ladylinda
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April
Apr 11, 2014 15:09:24 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 11, 2014 15:09:24 GMT -5
April
By Lionel Johnson
A pleasant heat breathes off the scented grass, From bright green blades, and shining daisies: Now give we joy, who sometime cried, Alas! Now set we forth our melodies, and sing Soft praises to the spring, Musical praises
The flying winds are lovely with the sun: Now all in sweet and dainty fashion Gives life: for royal seasons are begun, Now each new day and each new promise add Fresh cause of being glad With vernal passion
Few leaves upon the branches dare the spring: But many buds are making ready, Trusting the sun, their perfect summer king. Likewise we put away our wintry cares: We have but happy airs; Our hopes are steady
Cold were the crystal rivers, bitter cold; And snows upon the iron mountains; And withering leaves upon the trodden mould. Hark to the crystal voices of the rills, Falling among the hills, From secret fountains!
Long not for June with roses: nor for nights Loud with tumultous thunder: Those hours was heavy with their fierce delights. But April is all bright, and gives us first, Before the roses burst, her joy and wonder
Clear lie the fields, and fade into blue air: Here, sweet concerted birds are singing Around this lawn of sweet grass, warm and fair And holy music, through the waving trees, Comes gently down the breeze, Where bells are ringing
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 12, 2014 18:30:09 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 12, 2014 18:30:09 GMT -5
Diary [Surface]
By Rachel Zucker
Spring is not so very promising as it is the thing that looking back was fire, promising: ignition, aspiration; it was not under my thumb.
Now when I pretend a future it is the moment he holds the thing I say new-born, delicate, sure to begin moving but
I am burned out of it like the melody underneath (still not under my thumb)-- was he ambiguous, amphibian?
Underneath, his voice, the many ways he gathers oxygen; it will not stop raining until the buds push through the brittle trees.
If they fail we will not survive, washed and washed with rain, will we? No, we are not there yet.
She is pushing me two ways until I am inside the paradox, the many lungs, and they're at it again, gathering oxygen;
no wonder I am wrung out holding out for the promise of something secret, after--
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 12, 2014 18:31:05 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 12, 2014 18:31:05 GMT -5
Another one of my favourite modern poets:
Alcove
By John Ashbery Is it possible that spring could be once more approaching? We forget each time what a mindless business it is, porous like sleep, adrift on the horizon, refusing to take sides, "mugwump of the final hour," lest an agenda— horrors! —be imputed to it, and the whole point of its being spring collapse like a hole dug in sand. It's breathy, though, you have to say that for it. And should further seasons coagulate into years, like spilled, dried paint, why, who's to say we weren't provident? We indeed looked out for others as though they mattered, and they, catching the spirit, came home with us, spent the night in an alcove from which their breathing could be heard clearly. But it's not over yet. Terrible incidents happen daily. That's how we get around obstacles.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 12, 2014 18:31:39 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 12, 2014 18:31:39 GMT -5
In cold spring air
By Reginald Gibbons In cold spring air the white wisp- visible breath of a blackbird singing— we don’t know to un- wrap these blind- folds we keep thinking we are seeing through
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 12, 2014 18:32:55 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 12, 2014 18:32:55 GMT -5
Ode to Spring
By Frederick Seidel I can only find words for. And sometimes I can't. Here are these flowers that stand for. I stand here on the sidewalk.
I can't stand it, but yes of course I understand it. Everything has to have meaning. Things have to stand for something. I can't take the time. Even skin-deep is too deep.
I say to the flower stand man: Beautiful flowers at your flower stand, man. I'll take a dozen of the lilies. I'm standing as it were on my knees
Before a little man up on a raised Runway altar where his flowers are arrayed Along the outside of the shop. I take my flames and pay inside.
I go off and have sexual intercourse. The woman is the woman I love. The room displays thirteen lilies. I stand on the surface.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 13, 2014 14:11:50 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 13, 2014 14:11:50 GMT -5
There's always a good reason to post poems by William Carlos Williams and his poem on spring is the perfect excuse!
Spring Storm
By William Carlos Williams The sky has given over its bitterness. Out of the dark change all day long rain falls and falls as if it would never end. Still the snow keeps its hold on the ground. But water, water from a thousand runnels! It collects swiftly, dappled with black cuts a way for itself through green ice in the gutters. Drop after drop it falls from the withered grass-stems of the overhanging embankment.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 13, 2014 14:12:15 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 13, 2014 14:12:15 GMT -5
Spring Night (For Muriel)
By Richard Kell
Out on Killiney Hill that night, you said 'Remember how we promised to come up here When snow is lying under a full moon?' And I made no reply - to hide my sadness, Thinking we might not satisfy that whim, Ever perhaps, at least for years to come, Since it was spring, and winter would see us parted.
Sitting on the Druid's Chair recalled The last time we were there, a night of icy Wind and moonlight when the sea was churning Silver and the distant hills were clear; How we belonged to them and they to us. Now there was no brightness - only a vast Obscurity confusing sea and sky, Dalkey Island and the lights of Bray Submerged and suffocating in the mist.
And there was no belonging now; no vivid Elemental statement to compel Refusal or assent, making decision Easy, but a dumb neutrality That challenged us to give it character And view our own minds large as a landscape. To you it was tranquil. Sinister to me.
