ladylinda
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May
May 13, 2014 16:12:40 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 13, 2014 16:12:40 GMT -5
The Bull
Ralph Hodgson
See an old unhappy bull, Sick in soul and body both, Slouching in the undergrowth Of the forest beautiful, Banished from the herd he led, Bulls and cows a thousand head. Cranes and gaudy parrots go Up and down the burning sky; Tree-top cats purr drowsily In the dim-day green below; And troops of monkeys, nutting, some, All disputing, go and come; And things abominable sit Picking offal buck or swine, On the mess and over it Burnished flies and beetles shine, And spiders big as bladders lie Under hemlocks ten foot high; And a dotted serpent curled Round and round and round a tree, Yellowing its greenery, Keeps a watch on all the world, All the world and this old bull In the forest beautiful. Bravely by his fall he came: One he led, a bull of blood Newly come to lustihood, Fought and put his prince to shame, Snuffed and pawed the prostrate head Tameless even while it bled. There they left him, every one, Left him there without a lick, Left him for the birds to pick, Left him there for carrion, Vilely from their bosom cast Wisdom, worth and love at last. When the lion left his lair And roared his beauty through the hills, And the vultures pecked their quills And flew into the middle air, Then this prince no more to reign Came to life and lived again. He snuffed the herd in far retreat, He saw the blood upon the ground, And snuffed the burning airs around Still with beevish odours sweet, While the blood ran down his head And his mouth ran slaver red. Pity him, this fallen chief, All his spendour, all his strength, All his body's breadth and length Dwindled down with shame and grief, Half the bull he was before, Bones and leather, nothing more. See him standing dewlap-deep In the rushes at the lake, Surly, stupid, half asleep, Waiting for his heart to break And the birds to join the flies Feasting at his bloodshot eyes, - Standing with his head hung down In a stupor dreaming things: Green savannas, jungles brown, Battlefields and bellowings, Bulls undone and lions dead And vultures flapping overhead. Dreaming things: of days he spent With his mother gaunt and lean In the valley warm and green, Full of baby wonderment, Blinking out of silly eyes At a hundred mysteries; Dreaming over once again How he wandered with a throng Of bulls and cows a thousand strong, Wandered on from plain to plain, Up the hill and down the dale, Always at his mother's tail; How he lagged behind the herd, Lagged and tottered, weak of limb, And she turned and ran to him Blaring at the loathly bird Stationed always in the skies, Waiting for the flesh that dies. Dreaming maybe of a day When her drained and drying paps Turned him to the sweets and saps, Richer fountains by the way, And she left the bull she bore And he looked on her no more; And his little frame grew stout, And his little legs grew strong, And the way was not so long; And his little horns came out, And he played at butting trees And boulder-stones and tortoises, Joined a game of knobby skulls With the youngsters of his year, All the other little bulls, Learning both to bruise and bear, Learning how to stand a shock Like a little bull of rock. Dreaming of a day less dim, Dreaming of a time less far, When the faint but certain star Of destiny burned clear for him, And a fierce and wild unrest Broke the quiet of his breast, And the gristles of his youth Hardened in his comely pow, And he came to fighting growth, Beat his bull and won his cow, And flew his tail and trampled off Past the tallest, vain enough, And curved about in spendour full And curved again and snuffed the airs As who should say Come out who dares! And all beheld a bull, a Bull, And knew that here was surely one That backed for no bull, fearing none. And the leader of the herd Looked and saw, and beat the ground, And shook the forest with his sound, Bellowed at the loathly bird Stationed always in the skies, Wating for the flesh that dies. Dreaming, this old bull forlorn, Surely dreaming of the hour When he came to sultan power, And they owned him master-horn, Chiefest bull of all among Bulls and cows a thousand strong. And in all the tramping herd Not a bull that barred his way, Not a cow that said him nay, Not a bull or cow that erred In the furnace of his look Dared a second, worse rebuke; Not in all the forest wide, Jungle, thicket, pasture, fen, Not another dared him then, Dared him and again defied; Not a sovereign buck or boar Came a second time for more. Not a serpent that survived Once the terrors of his hoof Risked a second time reproof, Came a second time and lived, Not serpent in its skin Came again for discipline; Not a leopard brght as flame, Flashing fingerhooks of steel, That a wooden tree might feel, Met his fury once and came For second reprimand, Not a leopard in the land. Not a lion of them all, Not a lion of the hills, Hero of a thousand kills, Dared a second fight and fall, Dared that ram terrific twice, Paid a second time the price. . . . Pity him, this dupe of dream, Leader of the heard again Only in his daft old brain, Once again the bull supreme And bull enough to bear the part Only in his tameless heart. Pity him that he must wake; Even now the swarm of flies Blackening his bloodshot eyes Bursts and blusters round the lake, Scattered from the feast half-fed, By great shadows overhead. And the dreamer turns away From his visionary herds And his splendid yesterday, Turns to meet the loathly birds Flocking round him from the skies, Waiting for the flesh that dies.
