraced—nothing . . . the phantom
sifting through his fingers,
light as wind, quick as a dream in flight.

Aeneas tries to hug the phantom of his father within hell, but cannot. It's a moment of true piteousness and pathos for Aeneas, who always attempts to seem strong and collected. It's also a not-so-subtle call to Homer's Odyssey (as is quite common within the Aeneid, the very first words of which are a reference to the two great Homeric texts), wherein Odysseus tries three times to embrace his dead mother in hell.

In all honesty, I could wax lyrical about Virgil's Aeneid for days on end, down to every word of Latin and as many double-entendres (of which there are countless) as I could possibly see (guaranteed to be a minute percentage). For instance, I wrote a short article on the killing of Turnus at the culmination of Book XII - and could happily have done so for every single scene!

I'd thoroughly recommend giving it a read if you have not.

[Tharmáras]

[Nessa Saelind]

Robert Herrick - To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to day,
To morrow will be dying.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a getting;
The sooner will his Race be run,
And neerer he's to Setting.

That Age is best, which is the first,
When Youth and Blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

[Tharmáras]

The lilies and roses were all awake,
They sigh'd for the dawn and thee.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;"
And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"
And the lily whispers, "I wait."

She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead,
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

- from Maud (Part I),
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

[Tharmáras]

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

-

from Crossing the Bar
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

[Mattie]

@Tharmáras good old Tennyson, one of my favourite poets

[Tharmáras]

Tennyson has been my favorite poet since I was thirteen years old, @Mattie . I feel a close connection to Edgar Allan Poe and Tennyson because I share their passion for the past, reverence of women, intense depression, emotional intensity, aching loneliness, and descriptive writing. I will never tire of rereading their work. I've always felt a strong kinship with them.

[Tharmáras]

And ask ye why these sad tears stream?
Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping?
I had a dream–a lovely dream,
Of her that in the grave is sleeping.

I saw her as ’twas yesterday,
The bloom upon her cheek still glowing;
And round her play’d a golden ray,
And on her brows were gay flowers blowing.

With angel-hand she swept a lyre,
A garland red with roses bound it;
Its strings were wreath’d with lambent fire
And amaranth was woven round it.

I saw her mid the realms of light,
In everlasting radiance gleaming;
Co-equal with the seraphs bright,
Mid thousand thousand angels beaming.

I strove to reach her, when, behold,
Those fairy forms of bliss Elysian,
And all that rich scene wrapt in gold,
Faded in air–a lovely vision!

And I awoke, but oh! to me
That waking hour was doubly weary;
And yet I could not envy thee,
Although so blest, and I so dreary.

- from And Ask Ye Why These Sad Tears Stream?
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

[Mattie]

@Tharmáras Tennyson has been a favourite of mine since I was 14. We did an interpretive dance that year for a school production (the theme was J.W. Waterhouse's paintings) to Loreena McKennitt's verson of Tennyson's 'The Lady of Shalott'. That poem stirred something in my soul that remains to this day (15 years later) and I think will always do due to the reasons you state above and the events and emotions in my life at the time.

[Nessa Saelind]

Keats came up in a conversation today, so it's time his most famous poem graces these halls...

Ode to a Nightingale

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

[Mattie]

The Lady of Shalott
By Tennyson

Part I
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow veil'd,
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?

Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to tower'd Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers " 'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott."

Part II
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

And moving thro' a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed:
"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.

Part III
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon'd baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash'd into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.

Part IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seër in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance—
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right—
The leaves upon her falling light—
Thro' the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken'd wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross'd themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."

[Tharmáras]

I first heard of The Lady of Shalott when I first watched Megan Follows' Anne of Green Gables in my childhood, @Mattie ! I am moved to know that a fellow Tennyson fan finds his work as personally resonating as I do.

I assume that Keats mention was during one of our Discord talks days ago, @Nessa Saelind ?

O soft embalmer of the still midnight,
Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close
In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,
Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities.
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,—
Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.

- from To Sleep, John Keats

[Mattie]

@Tharmáras I love that movie. I'm currently watching the anime Anne of Green Gables on Youtube atm, haven't gotten up to that episode yet though. I'm looking forward to it.

[Tharmáras]

I didn't know Anne had an anime, @Mattie ! Didn't expect that... I say this a lot these days. I'll need to check it out.

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

- from Alone, Edgar Allan Poe

[Nessa Saelind]

I assume that Keats mention was during one of our Discord talks days ago, @Nessa Saelind ?

Yes, Keats was mentioned there.

And while I'm here I'd just like to add that we both had the same association to Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott. Although, musing about that poem took me in an unexpected direction. I was reminded of Chanterai por mon corage a chanson ascribed to Guiot de Dijon. If the title sounds familiar, yes the chanson did appear in the movie Kingdom of Heaven sung by Estampie. I'm posting it here in the original Old French and I'll link the English translation of the manuscript. (A long, long time ago I knew how to write a html code so I could put text side by side, but alas it evaporated from my brain, so links are the way to go in my old age )

Guiot de Dijon - Chanterai por mon corage

Chanterai por mon corage
que je vueill reconforter,
car avec mon grant damage
ne vueill morir n’afoler
quant de la terre sauvage
ne voi nului retorner,
ou cil est qui m’assoage
le cuer, quant j’en oi parler.
Dex, quant crieront «Outree!»,
Sire, aidiez au pelerin
por qui sui espoentee,
car felon sunt Sarrazin!

