Poetry Page

[BarbStAubrey]

Welcome to our Poetry Page.
In the past the poetry page was a haven for those of us who listen to words that open our hearts, and imagination, and allowed our feelings be known about the poems we share - We are looking forward to continuing that tradition.

This month we will focus on the Sonnet.
Let's discover how a Sonnet is constructed and let's share the Sonnets that open our hearts.

Here are a few links to help us understand the Sonnet and its history.

Sonnet Central

About the Sonnet

Origins of the Sonnet

How to Write a Sonnet

Discussion Leaders: BarbStAubrey & Fairanna

[Babi]

The Charles Lamb sonnet is lovely, Barb.  I couldn't halp but wonder if it was about his poor sister, who never knew a normal lif.

I must contribute one more Shakespearean sonner, a favorite:

        CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark
Which looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height is taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
With his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
  If this be error, and upon me proved,
  I never writ, and no man ever loved.

[hats]

Good morning Barbara, Anna and all,

Babi,

I loved the poem you posted by Elizabeth Barrett Browing, "If Thou Must Love." I suppose true love is when we love for love's sake and not some specific trait because as we grow older we change and change again becoming totally different from whom we were at first sight. I hope we grow better with age. Thank you for posting that poem.

 But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, throught love's eternity.

[Babi]

It's a favorite of mine, HATS, and it is saying something very similar to the one I just posted by Shakespeare.  "Love is not love that alters where it alteration finds."  I believe that, so long as the alteration is a purely physical one. Wrinkles and gray hair can be beautiful, too.
  There is an 'alteration' that can make  difference, tho'.  Have you ever seen, in a marriage, a spouse trying to re-make their partner into their idea of what a marriage partner should be,  even though it would change those very things that made them fall in love in the first place. That kind of alteration can make a difference.

[fairanna]

Well this is not a poem but the poem and the remarks made me smile...My husband had an idea I should change in some way ...I said I would think about it ...so I did and  a few days later I told him I had thought about it ..he looked in a way to say Well what do you think and I told him that he had always told me all the things he loved about me ..now if I were to change you might stop loving me so I am not going change but just stay the way I have always been...he looked at me and then laughed and hugged me...I am not sure he really wanted ME to change but sometimes other people make remarks about a spouse IE like I dont know why you put up with that etc (because they dont) and I think he thought perhaps I should change as well...but that is what makes a good marriage  considering what the other person would like and then say kindly how you feel ,,and the other person accepting your decision ...I love all the poems ..and I am reading so well now with my "new eyes" but also catching up on things I had not been able to do ...thank you for taking the time to post poems and comments ...they make my days....hugs all

[Babi]

Good, thoughtful answer, FAIRANNA.  Please accept a hug from me, too.   

[BarbStAubrey]

   I love it - leave it to you Anna - 

[BarbStAubrey]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHWpoyUt9_A&feature=related
Yep it is Shakespear's Sonnet 116

[Babi]

Sonnet 116, ..also known as Sonnet CXVI. 

Here's one from Lord Byron, a fine little item of political history and royal 'puffing'.

      Sonnet to George the Fourth

   ON THE REPEAL OF LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD'S FORFEITURE

To be the father of the fatherless,
  To stretch the hand from the throne's height, and raise
   His offspring, who expired in other days
To make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less,-
This is to be a monarch, and repress
   Envy into unutterable praise.
   Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits,
For who would lift a hand, except to bless?
Were it not easy, sir, and is't not sweet
   To make thyself beloved? and to be
     Omnipotent by mercy's means?  for thus
Thy sovereignty would grow but more complete,
    A despot thou, and yet thy people free,
       And by the heart, not hand, enslaving us.

[BarbStAubrey]

Oh my - what a lovely sentiment

A despot thou, and yet thy people free,
       And by the heart, not hand, enslaving us.

Another You Tube that to me this is an amazing reading with after-thought of  Shakespeare's Sonnet 94 - if nothing else, the setting chosen to recite the Sonnet gives us a feeling of the times when it was written.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeAf9uxNmA8&feature=related

[Babi]

Oh, drat, BARB.  That link looked so promising.  Then to find it was audio, and I couldn't hear a word of it!  (sigh)

[fairanna]

First let me say I am glad you checked because you know I dont hear either....at least I have my wonderful vision.. the other night I finished a jacket I had started but found difficult to finish since I couldnt see to thread a needle WELL I had no problem threading a needle on my sewing machine It was still tiny clear and the thead just went right through each time as easy as pie ( and where does that phrase come from? )

I love that sonnet ...(for who would lift a hand except to bless) isnt it sad that it is often just the opposite.

