Christmas Comes Again

Let me be merry now, 't is time;

     The season is at hand

For Christmas rhyme and Christmas chime,

     Close up, and form the band.

The winter fires still burn as bright,

     The lamp-light is as clear,

And since the dead are out of sight,

     What hinders Christmas cheer?

Why think or speak of that abyss

     In which lies all my Past?

High festival I need not miss,

     While song and jest shall last.

We'll clink and drink on Christmas Eve,

     Our ghosts can feel no wrong;

They revelled ere they took their leave --

     Hearken, my Soldier's song:

"The morning air doth coldly pass,

Comrades, to the saddle spring;

The night more bitter cold will bring

Ere dying -- ere dying.

Sweetheart, come, the parting glass;

Glass and sabre, clash, clash, clash,

Ere dying -- ere dying.

Stirrup-cup and stirrup-kiss --

Do you hope the foe we'll miss,

Sweetheart, for this loving kiss,

Ere dying -- ere dying?"

The feasts and revels of the year

     Do ghosts remember long?

Even in memory come they here?

     Listen, my Sailor's song:

"Oh, my hearties, yo heave ho!

Anchor's up in Jolly Bay --

Hey!

Pipes and swipes, hob and nob --

Hey!

Mermaid Bess and Dolphin Meg,

Paddle over Jolly Bay --

Hey!

Tars, haul in for Christmas Day,

For round the 'varsal deep we go;

Never church, never bell,

For to tell

Of Christmas Day.

You heave ho, my hearties, O!

Haul in, mates, here we lay --

Hey!"

His sword is rusting in its sheath,

     His flag furled on the wall;

We'll twine them with a holly-wreath,

     With green leaves cover all.

So clink and drink when falls the eve;

     But, comrades, hide from me

Their graves -- I would not see them heave

     Beside me, like the sea.

Let not my brothers come again,

     As men dead in their prime;

Then hold my hands, forget my pain,

     And strike the Christmas chime.

 Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

 1895

BIO: Elizabeth Drew Stoddard only published one volume of poems in her lifetime, a collection in 1895 called Poems. Born in 1823, she lived through the Civil War, which may explain the military theme of this poem. She died in 1902.

 

November Poems

 

November

by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard

Much have I spoken of the faded leaf;

       Long have I listened to the wailing wind,

And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds,

       For autumn charms my melancholy mind.

When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge:

       The year must perish; all the flowers are dead;

The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail

       Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled!

Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer,

       The holly-berries and the ivy-tree:

They weave a chaplet for the Old Year's bier,

       These waiting mourners do not sing for me!

I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods,

       Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss;

The naked, silent trees have taught me this, --

       The loss of beauty is not always loss!

BIO: Elizabeth Drew Stoddard was born in Massachusetts in 1923. She published one volume of poems during her lifetime, POEMS, in 1895. She died in 1902.

November Evening

by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Come, for the dusk is our own; let us fare forth together,

With a quiet delight in our hearts for the ripe, still, autumn weather,

Through the rustling valley and wood and over the crisping meadow,

Under a high-sprung sky, winnowed of mist and shadow.

Sharp is the frosty air, and through the far hill-gaps showing

Lucent sunset lakes of crocus and green are glowing;

'Tis the hour to walk at will in a wayward, unfettered foaming,

Caring for naught save the charm, elusive and swift, of the gloaming.

Watchful and stirless the fields as if not unkindly holding

Harvested joys in their clasp, and to their bosoms folding

The hopes of a Spring, trusted to motherly keeping,

All to be cherished and happed through the months of their sleeping.

Silent the woods are and gray; but the firs than ever are greener,

Nipped by the frost till the tang of their loosened balsam is keener;

And one little wind in their boughs, eerily swaying and swinging,

Very soft and low, like a wandering minstrel is singing.

Beautiful is the year, but not as the spring-like maiden

Garlanded with her hopes, rather the woman laden

With wealth of joy and grief, worthily won through living,

Wearing her sorrow now like a garment of praise and thanksgiving.

