Poetry Page

[BarbStAubrey]

Our Poetry Page Celebrates
The December Holidays

Our Poetry Page has been a haven for those of us who listen to words that opens our heart and stirs our imagination. We tread lightly when acknowledging the moving sound that touches someone's inner-self...



Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.
Mary Oliver

Welcome! Please share
December's Holiday and Early Winter Poems.

Discussion Leaders: Barb

[BarbStAubrey]

For there in his evergreen dress he stood, A pointed fir in the midst of the wood! His branches were sweet with the balsam smell, His needles were green when the white snow fell. And always contented and happy was he, The very best kind of a Christmas tree.

[nlhome]

These lovely poems set me thinking and reminiscing. When I was maybe 7 or 8, a long time ago, I attended a one-room school in a rural area. We walked about half a mile to the village proper and rehearsed our Christmas program in the community hall above the general store. Then one evening right before Christmas, we would have our Christmas program there, which, public school or not, included a pageant, lots of holiday songs and recitations. 60+ years ago, but I still remember this one that I recited: (The Christmas Story - no author that I know of, just part of a recitation book that teachers used back then.)

THE brightest tale of Christmas
The world will ever know
Was told one radiant morning,
Long ages, dears, ago.
The shades of night had fallen,
Just as they fell to-day;
But morning brought a sunshine
That never passed away.
For, in a' lowly manger,
A wondrous life had birth;
A life so pure and gentle
It gladdened all the earth.
That life is our best sunshine,
In lessons, or in play;
’Tis well we should remember
The Child of Christmas Day.

I was terrified, and I was such a meek child I wonder if anyone could hear me.

[BarbStAubrey]

Lovely memory - there will not be many of us that have those kind of memories - it is all so different now - I wonder if the sense of awe is still there for the youngsters today - for most of us we did not receive gifts during the year except for our birthday so the whole celebration of Christmas was one wonder after the other and we did have pageants and we sang - even in the movie I remember we sang waiting for the film to start - I do not hear that there are school plays any longer - I bet some churches still put on nativity plays but no more community halls for Christmas as we moved to an eclectic view of God. Ah so, do not see that it improved relations or behavior in this nation by removing everything Christian. 

[BarbStAubrey]

A Babe is born, all of a maid, To bring salvation unto us; No more are we to sing afraid, Veni Creator Spiritus. At Bethlehem, that blessèd place, The Child of bliss then born He was; Him aye to serve, God give us grace, O Lux beata Trinitas. There came three kings out of the East, To worship there that King so free; With gold and myrrh and frankincense, A solis ortus cardine. The shepherds heard an angel cry, A merry song that night sang he, "Why are ye all so sore aghast?" Iam lucis orto sidere. The angel came down with a cry, A fair and joyful song sang he, All in the worship of that child, Gloria Tibi Domine.

[PatH]

A Christmas Tree

Star
If you are
A love compassionate,
You will walk with us this year.
We face a glacial distance, who are here
Huddld
At your feet.

William Burford

[BarbStAubrey]

Great Pat - I think it is called Concrete poetry when the lines form a shape of the poem - this is a gift - thanks

[BarbStAubrey]

This bit of Yeats, The Wanderings of Oisin is just too perfect to describe the end of a year in it's dying flame.

But now the moon like a white rose shone In the pale west, and the sun's rim sank, And clouds arrayed their rank on rank About his fading crimson ball: The floor of Almhuin's hosting hall Was not more level than the sea, As, full of loving fantasy, And with low murmurs, we rode on, Where many a trumpet-twisted shell That in immortal silence sleeps Dreaming of her own melting hues, Her golds, her ambers, and her blues, Pierced with soft light the shallowing deeps. But now a wandering land breeze came And a far sound of feathery quires; It seemed to blow from the dying flame, They seemed to sing in the smouldering fires.

[Frybabe]

That is a perfect picture to go with the poem, Barb. It really emphasizes the mood of the poem.

[PatH]

It is indeed a perfect match for the poem.  Barb, I don't know how you find all these pictures; I sure appreciate it.

I was also reminded, and I suspect Frybabe was too, of a certain classic sci-fi film.  Gave me a chuckle.