I am sharing a poem because it is one of my favorites and has been for many years not a sonnet but a beautiful poem   

 

Come live with me and be my love
Christopher Marlowe


Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Christopher Marlowe

[BarbStAubrey]

Ah - well I did not think did I - thanks for reminding me that some of us read but do not hear - sorry - but at least the You Tube setting I thought was helpful when we do read Shakespear's Sonnets.

Anna what wonderful words - the images are great but the choice of words

By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

fragrant posies [although and most probably an expression more common at the time]

                                             a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle

Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs

If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.


Lovely to think of a shepherd filled with such words and sentiment but alas I doubt a working shepherd in the day would be as versed. But the poem does take us to another place doesn't it.

I do not know if it is mid-winter blues or what but I sure need some sweet stirring up to get my head into the coming spring - we have trees in bloom - because of the severe draught the Jasmin is a bit slow this  year - usually it blooms with the Red Bud that is almost finished as the Cherries have burst forth - but the allergies this  year with all this wind are keeping me indoors and I bet the antihistamine is keeping me in the dumps - ah so - either it is dripping and picking up an infections or choosing to struggle with the blues.

[Babi]

FAIRANNA, I think 'easy as pie' goes back to the days when farm wives made pies daily  feeding ravenous farm workers.  They became so adept at it...crust, fruit and sugar...that 'easy as pie' became a byword.  The Christopher Marlowe poem is one I've also loved for many years.

  I found that Shelley also wrote a 'political commentary' sonnet, tho' quite the opposite in tone from Byrons.

                      ENGLAND IN 1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king
 Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, mud from a mudde spring, -
 Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
  Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,-
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,-
 An army which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, -
 Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless, a book sealed,-
A Senate-Time's worst statute unrepealed,-
  Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
  Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.
                                                         

Wow! This guy was really upset!

[fairanna]

Babi I agree  he is in "HIGH DUNGEON" and I am not sure if the last word is correct for I have never seen it in print but have heard it about someone who WAS REALLY REALLY ANGRY

Barbara I am like you  The robins at the feeders announce it is spring
                                  The crocus displays its gold across the yard
                                   Daffodils point upward to the sky 
                                   If all these things think it is spring
                                   Why doesnt the weatherman say AYE

I have yet to feel that warm breeze that made my mother say spring is coming soon ....and have it not be a lie....ah well IT MUST ARRIVE and a grand welcome we can give it -------------when it arrives....

[BarbStAubrey]

Yes Babi and easy to  understand - the government and his father-in-law took away his kids after Harriet, who had walked out on him and had a child by another man, committed suicide - evidence is he loved his children - he and Harriet were young getting married and his father disapproved - They were remarried in Scotland after his two children were born just to appease the legalities important to his father.

Harriet's sister and a wet nurse lived with them - Shelly could not abide either and then Harriet left - there no where to be found for months she turns up on Bath living with the sister. The second child was probably not his but he took on the responsibility because in the meantime Shelly meets Mary, the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft - they fall in love - He gets Harriet to come to London who is shocked by the news that he wants to disolve their marraige but he does arrange for her maintenance -

After, he and Mary leave for the Continent where he meets Byron who unbeknowing is having an affair and it was his mistress they were all boating with that summer.  Shelly's father dies, he is screwed out of most of the estate but with his remaining thousand pounds a month he arranges that Harriet receive 200 a month.

In the meantime Mary lost their first child and has a second - when he returns to London Mary's half sister committed suicide by taking laudanum and Harriet had disappeared with no one knowing where she is - months later she is found floating in the Serpentine River. Her father uses the courts and Shelly's association with Byron to take Harriet's two children - there is every evidence that Shelly was a loving, gentle and caring father when he was with his children - he never got over their having been taken from him. Later the second child, a boy he and Mary had together also dies. They have one more child, Percy who lives and is a comfort to Mary after the boating accident that kills Shelley.

Probably one of his most famous Sonnets is:

Ozymandias
 
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

But he was capable of writing love - When you think of it he did have quite a range of feelings that he was able to put into words.

Love’s Philosophy 

The fountains mingle with the river
   And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
   With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
   All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
   Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven
   And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
   If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
   And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
   If though kiss not me?

[Babi]

BARB, I wasn't aware of Shelley's history, though I had read that it was commonly believed he committed suicide. I hope the boat accident was the true version.  He did indeed have an unhappy life.
  I read Ozymandias when I was young and found it thought provoking but rather depressing. The second poem I've also read before, and found it lovely.

FAIRANNA, the phrase I heard, or read, was "high dudgeon".  I have no idea what it means.  "Dudgeon" is apparently a wood used to make the hilt of archaic daggers, but it's not at all clear to me how that came to mean irate.

[hats]

FairAnna,

I enjoyed Come live with me and be my love
Christopher Marlowe. It's beautiful. What is a madrigal? Is it a dance or song?