Gently the dark comes down over the wild, fair places,

The whispering glens in the hills, the open, starry spaces;

Rich with the gifts of the night, seated with questing and dreaming,

We turn to the dearest of paths where the star of the home light is gleaming.

       

Ghost House - Robert Frost

 

Ghost House 

I dwell in a lonely house I know

That vanished many a summer ago,

     And left no trace but the cellar walls,

     And a cellar in which the daylight falls

And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.

O'er ruined fences the grape-vines shield

The woods come back to the mowing field;

     The orchard tree has grown one copse

Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;

The footpath down to the well is healed.

I dwell with a strangely aching heart

In that vanished abode there far apart

     On that disused and forgotten road

     That has no dust-bath now for the toad.

Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;

The whippoorwill is coming to shout

And hush and cluck and flutter about:

     I hear him begin far enough away

     Full many time to say his say

Before he arrives to say it out.

It is under the small, dim, summer star.

I know not who these mute folk are

     Who share the unlit place with me --

     Those stones out under the low-limbed tree

Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.

They are tireless folk, but slow and sad --

Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad, --

     With none among them that ever sings,

     And yet, in view of how many things,

As sweet companions as might be had.

BIO: Robert Frost - one of America's most beloved poets - was born in San Francisco, CA in 1874 and died in Boston, MA in 1963. He was a teacher and poet who published numerous volumes of poems.

     

The Sleeping Beauty by Dawn Pisturino

 

Sleeping Beauty by John Collier, 1921

The Sleeping Beauty

Dedicated to my daughter, Ariel Pisturino

Lying there in sweet repose,

Lips as red as any rose,

The Sleeping Beauty rests her head

Upon a gold and velvet bed;

Golden tresses fair displayed

Around the shoulders softly laid,

Be-decked in sequined, jeweled dress,

Her slender hands across her breast.

Fair Maid! -- What evil cast you here

To sleep a full one hundred year

Until a Prince with noble pride

Into the castle court should ride

And climb the steeply winding stair

To find a maid with golden hair

Lying on a couch asleep,

Lost in dreaming long and deep,

And drop upon the tender lips

A kiss so pure the magic slips.

And, lo! -- the eyelids flutter wide

And see a vision at her side:

A handsome Prince so near and nigh,

The maiden cannot help but sigh

And stretch out pleading hands to him

Who kissed her softly on a whim,

And thanking him with grateful smile,

Requests of him to stay a while.

The Prince proves better than a guest

And presses her against his breast;

Then carries her, swift as the wind,

Upon his horse across the land

To marble castle rising high

Against the purple morning sky.

And when she curtsies to the King,

The Queen presents her with a ring

And crown of jewels sparkling white --

Gifts of softly glowing light --

That bind her to her Prince's life:

No more a maid! -- but now, his wife!

Dawn Pisturino

April 25, 1987/October 20, 2020

Copyright 1987-2020 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.

 

Graveyard Poetry for Halloween

 Victorian Hearse

Requiem

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie:

Glad did I live and gladly die,

     And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he long'd to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

     And the hunter home from the hill.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson ~

An Epitaph upon a Young Married Couple, Dead and Buried Together

To these, whom Death again did wed,

This grave's their second marriage-bed.

For though the hand of fate could force

'Twixt soul and body a divorce,

It could not sunder man and wife,

'Cause they both lived but one life.

Peace, good Reader. Do not weep.

Peace, the lovers are asleep.

They, sweet turtles, folded lie

In the last knot love could tie;

And though they lie as they were dead,

Their pillow stone, their sheets of lead,

(Pillow hard, and sheets not warm)

Love made the bed; they'll take no harm.

Let them sleep: let them sleep on,

Till this stormy night be gone,

Till the eternal morrow dawn;

Then the curtains will be drawn

And they wake into a light

Whose day shall never die in night.