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ladylinda
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May 14, 2014 8:45:22 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 14, 2014 8:45:22 GMT -5
Today I'm posting three poems about nightingales.
Here's the first:
Exiled from the Nightingales
A V Campbell
Now that soft April steals the voice, The garb of May, the scented air, Where last spring saw me men rejoice; And I rejoice too, though not there.
The lawns I miss, they miss not me, Their freshness must be still the same; And in these groves I may not see Still sings the bird I dare not name,
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ladylinda
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May 14, 2014 8:46:03 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 14, 2014 8:46:03 GMT -5
The Nightingales
John Freeman
Musing upon imperishable things, Honour and love and sorrow, as I walked I came where water murmured of the hills That flow down from the shoulders of the north Into the shimmering green pool of the sea. The unsteady water ran from the hill-shadows, Itself a frightened shadow hurrying on Into the starry clearness of May meads All green and gold and sweet with opening buds, The dew danced briefly between dusk and sun But when the willow branches gave no shade Save to the sleeping fins beneath the banks, The rising wood waved “Come!” Then I passed in, Plunging through sodden leaves and winter mire That tardy May dried not, and leapt into A sudden lake of blue – all sweet and heat And wavering light – tall bluebells sunny-dappled Whose pale green stems and folded buds and bells Shaking out hue and odour drew the mind Down into deep delights, to lie there swaying Like amber weed fingered by every tide ... Faded those three grave visitants as I sank – Honour and love and sorrow – and I watched Their shadows slow withdrawing through a thin Spinney beyond the shining lake. The boughs Raking above netted the azure sky And snared the clouds that turned and broke away Torn by the branches of the fretting wind. So cloud and leaf and air and light and bird Flowed over me as I swayed sunken deep, An idle weed fingered by every tide.
It was a nightingale above my head Answering a nightingale unseen but near, It was a nightingale that called me from That sunken streaming of the sensual tide, With notes like syllables in the silent mind In silent night uttering things dear or sad. But that unseen bird answered with the voice Of smarting love, and crying “Kiss me now And bid all thoughts begone but thought of joys Born of my lips!” Yes, it was anxious love Stealing the voice of that hid nightingale And quickening sleepy memories with each note Till the notes failed.
Then the first singer poured His song anew, pure, fresh, sustained – as though Water-like it might fall all day, all night Renewed, renewing. And I listening saw Again those three shades from the spinney come – Honour and love and sorrow – listening too While that wild singer uttered yet his notes So quick, and ranging wide ‘tween earth and heaven, That only thought could follow (even as shadow Follows the flying feet of light from lake To cool green hollow of the couched hills) – Then paused, and called and ceased. How common seemed That shining pool as I brushed by and shook The shady dews from bended bells and snapped, Heedless, the stems. The nightingale was gone, And I pressed musing through the beamy wood, And with me those three shadows whispering One to another words that I could hear, Half-understanding.
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ladylinda
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May 14, 2014 8:47:02 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 14, 2014 8:47:02 GMT -5
The Search for the Nightingale
W J Turner
Beside a stony, shallow stream I sat In a deep gully underneath a hill. I watched the water trickle down dark moss And shake the tiny boughs of maidenhair, And billow on the bodies of cold stone, And sculptured clear Upon the shoulder of that aerial peak Stood trees, the fragile skeletons of light, High in a bubble blown Of visionary stone.