[BarbStAubrey]

First January is here, With eyes that keenly glow— A frost-mailed warrior striding A shadowy steed of snow… Edgar Fawcett The Masque of Months..1878

[BarbStAubrey]

The Old Year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead. The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time. All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!

[Mkaren557]

I know this poem has been done and redone, but it is my favorite winter poem.  In fact I took a quiz today to find out which poem really goes to my soul.  I am a New England woman.



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.

I know because every teacher of poetry I ever had told me that there are layers and layers of meaning in every Frost poem..  In this one, first of all for me is the image.  I guess it does go to my soul

[BarbStAubrey]

thanks Karen - the line that hits home for me - The darkest evening of the year. - oh how I love the dark - I love the night and wish I could be awake all day and all night because I like mornings and hot afternoons and the evening breeze telling me the time in summer but best of all I like the dark - the sounds - and for me the feeling of freedom to do what I wish and not have a phone or demand trailing after me - I love watching the animals at night - about 2: in the morning when the deer slowly trail in a line to their grazing field across the street in the school yard, to me so much more magical than seeing birds and animals skitter and sail through the day - and so, snowy night or not - to me stopping at a quiet space and listening to the night is lovely, not so much dark [thoughts or feelings] but deep.

[PatH]

That's always been a favorite of mine too.  My favorite line would be  "The woods are lovely, dark and deep." Or maybe the whole last stanza.

[BarbStAubrey]

Brew me a cup for a winter’s night. For the wind howls loud, and the furies fight; Spice it with love and stir it with care, And I’ll toast your bright eyes, my sweetheart fair.

[BarbStAubrey]

Mother of Inspiration Mother of inspiration, she moves me to the well of deep love. She is the poem that runs from my quill, the dawning muse that awakens tired night and stirs the soft bees from their flowery beds. Burning fire at the heart of the temple, she awakens mother loving wisdom in lost sleeping hearts. Children cling to her leg knowing that she is the mother of lovers, the spirit that watches over them by night. Most angelic voice of the feminine mysteries, she is the storyteller who caresses the words of the bards, from lips as tender as petals of the rose. All words fail to tell of her grace and the mysteries held in her every breath. Yet the gods and poets strive to tell of her beauty in vain, as the words fall like petals tossed at her soft perfect feet. They sing her songs that the world might understand living divinity, that the poem might give a glimpse of the pathway illuminated by the footseps of a sacred priestess. The generosity of her presence fills the lives of all that walk in her midst. Mother of care, sister of truth, daughter of dark and light, she marries the broken heart of time in her every motion, her black wings illuminating the dark way with glints of rainbow as she turns. She forever lives in the temples of long forgotten memory, with one foot in our world that we might for a moment remember. With gratitude the sages bow before her beauty in silence at last, knowing that the words that they reach for in vain are spoken by her very presence

[BarbStAubrey]

I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on, The windows and the stars illumined, one by one, The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily, And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall see The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass; And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass, I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight, And build me stately palaces by candlelight. Charles Baudelaire - Les Fleurs du Mal

[BarbStAubrey]

The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter
Translated and Adapted by Ezra Pound, 1885 - 1972

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.  I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
   As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

[BarbStAubrey]

Pear Tree - Rachel Bluwstein     Conspiracy of spring     a man awakes and through the window sees     a pear tree blossoming,     and instantly the mountain weighing on his heart     dissolves and disappears.     O you will understand! Is there a grieving man     who can hold on stubbornly     to a single flower that withered     in last year’s autumn gale,     when spring consoles and with a smile     presents him with a giant wreath of flowers     at his very window?

[BarbStAubrey]

