ladylinda
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May
May 9, 2014 10:24:39 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 9, 2014 10:24:39 GMT -5
And of course a very famous poem about sheep!
The Lamb
William Blake
Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life & bid thee feed, By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice; Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee
Little Lamb I'll tell thee, Little Lamb I'll tell thee; He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child: I a child & thou a lamb, We are called by his name. Little Lamb God bless thee. Little Lamb God bless thee.
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May
May 9, 2014 12:11:53 GMT -5
Post by beth on May 9, 2014 12:11:53 GMT -5
I'll add T.S. Eliot, reading The Naming of Cats. Then, because I can't resist, the number from Webber's Cats, the Musical.
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ladylinda
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May
May 10, 2014 4:25:23 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 10, 2014 4:25:23 GMT -5
Thanks, Beth.
Of course Eliot wrote a whole book about cats!
In keeping with the cat theme you posted I'm posting some poems about big cats - tigers!
Everybody knows the first one but the other two are a bit unusual!
The Tyger
William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forest of the night What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
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ladylinda
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May
May 10, 2014 4:26:35 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 10, 2014 4:26:35 GMT -5
The Tiger
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
In the still jungle of the senses lay A tiger soundly sleeping, till one day A bold young hunter chanced to come that way. "How calm," he said, "that splendid creature lies, I long to rouse him into swift surprise!" The well aimed arrow-shot from amorous eyes, And lo! the tiger rouses up and turns, A coal of fire his glowing eyeball burns, His mighty frame with savage hunger yearns. He crouches for a spring; his eyes dilate-- Alas! bold hunter, what shall be thy fate? Thou canst not fly, it is too late, too late. Once having tasted human flesh, ah! then, Woe, woe unto the whole rash world of men, The wakened tiger will not sleep again.
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ladylinda
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May 10, 2014 4:27:34 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 10, 2014 4:27:34 GMT -5
Tiger Hunting in India with Elephants
Isaac McLellan
We cross'd a brawling mountain torrent, far From our Indian camp. The red, angry glare Of crimson sunset shimmer'd through the clouds Of dust that fill'd the air with their dull, coppery hues, Presaging the near coming of a storm. We pass'd the border-forest's gloomy belt, Behind which, tier on tier, the mighty range Of the majestic Himalayas tower'd in air, Till their snow-clad summits seem'd to pierce the sky; Had pass'd thro' villages in dense mango groves-- Past temples, shadow'd by great tamarind-trees; Past crowded hamlets fill'd with din and dust; Past the low country, covered with green crops; Past patches of rice stubble, with dense grass between, Whence rose the partridge, plover, and the quail, And florican and pea-fowl, in dense flocks; Past groves of feathery bamboo and the palm, And plumy plaintains that conceal the huts, 'Midst aloe-hedges festoon'd with gay vines. There were few song-birds flitting thro' the gloom Of wood arcades, to make them musical. The songless horn-bill darts from tree to tree; The big woodpecker taps the hollow log, With gorgeous plumage glistening in the sun; Flights of green parrots scream above your head; The golden oriole and the bulbul make Their feeble chirrup, while at times resounds The melancholy hoot of blinking owl, Or golden pigeon's soft and murmurous coo. There, on the borders of the jungle wild, The hunters pause ere they invade its depths. 'Twas a dark, deep, impenetrable swamp, Thick with tall reeds and wild vines interlac'd-- Homes of the savage creatures of the waste-- The tiger's haunt, fierce monarch of the woods! Here rang'd the brown hog-deer in browsing herds, The wild pig and the boar, with gnashing tusks; Here tramp'd the black rhinoceros on his way, And wallow'd the big buffaloes at will; The jackals rais'd at night their fearful howl, While overhead great flocks of vultures soar'd. And here the hunting elephants are rang'd In line continuous, ready for the charge; Each bears a howdah on his towering back, Whereon the hunter with his rifle sits, To stop the royal game with fatal aim. Soon the long line advances thro' the wood, Trampling the bending branches and the reeds, While loud the native beaters sound their drums, And kindle into flames the jungle grass-- Kindle acacia shrubs and thorny bush. So they press on, a wall of flame behind, While fast before them flies the frantic game. At length a tiger bounds away in fright, And fast the goaded elephant pursues. As fast he tears thro' tangled jungles green, Like great ship surging thro' the ocean tides. The Mahouts rain their blows upon his head, The spearmen prick him with their lances keen; While on thro' bush and brake, thro' thorny scrub, Through stream, and down precipitous ravine, The headlong chase is urg'd, till, brought to bay, The tiger falls beneath th' unerring shot.