Under that azurine transparent arch The hills, the rocks, the trees Were still and dreamless as the printed wood Black on the snowy page. It was the song of some diviner bird Than this still country knew: The words were twigs of burnt and blackened trees From which there trilled a voice, Shadowy and faint, as though it were the song The water carolled as it flowed along.
Lifting my head, I gazed upon the world, Carved in the breathless heat as in a gem, And watched the parroquets green-feathered fly Through crystal vacancy, and perch in trees That glittered in a thin, blue, haze-like dream, And the voice faded, though the water dinned Against the stones its dimming memory. And I ached then To hear that song burst out upon that scene, Startling an earth where it had never been.
And then I came unto an older world. The woods were damp, the sun Shone in a watery mist, and soon was gone; The trees were thick with leaves, heavy and old, The sky was grey, and blue, and like the sea Rolling with mists and shadowy veils of foam. I heard the roaring of an ancient wind Among the elms and in the tattered pines; Lighting pale hollows in the cloud-dark sky, A ghostly ship, the Moon, flew scudding by.
“O is it here,” I cried, “that bird that sings So that the traveller in his frenzy weeps?” It was the autumn of the year, and leaves Fell with a dizzy moan, and all the trees Roared like the sea at my small impotent voice. And if the bird was there it did not sing, And I knew not its haunts, or where it went, But carven stood and raved! In that old wood that dripped upon my face Upturned below, pale in its passionate chase.
And years went by, and I grew slowly cold; I had forgotten what I once had sought, There are no passions that do not grow dim, And like a fire imagination sinks Into the ashes of the mind’s cold grate. And if I dreamed, I dreamed of that far land, That coast of pearl upon a summer sea, Whose frail trees in unruffled amber sleep, Gaudy with jewelled birds, whose feathers spray Bright founts of colour through the tranquil day.
The hill, the gully, and the stony stream I had not thought on when this spring I sat In a strange room with candles guttering down Into the flickering silence. From the Moon Among the trees still-wreathed upon the sky There came the sudden twittering of a ghost. And I stept out from darkness, and I saw The great pale sky immense, transparent, filled With boughs and mountains and wide-shining lakes Where stillness, crying in a thin voice, breaks.
It was the voice of that imagined bird. I saw the gully and that ancient hill, The water trickling down from Paradise Shaking the tiny boughs of maidenhair. There sat the dreaming boy, And O! I wept to see that scene again, To read the black print on that snowy page, I wept and all was still. No shadow came into that sun-steeped glen, No sound of earth, no voice of living men.
Was it a dream or was it that in me A God awoke and gazing on his dream Saw that dream rise and gaze into its soul, Finding, Narcissus-like, its image there: A Song, a transitory Shape on water blown, Descending down the bright cascades of time, The shadowiest-flowering, ripple-woven bloom As ghostly as still waters’ unseen foam That lies upon the air, as that song lay Within my heart on one far summer day?
Carved in the azure air white peacocks fly, Their fanning wings stir not the crystal trees, Bright parrots fade through dimming turquoise days, And music scrolls its lightning calm and bright On the pale sky where thunder cannot come. Into that world no ship has ever sailed, No seaman gazing with hand-shaded eyes Has ever seen its shore whiten the waves, But to that land the Nightingale has flown, Leaving bright treasure on this calm air blown.
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ladylinda
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May 15, 2014 7:21:26 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 15, 2014 7:21:26 GMT -5
Today three poems about donkeys.
The Donkey
G. K. Chesterton When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil's walking parody On all four-footed things. The tatter'd outlaw of the earth Of ancient crooked will Starve, scourge, deride me, I am dumb I keep my secret still. Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet.
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ladylinda
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May 15, 2014 7:22:17 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 15, 2014 7:22:17 GMT -5
A Prayer to Go to Heaven with the Donkeys
Francis Jammes (translated by Richard Wilbur)
When I must come to you, O my God, I pray It be some dusty-roaded holiday, And even as in my travels here below, I beg to choose by what road I shall go To Paradise, where the clear stars shine by day. I'll take my walking-stick and go my way, And to my friends the donkeys I shall say, "I am Francis Jammes, and I'm going to Paradise, For there is no hell in the land of the loving God." And I'll say to them: "Come, sweet friends of the blue skies, Poor creatures who with a flap of the ears or a nod Of the head shake off the buffets, the bees, the flies . . ."
