Poetry Page

[BarbStAubrey]

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A Few Links To Enjoy

• Famous Poets and Poems about Winter
• Link to: Winter Poems

Discussion Leaders: Barb

[BarbStAubrey]

This was probably the last poem written by Khalil Hawi (1919-1982).

لبنان


كنا جداراً يلتقي جدار
ما اُوجع الحوار
ما اُوجع القطيعه
تغصُّ بالفجيعه
ما اُوجع الحوار


We were walls facing walls
It was painful to talk
It was painful to feel the distance
Choked by the tragedy
It was painful to talk

A link about Khalil Hawi

[BarbStAubrey]

Light Is More Important Than The Lantern
          by Nizar Qabbani

Light is more important than the lantern,
The poem more important than the notebook,
And the kiss more important than the lips.
My letters to you
Are greater and more important than both of us.
They are the only documents
Where people will discover
Your beauty
And my madness.


Translated by B. Frangieh and C. Brown

Link to Nizar Qabbani

[nlhome]

Thanks for the links to the winter poems.

We've had our first snow that requires a shovel, this weekend.

[Frybabe]

    My Symphony by William Channing

    To live content with small means:
    To seek elegance rather than luxury, and
    Refinement rather than fashion;
    To be worthy, not respectable,
    Wealthy, not rich;
    To study hard, think quietly,
    Talk gently, act frankly;
    To listen to stars and birds, to
    Babes and sages, with open heart;
    To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely,
    Await occasions, hurry never,--
    In a word, to let the spiritual,
    Unbidden and unconscious,
    Grow up through the common--
    This is to be my symphony.

[BarbStAubrey]

Oh just fabulous - a sentiment that my Mom taught me but not put so eloquently - the line wealthy, not rich is pure Mom - in the 30s we were still living with the effects of the depression so her more memorable quote may have come from that experience but her quote about the circumstances of others was - they are poor from not having money - and others who wrapped themselves in what appeared like luxury in a way to let you know it she would say - they are rich from having money - the poem you shared reminded me of her spirit.

[BarbStAubrey]

Well this is exciting - found a poet I had not heard of and he turns out to be one of the more famous European poets in the early nineteenth century - Heinrich Heine born Jewish - his life experiences are so in line with several of the books we read these past years from Hare with Amber Eyes and especially all the background we read with not only I Always Loved You but The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris - the story of Heinrich Heine fits right in, furthering a bit more of history from the German point of view.

Here is a link to one of his many online bio's - this link is easy to read although, not as all encompassing http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hheine.htm

The way I found him was looking up Epics - those I am familiar with are mostly about war, lots of ancient wars except for Hiawatha and I wanted to find an Epic poem featuring something other than heroics - Found one called, A Winter's Tale that turns out to be the English Translation for Heinrich Heine's Epic poem Deutschland.

His epic poem is quite lovely and funny - with descriptions of the countryside he includes many quips about the state of affairs in Germany that was slipping back to the conservative governess of the past as compared to the freedom, especially for Jews, during the Napoleonic Era.

Purchased the book and I will share some of the versus -

A different song, a better song,
will get the subject straighter:
let's make a heaven on earth, my friends,
instead of waiting till later.

Why shouldn't we be happy on earth,
why should we still go short?
why should the idle belly consume
what working hands have wrought?

There's bread enough grows here on earth
to feed mankind with ease,
and roses and myrtles, beauty and joy,
and (in the season) peas.

Yes, fresh green peas for everyone
as soon as the pods have burst.
Heaven we'll leave to the angles, and
the sparrows, who had it first.

And should we find that after death
we've grown some wings, we'll make
a point of calling on you up there
for some blessed tea-and-cake.

[BarbStAubrey]

Here is another bit from further and deeper into the poem

To get to Hagen from Cologne
costs five Perssian thaler six groschen.
The coach was full, so I had to ride
in the trailer, it wasn't a posh 'un.

