ladylinda
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June
Jun 2, 2014 5:16:38 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 2, 2014 5:16:38 GMT -5
This month it's June and I'm going to be posting poems either specifically about June or about early (rather than mid or late) summer.
Here's the first:
All in June
W H Davies
A week ago I had a fire, To warm my feet, my hands and face; Cold winds, that never make a friend, Crept in and out of every place.
Today, the fields are rich in grass, And buttercups in thousands grow; I’ll show the World where I have been – With gold dust seen on either shoe.
Till to my garden back I come, Where bumble-bees, for hours and hours, Sit on their soft, fat, velvet bums, To wriggle out of hollow flowers.
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ladylinda
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June
Jun 2, 2014 5:17:21 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 2, 2014 5:17:21 GMT -5
June Thunder
Louis MacNeice
The Junes were free and full, delving through tiny Roads, the mudguards brushing the cowparsley, Through fields of mustard and under boldly embattled Mays and chestnuts
Or between beeches verdurous and voluptuous Or where broom and gorse beflagged the chalkland – All the flare and gusto of the unenduring Joys of a season Now returned but I note as more appropriate To the mature mood impending thunder With an indigo sky and the garden hushed except for The treetops moving
Then the curtains in my room blow suddenly inward, The shrubbery rustles, birds fly heavily homeward, The white flowers fade to nothing on the trees and rain comes Down like a dropscene
Now there comes the catharsis, the cleansing downpour Breaking the blossoms of our overdated fancies Our old sentimentality and whimsicality Loves of the morning
Blackness as half-past eight, the night’s precursor, Clouds like falling masonry and lightning’s lavish Annunciation, the sword of the mad archangel Flashed from the scabbard
If only you would come and dare the crystal Rampart of rain and the bottomless moat of thunder, If only now you would come I should be happy Now if now only
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ladylinda
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June
Jun 2, 2014 5:20:08 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 2, 2014 5:20:08 GMT -5
Give Me Back June Again
S Reid-Heyman
Give me back June again. I see November Frosting the summer in your happy eyes, When chilly principles would bid remember, That all this carnal beauty fades and dies.
But here, content with what the Earth has given, Why should I crave for aught the Future brings? I do not want a second Earth or Heaven: I want the old familiar much-loved things
All the long drowsy summer nights and days: The brown warm pastures, and the warm brown earth; That gleam of water shining through the haze On upland pools:- the meadows and the heath:
The larks enraptured, springing, and the light Which strikes a million rainbows in the dew: The hover-fly’s inimitable flight O’er garden flowers which wait for me and you:
Just that white bell which opened with the day – (Last night we saw its petals closely furled!) I will not own that time can bring decay, Or steal such beauty from a mourning world
And where we walked together, you and I, And saw the white throat swinging from the thorn,- A thousand ages hence shall hear her cry, And see us pause beside her on the lawn
You frown at such presumption? Dear, I know, (Bend to me, that one hour when first me met, Is it a minute or an age ago?) Time has no meaning. We can not forget,
Is it November still? Then one caress, A mere cheek’s touching, brings me June again: How the thought comes that Earth’s least happiness, In passing leaves infinity of pain!
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ladylinda
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June
Jun 3, 2014 4:41:34 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 3, 2014 4:41:34 GMT -5
June Romance
Lewis Spence
We pant beneath the triumphs of the sun, The vanquished of his quiver and his glaive. These lawns, the first step in some Hesperid, Carry the essence of a thousand summers, Junes of the generations, burning hours Spilled over from the crucible of time To augment our temperate season’s modesties. Surely it is that very stripe of day On which Romance himself might take to horse And ride through golden tides to seek some spot Enamelled by adventure, dimly cool; Some forest older than the name of oak Whose girdled glades hold legends locked away As too fantastic for a jealous age, And shapes whose flesh is shadow – basilisks, The moony-painted unicorn, the nyx, Errants who slept too long in fairy brakes, Dryads whose pale eyes never see the stars; And presently let all the world go follow him Back to the Forest, where the sunlight seems A fainting naiad who has lost her way
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ladylinda
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June
Jun 3, 2014 4:42:35 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 3, 2014 4:42:35 GMT -5
June
William Cullen Bryant
I GAZED upon the glorious sky And the green mountains round And thought that when I came to lie At rest within the ground 'T were pleasant that in flowery June When brooks send up a cheerful tune And groves a joyous sound The sexton's hand my grave to make The rich green mountain-turf should break.