Let me come with these donkeys, Lord, into your land, These beasts who bow their heads so gently, and stand With their small feet joined together in a fashion Utterly gentle, asking your compassion. I shall arrive, followed by their thousands of ears, Followed by those with baskets at their flanks, By those who lug the carts of mountebanks Or loads of feather-dusters and kitchen-wares, By those with humps of battered water-cans, By bottle-shaped she-asses who halt and stumble, By those tricked out in little pantaloons To cover their wet, blue galls where flies assemble In whirling swarms, making a drunken hum. Dear God, let it be with these donkeys that I come, And let it be that angels lead us in peace To leafy streams where cherries tremble in air, Sleek as the laughing flesh of girls; and there In that haven of souls let it be that, leaning above Your divine waters, I shall resemble these donkeys, Whose humble and sweet poverty will appear Clear in the clearness of your eternal love.
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ladylinda
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May 15, 2014 7:22:45 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 15, 2014 7:22:45 GMT -5
WHAT THE DONKEY SAW
U A Fanthorpe
No room in the inn, of course, And not that much in the stable, What with the shepherds, Magi, Mary, Joseph, the heavenly host - Not to mention the baby Using our manger as a cot. You couldn't have squeezed another cherub in For love nor money.
Still, in spite of the overcrowding, I did my best to make them feel wanted. I could see the baby and I Would be going places together.
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ladylinda
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May 16, 2014 13:43:11 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 16, 2014 13:43:11 GMT -5
Today it's the turn of gulls:
Thames Gulls
Edmund Blunden
Beautiful it is to see On London Bridge the bold-eyed seagulls wheel, And hear them cr, and all for a light-flung crust Fling us their wealth, their freedom, speed and gleam. And beautiful to see Them that pass by lured by these birds to stay, And smile and say ‘how tame they are’ – how tame! Friendly as stars to steersmen in mid seas, And as remote as midnight’s darling stars, Pleasant as voices heard from days long done, As nigh the hand as windflowers in the woods, And inaccessible as Dido’s phantom.
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ladylinda
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May 16, 2014 13:43:39 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 16, 2014 13:43:39 GMT -5
Seagulls on the Serpentine
Alfred Noyes
Memory, out of the mist, in a long slow ripple Breaks, blindly, against the shore. The mist has buried the town in its own oblivion. This, this, is the sea once more.
Mist – mist – brown mist; but a sense in the air of snowflakes! I stand where the ripples die, Lift up an arm and wait, till my lost ones know me, Wheel overhead, and cry.
Salt in the eyes, and the seagulls, mewing and sweeping, Snatching the bread from my hand; Brushing my hand with their breasts, in swift caresses To show that they understand.
Oh, why are you so afraid? We are all of us exiles! Wheel back in your clamorous rings#! We have all of us lost the sea, and we all remember. But you – you have wings.
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ladylinda
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May 16, 2014 13:44:20 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 16, 2014 13:44:20 GMT -5
And it wouldn't be me without a Carlos Williams poem!
Gulls
William Carlos Williams
My townspeople, beyond in the great world, are many with whom it were far more profitable for me to live than here with you. These whirr about me calling, calling! and for my own part I answer them, loud as I can, but they, being free, pass! I remain! Therefore, listen! For you will not soon have another singer.
First I say this: you have seen the strange birds, have you not, that sometimes rest upon our river in winter? Let them cause you to think well then of the storms that drive many to shelter. These things do not happen without reason.
And the next thing I say is this: I saw an eagle once circling against the clouds over one of our principal churches— Easter, it was—a beautiful day! three gulls came from above the river and crossed slowly seaward! Oh, I know you have your own hymns, I have heard them— and because I knew they invoked some great protector I could not be angry with you, no matter how much they outraged true music—
You see, it is not necessary for us to leap at each other, and, as I told you, in the end the gulls moved seaward very quietly.
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ladylinda
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May 17, 2014 10:08:39 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 17, 2014 10:08:39 GMT -5
Today it's poems about pigeons.