Babi,

I can't decipher your sonnet. It seems very difficult for me.

[hats]

In our neighborhood, I have seen yellow daffodils. I always think of William Wordsworth's poem. I wish I knew it by heart.

[BarbStAubrey]

 Hats I own a 1901 copy of the reprint of the 1892 Cambridge Edition of the Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley - after the content page there is a 28 page Biography of Shelley - his death was even more tragic - while in Italy he and Mary lost two children - their youngest who was a daughter and William - Shelley had been and still suffered from depression and mood swings that Mary did not know how to help him through - he purchased a Sail boat that was the highpoint of his summer -

Shelley admired Byron's poetic skills but did not admire how he lived his life - earlier the William's joined the group - Trelawny, another friend and Williams had been students at Eton where Shelley attended the school - Mary, Jean Williams and the two men  became very close - Mary wanted Shelley to move on with her to Pisa as agreed but he felt the need to meet Thorton  and Leigh Hunt - father and son - the father was one of the Lawyers who helped him gain some visiting rights to his children with Harriet and who had been the executive dispursing Harriet's monthly check.

He was doing Byron a favor so that Byron could have an attorney to sort out his arrangement with his mistress, wife and his children by his mistress.  Shelley traveled in  his boat with Williams and a young sailor - Charles Vivian, to meet the Hunts - after greeting the Hunts and getting them settled they were anxious to return home - that night a terrible storm came up described in the bio by those in a large commercial vessel. There were many small boats that disappeared - Mary had gone on to Pisa with their one living child - therefore Trelawny, visited Byron to break the news that Shelley was not to be found - Trelawny orders a search along the coast. The bodies of all three were found a few days from each other among wreckage. Special permission was granted to allow them to be cremated there on the sand - only Hunt, Trelawny and Byron were present.

[hats]

Hi Barbara,

I think you, Babi and AnnaFair are the ones truly talking about Shelley and Byron. Although, I'm always happy to be included.

[BarbStAubrey]

Whooops - had to go back and it was You Babi who brought up what you have read of the death of Shelley - sorry - thanks Hats... regardless the information is posted - with all of that there are so many of  his poems that are short page long - most of them go on and on and on and on - a poetic writing style we seldom see today.

[hats]

I know. I might not have my thinking cap on, or I have it on backwards. Anyway, reading "England in 1819" again reminds me of our catastrophic financial state today here in America. I feel so sad. I know things will get better soon. We've just made mistakes. Now, we are paying for them.

ENGLAND IN 1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king
 Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, mud from a mudde spring, -
 Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
  Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,-

[Babi]

Interesting observation, HATS.  I hadn't thought of comparing our present financial crisis with the 1819 poem, but I can see how it would fit. The greed of some of our financial 'rulers' was certainly 'leech-like'.

Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,

  I like Wordsworth's 'Daffodils', too. I can remember the first four lines, but that's all.

[fairanna]

This is a sonnet I was not familiar with so I did some research to have to make sense  the title means a new way ..the poet is bemoaning the fact his love, Beatrice whom he fell in love with when he was nine..Remember life in terms of years was much shorter then so perhaps love came early  I thought we always think what is happening in our lives is new but when we study history it is just repeating itself  . which of course means  we never learn and keep repeating past mistakes...here is the poem

From La Vita Nuova
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
And now (for I must rid my name of ruth)


Behooves me speak the truth
Touching thy cruelty and wickedness:
Not that they be not known; but ne'ertheless
I would give hate more stress
With them that feed on love in every sooth.
Out of this world thou hast driven courtesy,


And virtue, dearly prized in womanhood;
And out of youth’s gay mood
The lovely lightness is quite gone through thee.
(Trans. D.G. Rossetti)

[hats]

Hi FairAnna,

Poor man, that's a lot of guilt for one person to bare.

[BarbStAubrey]

I need to find out more about D.G. Rossetti -  I wonder if that is the poet - I noticed the name often along with Mrs. Shelley as having found or transcribed many of Shelley's poems after his death, mostly from his notebooks - I wonder if they were friends or if he worked for a publisher - here is the Wikipedia Bio - looks like his entire family were steeped in the arts - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti

And with all this talk of Wordsworth's Daffodils we must include it here:

Daffodils
   
I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud  
  That floats on high o'er vales and hills,   
When all at once I saw a crowd,   
  A host, of golden daffodils;   
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,         
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.   
 
Continuous as the stars that shine  
  And twinkle on the Milky Way,   
They stretch'd in never-ending line  
  Along the margin of a bay:   
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,   
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.   
 