~ Richard Crashaw ~

The Grave

Oft in the lone church-yard at night I've seen

By glimpse of moon-shine, chequering thro' the trees,

The schoolboy with his satchel in his hand,

Whistling aloud to bear his courage up,

And lightly tripping o'er the long flat stones

(With nettles skirted, and with moss o'ergrown),

That tell in homely phrase who lie below;

Sudden! he starts, and hears, or thinks he hears

The sound of something purring at his heels:

Full fast he flies, and dares not look behind him,

Till out of breath he overtakes his fellows;

Who gather round, and wonder at the tale

Of horrid Apparition, tall and ghastly,

That walks at dead of night, or takes his stand

O'er some new-opened Grave; and, strange to tell!

Evanishes at crowing of the cock.

~ Robert Blair ~

Twelve Minutes

The hearse comes up the road

With its funeral load

Sharp on the stroke of twelve.

I greet it myself,

Good-morning the head man

Who's brought the dead man.

I say we're four only.

Still, he won't be lonely.

Being next of kin

I'm the first one in

Behind the bearers,

The black mourning wearers.

(A quick thought appals:

What if one trips and falls?)

They lay him safely down,

The coffin a light brown.

Prayers begin. I sit

And let my mind admit

That screwed-down speechless thing

And how another spring

His spouse was carried here.

Now they're remarried here

And may be happier even

In the clean church of heaven.

We say the last amen.

A button's pressed and then

To canned funeral strains

His dear dead remains,

Eighty-four years gone by,

Sink with a whirring sigh.

I tip and say good-bye.

~ J.C. Hall ~

Joyce by Herself and Her Friends

If I should go before the rest of you

Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone,

Nor when I'm gone speak in a Sunday voice

But be the usual selves that I have known.

     Weep if you must,

     Parting is hell,

     But life goes on,

     So sing as well.

~ Joyce Grenfell ~

Song

When I am dead, my dearest,

     Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

     Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

     With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

     And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,

     I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

     Sing on, as if in pain;

And dreaming through the twilight

     That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

     And haply may forget.

~ Christina Rossetti ~

The Unquiet Grave

'The wind doth blow today, my love,

     And a few small drops of rain;

I never had but one true love,

     In cold grave she was lain.

I'll do as much for my true love

     As any young man may;

I'll sit and mourn all at her grave

     For a twelvemonth and a day.'

The twelvemonth and a day being up,

     The dead began to speak,

'Oh who sits weeping on my grave,

     And will not let me sleep?'

''Tis I, my love, sits on your grave

     And will not let you sleep,

For I crave one kiss of your clay-cold lips

     And that is all I seek.'

'You crave one kiss of my clay-cold lips,

     But my breath smells earthy strong;

If you have one kiss of my clay-cold lips

     Your time will not be long:

'Tis down in yonder garden green,

     Love, where we used to walk,

The finest flower that ere was seen

     Is withered to a stalk.

The stalk is withered dry, my love,

     So will our hearts decay;

So make yourself content, my love,

     Till God calls you away.'

~ Anonymous ~

Untitled

With courage seek the kingdom of the dead;

The path before you lies,

It is not hard to find, nor tread;

No rocks to climb, no lanes to thread;

But broad, and straight, and even still,

And ever gently slopes downhill;

You cannot miss it, though you shut your eyes.

~ Leonidas of Tarentum ~

All Souls Day

Be careful, then, and be gentle about death.

For it is hard to die, it is difficult to go through

the door, even when it opens.

And the poor dead, when they have left the walled

and silvery city of the now hopeless body

where are they to go, Oh where are they to go?

They linger in the shadow of the earth.

The earth's long conical shadow is full of souls

that cannot find the way across the sea of change.

Be kind, Oh be kind to your dead

and give them a little encouragement

and help them to build their little ship of death.

For the soul has a long, long journey after death

to the sweet home of pure oblivion.

Each needs a little ship, a little ship

and the proper store of meal for the longest journey.

Oh, from out of your heart

provide for your dead once more, equip them

like departing mariners, lovingly.

~ D.H. Lawrence ~

I Know the Truth

The wind is level now, the earth is wet with dew,

the storm of stars in the sky will turn to quiet,

And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we

who never let each other sleep above it.

~ Marina Tsvetayeva ~

Troades

After death nothing is, and nothing, death:

The utmost limit of a gasp of breath.