A cell within the frozen mould A coffin borne through sleet And icy clods above it rolled While fierce the tempests beat¡ Away!¡I will not think of these¡ Blue be the sky and soft the breeze Earth green beneath the feet And be the damp mould gently pressed Into my narrow place of rest.
There through the long long summer hours The golden light should lie And thick young herbs and groups of flowers Stand in their beauty by. The oriole should build and tell His love-tale close beside my cell; The idle butterfly Should rest him there and there be heard The housewife bee and humming-bird.
And what if cheerful shouts at noon Come from the village sent Or song of maids beneath the moon With fairy laughter blent? And what if in the evening light Betroth¨¨d lovers walk in sight Of my low monument? I would the lovely scene around Might know no sadder sight nor sound.
I know that I no more should see The season's glorious show Nor would its brightness shine for me Nor its wild music flow; But if around my place of sleep The friends I love should come to weep They might not haste to go. Soft airs and song and light and bloom Should keep them lingering by my tomb.
These to their softened hearts should bear The thought of what has been And speak of one who cannot share The gladness of the scene; Whose part in all the pomp that fills The circuit of the summer hills Is that his grave is green; And deeply would their hearts rejoice To hear again his living voice.
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ladylinda
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June
Jun 3, 2014 4:43:30 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 3, 2014 4:43:30 GMT -5
June 1967 at Buchenwald
Alan Bold
‘The stillness of death all around the camp was uncanny and intolerable.’ Bruno Apitz, Naked Among Wolves
This is the way in. The words Wrought in iron on the gate: JEDEM DAS SEINE. Everybody Gets what he deserves.
The bare drab rubble of the place. The dull damp stone. The rain. The emptiness. The human lack. JEDEM DAS SEINE. JEDEM DAS SEINE. Everybody gets what he deserves.
It all forms itself Into one word: Buchenwald, And those who know and those Born after that war but living In its shadow, shiver at the words. Everybody gets what he deserves.
It is so quiet now. So Still that it makes an absence. At the silence of the metal leads We can almost hear again the voices, The moaning of the cattle that were men. Ahead, acres of abandoned gravel. Everybody gets what he deserves.
Wood, beech wood, song Of birds. The sky, the usual sky. A stretch of trees. A sumptuous sheet Of colours dragging through the raindrops,. Drizzle loosening the small stones We stand on. Stone buildings. Doors. Dark. A dead tree leaning in the rain. Everybody gets what he deserves.
Cold, numb cold. Despair And no despair. The very worst Of men against the very best. A joy in brutality from lack Of feeling for the other. The greatest Evil, racialism. A man, the greatest good, Much more than a biological beast, An aggregate of atoms. Much more. Everybody gets what he deserves.
And it could happen again And they could hang like broken carcasses And they could scream in terror without light And they could count the strokes that split their skin And they could smoulder under cigarettes And they could suffer and bear every blow And they could starve and live for death And they could live for hope alone And it could happen again. Everybody gets what he deserves.
We must condemn our arrogant Assumption that we are immune as well As apathetic. We let it happen. History is always more comfortable Than the implications of the present. We outrage our own advance as beings By being merely men. The miracle Is the miracle of matter. Mind Knows this, but sordid, cruel and ignorant Tradition makes the world a verbal shell. Everybody gets what he deserves.
Words are fallible. They cannot do More than hint at torment. Let us Do justice to words. No premise is ever Absolute; so certain that enormous wreckage Of flesh follows it syllogistically In the name of mere consistency. In the end All means stand condemned. In a cosmic Context human life is short. The future Is not made, but waits to be created. Everybody gets what he deserves.
