Poetry Page

[BarbStAubrey]

Of all the minor creatures of mythology,
fairies are the most beautiful,
the most numerous,
the most memorable

**

There are Birthday fairies in your garden,
And they’re flying everywhere
Over trees and under leaves
And spinning in the air.

There are Birthday fairies in your garden,
And it’s plain for all to see
So look into you’re garden now
And you’ll see some just like me

**

. . .every child can remember laying his head in the grass, staring into the infinitesimal forest and seeing it grow populous with fairy armies ..
~Robert Louis Stevenson

**

We are all fairies living underneath a leaf of a lily pad.
~Tori Amos

**

The little Plumpuppets are fairies of beds;
They have nothing to do but watch sleepyheads;
They turn down the sheets and they tuck you in tight,
And dance on your pillow to wish you good night!
~Christopher Morley

**

When a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies.

**

Then clear on a flute of purest gold
A sweet little fairy played.
And wonderful fairy tales she told
and marvelous music made.
~Ida Rentoul Outhwaite

**

From gray woods they come, on silent feet
Into a cone of light.
A lifting note, O fair! O fleet!
There the night through
We take out pleasure,
Dancing to such a measure
As earth never knew.
~Seumus O'Sullivan

**

The wall is silence, the grass is sleep,
Tall trees of peace their vigil keep,
And the Fairy of Dreams with moth-wings furled.
Plays soft on her flute to the drowsy world.
~Ida Rentoul Outhwaite

[roshanarose]

Barb - What lovely fairy poems.  Thank You.

[Babi]

 Fairies!  What a lovely theme to start the day.  I have a collection of
angels of all sorts, but many of them look to me more like fairies than
angels.  I think the 'real thing' would be big and awesome, not dainty
or childlike.  I have more than once reminded people that in scripture,
the first words of an angel to a human were usually,  "Fear not!"  There
has to be a reason for that. 

[JoanK]

BARB: how lovely. Thank you.

[roshanarose]

Babi - Maybe it was those big wings sprouting out the back!

[BarbStAubrey]

Even Shakespeare got in on the Fairy symbol...
 
    Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours;
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

[BarbStAubrey]

Oh and remember this from grade school...

The Fairies
          ~ by William Allingham

Up the airy mountain
    Down the rushy glen,
We dare n't go a-hunting,
    For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
    Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
    And white owl's feather.
Down along the rocky shore
    Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
    Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
    Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
    All night awake.

High on the hill-top
    The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
    He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
    Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
    From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music,
    On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen,
    Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget
    For seven years long;
When she came down again
    Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back
    Between the night and morrow;
They thought she was fast asleep,
    But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
    Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag leaves,
    Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hill-side,
    Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn trees
    For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
    As dig them up in spite?
He shall find the thornies set
    In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain
    Down the rushy glen,
We dare n't go a-hunting,
    For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
    Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
    And white owl's feather.

[BarbStAubrey]

Mushrooms and Winkle Fairy
          ~ Myrea Pettit

High up on a steep bank in a dense carpet of green leaves covered in the starry blue flowers of the periwinkle, their bright yellow centres shining like stars, I gasped with surprise, for there resting gently against a large winkle shell was the most beautiful fairy I had ever seen, I hardly dare breathe lest I disturb her from playing with the tiny periwinkle which she was shaking in her hand, fascinated by the pollen which like fairy dust fell gently onto her face a thousand fairy kisses as freckles over her tiny nose….

[Babi]

I don't believe I've ever read Allingham's poem before. You say
you read/heard it in grade school?  You would think little Bridget
might be too scary for that age group.
  I love Myrea Pettit's  little whimsy.  I wonder where one would see a
field of periwinkles?  I don't see where the mushrooms come it, tho.,
....unless that was the fairy.  

 

[BarbStAubrey]

Yep, Babi we used to jump rope to the first stanza - children's stories were filled iwth all sorts of what today we think of as horrors - what was the one where the children or boiled in a pot - many of the old stories are still depicted in Europe where as we seem to have gotten very Disney Land with our choices and views of childhood stories and characters.

[Babi]

 True, BARB.  Grimm's 'fairy tales' were pretty grim. Don't remember children in a boiling pot,
but there were the two,..Hansel and Gretel...who shoved a witch into her own oven to escape
her.   And wolves eating up grandmothers!  Strange fare for the kids.

[BarbStAubrey]

This is not the one I was thinking of but it is another - http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm047.html

And then the full version of the three pigs is that they boil the wolf in a big black pot.