A late autumn morning, damp and grey,
the coach-wheels ploughing mud;
bad weather, bad roads - but they couldn't damp
the contentment that pulsed in my blood.

I am breathing the air of home again!
My checks glow and understand.
And all this dirt on the road, it is
the filth of my fatherland.

Like a welcome from old acquaintances
were the waving tails of our dapples,
and their steaming dung seemed as beautiful
as Atalanta's apples.

We passed through Mühlheim. Nice little town,
the people quiet, hard-working.
The last time I was here was May
of AD one-and-thirty.

The splendour of blossom was everywhere then,
the sunlight was laughing and winking,
the birds were singing their courting songs
and people were hoping and thinking -

Thinking: 'the Scrawny Brotherhood
will soon have their bill to settle.
We'll offer them a farewell toast
from long thin tubes of metal!

And freedom will come with dance and play
and bring the tricolour pennant;
perhaps she'll even bring back from the dead
the Corsican Lieutenant.'

But the Scrawny Brotherhood never went,
and many of their nation
who were thin as rakes when they came to these parts
now sport a corporation.

The pallid crew looked as full of fun
as the cardinal virtues in those days.
Since then they've learned to swill our wine
and make most days red-nose-days.

Freedom herself has sprained her foot
and lost her exuberant powers;
even in Paris the tricolour
looks sadly down from the towers.

the emperor's been resurrected since,
but English worms had eaten
too much away. Now he's buried again -
he knew when he was beaten

I was there myself as the creremony:
gold victory goddesses holding
the golden coffin wherein he lay,
the coach itself was golden.

Along the Champs Elysées, to where
Old Triumph still stands arching,
on through teh mist, on over the snow
the solemn procession came marching.

The music was grating, dissonant,
the musicians frozen handed,
melancholy the greeting I had
from the eagle on every standard.

the people looked like ghosts that walked,
lost in old recollection -
the magic dream of empire had
a short, sad resurrection.

I wept that day. I could not keep
the tears in my eyes from welling,
to hear the lost cry of 'Vive l'Empereur'
pathetically swelling.

[BarbStAubrey]

Christmas In The Olden Time
          ~ Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)

Heap on more wood! — the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
Each age has deemed the new born year
The fittest time for festal cheer.
And well our Christian sires of old.
Loved when the year its course had rolled,
And brought blithe Christmas back again,
With all his hospitable train.
Domestic and religious rite
Gave honour to the holy night:
On Christmas eve the bells were rung;
On Christmas eve the mass was sung;
That only night, in all the year,
Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.
The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;
The hail was dressed with holly green;
Forth to the wood did merry men go,
To gather in the mistletoe,
Then opened wide the baron’s hail
To vassal, tenant, serf, and all;
Power laid his rod of rule aside,
And ceremony doff’d his pride.
The heir, with roses in his shoes,
That night might village partner choose.
The lord, underogating, share
The vulgar game of “post and pair!”
All hailed with uncontroll’d delight
And general voice, the happy night
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down.
The fire with well dried logs supplied,
Went roaring up the chimney wide;
The huge hail table’s oaken face,
Scrubb’d till it shone, the day to grace,
Bore then upon: its massive board
No mark to part the squire and lord.
Then was brought in the lusty brawn,
By old, blue-coated serving-man;
Then the grim boar’s head frowned on high,
Crested with bays and rosemary.
Well can the green-garbed ranger tell,
How, when, and where, the monster fell;
What dogs before his death he tore,
And all the baiting of the boar.
The wassail round in good brown bowls,
Garnished with ribbon, blithely trowls.
There the huge sirloin reeked: hard by
Plum-porridge stood, and Christmas pie;
Nor failed old Scotland to produce
At such high tide her savoury goose.
Then came the merry masquers in,
And carols roar’d with blithesome din;
If unmelodious was the song,
It was a hearty note, and strong.
Who lists may in their mumming see
Traces of ancient mystery;
White shirts supplied the masquerade,
And smutted cheeks the visor made
But oh! what masquers, richly dight,
Can boast of bosoms half so light!
England was merry England when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
’Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale,
’Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft would cheer
A poor man’s heart through half the year.