Let the ambitious zealot lay aside

His hopes of heaven, whose faith is but his pride;

     Let slavish souls lay by their fear,

     Nor be concerned which way nor where

     After this life they shall be hurled.

Dead, we become the lumber of the world,

And to that mass of matter shall be swept

Where things destroyed with things unborn are kept.

     Devouring time swallows us whole;

Impartial death confounds body and soul.

     For Hell and the foul fiend that rules

     God's everlasting fiery jails

     (Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),

With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,

     Are senseless stories, idle tales,

        Dreams, whimseys, and no more.

~ Seneca ~

Halloween, All Souls Day, All Saints Day, and the Day of the Dead ARE holidays for the dead and the dead ones we love and keep in our hearts forever.

Night Pieces for Halloween - William Wordsworth

 

A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal

A slumber did my spirit seal;

     I had no human fears:

She seemed a thing that could not feel

     The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;

     She neither hears nor sees;

Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,

     With rocks, and stones, and trees.

She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,

A maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!

--Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

A Night-Piece

----The sky is overcast

With a continuous cloud of texture close,

Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon,

Which through that veil is indistinctly seen,

A dull, contracted circle, yielding light

So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls,

Chequering the ground -- from rock, plant, tree, or tower.

At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam

Startles the pensive traveller while he treads

His lonesome path, with unobserving eye

Bent earthwards; he looks up -- the clouds are split

Asunder, -- and above his head he sees

The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.

There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,

Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small

And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss

Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away,

Yet vanish not! -- the wind is in the tree,

But they are silent; --still they roll along

Immeasurably distant; and the vault,

Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,

Still deepens its unfathomable depth.

At length the Vision closes; and the mind,

Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,

Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,

Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.

BIO: William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born on April 7, 1770 at Cockermouth, Cumbria, England. He was known for his interest in the "common man" and his call for the use of "common speech" in poetry. His lyrical style had a profound effect on the Romantic Movement. He died on April 23, 1850. His most influential work, The Prelude, was published posthumously.

Autumn

 

Autumn

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn

Stand shadowless like Silence, listening

To silence, for no lonely bird would sing

Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,

Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;--

Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright

With tangled gossamer that fell by night,

       Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer?--With the sun,

Oping the dusky eyelids of the South,

Till shade and silence waken up as one,

And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.

Where are the merry birds?--Away, away,

On panting wings through the inclement skies,

       Lest owls should prey

       Undazzled at noonday,

And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer?--In the West,

Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,

When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest

Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rs

       To a most gloomy breast.

Where is the pride of Summer,--the green prime,--

The many, many leaves all twinkling? Three

On the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime

Trembling,--and one upon the old oak-tree!

       Where is the Dryad's immortality?--

Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,

Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through

       In the smooth holly's green eternity.

The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard,

The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain,

       And honey bees have stored

   The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells;

   The swallows all have wing'd across the main;

   But here the autumn Melancholy dwells,

       And sighs her tearful spells

   Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.

       Alone, alone,

       Upon a mossy stone,

She sits and reckons up the dead and gone

With the last leaves for a love-rosary,

Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily,

Like a dim picture of the drowned past

In the hush'd mind's mysterious far away,

Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last

Into that distance, grey upon the grey.

O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded

Under the languid downfall of her hair!

She wears a coronal of flowers faded

Upon her forehead, and a face of care;--

There is enough of wither'd everywhere

To make her bower,--and enough of gloom;

There is enough of sadness to invite,

If only for the rose that died, whose doom

is Beauty's,--she that with the living bloom

Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light:

There is enough of sorrowing, and quite

Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,--

Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl;

Enough of fear and shadowy despair,

To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!

Thomas Hood (1799-1845)

BIO: Thomas Hood was born in London, where he became a poet and humorist. He is best known for inventing "picture puns." His works include Odes and Addresses to Great People (1825) and Whims and Oddities (1826). In 1844, he started his own magazine called Hood's Monthly Magazine.

Webster's Definition of "autumn" - 1. the season  between summer and winter; fall. Northern hemisphere: from the September equinox to the December solstice. Southern hemisphere: from the March  equinox to the June solstice. 2. late stages of maturity.