Pilgrimage Natasha Trethewey, 1966             United States Poet Laureate in 2012 and again in 2014 Vicksburg, Mississippi Here, the Mississippi carved             its mud-dark path, a graveyard for skeletons of sunken riverboats.             Here, the river changed its course, turning away from the city             as one turns, forgetting, from the past— the abandoned bluffs, land sloping up             above the river’s bend—where now the Yazoo fills the Mississippi’s empty bed.             Here, the dead stand up in stone, white marble, on Confederate Avenue. I stand             on ground once hollowed by a web of caves; they must have seemed like catacombs,             in 1863, to the woman sitting in her parlor, candlelit, underground. I can see her             listening to shells explode, writing herself into history, asking what is to become             of all the living things in this place? This whole city is a grave. Every spring—             Pilgrimage—the living come to mingle with the dead, brush against their cold shoulders             in the long hallways, listen all night to their silence and indifference, relive             their dying on the green battlefield. At the museum, we marvel at their clothes—             preserved under glass—so much smaller than our own, as if those who wore them             were only children. We sleep in their beds, the old mansions hunkered on the bluffs, draped             in flowers—funereal—a blur of petals against the river’s gray.             The brochure in my room calls this living history. The brass plate on the door reads             Prissy’s Room. A window frames the river’s crawl toward the Gulf. In my dream,             the ghost of history lies down beside me, rolls over, pins me beneath a heavy arm.

[BarbStAubrey]

Window Carl Sandburg, 1878 - 1967 Night from a railroad car window Is a great, dark, soft thing Broken across with slashes of light.

[Frybabe]

John Greenleaf Whittier

 AT EVENTIDE.

     Poor and inadequate the shadow-play
     Of gain and loss, of waking and of dream,
     Against life's solemn background needs must seem
     At this late hour. Yet, not unthankfully,
     I call to mind the fountains by the way,
     The breath of flowers, the bird-song on the spray,
     Dear friends, sweet human loves, the joy of giving
     And of receiving, the great boon of living
     In grand historic years when Liberty
     Had need of word and work, quick sympathies
     For all who fail and suffer, song's relief,
     Nature's uncloying loveliness; and chief,
     The kind restraining hand of Providence,
     The inward witness, the assuring sense
     Of an Eternal Good which overlies
     The sorrow of the world, Love which outlives
     All sin and wrong, Compassion which forgives
     To the uttermost, and Justice whose clear eyes
     Through lapse and failure look to the intent,
     And judge our frailty by the life we meant.

     1878.

[Frybabe]

Not the greatest of poems, perhaps, but when I ran across it, it reminded me of Eloise who was a treasured member of SeniorNet and then SeniorLearn.

From A Treasury of Canadian Verse, selected and edited by Theodore H. Rand (1900)


AT QUEBEC

QUEBEC, the grey old city on the hill,
  Lies with a golden glory on her head,
  Dreaming throughout this hour so fair, so still,
  Of other days and all her mighty dead.
The white doves perch upon the cannons grim,
  The flowers bloom where once did run a tide
  Of crimson, when the moon rose pale and dim
  Above the battlefield so grim and wide.
Methinks within her wakes a mighty glow
  Of pride, of tenderness—her stirring past—
  The strife, the valor, of the long ago
Feels at her heartstrings. Strong, and tall, and vast,
  She lies, touched with the sunset's golden grace,
  A wondrous softness on her grey old face.
              by Jean Blewett

[Frybabe]

The Fallen Tree.
I passed along a mountain road,
  Which led me through a wooded glen,
Remote from dwelling or abode
  And ordinary haunts of men;
    And wearied from the dust and heat.
    Beneath a tree, I found a seat.

The tree, a tall majestic spruce,
  Which had, perhaps for centuries,
Withstood, without a moment's truce,
  The wing-ed warfare of the breeze;
    A monarch of the solitude,
    Which well might grace the noblest wood.

Beneath its cool and welcome shade,
  Protected from the noontide rays,
The birds amid its branches played
  And caroled forth their twittering praise;
    A squirrel perched upon a limb
    And chattered with loquacious vim.

E'er yet that selfsame week had sped,
  On my return, I sought its shade;
But where it reared its form, instead;
  A fallen monarch I surveyed,
    Prostrate and broken on the ground,
    Nor longer cast its shade around.

Uprooted and disheveled, there
  The monarch of the forest lay;
As if in desolate despair
  Its last resistance fell away,
    And overwhelmed, in evil hour
    Went down before the tempest's power.

Such are the final works of fate;
  The birds to other branches flew;
And man, whatever his estate,
  Must face that same mutation, too!
    To-day, I stand erect and tall,
    The morrow--may record my fall.
 