There is the viciously vicarious in us All. The pleasure in chance misfortune That lets us patronize or helps to lose Our limitations for an instant. It is that, that struggle for survival I accuse. Let us not forget Buchenwald is not a word. Its Meaning is defined with every day. Everybody gets what he deserves.
Now it is newsprint, and heavy headlines And looking with a camera’s eyes. Now for many it is only irritating While for others it is absolutely deadly. No one is free while some are not free. While the world is ruled by precedent It remains a monstrous chance irrelevance. Everybody gets what he deserves.
We turn away. We always do. It’s what we turn into that matters. From the invisible barracks of Buchenwald Where only an unsteady horizon Remains. The dead cannot complain. They never do. But we, we live. Everybody gets what he deserves.
That which once united man Now drives him apart. We are not helpless Creatures crashing onwards irresistibly to doom. There is time for everything and time to choose For everything. We are that time, that choice. Everybody gets what he deserves.
This happened near the core Of a world’s culture. This Occurred among higher things. This was a philosophical conclusion. Everybody gets what he deserves.
The bare drab rubble of the place. The dull damp stone. The rain. The emptiness. The human lack.
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ladylinda
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June
Jun 4, 2014 8:34:26 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 4, 2014 8:34:26 GMT -5
A Song: When June is Past the Fading Rose
Thomas Carew
Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose; For in your beauty's orient deep These flowers as in their causes, sleep.
Ask me no more whither doth stray The golden atoms of the day; For in pure love heaven did prepare Those powders to enrich your hair.
Ask me no more whither doth haste The nightingale when May is past; For in your sweet dividing throat She winters and keeps warm her note. Ask me no more where those stars light That downwards fall in dead of night; For in your eyes they sit, and there, Fixed become as in their sphere.
Ask me no more if east or west The phoenix builds her spicy nest; For unto you at last she flies, And in your fragrant bosom dies.
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ladylinda
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June
Jun 4, 2014 8:34:56 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 4, 2014 8:34:56 GMT -5
There is a June when Corn is cut
Emily Dickinson
There is a June when Corn is cut And Roses in the Seed -- A Summer briefer than the first But tenderer indeed
As should a Face supposed the Grave's Emerge a single Noon In the Vermilion that it wore Affect us, and return --
Two Seasons, it is said, exist -- The Summer of the Just, And this of Ours, diversified With Prospect, and with Frost --
May not our Second with its First So infinite compare That We but recollect the one The other to prefer?
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ladylinda
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June
Jun 4, 2014 8:35:25 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 4, 2014 8:35:25 GMT -5
A Calendar of Sonnets: June
Helen Hunt Jackson
O month whose promise and fulfilment blend, And burst in one! it seems the earth can store In all her roomy house no treasure more; Of all her wealth no farthing have to spend On fruit, when once this stintless flowering end. And yet no tiniest flower shall fall before It hath made ready at its hidden core Its tithe of seed, which we may count and tend Till harvest. Joy of blossomed love, for thee Seems it no fairer thing can yet have birth? No room is left for deeper ecstacy? Watch well if seeds grow strong, to scatter free Germs for thy future summers on the earth. A joy which is but joy soon comes to dearth.
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June
Jun 4, 2014 10:43:12 GMT -5
Post by beth on Jun 4, 2014 10:43:12 GMT -5
I'm not sure it's the same way now, but when I was a child in school, some of our teachers were obsessed with memory work. My class in about 5th grade had to memorized the first stanza to this and I can still "recite" it. Fortunately, it's a pretty good poem.What Is So Rare As A Day in June James Russell Lowell AND what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean To be some happy creature's palace; The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,- In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? Now is the high-tide of the year, And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God wills it; No matter how barren the past may have been, 'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; We may shut our eyes but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing; The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That dandelions are blossoming near, That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard by; And if the breeze kept the good news back, For our couriers we should not lack; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,- And hark! How clear bold chanticleer, Warmed with the new wine of the year, Tells all in his lusty crowing! Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; Everything is happy now, Everything is upward striving; ' Tis as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,- 'Tis for the natural way of living: Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave not wake, 'And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; The soul partakes the season's youth, And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. James Russell Lowell
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ladylinda
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June
Jun 5, 2014 13:37:58 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 5, 2014 13:37:58 GMT -5
Thanks for that, Beth; Lowell was an interesting poet of his time and had quite an original way with words (especially in the 'Bigelow Papers!)
