Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter
There was such speed in her little body,
And such lightness in her footfall,
It is no wonder her brown study
Astonishes us all.
Her wars were bruited in our high window.
We looked among orchard trees and beyond
Where she took arms against her shadow,
Or harried unto the pond
The lazy geese, like a snow cloud
Dripping their snow on the green grass,
Tricking and stopping, sleepy and proud,
Who cried in goose, Alas,
For the tireless heart within the little
Lady with rod that made them rise
From their noon apple-dreams and scuttle
Goose-fashion under the skies!
But now go the bells, and we are ready,
In one house we are sternly stopped
To say we are vexed at her brown study,
Lying so primly propped.
By John Crowe Ransom
[b]The Oven Bird[b]
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
By Robert Frost
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Gordon Lightfoot
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee."
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
when the "Gales of November" came early.
The ship was the pride of the American side
coming back from some mill in Wisconsin.
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
with a crew and good captain well seasoned,
concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
when they left fully loaded for Cleveland.
And later that night when the ship's bell rang,
could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?
The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
and a wave broke over the railing.
And ev'ry man knew, as the captain did too
'twas the witch of November come stealin'.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
when the Gales of November came slashin'.
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
in the face of a hurricane west wind.
When suppertime came the old cook came on deck
Sayin' "Fellas, it's too rough t'feed ya."
At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in; he said,
"Fellas, it's bin good t'know ya!"
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
and the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when 'is lights went outta sight
came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Does any one know where the love of God goes
when the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
they may have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
in the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
the islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
with the Gales of November remembered.
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
in the "Maritime Sailors' Cathedral."
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they call "Gitche Gumee."
"Superior," they said, "never gives up her dead
when the gales of November come early!"
My apologies if lyrics are not considered poems in this thread.
This month saw the 40th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald on November 10, 1975.
Originally posted by SuzianneYep, I read that when I was in Cleveland visiting a couple of chess buddies, husband and wife, they drove from upper Michigan and my wife and I drove from Allentown Pa, roughly meeting in the middle. They are Puregoldlight at RHP and he is Accoster.
[b]The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Gordon Lightfoot
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee."
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
that good shi ...[text shortened]... month saw the 40th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald on November 10, 1975.[/b]
My wife had a very bad time of it, falling down just getting into the Hotel there, a small rise in the asphalt painted yellow but it looks like just a flat line painted yellow but she sustained torn ligaments in one hand and stretched tendon in the other,
Litigation is likely since it is the fault of the hotel.
As soon as she fell, I got out of the car, was just coming in to the staging area to give the car to the Valets and one of them said, wow, that is the third one today to fall on that yellow line.
Found out later that has been going on for months with dozens of people tripping over that rise in the asphalt so it is definitely their fault for not fixing it, like making a bit of a ramp out of it or something, ramping it up all the way to the curb.
She has no strength in her hands right now and word from the ER doc's is both hands will have to be operated on to fix her as best they can,
We even got a letter calling her the litigant so the hotel suits are already considering it a lawsuit case before we even file
Originally posted by SuzianneThanks, Suzianne, for an excellent historical theme poem.
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Gordon Lightfoot
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee."
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
that good ship a ...[text shortened]... This month saw the 40th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald on November 10, 1975.
"Poem in October" read by Dylan Thomas (Powerful. Enjoy)
"Dylan Marlias Thomas, the greatest of the poets of Wales was born on 27th October 1914. He found out early that he hated academics, although he regretted it later. Dylan’s early verse style tended to unobscurity and exaggerated metaphor though he was a poet of villa and family. Dylan often set his listeners alive by his voice of elation and anguish ringing over their heads. In his own time Dylan was a myth and a legend who mesmerized large audiences through his poetry, his B.B.C. broadcasts and his recitations of his own poetry during his various lecture tours of the U.S.A. He came to be regarded as the greatest lyric poet of his age.
The poem was written in 1944 and published in the volume of poems – Death and Entrance (1946). It was written in the seclusion or his Welsh retreat at New Quay in Laugharne. Dylan had already exhausted the material of his four Swansea Notebooks and so the lyric is not a re-working of earlier material but an entirely fresh composition, representing the following of Dylan’s genius at the close of the war. This birthday lyric at once set the seat of critical approval on his reputation. The lyric has none of the obscurity and the abundant imagery of the poems in the earlier volumes. It can be easily understood as it is characterized by clarity and lucidity.
In his birthday poems Dylan is often seeking to ‘marvel’ time away to claim his freedom which dissociation or separateness brings. The world is ‘his’ world – it is him.
“My birthday . . .
Above the farms . . .”
The rain is a shower of all days: but this pathetic fallacy cannot be wholly sustained. He finds freedom and immediacy in relating to objects, which he imagines. But this escape into a dream-world is short lived, and reality inevitably breaks in..."
https://beamingnotes.com/2014/09/27/summary-analysis-poem-october-dylan-thomas/
"Poem in October" read by Dylan Thomas (Powerful 3.5 minutes. Enjoy)
"Dylan Marlias Thomas, the greatest of the poets of Wales was born on 27th October 1914. He found out early that he hated academics, although he regretted it later. Dylan’s early verse style tended to unobscurity and exaggerated metaphor though he was a poet of villa and family. Dylan often set his listeners alive by his voice of elation and anguish ringing over their heads. In his own time Dylan was a myth and a legend who mesmerized large audiences through his poetry, his B.B.C. broadcasts and his recitations of his own poetry during his various lecture tours of the U.S.A. He came to be regarded as the greatest lyric poet of his age.