[BarbStAubrey]

The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti

Earth grown old, yet still so green,
Deep beneath her crust of cold
Nurses fire unfelt, unseen:
Earth grown old.

We who live are quickly told:
Millions more lie hid between
Inner swathings of her fold.

When will fire break up her screen?
When will life burst thro' her mould?
Earth, earth, earth, thy cold is keen,
Earth grown old.

[BarbStAubrey]

The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti

This Advent moon shines cold and clear,
These Advent nights are long;
Our lamps have burned year after year
And still their flame is strong.
'Watchman, what of the night?' we cry,
Heart-sick with hope deferred:
'No speaking signs are in the sky,'
Is still the watchman's word.

The Porter watches at the gate,
The servants watch within;
The watch is long betimes and late,
The prize is slow to win.
'Watchman, what of the night?' But still
His answer sounds the same:
'No daybreak tops the utmost hill,
Nor pale our lamps of flame.'

One to another hear them speak
The patient virgins wise:
'Surely He is not far to seek' –
'All night we watch and rise.'
'The days are evil looking back,
The coming days are dim;
Yet count we not His promise slack,
But watch and wait for Him.'

One with another, soul with soul,
They kindle fire from fire:
'Friends watch us who have touched the goal.'
'They urge us, come up higher.'
'With them shall rest our waysore feet,
With them is built our home,
With Christ.' – 'They sweet, but He most sweet,
Sweeter than honeycomb.'

There no more parting, no more pain,
The distant ones brought near,
The lost so long are found again,
Long lost but longer dear:
Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard,
Nor heart conceived that rest,
With them our good things long deferred,
With Jesus Christ our Best.

We weep because the night is long,
We laugh for day shall rise,
We sing a slow contented song
And knock at Paradise.
Weeping we hold Him fast Who wept
For us, we hold Him fast;
And will not let Him go except
He bless us first or last.

Weeping we hold Him fast to-night;
We will not let Him go
Till daybreak smite our wearied sight
And summer smite the snow:
Then figs shall bud, and dove with dove
Shall coo the livelong day;
Then He shall say, 'Arise, My love,
My fair one, come away.'

[BarbStAubrey]

The Feast of Lights
          ~ Emma Lazarus, 1849 - 1887

Kindle the taper like the steadfast star
Ablaze on evening’s forehead o’er the earth,
And add each night a lustre till afar
An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth.
Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre,
Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn;
Chant psalms of victory till the heart takes fire,
The Maccabean spirit leap new-born.

Remember how from wintry dawn till night,
Such songs were sung in Zion, when again
On the high altar flamed the sacred light,
And, purified from every Syrian stain,
The foam-white walls with golden shields were hung,
With crowns and silken spoils, and at the shrine,
Stood, midst their conqueror-tribe, five chieftains sprung
From one heroic stock, one seed divine.

Five branches grown from Mattathias’ stem,
The Blessed John, the Keen-Eyed Jonathan,
Simon the fair, the Burst-of Spring, the Gem,
Eleazar, Help of-God; o’er all his clan
Judas the Lion-Prince, the Avenging Rod,
Towered in warrior-beauty, uncrowned king,
Armed with the breastplate and the sword of God,
Whose praise is: “He received the perishing.”

They who had camped within the mountain-pass,
Couched on the rock, and tented neath the sky,
Who saw from Mizpah’s heights the tangled grass
Choke the wide Temple-courts, the altar lie
Disfigured and polluted--who had flung
Their faces on the stones, and mourned aloud
And rent their garments, wailing with one tongue,
Crushed as a wind-swept bed of reeds is bowed,

Even they by one voice fired, one heart of flame,
Though broken reeds, had risen, and were men,
They rushed upon the spoiler and o’ercame,
Each arm for freedom had the strength of ten.
Now is their mourning into dancing turned,
Their sackcloth doffed for garments of delight,
Week-long the festive torches shall be burned,
Music and revelry wed day with night.

Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm,
The mystic lights of emblem, and the Word.
Where is our Judas?  Where our five-branched palm?
Where are the lion-warriors of the Lord?
Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre,
Sound the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn,
Chant hymns of victory till the heart take fire,
The Maccabean spirit leap new-born!

[BarbStAubrey]

"How beautiful are thy tents, Jacob"
          ~ By Yehuda Amichai

"How beautiful are thy tents, Jacob."
Even now, when there are neither tents nor Jacob’s
tribes, I say, how beautiful.

Oh, may there come something of redemption,
an old song, a white letter,
a face in the crowd, a door opening
for the eye, multicolored
ice cream for the throat,
oil for the guts, a warm
memory for the breast.

Then my mouth will open wide
in everlasting praise,
open like the belly of a
wide—open calf hung on a hook
in a butcher’s shop of the Old City market.

[BarbStAubrey]

The Great Feast
By Reece, aged 10, from Coventry, England

Like the colour of silver,
in the night sky,
the new moon rises,
the holy month has past,
the fasting is over,
tomorrow is the great feast of Eid-ul-Fitr.

We will eat spicy chicken,
and mouthwatering pakoras,
I'll call my neighbours,
and friends on the street,
may the peace of Allah,
and joy of Eid,
be with everyone.

[BarbStAubrey]

An Old Cracked Tune
Stanley Kunitz, 1905 - 2006

My name is Solomon Levi,
the desert is my home,
my mother’s breast was thorny,
and father I had none.

The sands whispered, Be separate,
the stones taught me, Be hard.
I dance, for the joy of surviving,
on the edge of the road. 

[JoanK]

I like that. And he lived to 101?

[BarbStAubrey]

A bit from Elliot that appeals to my idea of Christmas - not merry and bright but the joy that comes from our spiritual heart beat.


If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life,
it would be like hearing the grass grow on the squirrel's
heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the
other side of silence.

And another from Mechtild of Magdeburg

Teach me the power and strength of silence
that I may go into the world
as still as a mouse
in the depths of my heart.

Wishing y'all a silence that touches your spiritual beauty.

[Frybabe]

We are going to embark on a reading of The Lady of Shalott in February. Here is another of Tennyson's poems.

THE OLD YEAR.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

[BarbStAubrey]

Gosh this could be written about today -

ing out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

[BarbStAubrey]

Found this the other day by Sri Chinmoy - interesting viewpoint...

I Butchered Your Ignorance

When I thought I was the doer
Of all my deeds,
I turned to mist.
I died.
I became the emperor of giant failures.
My soul came to the fore,
Consoled my visionless ignorance.
God made His Appearance supreme.
“You fool, be not wedded to impossibility’s
lifeless beauty.
I waste not a leaf.
I butchered your ignorance wild for you
To equal
My Transcendental Throne.”

[Frybabe]

Interesting, long poem by George Melville Baker (1832–1890) about the dangers of drinking. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47934/47934-h/47934-h.htm

Baker was a playwright and publisher in Boston, MA.  He wrote quite a few plays so I am wondering why I can't find much of a bio on him. Many of his plays were comedies or farces and are still in print today. He appears to have been a temperance advocate. https://secure.flickr.com/photos/lhoracek/4546603159/in/photostream/

[BarbStAubrey]

My guess is Frybabe that it is because he is a single issue poet - the same with some of the Cowboy poets, who many do a great job but again their theme, analogies and metaphors are not universal.

There are many poets who write from a certain place including the traditions, landscape, myths etc. but the theme can be related to other locals with their myths highlighting values and feelings that folks can have from Ushuaia and Puerto Williams to Svalbard, Norway where as, poets with a single issue theme have their day till history and new approaches to these issues not only change reading but the issues in the material become dated.

Today folks do not rail against or admonish drunken behavior without including at least the problem of drugs much less the many other obsessions just as there are only a slim number of folks who read poetry who are familiar with riding, cattle, ranch culture, open spaces etc.  