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Jessiealan
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May
May 10, 2014 6:15:36 GMT -5
Post by Jessiealan on May 10, 2014 6:15:36 GMT -5
lol Beth, from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Very nice poems, Lin. Thank you!
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ladylinda
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May 11, 2014 19:36:04 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 11, 2014 19:36:04 GMT -5
Thanks, Jessie.
Please feel free to post any poems about any animals you like - just because I've decided to impose a daily theme on myself is not reason the rest of you have to!
Today I'm posting poems about swans.
Here's the first:
Three Swans
Edward Davison
From a train window – it may have been Virginia Or further South – a stranger, early wakened By jolt of brakes and the loud-belling engine, I saw three swans, white on the dark water Under a green bank, indolently gliding. The day looked windless-grey and the sky stormy. They, unperturbed and impenetrable, shone In their fixed world serenely: though our clamour Shook the near trees it had not shaken them. Then they were gone! Who launched them there, I wondered, To flash their alabaster from the willows On men like me, day-dreaming in the club-car? Was it some rich man whose half-pride, half-pleasure Turned to new whims long since, and they, forgotten, Haunt his dark pool, unvisited but content? Or a young girl who never heard of Leda? Rain or shine she comes herself to feed them, Scattering gold sweet-corn-bread in the shallows, And they all abreast sailing across the water Slowly, proud as queens at a queen’s banquet, Or climb the bank to eat from her white hand. One yields his velvet snow to her caresses, And, in herself, a faint bewildering tremor, Some touch of the unknown, a sudden heartache. Poor innocent! Yet she returns to-morrow To feel again that sweet mysterious trouble. Or was it some proud immigrant long ago, Sick in his old age for the land that wronged him, Jefferson’s friend? He robbed the moat at Windsor, Plotting and bribing with a young sea-captain To stock America with the King’s best brood; And so, poaching his cygnets over an ocean, He set them out to breed without a licence. Praised be the theft! They still are royal birds.
Whoever it was that gave them to the landscape, Dead or alive, these verses go to thank him. Would I had met him on his own plantation To talk in understanding praise of swans, Not least of their eternal unconcern.
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ladylinda
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May 11, 2014 19:37:06 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 11, 2014 19:37:06 GMT -5
Swannery
Dorothy Wellesley
I well remember the swan’s nest At the end of the long lake Above Roche Abbey (that third daughter of Fountains) Where for weed we could not row. I remember the anger of the great swan, When the sun was down, And we two children in twilight, trying to row.
I remember the lake with the maps of lilies That were hands to drag us down, We cared only for the pride of the great swan. We watched his anger rejoicing The anger of his sirehood On the lake above Roche Abbey And we trying to row.
The children have died long ago But the swan has not gone. It is good that we saw the swan And the maps of lilies that grow Between a child and a swannery.
I hail him, whose sires heard The cry of the Ave Maria Arising from woods and waters, Above Gothic ruins undying: On the lake above Roche Abbey.
I hail him, the angry bird, I hail his anger, his aristocracy In this world spiritually dying, I hail the pride of the swan. He reigns yet, we are gone.
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ladylinda
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May 11, 2014 19:37:36 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 11, 2014 19:37:36 GMT -5
The Swans
Andrew Young
How lovely are these swans, That float like high proud galleons, Cool in the heat, And waving leaf-like feet Divide with narrow breasts of snow In a smooth surge This water that is mostly sky; So lovely that I know Death cannot kill such birds, It can but wound them, mortally.
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ladylinda
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May 11, 2014 19:39:44 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 11, 2014 19:39:44 GMT -5
And to add to the beauty of swans what better than the wonderful music of Tschaikovsy!
Swan Lake with the Kirov Ballet
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ladylinda
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May 12, 2014 15:16:43 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 12, 2014 15:16:43 GMT -5
Today it's three poems about giraffes.
Giraffe and Tree
W J Turner
Upon a dark hall spun in Time Stands a Giraffe beside a Tree: Of what immortal stuff can that The fading picture be?
So, thought I, standing by my love Whose hair, a small black flag, Broke on the universal air With proud and lovely brag:
It waved among the silent hills, A wind of shining ebony In Time’s bright glass, where mirrored clear Stood the Giraffe beside a Tree.