Here's the first:
City Pigeons
E J Scovell
Heavy the opal rose-green tame Pigeons, that seem for all their flame’s Encumbered flickering, as bound Stem-linked as flowers to the green ground,
Or sessile in the city’s mown Precincts as grave or building stone. Heavy they rise when feet fall near them And strange it seems that space will bear them.
And strange that flight is their condition Like men who own pride and ambition – These kin to lilac flower falls And stones that form the roots of walls.
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ladylinda
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May 17, 2014 10:09:13 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 17, 2014 10:09:13 GMT -5
Wood-pigeons
John Masefield
Often the woodman scares them as he comes Swinging his axe to split the fallen birch: The keeper with his nim-nosed dog at search Flushes them unaware; then the hive hums.
Then from the sheddings underneath the beech, Where squirrels rout, the flock of pigeons goes, Their wings like sticks in battle giving blows, The hundred hurtling to be out of reach.
Their wings flash white above a darker fan, In drifts the colour of the smoke they pass, They disappear above the valley grass, They re-appear against the woodland tan.
Now that the valley woodlands are all bare, Their flocks drift daily thus, now up, now down, Blue-grey against the sodden of the brown, Grey-blue against the twig-tips, thin in air.
It is a beauty none but autumn has, These drifts of blue-grey birds whom Nature binds Into communities of single minds, From early leaf-fall until Candlemas.
So in the falling Life when Death and Dread, With axe and mongrel, stalk the withering wood, The pigeons of the spirit’s solitude Clatter to glory at the stealthy tread,
And each, made deathless by the Spirit’s joy, Launch from the leaves that have forgotten green, And from the valley seek another scene, That Dread can darken not, nor Death destroy.
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ladylinda
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May 17, 2014 10:10:24 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 17, 2014 10:10:24 GMT -5
Peter Pigeon
Helen Parry Eden
The pigeons dwell in Pimlico; they mingle in the street; They flutter at Victoria around the horses’ feet; They fly to meet the royal trains with many a loyal phrase, And strut to meet their sovereign on strips of scarlet baize; But Peter, Peter Pigeon, salutes his cradle days.
The pigeons build in Bloomsbury; they rear their classic homes, Where pedants clamber sable steps to search forgotten tomes; They haunt Ionic capitals with learned lullabies, And each laments in anapaests and in iambics cries: But Peter, Peter Pigeon, how sleepily he sighs!
The pigeons walk the Guildhall; they dress in civic taste, With amplitude of mayoral chain and aldermanic waist; They bow their grey emphatic head, their top-knots rise and fall, They cluster in the court-yard at their midday dinner call; But Peter, Peter Pigeon, he nods beneath my shawl.
The pigeons brood in Battersea; while yet the dawn is dark; Their ready aubade ripples in the plane-trees round the park; They light upon your balcony, a brave and comely band, Till night decoys their coral feet, their voices low and bland; But Peter, Peter Pigeon, his feet are in my hand,
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ladylinda
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May 18, 2014 9:57:55 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 18, 2014 9:57:55 GMT -5
Today it's the turn of doves.
Here are some fine poems about these lovely birds.
The Dove
Walter de la Mare
How often, these hours, have I heard the monotonous crool of a dove- Voice low, insistent, obscure, since its nest it has hid in a grove – Flowers of the linden wherethrough the hosts of the honeybees rove. And I have been busily idle: no problems; nothing to prove; No urgent forebodings: but only life’s shallow habitual groove: Then why, if I pause to listen, should the languageless note of a dove So dark with disquietude seem? And what is it sorrowing of?
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ladylinda
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May 18, 2014 9:58:23 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 18, 2014 9:58:23 GMT -5
O my dove
Valentine Penrose
O my dove gone to settle in the caverns of cheap red cottons and willows throat warbling
The crater the crescent the dolphins in the pale sky love brought fine weather love made daybreak under the sky dead love talisman in reverse my beauty engulfed in the joyous vanished blue your sandalwoods dried-out in their water vowels
How then beneath the lowering ascetic skies can they appear again these maytime ferns your coral room my soft muslin sweetness where the sun trapped on the cupboard flickered and your cheek which had never yet known the voyage petal from beyond gently sleeping like a meadow.
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