June
Amy Levy
Last June I saw your face three times; Three times I touched your hand; Now, as before, May month is o'er, And June is in the land.
O many Junes shall come and go, Flow'r-footed o'er the mead; O many Junes for me, to whom Is length of days decreed.
There shall be sunlight, scent of rose; Warm mist of summer rain; Only this change--I shall not look Upon your face again.
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ladylinda
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June
Jun 5, 2014 13:38:37 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 5, 2014 13:38:37 GMT -5
Summons
Ann McGough
Wisteria woke me this morning, And there was all June in the garden; I felt them, early, warning Lest I miss any part of the day.
Straight I walked to the trellis vine. Wisteria touched a lifted nostril: Feelings of beauty diffused, to entwine My spirit with June's own aura.
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ladylinda
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June
Jun 5, 2014 13:40:39 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 5, 2014 13:40:39 GMT -5
The Garden of Eros
Oscar Wilde
It is full summer now, the heart of June; Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir Upon the upland meadow where too soon Rich autumn time, the season's usurer, Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees, And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.
Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil, That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on To vex the rose with jealousy, and still The harebell spreads her azure pavilion, And like a strayed and wandering reveller Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June's messenger
The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade, One pale narcissus loiters fearfully Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid Of their own loveliness some violets lie That will not look the gold sun in the face For fear of too much splendour, - ah! methinks it is a place
Which should be trodden by Persephone When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis! Or danced on by the lads of Arcady! The hidden secret of eternal bliss Known to the Grecian here a man might find, Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.
There are the flowers which mourning Herakles Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine, Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine, That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve, And lilac lady's-smock, - but let them bloom alone, and leave
Yon spired hollyhock red-crocketed To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee, Its little bellringer, go seek instead Some other pleasaunce; the anemone That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl
Their painted wings beside it, - bid it pine In pale virginity; the winter snow Will suit it better than those lips of thine Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone, Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own.
The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus So dear to maidens, creamy meadow-sweet Whiter than Juno's throat and odorous As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet Of Huntress Dian would be loth to mar For any dappled fawn, - pluck these, and those fond flowers which are
Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis, That morning star which does not dread the sun, And budding marjoram which but to kiss Would sweeten Cytheraea's lips and make Adonis jealous, - these for thy head, - and for thy girdle take
Yon curving spray of purple clematis Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King, And foxgloves with their nodding chalices, But that one narciss which the startled Spring Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer's bird,
Ah! leave it for a subtle memory Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun, When April laughed between her tears to see The early primrose with shy footsteps run From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold, Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with shimmering gold.
Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet As thou thyself, my soul's idolatry! And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry, For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies pied.
And I will cut a reed by yonder spring And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan Wonder what young intruder dares to sing In these still haunts, where never foot of man Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company.
And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan, And why the hapless nightingale forbears To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast, And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening east.
And I will sing how sad Proserpina Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed, And lure the silver-breasted Helena Back from the lotus meadows of the dead, So shalt thou see that awful loveliness For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war's abyss!
And then I'll pipe to thee that Grecian tale How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion, And hidden in a grey and misty veil Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his embrace.
And if my flute can breathe sweet melody, We may behold Her face who long ago Dwelt among men by the AEgean sea, And whose sad house with pillaged portico And friezeless wall and columns toppled down Looms o'er the ruins of that fair and violet cinctured town.
Spirit of Beauty! tarry still awhile, They are not dead, thine ancient votaries; Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile Is better than a thousand victories, Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are a few
Who for thy sake would give their manlihood And consecrate their being; I at least Have done so, made thy lips my daily food, And in thy temples found a goodlier feast Than this starved age can give me, spite of all Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical.
Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows, The woods of white Colonos are not here, On our bleak hills the olive never blows, No simple priest conducts his lowing steer Up the steep marble way, nor through the town Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered gown.
Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best, Whose very name should be a memory To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest Beneath the Roman walls, and melody Still mourns her sweetest lyre; none can play The lute of Adonais: with his lips Song passed away.
Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left One silver voice to sing his threnody, But ah! too soon of it we were bereft When on that riven night and stormy sea Panthea claimed her singer as her own, And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk alone,
Save for that fiery heart, that morning star Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,
And he hath been with thee at Thessaly, And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot In passionless and fierce virginity Hunting the tusked boar, his honied lute Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill, And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.
And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine, And sung the Galilaean's requiem, That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him Have found their last, most ardent worshipper, And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.
Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still, It is not quenched the torch of poesy, The star that shook above the Eastern hill Holds unassailed its argent armoury From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight - O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,
Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer's child, Dear heritor of Spenser's tuneful reed, With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled The weary soul of man in troublous need, And from the far and flowerless fields of ice Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise.
We know them all, Gudrun the strong men's bride, Aslaug and Olafson we know them all, How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died, And what enchantment held the king in thrall When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,
Long listless summer hours when the noon Being enamoured of a damask rose Forgets to journey westward, till the moon The pale usurper of its tribute grows From a thin sickle to a silver shield And chides its loitering car - how oft, in some cool grassy field
Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight, At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come Almost before the blackbird finds a mate And overstay the swallow, and the hum Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves, Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,
And through their unreal woes and mimic pain Wept for myself, and so was purified, And in their simple mirth grew glad again; For as I sailed upon that pictured tide The strength and splendour of the storm was mine Without the storm's red ruin, for the singer is divine;
The little laugh of water falling down Is not so musical, the clammy gold Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town Has less of sweetness in it, and the old Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.
Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile! Although the cheating merchants of the mart With iron roads profane our lovely isle, And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art, Ay! though the crowded factories beget The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!
For One at least there is, - He bears his name From Dante and the seraph Gabriel, - Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame To light thine altar; He too loves thee well, Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien's snare, And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,
Loves thee so well, that all the World for him A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear, And Sorrow take a purple diadem, Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be Even in anguish beautiful; - such is the empery
Which Painters hold, and such the heritage This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess, Being a better mirror of his age In all his pity, love, and weariness, Than those who can but copy common things, And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.
But they are few, and all romance has flown, And men can prophesy about the sun, And lecture on his arrows - how, alone, Through a waste void the soulless atoms run, How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled, And that no more 'mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head.
Methinks these new Actaeons boast too soon That they have spied on beauty; what if we Have analysed the rainbow, robbed the moon Of her most ancient, chastest mystery, Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope!
What profit if this scientific age Burst through our gates with all its retinue Of modern miracles! Can it assuage One lover's breaking heart? what can it do To make one life more beautiful, one day More godlike in its period? but now the Age of Clay
Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth Hath borne again a noisy progeny Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth Hurls them against the august hierarchy Which sat upon Olympus; to the Dust They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must
Repair for judgment; let them, if they can, From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance, Create the new Ideal rule for man! Methinks that was not my inheritance; For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.
Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away Her visage from the God, and Hecate's boat Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day Blew all its torches out: I did not note The waning hours, to young Endymions Time's palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns!
Mark how the yellow iris wearily Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly, Who, like a blue vein on a girl's white wrist, Sleeps on that snowy primrose of the night, Which 'gins to flush with crimson shame, and die beneath the light.
Come let us go, against the pallid shield Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam, The corncrake nested in the unmown field Answers its mate, across the misty stream On fitful wing the startled curlews fly, And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh,
Scatters the pearled dew from off the grass, In tremulous ecstasy to greet the sun, Who soon in gilded panoply will pass Forth from yon orange-curtained pavilion Hung in the burning east: see, the red rim O'ertops the expectant hills! it is the God! for love of him
Already the shrill lark is out of sight, Flooding with waves of song this silent dell, - Ah! there is something more in that bird's flight Than could be tested in a crucible! - But the air freshens, let us go, why soon The woodmen will be here; how we have lived this night of June!