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ladylinda
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May 12, 2014 15:17:36 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 12, 2014 15:17:36 GMT -5
Giraffes
Phoebe Hesketh
Beyond the brassy sun-stare where each shade Crouches beneath its substance at mid-noon, The tall giraffes are gathered in a glade Grazing the green fruit of the midday moon. Patched with sienna shadows of the jungle, In pencil-slender attitude they stand; Grotesque in camouflage, each curve and angle Is merged into the backcloth of the land.
These circus creatures of a poet’s dreaming Whose destiny on silent strings is spun, Are patterned in design of nature’s scheming To move unseen through dappled woods and dun. Strange genesis in which the substance seeming The shadow, is the secret of the sun!
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ladylinda
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May 12, 2014 15:18:14 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 12, 2014 15:18:14 GMT -5
The Giraffes
Roy Fuller
I think before they saw me the giraffes Were watching me. Over the golden grass, The bush and ragged open tree of thorn, From a grotesque height, under their lightish horns, Their eyes fixed on mine as I approached them. The hills behind descended steeply: iron Coloured outcroppings of rock half covered by Dull green and sepia vegetation, dry And sunlit: and above, the piercing blue Where clouds like islands lay or like swans flew.
Seen from those hills the scrubby plain is like A large-scale map whose features have a look Half menacing, half familiar, and across Its brightness arms of shadow ceaselessly Revolve. Like small forked twigs or insects move Giraffes, upon the great map where they live.
When I went nearer, their long bovine tails Flicked loosely, and deliberately they turned, An undulation of dappled grey and brown, And stood in profile with those curious planes Of neck and sloping haunches. Just as when Quite motionless they watched I never thought Them moved by fear, a desire to be a tree, So as they put more ground between us I Saw evidence that there were animals with Perhaps no wish for intercourse, or no Capacity. Above the falling sun Like visible winds the clouds are streaked and spun, And cold and dark now bring the image of Those creatures walking without pain or love.
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ladylinda
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May 13, 2014 16:10:57 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 13, 2014 16:10:57 GMT -5
Today I'm posting poems about bulls.
The Bulls
Robert Service
Six bulls I saw as black as jet, With crimsoned horns and amber eyes That chewed their cud without a fret, And swished to brush away the flies, Unwitting their soon sacrifice.
It is the Corpus Christi fête; Processions crowd the bannered ways; Before the alters women wait, While men unite in hymns of praise, And children look with angel gaze.
The bulls know naught of holiness, To pious pomp their eyes are blind; Their brutish brains will never guess The sordid passions of mankind: Poor innocents, they wait resigned.
Till in a black room each is penned, While from above with cruel aim Two torturers with lances bend To goad their fieriness to flame, To devil them to play the game.
The red with rage and mad with fear They charge into the roaring ring; Against the mockery most near Of human might their hate they fling, In futile, blind blood-boltering.
And so the day of unction ends; Six bulls are dragged across the sand. Ferocity and worship blends, Religion and red thirst hold hands . . . Dear Christ! 'Tis hard to understand!
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ladylinda
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May 13, 2014 16:11:40 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 13, 2014 16:11:40 GMT -5
Sarah Byng, Who Could Not Read and Was Tossed into a Thorny Hedge by a Bull
Hilaire Belloc
Some years ago you heard me sing My doubts on Alexander Byng. His sister Sarah now inspires My jaded Muse, my failing fires. Of Sarah Byng the tale is told How when the child was twelve years old She could not read or write a line. Her sister Jane, though barely nine, Could spout the Catechism through And parts of Matthew Arnold too, While little Bill who came between Was quite unnaturally keen On 'Athalie', by Jean Racine. But not so Sarah! Not so Sal! She was a most uncultured girl Who didn't care a pinch of snuff For any literary stuff And gave the classics all a miss. Observe the consequence of this! As she was walking home one day, Upon the fields across her way A gate, securely padlocked, stood, And by its side a piece of wood On which was painted plain and full, BEWARE THE VERY FURIOUS BULL Alas! The young illiterate Went blindly forward to her fate, And ignorantly climbed the gate! Now happily the Bull that day Was rather in the mood for play Than goring people through and through As Bulls so very often do; He tossed her lightly with his horns Into a prickly hedge of thorns, And stood by laughing while she strode And pushed and struggled to the road. The lesson was not lost upon The child, who since has always gone A long way round to keep away From signs, whatever they may say, And leaves a padlocked gate alone. Moreover she has wisely grown Confirmed in her instinctive guess That literature breeds distress.
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