Walt Disney and The Great Depression

    In 1933, Walt Disney released an eight-minute animated film of the "Three Little Pigs." According to the Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts, the short film inspired many Americans through The Great Depression. Americans used the "Big Bad Wolf" as a symbol of the strife in their lives. Just as the three little pigs were able to overcome adversity through hard-work, many Americans believed that their hard work would eventually lead them out of the Great Depression.

Child-friendly Adaptation

    The modern-day version of "Three Little Pigs" was adapted by Joseph Jacobs, in which he made changes to appeal to a younger audience. According to Roli Books, in the original story, the "Big Bad Wolf" was boiled in a pot and eaten by the three pigs. Rather than end the fairy tale in such a gruesome manner, Jacobs adapted the tale, so that the "Big Bad Wolf" came down the chimney and burned his tail. In the Disney interpretation, the wolf lands in a pot of boiling turpentine, but runs away in pain through the chimney.

[BarbStAubrey]

Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience
          ~ Natalie Merchant

I had a silver penny
And an apricot tree
And I said to the sailor
On the white quay
‘Sailor O sailor
Will you bring me
If I give you my penny
And my apricot tree
‘A fez from Algeria
An Arab drum to beat
A little gilt sword
And a parakeet?’
And he smiled and he kissed me
As strong as death
And I saw his red tongue
And I felt his sweet breath
‘You may keep your penny
And your apricot tree
And I’ll bring your presents
Back from sea.’
O the ship dipped down
On the rim of the sky
And I waited while three
Long summers went by
Then one steel morning
On the white quay
I saw a grey ship
Come in from sea
Slowly she came
Across the bay
For her flashing rigging
Was shot away
All round her wake
The seabirds cried
And flew in and out
Of the hole in her side
Slowly she came
In the path of the sun
And I heard the sound
Of a distant gun
And a stranger came running
Up to me
From the deck of the ship
And he said, said he
‘O are you the boy
Who would wait on the quay
With the silver penny
And the apricot tree?
‘I’ve a plum-coloured fez
And a drum for thee
And a sword and a parakeet
From over the sea.’
‘O where is the sailor
With bold red hair?
And what is that volley
On the bright air?
‘O where are the other
Girls and boys?
And why have you brought me
Children’s toys?’

[BarbStAubrey]

I wonder if he wrote this after the wreck in Scotland that killed 348 passangers in 1853

        THE SONG OF THE WRECK
                    ~ by: Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

        HE wind blew high, the waters raved,
        A ship drove on the land,
        A hundred human creatures saved
        Kneel'd down upon the sand.
        Threescore were drown'd, threescore were thrown
        Upon the black rocks wild,
        And thus among them, left alone,
        They found one helpless child.
         
        A seaman rough, to shipwreck bred,
        Stood out from all the rest,
        And gently laid the lonely head
        Upon his honest breast.
        And travelling o'er the desert wide
        It was a solemn joy,
        To see them, ever side by side,
        The sailor and the boy.
         
        In famine, sickness, hunger, thirst,
        The two were still but one,
        Until the strong man droop'd the first
        And felt his labors done.
        Then to a trusty friend he spake,
        "Across the desert wide,
        Oh, take this poor boy for my sake!"
        And kiss'd the child and died.
         
        Toiling along in weary plight
        Through heavy jungle, mire,
        These two came later every night
        To warm them at the fire.
        Until the captain said one day
        "O seaman, good and kind,
        To save thyself now come away,
        And leave the boy behind!"
         
        The child was slumbering near the blaze:
        "O captain, let him rest
        Until it sinks, when God's own ways
        Shall teach us what is best!"
        They watch'd the whiten'd, ashy heap,
        They touch'd the child in vain;
        They did not leave him there asleep,
        He never woke again.

[BarbStAubrey]

               A CHILD'S HYMN
                        ~ by: Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

        EAR my prayer, O heavenly Father,
        Ere I lay me down to sleep;
        Bid Thy angels, pure and holy,
        Round my bed their vigil keep.
         
        My sins are heavy, but Thy mercy
        Far outweighs them, every one;
        Down before Thy cross I cast them,
        Trusting in Thy help alone.
         
        Keep me through this night of peril
        Underneath its boundless shade;
        Take me to Thy rest, I pray Thee,
        When my pilgrimage is made.
         