[Frybabe]

MEMORY AND I

“O memory, where is now my youth,
Who used to say that life was truth?”

“I saw him in a crumbled cot
   Beneath a tottering tree;
That he as phantom lingers there
   Is only known to me.”

“O Memory, where is now my joy,
Who lived with me in sweet employ?”

“I saw him in gaunt gardens lone,
   Where laughter used to be;
That he as phantom wanders there
   Is known to none but me.”

“O Memory, where is now my hope,
Who charged with deeds my skill and scope?”

“I saw her in a tomb of tomes,
   Where dreams are wont to be;
That she as spectre haunteth there
   Is only known to me.”

“O Memory, where is now my faith,
One time a champion, now a wraith?”

“I saw her in a ravaged aisle,
   Bowed down on bended knee;
That her poor ghost outflickers there
   Is known to none but me.”

“O Memory, where is now my love,
That rayed me as a god above?”

“I saw him by an ageing shape
   Where beauty used to be;
That his fond phantom lingers there
   Is only known to me.”

              Thomas Hardy

[Frybabe]

Another Thomas Hardy. Ageless, because war it seems is ageless. A sentiment shared down through the ages.

SONG OF THE SOLDIERS’ WIVES

          I

At last!  In sight of home again,
      Of home again;
No more to range and roam again
   As at that bygone time?
No more to go away from us
      And stay from us?—
Dawn, hold not long the day from us,
   But quicken it to prime!

          II

Now all the town shall ring to them,
      Shall ring to them,
And we who love them cling to them
   And clasp them joyfully;
And cry, “O much we’ll do for you
      Anew for you,
Dear Loves!—aye, draw and hew for you,
   Come back from oversea.”

          III

Some told us we should meet no more,
      Should meet no more;
Should wait, and wish, but greet no more
   Your faces round our fires;
That, in a while, uncharily
      And drearily
Men gave their lives—even wearily,
   Like those whom living tires.

          IV

And now you are nearing home again,
      Dears, home again;
No more, may be, to roam again
   As at that bygone time,
Which took you far away from us
      To stay from us;
Dawn, hold not long the day from us,
   But quicken it to prime!

[BarbStAubrey]

Yeates writes of war -

The Stare’s Nest by My Window

The bees build in the crevices
Of loosening masonry, and there
The mother birds bring grubs and flies.
My wall is loosening; honey-bees
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty; somewhere
A man is killed, or a house burned,
Yet no clear fact to be discerned;
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

A barricade of stone or of wood;
Some fourteen days of civil war;
Last night they trundled down the road
That dead young soldier in his blood;
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart’s grown brutal from the fare;
More substance in our enmities
Than in our love; O, honey-bees,
Come build in the empty house of the stare.

And then the last four lines of Wordsworth Ode Intimations of Immortality gives us comfort and hope.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,   
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,   
To me the meanest flower that blows can give   
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

[BarbStAubrey]

Consider the Space Between Stars

Consider the white space
between words on a page, not just
the margins around them.

Or the space between thoughts:
instants when the mind is inventing
exactly what it thinks

and the mouth waits
to be filled with language.
Consider the space

between lovers after a quarrel,
the white sheet a cold metaphor
between them.

Now picture the brief space
before death enters, hat in hand:
vanishing years, filled with light.

by Linda Pastan

[Frybabe]

Good poem Barb. I never heard of Lindon Pastan. Will look her up.

[BarbStAubrey]

here is a form that is new to me... The clerihew

The Poet's Manual and Rhyming Dictionary defines it as 'a humorous pseudo-biographical quatrain, rhymed as two couplets, with line of uneven length more or less in the rhythm of prose'. Add to this, that the name of the subject usually ends the first or, less often, the second line, and that the humour of the clerihew is whimsical rather than satiric.

Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956) is remembered mainly for his classic detective story Trent's Last Case and for the humorous verse form that was named after him - the clerihew. It was at the age of sixteen, while he was at St. Paul's School in London, that Bentley first started writing clerihews, as a diversion from school work. G. K. Chesterton, Bentley's life-long friend, was at St. Paul's at the same time, and he too wrote clerihews.

Here is one of Bentley's original clerihews from this period:

Sir Humphrey Davy
Abominated gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium.

A few others:

The people of Spain think Cervantes
Equal to half-a-dozen Dantes;
An opinion resented most bitterly
By the people of Italy.

Dante Alighieri
Seldom troubled a dairy.
He wrote the Inferno
On a bottle of Pernod.

Cecil B. De Mille,
Rather against his will,
Was persuaded to leave Moses
Out of 'The Wars of the Roses'.

[BarbStAubrey]

Like Brooms of Steel
Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886

Like Brooms of Steel 
The Snow and Wind 
Had swept the Winter Street -
The House was hooked 
The Sun sent out   
Faint Deputies of Heat -
Where rode the Bird 
The Silence tied 
His ample - plodding Steed
The Apple in the Cellar snug 
Was all the one that played.

[BarbStAubrey]

Winter Study
Mark Wunderlich

Two days of snow, then ice
and the deer peer from the ragged curtain of trees.

Hunger wills them, hunger
pulls them to the compass of light

spilling from the farmyard pole.
They dip their heads, hold

forked hooves
above snow, turn furred ears

to scoop from the wind
the sounds of hounds, or men.

They lap at a sprinkling of grain,
pull timid mouthfuls from a stray bale.

The smallest is lame, with a leg
healed at angles, and a fused knob

where a joint once bent.
It picks, stiff, skidding its sickening limb

across the ice’s dark platter.
Their fear is thick as they break a trail

to the center of their predator’s range.
To know the winter

is to ginger forth from a bed in the pines,
to search for a scant meal

gleaned from the carelessness
of a killer.

[BarbStAubrey]

Anything Can Happen
Seamus Heaney, 1939 - 2013

Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter
Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head
Before he hurls the lightning? Well, just now
He galloped his thunder cart and his horses

Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth
And the clogged underearth, the River Styx,
The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.
Anything can happen, the tallest towers

Be overturned, those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune
Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,
Setting it down bleeding on the next.

Ground gives. The heaven’s weight
Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.
Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.
Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.

[BarbStAubrey]

Chance
Molly Peacock, 1947

may favor obscure brainy aptitudes in you
and a love of the past so blind you would
venture, always securing permission,
into the back library stacks, without food
or water because you have a mission:
to find yourself, in the regulated light,
holding a volume in your hands as you
yourself might like to be held.  Mostly your life
will be voices and images.  Information.  You
may go a long way alone, and travel much
to open a book to renew your touch.

[Frybabe]

TO THE WHIP-POOR-WILL.

“Why dost thou come at set of sun,

  Those pensive words to say?

 Why whip poor Will?—What has he done?

  And who is Will, I pray?

“Why come from you leaf-shaded hill,

  A suppliant at my door?—

 Why ask of me to whip poor Will?

  And is Will really poor?

“If poverty’s his crime, let mirth

  From out his heart be driven:

 That is the deadliest sin on earth,

  And never is forgiven!

“Art Will himself?—It must be so—

  I learn it from thy moan,

 For none can feel another’s woe

  As deeply as his own.

“Yet wherefore strain thy tiny throat,

  While other birds repose?

 What means thy melancholy note?

  The mystery disclose.

“Still ‘whip-poor-will!’—Art thou a sprite,

  From unknown regions sent

 To wander in the gloom of night,

  And ask for punishment?

“Is thine a conscience sore beset

  With guilt—or, what is worse,

 Hast thou to meet writs, duns, and debt—

  No money in thy purse?

“If this be thy hard fate indeed,

  Ah well may’st thou repine:

 The sympathy I give, I need—

  The poet’s doom is thine.

“Art thou a lover, Will?—Hast proved

  The fairest can deceive?

