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Post by Nalkarj on Mar 25, 2020 13:36:25 GMT
“The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare One of my faves. Prompted to post it because was reading a good article about de la Mare’s influence on Robert Frost and Edward Thomas.
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Post by Carl LaFong on Mar 25, 2020 13:39:01 GMT
“The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare One of my faves. Prompted to post it because was reading a good article about de la Mare’s influence on Robert Frost and Edward Thomas. Yes, for some reason I always think Frost wrote The Listeners. Sounds a bit like his style.
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Post by Nalkarj on Mar 25, 2020 13:43:11 GMT
Prompted to post it because was reading a good article about de la Mare’s influence on Robert Frost and Edward Thomas. Yes, for some reason I always think Frost wrote The Listeners. Sounds a bit like his style. Definitely. Offhand, Frost’s early “Love and a Question” almost seems like a “Listeners” pastiche, right down to the de-la-Mare-ian ghostliness:
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Post by Nalkarj on Mar 25, 2020 13:47:04 GMT
T.S. Eliot was also a de la Mare fan, which in retrospect makes sense but wouldn’t seem obvious at first, at least to me:
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Post by Carl LaFong on Mar 26, 2020 11:27:05 GMT
Yes, for some reason I always think Frost wrote The Listeners. Sounds a bit like his style. Definitely. Offhand, Frost’s early “Love and a Question” almost seems like a “Listeners” pastiche, right down to the de-la-Mare-ian ghostliness: Yes, that's just like him! Cool.
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Post by Nalkarj on Mar 30, 2020 12:16:17 GMT
“After a hundred years” by Emily Dickinson
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Post by Nalkarj on Mar 31, 2020 15:30:11 GMT
I’ve posted, and posted about, Phyllis McGinley’s poems here before, but I just found this one, in the “gather ye rosebuds while ye may”/“September Song” vein, and loved it:
“The Old Gardener’s Warning”
Between one April’s jonquil buds And the next spring’s narcissus flowers, There used to roll imperial floods Of months and weeks and days and hours.
The year went slow, the year went slow. It idled, almost to provoke us, From the first flying of the snow Until the flaunting of the crocus.
And there was time to cope with roots Of irises, and be their master, Or count the roses’ earliest shoots Before one blinked and saw the aster.
But how a garden hurries now! The seasons blur and run together, Leaf scarcely anchored to the bough Before October cuts its tether.
No vine may pause, no blossom stay For our regard. While lilacs hurtle, Heedless and headlong, into May, The zinnia tramples down the myrtle.
And daffodils, before our eyes, Are caught beneath November’s sickle As the year shrinks to the day’s size And the great flood becomes a trickle.
Quick! Run! Forbear to dilly-dally. Glance at the sky but do not mind it. If here’s the lily of the valley, Can winter now be far behind it?
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mmexis
Sophomore
@mmexis
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Post by mmexis on Apr 1, 2020 3:18:01 GMT
Almost like a partner to the one above - but somewhat grim considering global events:
SONNET 12 When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
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Post by Nalkarj on Apr 14, 2020 14:21:15 GMT
Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock Wallace Stevens
The houses are haunted By white night-gowns. None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk and asleep in his boots, Catches tigers In red weather.
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Post by Nalkarj on Apr 18, 2020 17:49:02 GMT
“Paul Revere’s Ride” by H.W. Longfellow
Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch Of the North Church tower as a signal light,— One, if by land, and two, if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm, For the country folk to be up and to arm." Then he said, "Good night!" and with muffled oar Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, Just as the moon rose over the bay, Where swinging wide at her moorings lay The Somerset, British man-of-war; A phantom ship, with each mast and spar Across the moon like a prison bar, And a huge black hulk, that was magnified By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street, Wanders and watches with eager ears, Till in the silence around him he hears The muster of men at the barrack door, The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet, And the measured tread of the grenadiers, Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church, By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, To the belfry-chamber overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Masses and moving shapes of shade, — By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, To the highest window in the wall, Where he paused to listen and look down A moment on the roofs of the town, And the moonlight flowing over all. Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead, In their night-encampment on the hill, Wrapped in silence so deep and still That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread, The watchful night-wind, as it went Creeping along from tent to tent, And seeming to whisper, "All is well!" A moment only he feels the spell Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread Of the lonely belfry and the dead; For suddenly all his thoughts are bent On a shadowy something far away, Where the river widens to meet the bay, — A line of black that bends and floats On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. Now he patted his horse's side, Now gazed at the landscape far and near, Then, impetuous, stamped the earth, And turned and tightened his saddle girth; But mostly he watched with eager search The belfry-tower of the Old North Church, As it rose above the graves on the hill, Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns! A hurry of hoofs in a village street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark, And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet: That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light, The fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, Kindled the land into flame with its heat. He has left the village and mounted the steep, And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep, Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides; And under the alders, that skirt its edge, Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge, Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock, When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. He heard the crowing of the cock, And the barking of the farmer's dog, And felt the damp of the river fog, That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock, When he galloped into Lexington. He saw the gilded weathercock Swim in the moonlight as he passed, And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, Gaze at him with a spectral glare, As if they already stood aghast At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock, When he came to the bridge in Concord town. He heard the bleating of the flock, And the twitter of birds among the trees, And felt the breath of the morning breeze Blowing over the meadows brown. And one was safe and asleep in his bed Who at the bridge would be first to fall, Who that day would be lying dead, Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read, How the British Regulars fired and fled, — How the farmers gave them ball for ball, From behind each fence and farm-yard wall, Chasing the red-coats down the lane, Then crossing the fields to emerge again Under the trees at the turn of the road, And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere; And so through the night went his cry of alarm To every Middlesex village and farm, — A cry of defiance and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, And a word that shall echo forevermore! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our history, to the last, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed, And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
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Post by Carl LaFong on Apr 25, 2020 12:52:02 GMT
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Post by Nalkarj on May 12, 2020 19:57:16 GMT
I’ve never been sure why I like this poem so much; it seems at first glance like very light verse, almost Shel-Silverstein-y in its sing-songiness, but something about it keeps drawing me back.Jamie Wyeth (Andrew’s son, N.C.’s grandson) painted this to go along with the poem:
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Post by Carl LaFong on May 30, 2020 16:32:05 GMT
'Things fall apart': the apocalyptic appeal of WB Yeats's The Second Coming Written 100 years ago, Yeats’s poem has been absorbed into the cultural bloodstream from Chinua Achebe to The Sopranos, Joan Didion to Gordon Gecko. Why is it such a touchstone in times of chaos? www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/30/things-fall-apart-the-apocalyptic-appeal-of-wb-yeats-the-second-comingTurning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 3, 2020 22:00:08 GMT
“Summer Storm” by Dana Gioia
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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 9, 2020 14:20:10 GMT
“At Least” by Raymond Carver
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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 15, 2020 14:33:24 GMT
“Heat” by H.D.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 22, 2020 20:27:13 GMT
“A Walk Along the Old Tracks” by Robert Kinsley
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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 29, 2020 16:24:43 GMT
“Poem in Thanks” by Thomas Lux
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Post by Morgana on Jul 5, 2020 10:05:20 GMT
I don't know if I've posted this previously, as it's a favourite of mine, but even if I have, I feel it has even more meaning now with everything that's happening.
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Post by theravenking on Jul 5, 2020 20:18:11 GMT
"Television"
by Roald Dahl
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