ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 1, 2014 13:32:05 GMT -5
This month I'll post poems about December, winter and (when the time comes) Christmas.
Here are four crackers to start us off with!
Stanzas
John Keats
IN a drear-nighted December Too happy happy tree Thy branches ne'er remember Their green felicity: The north cannot undo them 5 With a sleety whistle through them; Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime.
In a drear-nighted December Too happy happy brook 10 Thy bubblings ne'er remember Apollo's summer look; But with a sweet forgetting They stay their crystal fretting Never never petting 15 About the frozen time.
Ah! would 'twere so with many A gentle girl and boy! But were there ever any Writhed not at pass¨¨d joy? 20 To know the change and feel it When there is none to heal it Nor numb¨¨d sense to steal it Was never said in rhyme.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 1, 2014 13:32:31 GMT -5
When Cold December
Edith Sitwell
When cold December Froze to grisamber The jangling bells on the sweet rose-trees-- Then fading slow And furred is the snow As the almond's sweet husk-- And smelling like musk. The snow amygdaline Under the eglantine Where the bristling stars shine Like a gilt porcupine-- The snow confesses The little Princesses On their small chioppines Dance under the orpines. See the casuistries Of their slant fluttering eyes-- Gilt as the zodiac (Dancing Herodiac). Only the snow slides Like gilded myrrh-- From the rose-branches--hides Rose-roots that stir.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 1, 2014 13:32:52 GMT -5
Who Runs America?
Allan Ginsberg
Oil brown smog over Denver Oil red dung colored smoke level to level across the horizon
blue tainted sky above Oil car smog gasoline hazing red Denver's day
December bare trees
sticking up from housetop streets
Plane lands rumbling, planes rise over
radar wheels, black smoke
drifts from tailfins
Oil millions of cars speeding the cracked plains Oil from Texas, Bahrein, Venezuela Mexico Oil that turns General Motors
revs up Ford lights up General Electric, oil that crackles
thru International Business Machine computers,
charges dynamos for ITT sparks Western Electric
runs thru Amer Telephone & Telegraph wires
Oil that flows thru Exxon New Jersey hoses, rings in Mobil gas tank cranks, rumbles
Chrysler engines
shoots thru Texaco pipelines
blackens ocean from broken Gulf tankers spills onto Santa Barbara beaches from
Standard of California derricks offshore.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 1, 2014 13:34:23 GMT -5
This is a REAL curiosity; Ingeborg Bachmann was an Austrian Jewish poet who wrote almost exclusively in German. In this one she' writing in a weird dialect that is closer to Dorset than any other dialect of English I know.
Maybe members can enlighten me?
Zummer An' Winter
Ingeborg Bachmann
When I led by zummer streams The pride o' Lea, as naighbours thought her, While the zun, wi' evenen beams, Did cast our sheades athirt the water; Winds a-blowen, Streams a-flowen, Skies a-glowen, Tokens ov my jay zoo fleeten, Heightened it, that happy meeten.
Then, when maid an' man took pleaces, Gay in winter's Chris'mas dances, Showen in their merry feaces Kindly smiles an' glisnen glances; Stars a-winken, Day a-shrinken, Sheades a-zinken, Brought anew the happy meeten, That did meake the night too fleeten.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 2, 2014 20:17:42 GMT -5
Winterlight
Barry Tebb
Let us, this December night, leave the ring
Of heat, the lapping flames around the fire’s heart,
Move with bodies tensed against the light
Towards the moon’s pull and the cloud’s hand.
Arms of angels hold us, lend our bodies
Height of stars and the planets’ whirl,
Grant us sufficiency of light so we may enter
The twisting lanes to lost villages.
So we may stare in the mirror of silent pools
By long-deserted greens, deepen our sight
Of what lies beyond the things that seem
And make our vision clear as winterlight.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 2, 2014 20:19:19 GMT -5
Sicily December 1908
Henry Van Dyke
O garden isle, beloved by Sun and Sea, -- Whose bluest billows kiss thy curving bays, Whose amorous light enfolds thee in warm rays That fill with fruit each dark-leaved orange-tree, -- What hidden hatred hath the Earth for thee? Behold, again, in these dark, dreadful days, She trembles with her wrath, and swiftly lays Thy beauty waste in wreck and agony!
Is Nature, then, a strife of jealous powers, And man the plaything of unconscious fate? Not so, my troubled heart! God reigns above And man is greatest in his darkest hours: Walking amid the cities desolate, The Son of God appears in human love.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 3, 2014 17:27:27 GMT -5
In drear-nighted December
John Keats
In drear-nighted December Too happy, happy tree Thy branches ne'er remember Their green felicity: The north cannot undo them With a sleety whistle through them; Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime
In drear-nighted December Too happy, happy brook Thy bubblings ne'er remember Apollo's summer look; But with a sweet forgetting They stay their crystal fretting Never, never petting About the frozen time
Ah! would 'twere so with many A gentle girl and boy! But were there ever any Writhed not at passed joy? The feel of not to feel it When there is none to heal it Nor numbed sense to steel it Was never said in rhyme.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 3, 2014 17:27:57 GMT -5
Now Winter Nights Enlarge
Thomas Campion
Now winter nights enlarge The number of their hours, And clouds their storms discharge Upon the airy towers. Let now the chimneys blaze, And cups o’erflow with wine; Let well-tuned words amaze With harmony divine. Now yellow waxen lights Shall wait on honey love, While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights Sleep’s leaden spells remove.