        None shall measure out Thy patience
        By the span of human thought;
        None shall bound the tender mercies
        Which Thy Holy Son has bought.
         
        Pardon all my past transgressions,
        Give me strength for days to come;
        Guide and guard me with Thy blessing
        Till Thy angels bid me home.

[Babi]

 Dickens poem/prayer set a very different tone from his cynically
humorous books.  I've  never read any of his poems before.  I don't
think his poetry as skilled as his prose, but I appreciate the insight into
another side of the man.

[BarbStAubrey]

I agree with you Babi - his poems all seem to be very dark and this was the lightest I could find - since his books show the seamy part of life he has the ability to inject humor and cheer that just does not show up in his poetry. To me a person's poetry is closer to their soul and after reading of his childhood it all makes sense.

[BarbStAubrey]

Quilts    
          ~ by Nikki Giovanni

(for Sally Sellers)

Like a fading piece of cloth
I am a failure

No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter
My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able
To hold the hot and cold

I wish for those first days
When just woven I could keep water
From seeping through
Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave
Dazzled the sunlight with my
Reflection

I grow old though pleased with my memories
The tasks I can no longer complete
Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past

I offer no apology only
this plea:

When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end
Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt
That I might keep some child warm

And some old person with no one else to talk to
Will hear my whispers

And cuddle
near

[BarbStAubrey]

On Gifts For Grace    
          ~ by Bernadette Mayer

I saw a great teapot
I wanted to get you this stupendous
100% cotton royal blue and black checked shirt,
There was a red and black striped one too
Then I saw these boots at a place called Chuckles
They laced up to about two inches above your ankles
All leather and in red, black or purple
It was hard to have no money today
I won't even speak about the possible flowers and kinds of lingerie
All linen and silk with not-yet-perfumed laces
Brilliant enough for any of the Graces
Full of luxury, grace notes, prosperousness and charm
But I can only praise you with this poem—
Its being is the same as the meaning of your name.

[BarbStAubrey]

Oranges and Lemons

Gay go up & gay go down to ring the bells of London Town

Bull’s eyes & targets say the bells of St Marg’rets
Brickbats & tiles say the bells of St Giles
Halfpence & farthings say the bells of St Martins
Oranges & lemons say the bells of St Clements

Pancakes & fritters say the bells of St Peters
Two sticks and an apple say the bells of Whitechapel
Old father bald pate say the slow bells of Aldgate
You owe me ten shillings say the bells of St Helens

Pokers & tongs say the bells of St Johns
Kettles & pans say the bells of St Annes
When will you pay me? say the bells of Old Bailey
When I grow rich say the bells of Shoreditch

Pray when will that be? say the bells of Stepney
I am sure I don’t know says the great bell of Bow
Here comes a candle to light you to bed
Here comes a chopper to chop off your head”

[Babi]

  I like "Quilts" very much.  We old-timers can relate, can't we?  And it's been
ages since I last read the poem about the bells of London. That gave me a smile,
though I always found the last line a bit startling.
  Do you know this one?


When You are Old     
by W. B. Yeats 

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
 

[BarbStAubrey]

ah so lovely - yes, a lovely thought that our loved ones who passed are among the stars...

When you read of the horrors and deaths in the Tower of London, which is nearby it is easy to get the last lines - what a time in history - sheesh - they were racking them and chopping heads and setting them on fire in Ireland, in London, and in Spain and Rome earlier - all to purge their disbelievers  - seems like with national borders was a line drawn on your soul as to which church you supported.

For Valentine's day I am in a grumpy mood - before 5: this morning someone was knocking loudly - very loudly - on my front door - woke me out of a deep sleep and by the time I came too and got out there of course no one was there, no vehicle in front of the house, no note, no dead animal that could have been the panic -

I was so put out and since I went to bed later for me than usual so back in I went and thank goodness was able to fall back to sleep. Of course with the result I over slept and my day is asunder - plus I am so angry because this same thing happened last August which makes me suspect all sorts of possibilities - Who ever has to know my front porch because it is pitch black - the only light I leave on at night is a nightlight lamp in my bedroom which is in the back of the house.

Well another cup of coffee and see if that helps my disposition. Oh I know I need to pull down my copy of Where the Sidewalk Ends - that always brings a smile to my face.

[Babi]

  Maybe it was some drunk that had the wrong house.  It is disorienting to be pulled out of a
sound sleep.  I hope the book and the coffee helped.