The waves beside them danced; but they  
  Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:   
A poet could not but be gay,   
  In such a jocund company:   
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought  
What wealth the show to me had brought:   
 
For oft, when on my couch I lie   
  In vacant or in pensive mood,   
They flash upon that inward eye  
  Which is the bliss of solitude;   
And then my heart with pleasure fills,   
And dances with the daffodils.   

Here is a page filled with photos of Daffodils - click on any of them to make them larger http://tiny.cc/lqoXK

this one is my favorite that for me goes with the poem
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/8958973.jpg

[hats]

Barbara,

Thank you. Those daffodils have such happy faces. So pretty. 

[hats]

Wow! look at these daffodils from your page, Barbara.

http://www.carolgilbert.biz/GraphicsCards/Daffodils.jpg

[hats]

It's like a daffodil party. Oooooh, I love that poem. I might try to learn it by heart. I'm going to print it out. It just makes me smile.

[Babi]

Such cheerful posts, and pictures.  I had to smile.

On a more plaintive note, I found a sonnet by Poe.  I don't think he wrote many of them, and this one is complaining about science spoiling a poet's art.

      SONNET - TO SCIENCE

  Science!  True daughter of old Time thou art!
    Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes,
  Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
       Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
   How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
       Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
   To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
        Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
    Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
        An driven the Hamadryad from the wood
   To seek a shelter in some happier star?
        Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
    The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
     The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
 

[BarbStAubrey]

A Sonnet to Science for heavens sake - who would have guess - as he says one seems so at odds with the other - one is well straight and square and controlled and the other filled with feelings - but I guess when you think about it the form of a Sonnet is certainly mathematical.

[BarbStAubrey]

while we are on Daffodils I found this --

Daffodil...(A French Sonnet)
If only I could magically make time stand still
I would bottle this beautifully star filled sky,
capture the sultry look of passion in your eye.
Eyelashes glistening with early Winter's chill,
While in my hair you gently place a daffodil.
Oblivious to the ills of all of mankind,
within your arms, melting, our hearts entwined.
Saying "I love you" standing on this frost laced hill.


The bright morning sun rises on a brand new day,
and upon this majestic hill, we cannot stay.
suddenly, a sad realization sets in,
Our beating hearts feel the breathtaking Winter's chill;
and an deep, intense longing to which I am kin,
I stand here with a memory, and a daffodil.....

[BarbStAubrey]

Found another about a Daffodil - who would have believed...

To an Early Daffodil
By Amy Lowell

Thou yellow trumpeter of laggard Spring!
Thou herald of rich Summer's myriad flowers!
The climbing sun with new recovered powers
Does warm thee into being, through the ring
Of rich, brown earth he woos thee, makes thee fling
Thy green shoots up, inheriting the dowers
Of bending sky and sudden, sweeping showers,
Till ripe and blossoming thou art a thing
To make all nature glad, thou art so gay;
To fill the lonely with a joy untold;
Nodding at every gust of wind to-day,
To-morrow jewelled with raindrops.  Always bold
To stand erect, full in the dazzling play
Of April's sun, for thou hast caught his gold.

[BarbStAubrey]

Daffodil Haiku

The first snow,
Just enough to bend
The leaves of the daffodils.


low-lying village--
at the outhouse, too
daffodils

By Matsuo Basho

Daffodils wreathing
into the fence...
Mount Tsukuba

By Kobayashi Issa

[BarbStAubrey]

Yep trying to get a few more posts so we can start off tomorrow with a new heading at the top of the page - March 1 with Thomas Hardy on I hope post 120

[BarbStAubrey]

Let's do a bit of John Updike's wry humor

Ocular Hypertension

"Your optic nerve is small and slightly cupped,"
my drawling ophthalmologist observed,
having for minutes submitted that nerve,
or, rather, both those nerves, to baths of light--
to flashing, wheeling scrutiny in which
my retinas' red veins would, mirrored, loom
and fade.   "And it appears, as yet,  undamaged.
But your pressure reads too high. Glaucoma
will be the eventual result if you
go untreated. What you have now we call
'ocular hypertension.'" Wow! I liked
the swanky sound, the hint of jazz, the rainbow
edginess: malaise of high-class orbs,
screwed to taut bliss by what raw sight absorbs.

[BarbStAubrey]

Another John Updike

Spring Song

the fiddlehead ferns down by our pond
stand like the stems of violins
the worms are playing beneath the moss.

Last autumn's leaves are pierced by shoots
that turn from sickly-pale to green.
All growth's a slave, and rot is boss.

[BarbStAubrey]

Sunday Rain

The window screen
is trying to do
its crossword puzzle
but appears to know
only vertical words.

[BarbStAubrey]

Winter Ocean

Many-maned scud-thumper, tub
of male whales,  maker of worn wood, shrub-
ruster, sky-mocker, rave!
portly pusher of waves, wind-slave.