ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 4, 2014 17:07:03 GMT -5
This month is November so I'll have poems about November, late autumn (brr, feels more like winter here!), Guy Fawkes on November 5th and more war poems on November 11th.
Here's the first poem:
A Calendar of Sonnets: November
Helen Hunt Jackson
This is the treacherous month when autumn days With summer's voice come bearing summer's gifts. Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways, And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts, The violet returns. Snow noiseless sifts Ere night, an icy shroud, which morning's rays Willidly shine upon and slowly melt, Too late to bid the violet live again. The treachery, at last, too late, is plain; Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt. What joy sufficient hath November felt? What profit from the violet's day of pain?
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 4, 2014 17:08:18 GMT -5
Late Autumn Wasp James Hoch One must admire the desperate way it flings itself through air amid winter’s slow paralysis,
and clings to shriveled fruit, dropped Coke bottle, any sugary residue, any unctuous carcass,
and slug-drunk grows stiff, its joints unswiveled, wings stale and oar-still, like a heart; yes, almost
too easily like a heart the way, cudgeled, it lies waiting for shift of season, light, a thing to drink down,
gnaw on, or, failing that, leaves half of itself torn
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 5, 2014 14:04:07 GMT -5
As it's Guy Fawkes Day today what could be more appropriate than to post this?
The Fifth of November
Remember, remember! The fifth of November, The Gunpowder treason and plot; I know of no reason Why the Gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot! Guy Fawkes and his companions Did the scheme contrive, To blow the King and Parliament All up alive. Threescore barrels, laid below, To prove old England's overthrow. But, by God's providence, him they catch, With a dark lantern, lighting a match! A stick and a stake For King James's sake! If you won't give me one, I'll take two, The better for me, And the worse for you. A rope, a rope, to hang the Pope, A penn'orth of cheese to choke him, A pint of beer to wash it down, And a jolly good fire to burn him. Holloa, boys! holloa, boys! make the bells ring! Holloa, boys! holloa boys! God save the King! Hip, hip, hooor-r-r-ray!
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 6, 2014 18:44:53 GMT -5
November comes
Elizabeth Coatsworth
November comes And November goes, With the last red berries And the first white snows.
With night coming early, And dawn coming late, And ice in the bucket And frost by the gate.
The fires burn And the kettles sing, And earth sinks to rest Until next spring
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 6, 2014 18:45:23 GMT -5
Autumn Song
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf How the heart feels a languid grief Laid on it for a covering, And how sleep seems a goodly thing In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
And how the swift beat of the brain Falters because it is in vain, In Autumn at the fall of the leaf Knowest thou not? and how the chief Of joys seems—not to suffer pain?
Know’st thou not at the fall of the leaf How the soul feels like a dried sheaf Bound up at length for harvesting, And how death seems a comely thing In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 10, 2014 16:59:28 GMT -5
Sorry about my absence; the last week has been frantic!
November
Thomas Hood
No sun - no moon! No morn - no noon - No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day. No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member - No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! - November!
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 10, 2014 16:59:43 GMT -5
Autumn
Adam Zagajewski
Autumn is always too early. The peonies are still blooming, bees are still working out ideal states, and the cold bayonets of autumn suddenly glint in the fields and the wind rages.
What is its origin? Why should it destroy dreams, arbors, memories? The alien enters the hushed woods, anger advancing, insinuating plague; woodsmoke, the raucous howls of Tatars.
Autumn rips away leaves, names, fruit, it covers the borders and paths, extinguishes lamps and tapers; young autumn, lips purpled, embraces mortal creatures, stealing their existence.
Sap flows, sacrificed blood, wine, oil, wild rivers, yellow rivers swollen with corpses, the curse flowing on: mud, lava, avalanche, gush.
Breathless autumn, racing, blue knives glinting in her glance. She scythes names like herbs with her keen sickle, merciless in her blaze and her breath. Anonymous letter, terror, Red Army.
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Post by beth on Nov 10, 2014 18:02:16 GMT -5
Sorry about my absence; the last week has been frantic! November Thomas Hood No sun - no moon! No morn - no noon - No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day. No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member - No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! - November! Hadn't seen this one before. Love it! Finally, something that describes the way I feel about this time of year.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 11, 2014 17:05:09 GMT -5
Yes, Thomas Hood is best known for his humorous poems or his poetry of social protest.