  Here's a couple of opposite views on anger. Take your choice. 

  “When I am angry I can pray well and preach well.
Martin Luther --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind.
Robert Green Ingersoll --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[BarbStAubrey]

I love those anger quotes - especially the second one...

I never thought of a drunk - huh - here I am thinking along the lines of all these insidious neighborhood quarrels over the deer. We have some deer haters who for a couple of years now have become neighbor haters if you allow them in your yard - I have had awful pulled apart carcasses of fawns left on my front lawn and the young men are the worst since they think it is open season for bow and arrow and we had to get the police to patrol to stop it - there is no hunting in town - plus my neighbor on the one side is very very strange - he decided my rosemary growing near the curb was in his way so he came one night and cut it all down - my response is to ignore him even when he walks his dog without a leach and the dog runs all over my front herb garden. I just thought door knocking in wee early hours of the morning was the next harassment from one of these conflicts.

But stranger knocking - now that is possible although, we are so far from any bar or nightlife - I must say taking my coffee out and sitting on the porch then clipping more dead branches was just the medicine plus the sun came out and it was a glorious day - so where my schedule went awry it became a good day after all.

found this - I had not read it before this - another Robert Frost goodie...

Good-bye, and Keep Cold
          ~ Robert Frost

This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark
And cold to an orchard so young in the bark
Reminds me of all that can happen to harm
An orchard away at the end of the farm
All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.
I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,
I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse
By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse.
(If certain it wouldn't be idle to call
I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall
And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)
I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.
(We made it secure against being, I hope,
By setting it out on a northerly slope.)
No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm;
But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.
"How often already you've had to be told,
Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold.
Dread fifty above more than fifty below."
I have to be gone for a season or so.
My business awhile is with different trees,
Less carefully nourished, less fruitful than these,
And such as is done to their wood with an axe—
Maples and birches and tamaracks.
I wish I could promise to lie in the night
And think of an orchard's arboreal plight
When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)
Its heart sinks lower under the sod.
But something has to be left to God.

[Babi]

 Oh, thank you, BARB.  I've never seen it before, and I love it.   I had no idea orchards were so
vulnerable, much less that winter temperature needed to be 50 or above.  Of course, it doesn't
say what kind of orchard it is.  I do believe apples need cold, but that vague notion is the limit
of my (questionable) knowledge.
 "But something has to be left to God."   

[BarbStAubrey]

Dread fifty above more than fifty below. Bibi it is 50 below - that is why we have such a difficult time growing apples, pears and cherries in Texas -

They have perfected several apple strains for hot growing climates - not any cherries that I know of and only one pear - I understand they are having some success with these new apple strains over in the Medina area - keep thinking I would drive over when the trees should be in bloom and see if the scenery is doted with white blossomed orchards. With the area being steep hills that are almost mountainous it is colder in winter and of course away from the cities again, helping to preserve the cold that comes sweeping down from the north.

Back to Frost - evidently in 1920 Frost moved from a town located high in the White Mountains in northern New Hampshire, to Shaftsbury in southern Vermont that was better suited to growing apples. The farm had 80 acres of land and near some good schools for his three children. His son wanted to farm when he graduated and so together they planted 1,000 Apple Trees. 

[BarbStAubrey]

One of Frost's better known poems about apples

AFTER APPLE-PICKING

MY long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

[BarbStAubrey]

Polish and Balm
          ~ Kay Ryan

Dust develops
from inside
as well as
on top when
objects stop
being used.
No unguent
can soothe
the chap of
abandonment.
Who knew the polish
and balm in
a person’s
simple passage
among her things.
We knew she
loved them
but not what
love means.

[Babi]

For some reason, I am quite pleased to learn that Frost was a farmer, an apple grower.
It seems so appropriate. Of course, his poems all reflect a love of the countryside.
I wonder what kind of apples he grew. To me, the newer strains don't taste like apples.
I love the old McIntosh, Jonathans, etc. Gala has no flavor to me. The best apple I've
ever tasted is the Courtland, but we don't see too many of those. Have you eaten one?

 The Ryan poem is a thoughtful one.  I read it three times.  Is it only a poet who thinks of
such things?

[BarbStAubrey]

I think the reason apples no longer have the taste we like is because of how they are prepared for market - plus so much of our fresh fruits and veggies are now grown in huge expanses of land in Mexico - it is almost 20 years since I came up north of Chihuahua, Mexico where you come down from the mountains and there before you as far as the eye can see are flats covered in orchards and orchards and orchards along with sections of berries and other vegetables.