This time doth well dispense With lovers’ long discourse; Much speech hath some defence, Though beauty no remorse. All do not all things well; Some measures comely tread, Some knotted riddles tell, Some poems smoothly read. The summer hath his joys And winter his delights; Though love and all his pleasures are but toys, They shorten tedious nights.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 6, 2014 17:55:12 GMT -5
The During Months
Sophie Hannah
Like summer in some countries and like rain in mine, for nuns like God, for drunks like beer, like food for chefs, for invalids like pain, You've occupied a large part of the year.
The during months to those before and since would make a ratio of ten to two, counting the ones spent trying to convince myself there was a beating heart in you
when diagrams were all you'd let me see.
Hearts should be made of either blood or stone, of both, like mine. There's still December free - the month in which I'll save this year, alone.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 6, 2014 17:55:34 GMT -5
Winter Seascape
John Betjeman
The sea runs back against itself With scarcely time for breaking wave To cannonade a slatey shelf And thunder under in a cave.
Before the next can fully burst The headwind, blowing harder still, Smooths it to what it was at first - A slowly rolling water-hill.
Against the breeze the breakers haste, Against the tide their ridges run And all the sea's a dappled waste Criss-crossing underneath the sun.
Far down the beach the ripples drag Blown backward, rearing from the shore, And wailing gull and shrieking shag Alone can pierce the ocean roar.
Unheard, a mongrel hound gives tongue, Unheard are shouts of little boys; What chance has any inland lung Against this multi-water noise?
Here where the cliffs alone prevail I stand exultant, neutral, free, And from the cushion of the gale Behold a huge consoling sea.
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 9, 2014 15:41:45 GMT -5
The faith of December
Ross Nichols
Under sludge-white counterpane the bedded country of the brain. The melting ice is cracking down vertical inlets, and the frown of all blue thunder is above the rivers of thick-frozen love. Now is the root of faith if he know stir that is not but shall be, know sedges rise through gelid surfaces
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 9, 2014 15:43:05 GMT -5
Winter Landscape
John Betjeman
The three men coming down the winter hill In brown, with tall poles and a pack of hounds At heel, through the arrangement of the trees, Past the five figures at the burning straw, Returning cold and silent to their town, Returning to the drifted snow, the rink Lively with children, to the older men, The long companions they can never reach, The blue light, men with ladders, by the church The sledge and shadow in the twilit street, Are not aware that in the sandy time To come, the evil waste of history Outstretched, they will be seen upon the brow Of that same hill: when all their company Will have been irrecoverably lost, These men, this particular three in brown Witnessed by birds will keep the scene and say By their configuration with the trees, The small bridge, the red houses and the fire, What place, what time, what morning occasion Sent them into the wood, a pack of hounds At heel and the tall poles upon their shoulders, Thence to return as now we see them and Ankle-deep in snow down the winter hill Descend, while three birds watch and the fourth flies.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 11, 2014 18:35:05 GMT -5
The Night Is Freezing Fast A E Housman
The night is freezing fast, To-morrow comes December; And winterfalls of old Are with me from the past; And chiefly I remember How Dick would hate the cold. Fall, winter, fall; for he, Prompt hand and headpiece clever, Has woven a winter robe, And made of earth and sea His overcoat for ever, And wears the turning globe.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 11, 2014 18:36:07 GMT -5
Blow, blow, thou winter wind
William Shakespeare
Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh-ho! the holly! This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Thou dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot: Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remember'd not.
Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh-ho! the holly! This life is most jolly.
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Post by ladylinda on Dec 19, 2014 10:42:08 GMT -5
Bring In This Timeless Grave To Throw
A E Housman
XLVI
Bring, in this timeless grave to throw No cypress, sombre on the snow; Snap not from the bitter yew His leaves that live December through; Break no rosemary, bright with rime And sparkling to the cruel crime; Nor plod the winter land to look For willows in the icy brook To cast them leafless round him: bring To spray that ever buds in spring.
But if the Christmas field has kept Awns the last gleaner overstept, Or shrivelled flax, whose flower is blue A single season, never two; Or if one haulm whose year is o'er Shivers on the upland frore, --Oh, bring from hill and stream and plain Whatever will not flower again, To give him comfort: he and those Shall bide eternal bedfellows Where low upon the couch he lies Whence he never shall arise.
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