"autumnal" = 1. belonging to or suggestive of autumn. 2. past maturity.

       

Prologue to the Gospel of St. John

 

St. John the Apostle 

In the beginning was the Word:

the Word was with God

and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things came to be,

not one thing had its being but through him.

All that came to be had life in him

and that life was the light of men,

a light that shines in the dark,

a light that darkness could not overpower.

A man came, sent by God.

His name was John.

He came as a witness,

as a witness to speak for the light,

so that everyone might believe through him.

He was not the light,

only a witness to speak for the light.

The Word was the true light

that enlightens all men;

and he was coming into the world.

He was in the world

that had its being through him,

and the world did not know him.

He came to his own domain

and his own people did not accept him.

But to all who did accept him

he gave power to become children of God,

to all who believe in the name of him

who was born not out of human stock

or urge of the flesh

or will of man

but of God himself.

The word was made of flesh,

he lived among us,

and we saw his glory,

the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father,

full of grace and truth.

John appears as his witness. He proclaims:

"This is the one of whom I said:

He who comes after me

ranks before me

because he existed before me."

Indeed, from his fullness we have, all of us, received--

yes, grace in return for grace,

since, though the Law was given through Moses,

grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God;

it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father's heart,

who has made him known.

from The Jerusalem Bible

 

Israeli Poetry by Natan Alterman

Flag of Israel

The Silver Platter

The Earth grows still.

The lurid sky slowly pales

Over smoking borders.

Heartsick, but still living, a people stand by

To greet the uniqueness

Of the miracle.

Readied, they wait beneath the moon,

Wrapped in awesome joy, before the light.

-- Then, soon,

A girl and boy step forward,

And slowly walk before the waiting nation;

In work garb and heavy-shod

They climb

In stillness.

Wearing yet the dress of battle, the grime

Of aching day and fire-filled night

Unwashed, weary unto death, not knowing rest,

But wearing youth like dewdrops in their hair.

-- Silently the two approach

And stand.

Are they of the quick or of the dead?

Through wondering tears, the people stare.

"Who are you, the silent two?"

And they reply: "We are the silver platter

Upon which the Jewish State was served to you."

And speaking, fall in shadow at the nation's feet.

Let the rest in Israel's chronicles be told.

1947

MOON

An old sight too has its moment of birth.

A birdless sky

Strange and set apart.

Facing your window on the moonlit night stands

A city plunged in crickets' tears.

And when you see a road still watching for a wayfarer

And the moon

Is on the cypress spear,

You say: 'My God, are all these things still out there?

May one whisper them a greeting?

From their pools the waters gaze upon us.

The tree is at rest

In a flush of catkin blossoms.

Never shall the sorrow of Your great playthings

Be plucked from me, O our God.

1938

BIO: Natan Alterman (1910-1970) was a Jewish poet and translator who had a profound influence on modern Hebrew poetry. As a Socialist Zionist and Pro-Nationalist Israeli, he worked tirelessly during the Israeli War of Independence from 1945 to 1947 to make the Israeli dream of independence from British colonial rule a reality. His poem, "The Silver Platter," celebrates the creation of the nation of Israel. Many of his poems focus on Jewish history and, in particular, the horrors of the Holocaust. In 1968, he was awarded the Israel Prize for literature.

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom - T.E. Lawrence

T.E. Lawrence - "Lawrence of Arabia"

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

I loved you, so I drew these tides of

Men into my hands

And wrote my will across the

Sky and stars

To earn you freedom, the seven

Pillared worthy house,

That your eyes might be

Shining for me

When we came

Death seemed my servant on the

Road, 'til we were near

And saw you waiting:

When you smiled and in sorrowful

Envy he outran me

And took you apart:

Into his quietness

Love, the way-weary, groped to your body,

Our brief wage

Ours for the moment

Before Earth's soft hand explored your shape

And the blind

Worms grew fat upon

Your substance

Men prayed me that I set our work,

The inviolate house,

As a memory of you

But for fit monument I shattered it,

Unfinished: and now

The little things creep out to patch

Themselves hovels

In the marred shadow

Thomas Edmund Lawrence (1888-1935)

BIO: T.E. Lawrence was a British military officer who is best remembered as "Lawrence of Arabia." He was instrumental in aiding the Arabic revolt against the Turkish Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. He wanted Arabs in the Middle East to be a free people. But the Middle East was split into British and French colonies over his objections. Oil was a major factor in this decision. Always a scholar who could speak several languages, he died in a motorcycle accident in 1935.