The poem was written in 1944 and published in the volume of poems – Death and Entrance (1946). It was written in the seclusion or his Welsh retreat at New Quay in Laugharne. Dylan had already exhausted the material of his four Swansea Notebooks and so the lyric is not a re-working of earlier material but an entirely fresh composition, representing the following of Dylan’s genius at the close of the war. This birthday lyric at once set the seat of critical approval on his reputation. The lyric has none of the obscurity and the abundant imagery of the poems in the earlier volumes. It can be easily understood as it is characterized by clarity and lucidity.
In his birthday poems Dylan is often seeking to ‘marvel’ time away to claim his freedom which dissociation or separateness brings. The world is ‘his’ world – it is him.
“My birthday . . .
Above the farms . . .”
The rain is a shower of all days: but this pathetic fallacy cannot be wholly sustained. He finds freedom and immediacy in relating to objects, which he imagines. But this escape into a dream-world is short lived, and reality inevitably breaks in..."
https://beamingnotes.com/2014/09/27/summary-analysis-poem-october-dylan-thomas/
How Do I Love Thee?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Raven (excerpt) by Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door —
Only this, and nothing more."
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore —
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore —
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me — filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door —
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; —
This it is, and nothing more,"
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you" — here I opened wide the door; —
Darkness there, and nothing more.
"The Raven (excerpt)" by Edgar Allan Poe. Public domain.
On his Day in History Jan 19, 1809
"On this day in 1809, poet, author and literary critic Edgar Allan Poe is born in Boston, Massachusetts.
By the time he was three years old, both of Poe’s parents had died, leaving him in the care of his godfather, John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant. After attending school in England, Poe entered the University of Virginia (UVA) in 1826. After fighting with Allan over his heavy gambling debts, he was forced to leave UVA after only eight months. Poe then served two years in the U.S. Army and won an appointment to West Point. After another falling-out, Allan cut him off completely and he got himself dismissed from the academy for rules infractions.
Dark, handsome and brooding, Poe had published three works of poetry by that time, none of which had received much attention. In 1836, while working as an editor at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond, Virginia, Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. He also completed his first full-length work of fiction, Arthur Gordon Pym, published in 1838. Poe lost his job at the Messenger due to his heavy drinking, and the couple moved to Philadelphia, where Poe worked as an editor at Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and Graham’s Magazine. He became known for his direct and incisive criticism, as well as for dark horror stories like “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Also around this time, Poe began writing mystery stories, including “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and “The Purloined Letter”–works that would earn him a reputation as the father of the modern detective story.
In 1844, the Poes moved to New York City. He scored a spectacular success the following year with his poem “The Raven.” While Poe was working to launch The Broadway Journal–which soon failed–his wife Virginia fell ill and died of tuberculosis in early 1847. His wife’s death drove Poe even deeper into alcoholism and drug abuse. After becoming involved with several women, Poe returned to Richmond in 1849 and got engaged to an old flame. Before the wedding, however, Poe died suddenly. Though circumstances are somewhat unclear, it appeared he began drinking at a party in Baltimore and disappeared, only to be found incoherent in a gutter three days later. Taken to the hospital, he died on October 7, 1849, at age 40." http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
The Wild Swans at Coole
By W. B. Yeats
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
Survey of Literature (John Crowe Ransom) June 23, 2009
In all the good Greek of Plato
I lack my roastbeef and potato.
A better man was Aristotle,
Pulling steady on the bottle.
I dip my hat to Chaucer,
Swilling soup from his saucer.
And to Master Shakespeare
Who wrote big on small beer.
The abstemious Wordsworth
Subsisted on a curd’s worth,
But a slick one was Tennyson,
Putting gravy on his venison.
What these men had to eat and drink
Is what we say and what we think.
The influence of Milton
Came wry out of Stilton.
Sing a song for Percy Shelley,
Drowned in pale lemon jelly,
And for precious John Keats,
Dripping blood of pickled beets.
Then there was poor Willie Blake,
He foundered on sweet cake.
God have mercy on the sinner
Who must write with no dinner,
No gravy and no grub,
No pewter and no pub,
No belly and no bowels,
Only consonants and vowels.
If—
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Source: A Choice of Rudyard Kipling's Verse (1943)
"Why do I love" You, Sir? (480)
Because—
The Wind does not require the Grass
To answer—Wherefore when He pass
She cannot keep Her place.
Because He knows—and
Do not You—
And We know not—
Enough for Us
The Wisdom it be so—
The Lightning—never asked an Eye
Wherefore it shut—when He was by—
Because He knows it cannot speak—
And reasons not contained—
—Of Talk—
There be—preferred by Daintier Folk—
The Sunrise—Sire—compelleth Me—
Because He's Sunrise—and I see—
Therefore—Then—
I love Thee—
Emily Dickinson
_____________________
Thank you. And you know who you are...........