Some fruits and veggies grow well, in fact better, in the heat and certainly this area provides year round growing - but some, like apples do not do well - not sure what they do to pollinate but all over northern Mexico are located monster size farms of produce shipped to the US. The planted landscape is so immense that the workers I could make out looked like tiny ants.

As to the apples that grow in the US they are sprayed with a chemical that affects taste and they must be picked before the flavor has been fully developed - part of flavor is in the sugar that develops when the fruit is still on the tree. I am fortunate - my daughter lives in the middle of Apple country in the western mountains of North Carolina - we have gone and picked them and I came home with suitcases of apples but I have not visited in the Fall like I did when the boys were young so now what is available in the sheds that were picked and not sold is what I bring home when I visit at Christmas - all to say the flavor is so different that you would never think you were eating the same fruit. Fresh from the tree without chemicals and allowed to develop till it reaches its proper color the Fuji's and Gala's are lovely - the Cortland are crisp and some of the green apples are like going back in time using a good baking apple for Pies and Kuchens.

Here is a poem that seems fitting talking about Apples in early Spring and written by of all people Horatio Alger, known for his boys stories and so many novels - isn't he the one who said 'Go West Young Man, Go West'

Apple-blossoms
          ~ Horatio Alger

I sit in the shadow of apple-boughs,
In the fragrant orchard close,
And around me floats the scented air,
With its wave-like tidal flows.
I close my eyes in a dreamy bliss,
And call no king my peer;
For is not this the rare, sweet time,
The blossoming time of the year?

I lie on a couch of downy grass,
With delicate blossoms strewn,
And I feel the throb of Nature's heart
Responsive to my own.
Oh, the world is fair, and God is good,
That maketh life so dear;
For is not this the rare, sweet time,
The blossoming time of the year?

I can see, through the rifts of the apple-boughs,
The delicate blue of the sky,
And the changing clouds with their marvellous tints
That drift so lazily by.
And strange, sweet thoughts sing through my brain,
And Heaven, it seemeth near;
Oh, is it not a rare, sweet time,
The blossoming time of the year?

[Babi]

I would suppose the country of origin would make a major diference as well.
Gala--New Zealand native   Pink Lady..Australian  Fuji---Japanese
 
  The poem roused nostalgia in me.  Not that I've spent any time in apple orchards, but how
happily I remember lying in the grass under a tree in warm weather.  Even today, blossoming
flowers, shrubs, trees, will always catch my attention.

 Here's another nature lover: 

        Sonnet 2      
by Gwendolyn Bennett 

Some things are very dear to me—
Such things as flowers bathed by rain
Or patterns traced upon the sea
Or crocuses where snow has lain ...
the iridescence of a gem,
The moon’s cool opalescent light,
Azaleas and the scent of them,
And honeysuckles in the night.
And many sounds are also dear—
Like winds that sing among the trees
Or crickets calling from the weir
Or Negroes humming melodies.
But dearer far than all surmise
Are sudden tear-drops in your eyes.
 

[BarbStAubrey]

Just lovely Babi - I will read it several times today - not familiar with the poet either - I need to look and find her work.

All this rain is so welcome but it is making the house so dreary so I've the lamps on all day and now I need to nudge the heat on to take the damp chill out of the air. I can see finally some of the bushes looking like there is life - the grass started to perk up close the Christmas and I have been cutting out the dead branches in the Laural, Magnolia and Nandina - I was shocked that we had any berries at all on the Nandina but a few sprigs that are gone as the flocks of migrating, mostly Robins, have been landing for brief minutes in the yard.

I still have a box of those fertilizer spikes that I need to pound in around some of these bushes and get them healthy again to be able to withstand the coming summer assuming we are in for another over the top with extended days of temps over 100.

Winter Walk
          ~ John Clare

The holly bush, a sober lump of green,
Shines through the leafless shrubs all brown and grey,
And smiles at winter be it e’er so keen
With all the leafy luxury of May.
And oh, it is delicious, when the day
In winter’s loaded garment keenly blows
And turns her back on sudden falling snows,
To go where gravel pathways creep between
Arches of evergreen that scarce let through
A single feather of the driving storm;
And in the bitterest day that ever blew
The walk will find some places still and warm
Where dead leaves rustle sweet and give alarm
To little birds that flirt and start away.