 Thine is the lot of all who’ve loved

  Since Adam wedded Eve.

“Hast trusted in a friend, and seen

  No friend was he in need?

 A common error—men still lean

  Upon as frail a reed.

“Hast thou, in seeking wealth or fame,

  A crown of brambles won?

 O’er all the earth ’tis just the same

  With every mother’s son!

“Hast found the world a Babel wide,

  Where man to mammon stoops?

 Where flourish arrogance and pride,

  While modest merit droops?

“What, none of these?—Then, whence thy pain,

  To guess it who’s the skill?

 Pray have the kindness to explain

  Why I should whip poor Will?

“Dost merely ask thy just desert?

  What, not another word?—

 Back to the woods again, unhurt—

  I will not harm thee, bird!

“But treat thee kindly—for my nerves,

  Like thine, have penance done;

 Treat every man as he deserves—

  Who shall ’scape whipping?’—None.

“Farewell, poor Will—not valueless

  This lesson by thee given:

 ‘Keep thine own counsel, and confess

  Thyself alone to heaven!’ ”—Morris.

[Frybabe]

The first three lines sound might familiar to me.



THE OAK.

“Woodman, spare that tree!

  Touch not a single bough!

 In youth it sheltered me,

  And I’ll protect it now.

 ’Twas my forefather’s hand

  That placed it near his cot;

 There, woodman, let it stand,

  Thy axe shall harm it not!

“That old familiar tree,

  Whose glory and renown

 Are spread o’er land and sea,

  And wouldst thou hack it down?

 Woodman, forbear thy stroke!

  Cut not its earth-bound ties;

 Oh spare that aged oak,

  Now towering to the skies!

“When but an idle boy

  I sought its grateful shade;

 In all their gushing joy

  Here, too, my sisters played.

 My mother kissed me here;

  My father pressed my hand—

 Forgive this foolish tear,

  But let that old oak stand!

“My heart-strings round thee cling,

  Close as thy bark, old friend!

 Here shall the wild-bird sing,

  And still thy branches bend.

 Old tree! the storm still brave!

  And, woodman, leave the spot;

 While I’ve a hand to save,

  Thy axe shall harm it not.”—Morris.

[BarbStAubrey]

Edgar Allen Poe in the magazine, Southern Literary Messenger April 1849 issues, writes an article about the poet George P. Morris, 1802-1864

    "Woodman Spare that Tree" and "By the Lake where droops the Willow" are compositions of which any poet, living or dead, might justly be proud. By these, if by nothing else, Morris is immortal. It is quite impossible to put down such things by sneers. The affectation of contemning them is of no avail, unless to render manifest the envy of those who affect the contempt. As mere poems, there are several of Morris' compositions equal, if not superior, to either of those just mentioned, but as songs I much doubt whether these latter have ever been surpassed.

Like you Frybabe I have heard the opening lines often but I never heard them sung. Well  here it is - it was a popular Victorian Parlor Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjyD5wZjZ-U

[PatH]

The poem reminds me of an old family tradition of "the walking-stick tree".  One of my ancestors started a farm in Ohio (in Kirtland, now part of greater Cleveland) right after he got out of the army from the war of 1812.  The story has it that when he got to where his house was going to be he stuck his walking stick in the ground and it grew.  True or not, there was a tree in that spot that had been there pretty much from the beginning, and was still flourishing when my mother was a grownup, and I think a lot longer.  I can just picture my relatives faced with that woodman.  Their language would not have been so gentle.

The farm has long since been turned into subdivisions, but the original farmhouse remained in the family until 30-40 years ago, and I suspect is still standing.

[ginny]

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[Frybabe]

I found this poem in Beadle's Dime National Speaker (Speaker Series #2). Blurb for the book: "BEADLE'S DIME NATIONAL SPEAKER, EMBODYING GEMS OF ORATORY AND WIT, PARTICULARLY ADAPTED TO AMERICAN SCHOOLS AND FIRESIDES." The Battle for Malakoff was a major battle of the Crimean War. It was the battle that brought the Seige of Sevastopol to an end.