       Alfred Castner King (1904-1968)

[Frybabe]

Serenade (For Music) by Oscar Wilde

The western wind is blowing fair
Across the dark AEgean sea,
And at the secret marble stair
My Tyrian galley waits for thee.
Come down! the purple sail is spread,
The watchman sleeps within the town,
O leave thy lily-flowered bed,
O Lady mine come down, come down!

She will not come, I know her well,
Of lover's vows she hath no care,
And little good a man can tell
Of one so cruel and so fair.
True love is but a woman's toy,
They never know the lover's pain,
And I who loved as loves a boy
Must love in vain, must love in vain.

O noble pilot, tell me true,
Is that the sheen of golden hair?
Or is it but the tangled dew
That binds the passion-flowers there?
Good sailor come and tell me now
Is that my Lady's lily hand?
Or is it but the gleaming prow,
Or is it but the silver sand?

No! no! 'tis not the tangled dew,
'Tis not the silver-fretted sand,
It is my own dear Lady true
With golden hair and lily hand!
O noble pilot, steer for Troy,
Good sailor, ply the labouring oar,
This is the Queen of life and joy
Whom we must bear from Grecian shore!

The waning sky grows faint and blue,
It wants an hour still of day,
Aboard! aboard! my gallant crew,
O Lady mine, away! away!
O noble pilot, steer for Troy,
Good sailor, ply the labouring oar,
O loved as only loves a boy!
O loved for ever evermore!


I didn't know Oscar Wilde wrote poetry.

[PatH]

That's nice, as it turns from an anonymous love song to Paris' abduction of Helen.  And it's new to me.

The only poem I knew of Wilde's before this is The Ballad of Reading Gaol.  Wilde was sent to jail for two years for the crime of homosexuality.  The experience was too much for the pampered aesthete, and he never really recovered.  This poem describes his emotions, especially watching the last days of a man about to be hanged.  It's very good, very powerful, and a real downer.  It's also 654 lines long.  Don't read it when you're not feeling strong.

[Frybabe]

PLYNLIMMON.

By Lewis Glyn Cothi.

From high Plynlimmon’s shaggy side
Three streams in three directions glide,
To thousands at their mouth who tarry
Honey, gold and mead they carry.

Flow also from Plynlimmon high
Three streams of generosity;
The first, a noble stream indeed,
Like rills of Mona runs with mead;

The second bears from vineyards thick
Wine to the feeble and the sick;
The third, till time shall be no more,
Mingled with gold shall silver pour.


Plynlimon (aka: Pumlumon) is the largest watershed in Wales and the source of the Severn, Wye and Rheidol Rivers. It is located in the Cambrian Mountains of Mid-Wales.

[Frybabe]

Yesterday I discovered a translation of Dante's A Vision of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise with illustrations by Gustave Dore. Wonderful artwork.

In my viewing watch-list I have lecture program on Dante, but I think it is specific to Divine Comedy. It has been sitting there waiting for me to drag out that poem to read along with the lecture. I really ought to do that before it gets removed from the offerings.

[BarbStAubrey]

Been years since I read any Dante - my taste has changed and I'm reading Yeats again. But I bumped into this while browsing for poems about Owls and was taken - it is shown in both the Spanish and the English - evidently the author, a women wrote in the late 1800s from Uruguay - that I find interesting a women no less in the Spanish Culture being published from that time in history - yes we had our Bronte's and Dickinson but they were English and American - looking up Delmira Agustini lo and behold if I did not find another woman born during the same decade who was from Chile and was a Noble Prize winner Gabriela Mistral.

Well here is Delmira Agustini's poem in English.

English Murmuring preludes. On this resplendent night Her pearled voice quiets a fountain. The breezes hang their celestial fifes In the foliage. The gray heads Of the owls keep watch. Flowers open themselves, as if surprised. Ivory swans extend their necks In the pallid lakes. Selene watches from the blue. Fronds Tremble…and everything! Even the silence, quiets. She wanders with her sad mouth And the grand mystery of amber eyes, Across the night, toward forgetfulness Like a star, fugitive and white. Like a dethroned exotic queen With comely gestures and rare utterings. Her undereyes are violated horizons And her irises–two stars of amber–Open wet and weary and sad Like ulcers of light that weep. She is a grief which thrives and does not hope, She is a gray aurora rising From the shadowy bed of night, Exhausted, without splendor, without anxiousness. And her songs are like dolorous fairies Jeweled in teardrops…                          The strings of lyres                           Are the souls' fibers. –The blood of bitter vineyards, noble vineyards, In goblets of regal beauty, rises To her marble hands, to lips carved Like the blazon of a great lineage. Strange Princes of Fantasy! They Have seen her languid head, once erect, And heard her laugh, for her eyes Tremble with the flower of aristocracies! And her soul clean as fire, like a star, Burns in those pupils of amber. But with a mere glance, scarcely an intimacy, Perhaps the echo of a profane voice, This white and pristine soul shrinks Like a luminous flower, folding herself up!

