by hilzoy
Because, let’s face it: the world needs more blog posts in which I post poems I like. Especially odd and obscure poems, like this one, which I’ve always found sort of endearing:
Her pretty feet
Like snails did creep
A little out, and then,
As if they played at Bo-peep,
Did soon draw in again.— Robert Herrick
(And, yes, I do plan to keep this up throughout the month. If any of the other posters feel like joining in, feel free.)
What a strange little poem. Thanks!
“…If any of the other posters feel like joining in, feel free.”
Oh, twist my arm.
When I was a child, I was given a small anthology of poems entitled “Silver Pennies” which is where I first read this poem by Harold Monro. I promptly drove my parents insane by reciting it every chance I got.
Some habits die hard.
Overheard on a Salmarsh
Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?
Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?
Give them me.
No.
Give them me. Give them me.
No.
Then I will howl all night in the reeds,
Lie in the mud and howl for them.
Goblin, why do you love them so?
They are better than stars or water,
Better than voices of winds that sing,
Better than any man’s fair daughter,
Your green glass beads on a silver ring.
Hush, I stole them out of the moon.
Give me your beads, I want them.
No.
I will howl in the deep lagoon
For your green glass beads, I love them so.
Give them me. Give them.
No.
D’oh…you mean front page posters. Apologies, I get blinded by Poetry Month.
Blindness – easily done in April.
H, how do you scan the next-to-last line? “as IF they PLAYED at BO-peep”?
wren: I just assumed that anyone who felt like keeping up the wonderful tradition of putting their own favorite poems in comments would, but that it might be less obvious to, say, von or Seb or publius that I’d love it if they did the posts some days. After all, I already know all my own favorites…
Vance: since it was written in the 17th century, I thought that ‘played’ might have two syllables, or at least that the option of pronouncing it that way might be more of a live one then.
Can we all play? A couple of favorites.
Roethke
http://www.gawow.com/roethke/poems/104.html
http://www.gawow.com/roethke/poems/122.html
James Wright
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-blessing/
Neruda
http://people.ucsc.edu/~nlivni/plugin/neruda/poem20.htm
All chestnuts to be sure, but all great work.
There’s a great story about the Neruda. He went to give a reading, found that he had not brought his materials along, and the audience recited this poem to him from memory.
What a delightful set of threads.
Thanks –
I’ll add another chesnut, but one the seems to fit the moment.
Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth’s foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling,
And took their wages, and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth’s foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.
A.E. Housman
russell: glad you like them. It would be a shame if you didn’t, since there are 28 days left in National Poetry Month…
That Herrick is as much porn as poem.
The Housman poem above is horribly complex – it’s dangerous to read any particular meaning into it.
Thank you Hilzoy, I did understand what you meant after I slowed down a bit and I hope your invitation bears fruit…or at least a poem or two. 🙂
Russell, Roethke’s “I Knew A Woman” is one of my very favorites as well. James Wright’s ‘A Blessing’ always makes me think of Wendell Berry’s work.
Rilkefan, your comment re: Housman put me in mind of Wendy Cope:
I think I am in love with A. E. Housman,
Which puts me in a worse than usual fix.
No woman ever stood a chance with Housman,
AND he’s been dead since 1936.
Thanks.
as i lower my face to you
two silhouettes on the wall next to us
are coming together to kiss
and i pause to watch to learn
how shadows interpret love
but they turn to us away from each other
at this same instant
annoyed at our interruption
Another original cleek? I assume so as you did not cite the author. You are pretty good…
OCSteve, yes, another original.
(thanks!)
Are you thinking of having a Bad Poetry Day? Because I could always post the first couple of verses of “Ashtabula Bridge Disaster,” by Julia Moore, the Sweet Singer of Michigan.
But right this minute I’m going to behave myself.
But right this minute I’m going to behave myself.
I was going to request a lymric day but then had that same thought.
Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.
Oooh, here’s a favorite that’s brief. I actually have it on my bulletin board at work.
Frank O’Hara
Lana Turner Has Collapsed
Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hail hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
Lana Turner Has Collapsed!
There is no snow in Hollywood
There is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up
more Herrick:
Another Upon Her Weeping
She by the river sat, and sitting there,
She wept, and made it deeper by a tear.
Well, if we’re thinking about Herrick, I can’t leave this one out (oh, and cleek, nice work – on your own poems, I mean):
The Night-Piece, to Julia
Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee,
The shooting stars attend thee;
And the elves also,
Whose little eyes glow
Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee.
No Will-o’-th’-Wisp mislight thee,
Nor snake or slow-worm bite thee;
But on, on thy way,
Not making a stay,
Since ghost there’s none to affright thee.
Let not the dark thee cumber:
What though the moon does slumber?
The stars of the night
Will lend thee their light
Like tapers clear without number.
Then, Julia, let me woo thee,
Thus, thus to come unto me;
And when I shall meet
Thy silv’ry feet
My soul I’ll pour into thee.
javelina, thanks!
my favorite Herrick:
Her Legs
Fain would I kiss my Julia’s dainty leg,
Which is as white and hairless as an egg.
he sure had a thing for Julia…
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter–bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.”
— Stephen Crane
It seems an appropriate moment for Robert Graves’ ‘The Persian Version’:
Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon
The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
As for the Greek theatrical tradition
Which represents that summer’s expedition
Not as a mere reconnaisance in force
By three brigades of foot and one of horse
(Their left flank covered by some obsolete
Light craft detached from the main Persian fleet)
But as a grandiose, ill-starred attempt
To conquer Greece – they treat it with contempt;
And only incidentally refute
Major Greek claims, by stressing what repute
The Persian monarch and the Persian nation
Won by this salutary demonstration:
Despite a strong defence and adverse weather
All arms combined magnificently together.
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast;
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart;
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
–Andrew Marvell
To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.
I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.
Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.
Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.
Li-Young Lee
If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons
we should drink:
Good wine –
A friend –
Or being dry –
Or lest we should be, by and by –
Or any other reason why!
– Henry Aldrich 1647-1710
I love the poems posted here.
The poem by Li-Young Lee is absolutely beautiful.
Time to steal LJ’s thunder by posting one of the most famous poems in Japanese. In translation, ’cause I suck:
The old pond;
A frog jumps in —
The sound of the water
– Basho
There’s a book with 100 translations of the poem entitled One Hundred Frogs by Hiroaki Sato, which is pretty fun
Here’s a link with 30 translations that mentions the book.
Sorry not to be around much, school’s starting and being in the states in March has put me way behind.
Banana tree!
wren–I remember thepoem about the green glass beads from my childhood. It was in an anthology?