love poetry

by FreeRangeChicken 7 Replies latest jw friends

  • FreeRangeChicken
    FreeRangeChicken

    THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS

    I went out in the hazel wood,
    Because a fire was in my head,
    And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
    And hooked a berry to a thread;
    And when white moths were on the wing,
    And moth-like stars were flickering out,
    I dropped the berry in a stream
    And caught a little silver trout. When I had laid it on the floor
    I went to blow the fire aflame,
    But something rustled on the floor,
    And some one called me by my name:
    It had become a glimmering girl
    With apple blossom in her hair
    Who called me by my name and ran
    And faded through the brightening air. Though I am old with wandering
    Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
    I will find out where she has gone,
    And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass,
    and pluck till time and times are done
    The silver apples of the moon,
    The golden apples of the sun.

    --W. B. Yeats

  • Vivamus
    Vivamus

    Thats beautiful, I love poetry.

    Thank you for posting that.

  • FreeRangeChicken
    FreeRangeChicken

    you are welcome. i do too. do you have a favorite, i mean, one that stirs your soul? i have this poem along with two others in a single word file, because they evoke a similar feeling of longing and wistfullness. here are the other two:

    (p.s. david whyte is a modern poet, can you believe that? he sounds like he's one of the "vintage" masters )

    The Garden of Love

    I went to the Garden of Love
    And saw what I had never seen:
    A chapel was built in the midst
    where I used to play on the green. And the gates of this chapel were shut,
    And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door;
    So I turned to this Garden of Love,
    That so many sweet flowers bore. And I saw it was filled with graves,
    And tomb-stones where flowers should be,
    And priests in black gowns were walking their
    rounds
    and binding with briars my joys and desires.

    --William Blake

    ***

    Easter Morning in Wales

    A garden inside me, unknown, secret,
    neglected for years,
    the layers of its soil deep and thick.
    Trees in the corners with branching arms
    and the tangled briars like broken nets. Sunrise through the misted orchard,
    morning sun turns silver on the pointed twigs.
    I have woken from the sleep of ages and I am not sure
    if I am really seeing, or dreaming,
    or simply astonished
    walking toward sunrise
    to have stumbled into the garden
    where the stone was rolled from the tomb of longing.

    --David Whyte

  • joannadandy
    joannadandy

    Chicken- I LOVE Blake--just got done doing a giant project on him for one of my classes. And the Garden of love has always been one of my favorites.

    But I think my favorite poem of his (at this moment in time) is...

    The Little Vagabond Dear mother, dear mother, the church is cold,
    But the ale-house is healthy and pleasant and warm;
    Besides I can tell where I am used well,
    Such usage in Heaven will never do well.

    But if at the church they would give us some ale,
    And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
    We'd sing and we'd pray all the live-long day,
    Nor ever once wish from the church to stray.

    Then the parson might preach, and drink, and sing,
    And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring;
    And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church,
    Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.

    And God, like a father rejoicing to see
    His children as pleasant and happy as he,
    But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.

    I think it sums up my feelings about religion at the moment...

    Keats has also always been one of my favorites...

    When I have fears that I may cease to be

    WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be
    Before my pen has gleand my teeming brain,
    Before high piled books, in charactry,
    Hold like rich garners the full-ripend grain;
    When I behold, upon the nights starrd face, 5
    Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
    And think that I may never live to trace
    Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
    And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
    That I shall never look upon thee more, 10
    Never have relish in the faery power
    Of unreflecting love!then on the shore
    Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
    Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
  • FreeRangeChicken
    FreeRangeChicken

    really? that sounds exciting. blake was really bohemian (as most poets are), but also a pagan, i heard. which just makes him all the more interesting. anyway what a phenomenal mind. when you read him do you wonder if word spinners like that exist in modern times? and if they don't, why not? david whyte comes close... what are you studying? my spanish clalss starts september 6. i can hardly wait. soon i'll start posting en espanol, heh.

    Edited by - FreeRangeChicken on 30 July 2002 22:25:10

  • joannadandy
    joannadandy

    Blake was an artist in every sense of the word. He wrote his own, illustrated, printed (monumental task when you look at the process he used way back when) and hand painted his books. He was the ultimate in independent works. He even sold his books out of his own home.

    The project I did was for my information media class. I had to teach a unit on Blake, and incorporate all sorts of media. So I showed videos, played Greg Brown's Songs of Innocence and Experience cd for them, had all sorts of overheads of his art, and powerpoints of his plates that combined his art and poetry. It was pretty damn cool. (many hours, but really facinating so I dug it)

    Actually Blake was a very religious man. He wasn't a pagan, but he was unconventional in his beliefs to say the least. A lot of people think that hurt is career, and they saw him as a lunatic rather than the great free-thinker that he was.

    Ok totally sounding like a little teacher right now, so I am just gonna shutenz ups.

    Edited by - joannadandy on 30 July 2002 20:9:3

  • Dutchie
    Dutchie

    I am also a poetry lover. Yeats, Keats, Donne, Shakespeare. Here is one of my favorite sonnets by Shakespeare:

    Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
    Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
    Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
    And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
    Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
    And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
    And every fair from fair sometime declines,
    By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
    But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
    Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
    Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
    When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

  • FreeRangeChicken
    FreeRangeChicken

    ~*~let's hear it for the free-thinkers in the world~*~

    i didn't know all of that about him. that's totally cool, especially because he lived in a less liberal, less diverse time. nowadays it's "cool" to be a free-thinker. but you can always tell the true free spirits from the poseurs. that sounds like a great class. makes me want to take it, actually

    ooh dutchie did you see "shakespeare in love"? where will gives his love interest, viola, that very sonnet, and she's reading it in the darkened hall, whispering the words out loud as she reads them? good lord can you imagine being the recipient of the original poem like that?

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