Today is Remembrance Day so here are three very different poems commemorating that occasion.
For the Fallen
Laurence Binyon
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres. There is music in the midst of desolation And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more at familiar tables of home; They have no lot in our labour of the day-time; They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound, Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, To the innermost heart of their own land they are known As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain, As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, To the end, to the end, they remain.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 11, 2014 17:05:39 GMT -5
On Passing The New Menin Gate
Siegfried Sassoon
Who will remember, passing through this Gate, the unheroic dead who fed the guns? Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,- Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?
Crudely renewed, the Salient holds its own. Paid are its dim defenders by this pomp; Paid, with a pile of peace-complacent stone, The armies who endured that sullen swamp.
Here was the world's worst wound. And here with pride 'Their name liveth for ever', the Gateway claims. Was ever an immolation so belied as these intolerably nameless names? Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 11, 2014 17:05:56 GMT -5
Strange Meeting
Wilfred Owen
It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred. Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared With piteous recognition in fixed eyes, Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless. And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,— By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained; Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground, And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan. “Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.” “None,” said that other, “save the undone years, The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours, Was my life also; I went hunting wild After the wildest beauty in the world, Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair, But mocks the steady running of the hour, And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here. For by my glee might many men have laughed, And of my weeping something had been left, Which must die now. I mean the truth untold, The pity of war, the pity war distilled. Now men will go content with what we spoiled. Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled. They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress. None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress. Courage was mine, and I had mystery; Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: To miss the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled. Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels, I would go up and wash them from sweet wells, Even with truths that lie too deep for taint. I would have poured my spirit without stint But not through wounds; not on the cess of war. Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
“I am the enemy you killed, my friend. I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed. I parried; but my hands were loath and cold. Let us sleep now. . . .”
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 11, 2014 17:48:22 GMT -5
This is my own contribution - obviously not remotely in the same class as Owen, Sassoon and Binyon.
With Proud Thanksgiving
Valiantly they strove with Every part of their being To not simply stay alive Even though that would have been easier Rather than chancing bombs and guns And tanks and sniper fire Nobly they rose to the call of their native land Stood firm in faith and courage when others faltered Darting through no-man's-land to rescue comrades And often wounded or killed in their endeavour Yet their heroism saved lives and the world Yes, we honour them and always must, And cannot let their sacrifice turn into dust, Days and years must have passed but not their memories So we the living who remain Not maimed in mind or body, not tormented And racked with guilt and fear and our distress Reach out with our feeble spirits to your hearts Even across the boundaries of space and time To try and thank you, touch you with our love, Each part of our faint hearts aching for you, Valour too great for us to comprehend Vexed by our own safety, we admire Even from our safe distance, and our tears Too few to irrigate the blood that fell Each day on fields that once were lush and green, Rasping in hoarse farewells to the sad fallen, And knowing all our tears cannot wash clean Not a single trace of the pain and hurt you suffered, Still we the living do all that we can Days may turn into night, but your bright glory Ascends the starry ladder up to heaven, Yeast for eternal bread to leaven
(A triple acrostic for Remembrance Day)
(The actual prompt was Veterans Day)
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 12, 2014 16:04:30 GMT -5
Continuing the remembrance theme, here are three pieces that in very different ways are about death and remembering.
Here is the first one.
Remember
Christina Rossetti
Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you plann'd: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 12, 2014 16:04:53 GMT -5
I Remember You as You Were
Pablo Neruda
I remember you as you were in the last autumn. You were the grey beret and the still heart. In your eyes the flames of the twilight fought on. And the leaves fell in the water of your soul.
Clasping my arms like a climbing plant the leaves garnered your voice, that was slow and at peace. Bonfire of awe in which my thirst was burning. Sweet blue hyacinth twisted over my soul.
I feel your eyes traveling, and the autumn is far off: Grey beret, voice of a bird, heart like a house Towards which my deep longings migrated And my kisses fell, happy as embers.
Sky from a ship. Field from the hills: Your memory is made of light, of smoke, of a still pond! Beyond your eyes, farther on, the evenings were blazing. Dry autumn leaves revolved in your soul.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Nov 12, 2014 16:05:13 GMT -5
Turkish Memorial to ANZAC troops
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
Those heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives, you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side in this country of ours.
You, the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears, your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace.
After having lost their lives on this land they become our sons as well.
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