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ladylinda
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June
Jun 6, 2014 9:18:22 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 6, 2014 9:18:22 GMT -5
Knee-deep in June
James Whitcomb Riley
TELL you what I like the best -- 'Long about knee-deep in June, 'Bout the time strawberries melts On the vine, -- some afternoon Like to jes' git out and rest, And not work at nothin' else!
Orchard's where I'd ruther be -- Needn't fence it in fer me! -- Jes' the whole sky overhead, And the whole airth underneath -- Sort o' so's a man kin breathe Like he ort, and kind o' has Elbow-room to keerlessly Sprawl out len'thways on the grass Where the shadders thick and soft As the kivvers on the bed Mother fixes in the loft Allus, when they's company!
Jes' a-sort o' lazin there - S'lazy, 'at you peek and peer Through the wavin' leaves above, Like a feller 'ats in love And don't know it, ner don't keer! Ever'thing you hear and see Got some sort o' interest - Maybe find a bluebird's nest Tucked up there conveenently Fer the boy 'at's ap' to be Up some other apple tree! Watch the swallers skootin' past Bout as peert as you could ast; Er the Bob-white raise and whiz Where some other's whistle is.
Ketch a shadder down below, And look up to find the crow -- Er a hawk, - away up there, Pearantly froze in the air! -- Hear the old hen squawk, and squat Over ever' chick she's got, Suddent-like! - and she knows where That-air hawk is, well as you! -- You jes' bet yer life she do! -- Eyes a-glitterin' like glass, Waitin' till he makes a pass!
Pee-wees wingin', to express My opinion, 's second-class, Yit you'll hear 'em more er less; Sapsucks gittin' down to biz, Weedin' out the lonesomeness; Mr. Bluejay, full o' sass, In them baseball clothes o' his, Sportin' round the orchad jes' Like he owned the premises! Sun out in the fields kin sizz, But flat on yer back, I guess, In the shade's where glory is! That's jes' what I'd like to do Stiddy fer a year er two!
Plague! Ef they ain't somepin' in Work 'at kind o' goes ag'in' My convictions! - 'long about Here in June especially! -- Under some ole apple tree, Jes' a-restin through and through, I could git along without Nothin' else at all to do Only jes' a-wishin' you Wuz a-gittin' there like me, And June wuz eternity!
Lay out there and try to see Jes' how lazy you kin be! -- Tumble round and souse yer head In the clover-bloom, er pull Yer straw hat acrost yer eyes And peek through it at the skies, Thinkin' of old chums 'ats dead, Maybe, smilin' back at you In betwixt the beautiful Clouds o'gold and white and blue! -- Month a man kin railly love -- June, you know, I'm talkin' of!
March ain't never nothin' new! -- April's altogether too Brash fer me! and May -- I jes' 'Bominate its promises, -- Little hints o' sunshine and Green around the timber-land -- A few blossoms, and a few Chip-birds, and a sprout er two, -- Drap asleep, and it turns in Fore daylight and snows ag'in! -- But when June comes - Clear my th'oat With wild honey! -- Rench my hair In the dew! And hold my coat! Whoop out loud! And th'ow my hat! -- June wants me, and I'm to spare! Spread them shadders anywhere, I'll get down and waller there, And obleeged to you at that!
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ladylinda
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July 2011 Member of the Month, May 2014 Member of the Month
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June
Jun 6, 2014 9:19:17 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Jun 6, 2014 9:19:17 GMT -5
June
John Payne
THE empress of the year, the meadows' queen, Back from the East, with all her goodly train, Is come, to glorify the world again With length of light and middle Summer-Sheen. In every plot, upon her throne of green, Bright blooms the rose; with birds and blossom-rain And perfume ecstacied are wood and plain And Winter is as if it ne'er had been. Oh June, liege-lady of the flowering prime, Now that thrush, finch, lark, linnet, ousel, wren Thy praises pipe, to the Iranian bard How shall we harken, who, the highwaymen Autumn and Winter, warns us, follow hard On thy fair feet and bide their baleful time?
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