Lying under the pine tree, looking up At the small stars and breathing the wood's sweetness, We spoke hardly a word. I could not tell you I was afraid of something out there In the future, like that dark and bitter sea; And how my love for you would have me lonely Until the fear was broken. I could say 'Be close to me this winter and every winter; We'll come up here to watch the snow by moonlight'- And that would be too easy. For I must give To you whose meaning transcends moods and moments Nothing half-hearted or ambiguous, But the perfected diamond of my will.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 13, 2014 14:12:52 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 13, 2014 14:12:52 GMT -5
Spring Song
By Sydney Tremayne
Birdsong grows from the tree, A twig sparks high in air. Up through the trunk's black flue Small bellows draw great fire. The pennywhistling bones That under the tree lie bare, Safe because n one owns, Are gay to be as they are. They have no rights to advance, They have no wrongs to deplore, Whistling for innocence, Having all things they desire, Moon and the Earth go round And the sun turns in its power While the birds pipe from the ground And the bird pipes to the hour.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 13, 2014 14:13:39 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 13, 2014 14:13:39 GMT -5
A slightly different take on spring written during World War Two.
Over the water
By Patrick MacDonogh
Through weeks of this windy April with horror hawking reason Reiterated boasting of thrush and blackbird wakened Anger and lonely hatred that they in their happy season Cared less for her lost grieving than rapt unknowing faces She scanned in brittle streets. But oh! returning soon, Curlew and plover only were brothers to her sorrow Crying from lonely tillage to a house of empty rooms, They and that ragged heron who laboured up to treetops Leaving reed-broken silver before her troubled movements.
May brought the South to mellow April's harsh brightness, But brought no timid stirring of hope to my darling, There where the wild duck convoys her young from reedy islands Through narrows wharfed by lilies, she saw their shadows darken, Cruciform on the water when foul birds from the sea Came in for prey. But I had comfort slogging Hard roads with marching hundreds, lulling a private grief, Dulling in rhythmic stupor the fierce assaults of longing And dreading memory less than lacerated feet.
Though noon will drowse in roses her young days carry coolness Cropped from Meath's dawning acres or stolen from shadows Under Dunboyne's tall hedges that lately shut the moon From O more lucky lovers whom flitting dusk had gathered In gentle couples. Here skies have scarcel room To house their clouds of bombers, yet had I but my darling, We'd mix our hate with pity for stripling airmen doomed To their own strange damnation, and in a night of horror Softly we'd lie together under a bomber's moon.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 14, 2014 17:01:12 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 14, 2014 17:01:12 GMT -5
Spring
By Christina Rossetti
Frost-locked all the winter, Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits, What shall make their sap ascend That they may put forth shoots? Tips of tender green, Leaf, or blade, or sheath; Telling of the hidden life That breaks forth underneath, Life nursed in its grave by Death.
Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly, Drips the soaking rain, By fits looks down the waking sun: Young grass springs on the plain; Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees; Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits, Swollen with sap put forth their shoots; Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane; Birds sing and pair again.
There is no time like Spring, When life's alive in everything, Before new nestlings sing, Before cleft swallows speed their journey back Along the trackless track-- God guides their wing, He spreads their table that they nothing lack,-- Before the daisy grows a common flower, Before the sun has power To scorch the world up in his noontide hour.
There is no time like Spring, Like Spring that passes by: There is no life like Spring-life born to die,-- Piercing the sod, Clothing the uncouth clod, Hatched in the nest, Fledged on the windy bough, Strong on the wing; There is no time like Spring that passes by, Now newly born, and now Hastening to die.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 14, 2014 17:04:29 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 14, 2014 17:04:29 GMT -5
Spring, the Sweet Spring
By Thomas Nashe
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king, Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing: Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The palm and may make country houses gay, Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day, And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay: Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet, Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit, In every street these tunes our ears do greet: Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 14, 2014 17:06:36 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 14, 2014 17:06:36 GMT -5
Spring's Messengers
By John Clare
Where slanting banks are always with the sun The daisy is in blossom even now; And where warm patches by the hedges run The cottager when coming home from plough Brings home a cowslip root in flower to set. Thus ere the Christmas goes the spring is met Setting up little tents about the fields In sheltered spots.--Primroses when they get Behind the wood's old roots, where ivy shields Their crimpled, curdled leaves, will shine and hide. Cart ruts and horses' footings scarcely yield A slur for boys, just crizzled and that's all. Frost shoots his needles by the small dyke side, And snow in scarce a feather's seen to
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 15, 2014 15:19:54 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 15, 2014 15:19:54 GMT -5
To Spring
By William Blake
O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down Through the clear windows of the morning, turn Thine angel eyes upon our western isle, Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring! The hills tell one another, and the listening Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turn'd Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth And let thy holy feet visit our clime! Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds Kiss thy perfumèd garments; let us taste Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee. O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put Thy golden crown upon her languish'd head, Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 15, 2014 15:21:29 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 15, 2014 15:21:29 GMT -5
The Human Seasons
By John Keats
Four Seasons fill the measure of the year; There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming high Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings He furleth close; contented so to look On mists in idleness—to let fair things Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
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ladylinda
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April
Apr 15, 2014 15:22:39 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Apr 15, 2014 15:22:39 GMT -5
The year's at the spring
Robert Browning
The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hillside's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in His heaven— All's right with the world!
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