LET THE CHILDLESS WEEP.—Metta Victoria Victor.

The news is flying along the streets:
It leaves a smile with each face it meets.
The heart of London is all on fire—
Its throbbing veins beat faster and higher—
With eager triumph they beat so fast—
"The Malakoff—Malakoff falls at last!"
Hark to the murmur, the shout, the yell—
"The Malakoff's fallen!"— well, 'tis well!
But let the childless weep.
 
I am faint and stunn'd by the crowd;
My head aches with the tumult loud.
On this step I will sit me down,
Where the city palaces o'er me frown.
I would these happy people could see
Sights which are never absent from me;
The sound of their joy to sobs might swell,
They would swallow tears—well—it is well!
But let the childless weep.
 
If they could see my two young sons
Shatter'd and torn by Russian guns,—
The only children God gave me—dead!
With the rough earth for a dying bed.
Side by side, in the trenches deep—
Perchance they would weep as I must weep.
No sons of theirs on that red hill fell,
And so they smile and say, "'tis well!"
But let the childless weep.
 
I know where in the cottages low
Women's faces grow white with woe;
Where throats are choked with tears unshed
When widows' children ask for bread.
I think of one whose heart has grown
As cold and heavy as this stone.
But cabinets never think so low
As a mother's anguish, and so—and so
Why let the childless weep.
 
O Queen! your children around you sleep;
Their rest at night is sweet and deep
Do you ever think of the mothers many
Whose sons you required, and left not any?
Do you think of young limbs bruised and crush'd
And laughing voices forever hush'd?
My soul with a fierce rage might swell,
But grief hath all the place—'tis well!
Let the childless weep.
 
Could God have seen with prophet eye,
When He piled the Malakoff hill so high,
That it was to be soaked through and through
With streams and streams of blood-red dew,
And covered over with anguish?—no!
Or He would have leveled it small and low.
It is man who is haughty, fierce, and cruel—
Who heaps on his altar the living fuel!
Let the childless weep.
 
England! England! haughty and bold!
You still covet what you behold;
To have your own proud will and way
You will make widows, thousands a day.
You buy your power with human life,
And the sobbing child and hopeless wife
Give up their dearest at your call—
But hearts must break and towers must fall
Let the childless weep.
 
Weep? I can not weep while around
 Swells the victory's awful sound.
The Malakoff fell,—but England's way
O'er the bosoms that loved her deepest lay.
Victoria's children laugh in glee!—
Does she remember mine, or me?
Oh, footman, leave me this cold stone—
My sons are dead and I am alone—
The childless can not weep.


Metta Victoria Victor (another Pennsylvanian) was an editor for the Beadle and dime novelist who wrote one of the first full length detective novels in America, The Dead Letter (1866). So far, I can find just a little bio on her, with no indication that she ever was in England or covered the Crimean War for the news media of the day. Still, the poem caught my eye.

[BarbStAubrey]

I'd never heard of her - heart wrenching poem with some allegory I would need to take time to connect the dots. What ever in the world were you reading to come across this bit of wonderment?

[Frybabe]

One of my Project Gutenberg finds, Barb. It appears she wrote under numerous pseudonyms.

Here is some more info about her and her writings:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/dimenovels/the-authors/metta-victor

Here is a bit about Beadle and Company, which published many of her works, and its' role in the history of publishing and printing inexpensive works. They revolutionized the printing of such works by buying cheap paper, using inexpensive bindings, and standardizing the book size.The result enabled them to sell them at 10cents each. Hence, the birth of the Dime Store Novel.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/dimenovels/the-publishers/beadle-adams

Link to The Dead Letter at Librivox.
https://librivox.org/the-dead-letter-by-metta-victoria-fuller-victor/

Link to Beadle's Dime National Speaker (Speaker Series #2) on Project Gutenberg, where I found the poem:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49291