[BarbStAubrey]

Winter Trees
          ~ By William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

[BarbStAubrey]

Saturday Market
          ~ By Charlotte Mew

Bury your heart in some deep green hollow
     Or hide it up in a kind old tree;
Better still, give it the swallow
     When she goes over the sea.
 
In Saturday’s Market there’s eggs a ’plenty
     And dead-alive ducks with their legs tied down,
Grey old gaffers and boys of twenty—
     Girls and the women of the town—
Pitchers and sugar-sticks, ribbons and laces,
     Poises and whips and dicky-birds’ seed,
Silver pieces and smiling faces,
     In Saturday Market they’ve all they need.
 
What were you showing in Saturday Market
     That set it grinning from end to end
Girls and gaffers and boys of twenty—?
     Cover it close with your shawl, my friend—
Hasten you home with the laugh behind you,
     Over the down—, out of sight,
Fasten your door, though no one will find you,
     No one will look on a Market night.
 
See, you, the shawl is wet, take out from under
     The red dead thing—. In the white of the moon
On the flags does it stir again? Well, and no wonder!
     Best make an end of it; bury it soon.
If there is blood on the hearth who’ll know it?
     Or blood on the stairs,
When a murder is over and done why show it?
     In Saturday Market nobody cares.
     
Then lie you straight on your bed for a short, short weeping
     And still, for a long, long rest,
There’s never a one in the town so sure of sleeping
     As you, in the house on the down with a hole in your breast.
 
              Think no more of the swallow,
                     Forget, you, the sea,
     Never again remember the deep green hollow
                     Or the top of the kind old tree!

[BarbStAubrey]

Oh I found one - my some of her poetry is anger in prose - wow - she can say it so it sounds great - but here is another lovely.

Secret
          ~ Gwendolyn Bennett

I shall make a song like you hair . . .
Gold-woven with shadows green-tinged,
And I shall play with my song
As my fingers might play with your hair.
Deep in my heart
I shall play with my song of you,
Gently. . . .
I shall laugh
At its sensitive lustre . . .
I shall wrap my song in a blanket,
Blue like your eyes are blue
With tiny shots of silver.
I shall wrap it caressingly,
Tenderly. . . .
I shall sing a lullaby
To the song I have made
Of your hair and eyes . . .
And you will never know
That deep in my heart
I shelter a song for you
Secretly. . . .

[Babi]

 The Charlotte Mews poem is lovely; starts with that beautiful verse.  Then goes on to tell a sad
story.  From the reaction she notes at the Saturday Market, I would say there is some anger..
certainly some pain... in that one. 
  That's two Gwendolyn Bennett poems we've found and I like them both.  Perhaps you could
share one of those that reveal the anger, too.

[BarbStAubrey]

Lines Written In Early Spring
          ~ William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

[BarbStAubrey]

Early Spring
          ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plowed hills
With loving blue;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.

Opens a door in Heaven;
From skies of glass
A Jacob's ladder falls
On greening grass,
And o'er the mountain-walls
Young angels pass.

Before them fleets the shower,
And burst the buds,
And shine the level lands,
And flash the floods;
The stars are from their hands
Flung through the woods,

The woods with living airs
How softly fanned,
Light airs from where the deep,
All down the sand,
Is breathing in his sleep,
Heard by the land.

O, follow, leaping blood,
The season's lure!
O heart, look down and up,
Serene, secure,
Warm as the crocus cup,
Like snow-drops, pure!

Past, Future glimpse and fade
Through some slight spell,
A gleam from yonder vale,
Some far blue fell;
And sympathies, how frail,
In sound and smell!

Till at thy chuckled note,
Thou twinkling bird,
The fairy fancies range,
And, lightly stirred,
Ring little bells of change
From word to word.

For now the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And thaws the cold, and fills
The flower with dew;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The poets too.

[BarbStAubrey]

Early Spring
          ` Rainer Maria Rilke 

     Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows' wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,

hesitantly, reach toward the earth
from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees.

[BarbStAubrey]

 

Famous Poets and Poems - Spring Spring Poems Discussion Leaders: Barb

Beginnings...Buds...Blossoms...Blessings Spring Poetry Fairy Flowers in the Spring ~ Cicely Mary Barker The World is very old; But every Spring It groweth young again, And fairies sing. Try, always try to be... Cheerful Neat Polite Friendly Work Hard Generous Honest Keep Secrets Kind Humorous