Soufferai mon lonc estaige
tant que l’an voi trespasser
il est en pelerinage,
dont Dex le lait retorner!
Car, au gré de mon lignage,
ne quier ochoison trover
d’autrui face mariage.
Mult est fox qui en veut parler!
Dex, quant crieront «Outree!»,
Sire, aidiez au pelerin
por qui sui espoentee,
car felon sunt Sarrazin!

De ce sui au cuer dolente,
que cil n’est en Biauvoisis
en qui j’ai mise m’entente:
je nen ai ne gieu ne ris.
S’il est biaus et je sui gente,
Sire Dex, por que.l feïs?
Quant l’uns a l’autre atalente,
por coi nos as departis?
Dex, quant crieront «Outree!»,
Sire, aidiez au pelerin
por qui sui espoentee,
car felon sunt Sarrazin!

De ce sui en bone atente,
que je son homage pris.
Quant l’alaine douce vente
qui vient devers le païs
ou cil est qui m’atalente,
volentiers i tor mon vis:
adont m’est vis que je.l sente
par desoz mon mantel gris.
Dex, quant crieront «Outree!»
Sire, aidiez au pelerin
por qui sui espoentee,
car felon sunt Sarrazin!

De ce sui mout deceüe,
que ne fui au convoier;
sa chemise qu’ot vestue
m’envoia por embracier.
La nuit, quant s’amors m’argue,
la met delez moi couchier,
toute nuit a ma char nue,
por mes malz assoagier.
Dex, quant crieront «Outree!»
Sire, aidiez au pelerin
por qui sui espoentee,
car felon sunt Sarrazin!

[Tharmáras]

So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.

-

So We'll Go No More A Roving,
George Gordon, Lord Byron

[Nessa Saelind]

Because I feel a strong urge to scream at January because it's not being the best of months, so I'm choosing to do so with Dylan Thomas. Someone can fight back with Bob Dylan if they want. :D

Dylan Thomas - 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 the 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.

[Tharmáras]

Thomas is one of my favorites.

Another Poe poem. I would have enjoyed knowing him. We'd have much to discuss, Edgar and I.

Seraph! thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea —
Some ocean vexed as it may be
With storms; but where, meanwhile,
Serenest skies continually
Just o’er that one bright island smile.
For ’mid the earnest cares and woes
That crowd around my earthly path,
(Sad path, alas, where grows
Not even one lonely rose!)
My soul at least a solace hath
In dreams of thee; and therein knows
An Eden of bland repose.


- - To One Departed, Edgar Allan Poe
 

[Nessa Saelind]

I'm going to cheat a bit because the poet is not dead or a poet, but I'm in a mood so indulge me, please.

from Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan

How shall I explain the dying that was done?
Shall I say that each one did the math, and wrote
The value of his days
Against the bloody margin, in an understated hand?
They will want to know
How was the audit done?
And I shall say that it was done,
For once,
By those who knew the worth
Of what was spent that day

[Nessa Saelind]

Today is World Poetry Day (I was reminded of this very, very late...) so in celebration I offer 2 fragments from Sappho.

Fragment 16

Some say a host of cavalry, others of infantry,
and others of ships, is the most beautiful
thing on the dark earth, but I say it is
whatever a person loves.
It is perfectly easy to make this
understood by everyone: for she who far
surpassed mankind in beauty,
Helen, left her most noble husband
and went sailing off to Troy with no thought at all
for her child or dear parents,
but [love?] led her astray …
lightly …
[and she]
has reminded me
now of Anactoria
who is not here;
I would rather see her
lovely walk and the bright sparkle of her
face than the Lydians’ chariots and armed
infantry…


Fragment 31

He seems to me equal in good fortune to the
whatever man, who sits on the opposite side to you
and listens nearby to your
sweet replies
and desire-inducing laugh: indeed that
gets my heart pounding in my breast.
For just gazing at you for a second, it is impossible
for me even to talk;
my tongue is broken, all at once a soft
flame has stolen beneath my flesh,
my eyes see nothing at all,
my ears ring,
sweat pours down me, a tremor
shakes me, I am more greenish than
grass, and I believe I am at
the very point of death.

[Tharmáras]

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

- A Dream Within a Dream, Edgar Allan Poe

[Nessa Saelind]

@Tharmáras - I had a hunch you might go for something of Poe's for World Poetry Day and I'm glad to see I was right

[Tharmáras]

You know Poe is my boy, @Nessa Saelind . If reincarnation was a thing, I would have been him in a past life .

[Nessa Saelind]

@Tharmáras - better you than me, mate, better you than me

[Nessa Saelind]

Lord Byron, Childe Harold Pilgrimage, Canto IV, I-IV

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O'er the far times when many a subject land
Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

In Venice, Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone—but beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade—but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city's vanished sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away—
The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

The Serenissima has been on my mind a lot lately... Moody Byron for a moody historian...