National Poetry Month Continues…

by

by hilzoy

Virtue

“Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall tonight;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.”

— George Herbert

10 thoughts on “National Poetry Month Continues…”

  1. SWEET rose, fair flower, untimely pluck’d, soon vaded,
    Pluck’d in the bud, and vaded in the spring!
    Bright orient pearl, alack! too timely shaded;
    Fair creature, kill’d too soon by death’s sharp sting!
    Like a green plum that hangs upon a tree,
    And falls, through wind, before the fall should be.
    I weep for thee, and yet no cause I have;
    For why thou left’st me nothing in thy will:
    And yet thou left’st me more than I did crave;
    For why I craved nothing of thee still:
    O yes, dear friend, I pardon crave of thee,
    Thy discontent thou didst bequeath to me.
    William Shakespeare
    http://www.bartleby.com/70/5210.html

  2. Hilzoy, are you signed up for the poem of the day from Knopf for National Poetry Month? They’ve had some good ones already–DiPiero, Piercy, Nurkse and Justice so far. You can sign up for it here.

  3. Nice choice, Hilzoy. What a compact puzzle, and how plainly laid out. The concentrically expanding lifetimes of a day, a rose, a season, and the world.
    Let’s hope these are not those times of fire which will prove our souls virtuous or not….

  4. The Sorceror
    There is a sorcerer in Lachine
    Who for a small fee will put a spell
    On my beloved, who has sea-green
    Eyes, and on my doting self as well.
    He will transform us, if we like, to goldfish:
    We shall swim in a crystal bowl;
    And the bright water will go swish
    Over our naked bodies; we shall have no soul.
    In the morning the syrupy sunshine
    Will dance on our tails and fins;
    I shall have her then all for mine,
    And Father Lebeau will hear no more of her sins.
    Come along, good sir, change us into goldfish,
    I would put away intellect and lust,
    Be but a red gleam in a crystal dish,
    But kin of the trembling ocean, not of the dust.
    A.J.M. Smith 1954
    (In the course of dredging this up off the net – my memory not being anywhere near good enough, after more than forty years – I found that although this final/best version of the poem dates from 1954, Smith published an earlier version of most of it in 1925! And improved it considerably in the revision. Which somehow encourages me, and should encourage all of us, that we may be able still to improve on our lives, even after decades of improvidence.)

  5. Decade
    by: Amy Lowell (1874 – 1925)
    When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
    And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
    Now you are like morning bread,
    Smooth and pleasant.
    I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,
    But I am completely nourished.

  6. Betrayal
    If a man says half himself in the light, adroit
    Way a tune shakes into equilibrium,
    Or approximates to a note that never comes:
    Says half himself in the way two pencil-lines
    Flow to each other and softly separate,
    In the resolute way plane lifts and leaps from plane:
    Who knows what intimacies our eyes may shout,
    What evident secrets daily foreheads flaunt,
    What panes of glass conceal our beating hearts?
    — A. S. J. Tessimond

  7. kiss
    your visit is the surprise
    of a cold-tounged kiss
    but, you warm to me too quickly
    lose your cool difference
    become choking wriggling
    strange meat in my mouth
    (me, 1990)

  8. I read ‘Pippa Passes’ last night and began to daydream about what effects she would have if she wandered about Washington instead (and what her song would sound like).

  9. Thank you, all of you. After years of reading history and novels, I started rediscovering poetry about 6 months ago. It’s wonderful how rereading a poem can transport me back to the first time I discovered it even while I now look at it with different eyes. It’s a profoundly moving experience.

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