[PatH]

Barb, are you familiar with Sor Juana Inesde la Cruz, (1648-1695) a Mexican nun.  She wrote both religious and secular poems, and also a passionate defense of the right of women to study, teach and write.  (This was a defense against her bishop's order to stop writing.)  i think it didn't work, unfortunately.

I like her poems a lot, though I don't care for the translations in the dual language book I have, and the Spanish is so difficult for me that it can take a day to read a sonnet.

[PatH]

Frybabe, Barb, which translations of Dante do youl like?

[BarbStAubrey]

No I did not know of Sor Juana Inesde la Cruz - need to find some of her work -

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, original name Juana Ramírez de Asbaje, born November 12, 1651 - a self-taught scholar, philosopher and poet of the Baroque school, and Hieronymite nun of New Spain. Need to find out what is a Hieronymite nun.

Too busy - need to get to this later...

[Frybabe]

I've not read enough Dante to compare translations, Pat.

[PatH]

Frybabe, I've only read part of Inferno, but one can often like or dislike a translation pretty quickly.  I took an instant dislike to Ciardi's translation.  Fortunately It was a library book not a purchase.  The one I like is Dorothy L. Sayers, which most scholars sneer at.

[PatH]

Barb, here's one of Sor Juana's sonnets.  Although she was devout, the cloistered life grated, as you can see here.

Spiritedly, She Considers the Choice of a State Enduring Unto Death

  Were the perils of the ocean fully weighed,
no man would voyage, or, could he but read
the hidden dangers, knowingly proceed
or dare to bait the bull to frenzied rage.
  Were prudent rider overly dismayed,
should he contemplate the fury of his steed
or ponder where its headlong course might lead,
there'd be no reigning hand to be obeyed.
  But were there one so daring, one so bold
that, heedless of the danger, he might place,
upon Apollo's reins, emboldened hand
  to guide the fleeting chariot bathed in gold,
the diversity of life he would embrace
and never choose a state to last his span.

[BarbStAubrey]

Oh I do like it - thanks Pat - reminds me of the reverence placed on the bull explained by Carlos Fuentes is his book that became a wonderful PBS series "The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World"

[PatH]

Here's the Spanish, so you can see the snappier rhythm.

Encarece de animosidad la eleccion de estado durable hasta la muerte
 
  Si los riesgos del mar considerara,
ninguno se embarcara; si antes viera
bien su peligro, nadie se atreviera
ni al bravo toro osado provocara.
  Si del fogoso bruto ponderara
la furia desbocada en la carrera
el jinete prudente, nunca hubiera
quien con discreta mano lo enfrenara.
  Pero si hubiera alguno tan osado
que, no obstante el peligro, al mismo Apolo
quisiese gobernar con atrevida
  mano el rapido carro en luz banado,
todo lo hiciera, y no tomara solo
Estado que ha de ser toda la vida.

[BarbStAubrey]

Wow said in Spanish there is more power in these two lines isn't there...

 Si del fogoso bruto ponderara
la furia desbocada en la carrera

you have to say it in a deeper register - without even a translation you just know what is being said.

[BarbStAubrey]

August rushes by like desert rainfall,
A flood of frenzied upheaval,
Expected,
But still catching me unprepared.
Like a matchflame
Bursting on the scene,
Heat and haze of crimson sunsets.
Like a dream
Of moon and dark barely recalled,
A moment,
Shadows caught in a blink.
Like a quick kiss;
One wishes for more
But it suddenly turns to leave,
Dragging summer away.

Elizabeth Maua Taylor