Poetry in the Time of Plague

Doctor Wearing a Plague Mask

A Litany in Time of Plague

Adieu, farewell earth's bliss!

This world uncertain is:

Fond are life's lustful joys,

Death proves them all but toys.

None from his darts can fly;

I am sick, I must die --

Lord, have mercy on us!

Rich men, trust not in wealth,

Gold cannot buy you health;

Physic himself must fade;

All things to end are made;

The plague full swift goes by;

I am sick, I must die --

Lord, have mercy on us!

Thomas Nash (1567-1601)

The Triumph of Death (excerpt)

London now smokes with vapours that arise

From his foul sweat, himself he so bestirs:

'Cast out your dead!' the carcass-carrier cries,

Which by heaps in groundless graves inters.

Now like to bees in summer's heat from hives,

Out fly the citizens, some here, some there;

Some all alone, and others with their wives:

With wives and children some fly, all for fear!

Here stands a watch, with guard of partisans,

To stop their passages, or to and fro,

As if they were not men, nor Christians,

But fiends or monsters, murdering as they go . . .

John Davies, (1569-1626)

The Plague

' Listen, the last stroke of death's noon has struck --

The plague is come,' a gnashing Madman said,

And laid him down straightway upon his bed.

His writhed hands did at the linen pluck;

Then all is over. With a careless chuck

Among his fellows he is cast. How sped

His spirit matters little: many dead

Make men hard-hearted. -- 'Place him on the truck.

Go forth into the burial ground and find

Room at so much a pitiful for so many.

One thing is to be done; one thing is clear:

Keep thou back from the hot unwholesome wind,

That it infect not thee.' Say, is there any

Who mourneth for the multitude dead here?

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Biographies:

Thomas Nash was an Elizabethan playwright and poet. In 1594, he wrote The Terrors of the Night; Or a Discourse of Apparitions in which he discounts belief in the supernatural as superstition. His literary friends included Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson.

John Davies was an English poet who lived in London during the plague. He became a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, who encouraged his legal career. As a lawyer and politician, he served in the House of Commons. Later, he became Attorney General for Ireland.

Christina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote romantic, religious, and children's poems. She suffered greatly from depression and poor health. She was highly praised by Hopkins, Swinburne, and Tennyson for her work. Politically, she opposed slavery, cruelty to animals, and under-age prostitution. After her death from cancer, she was buried in Highgate Cemetery.

Arabic Poetry by Mahmoud Darwish

Mahmoud Darwish

Passport

They did not recognize me in the shadows
That suck away my color in this Passport
And to them my wound was an exhibit
For a tourist who loves to collect photographs
They did not recognize me,
Ah . . . Don't leave
The palm of my hand without the sun
Because the trees recognize me
Don't leave me pale like the moon!

All the birds that followed my palm
To the door of the distant airport
All the wheat fields
All the prisons
All the white tombstones
All the barbed boundaries
All the waving handkerchiefs
All the eyes
were with me,
But they dropped them from my passport

Stripped of my name and identity?
On soil I nourished with my own hands?
Today Job cried out
Filling the sky:
Don't make an example of me again!
Oh, gentlemen, Prophets,
Don't ask the trees for their names
Don't ask the valleys who their mother is
From my forehead bursts the sward of light
And from my hand springs the water of the river
All the hearts of the people are my identity
So take away my passport!

Under Seige

Here on the slopes of hills, facing the dusk and the cannon of time
Close to the gardens of broken shadows,
We do what prisoners do,
And what the jobless do:
We cultivate hope.

A country preparing for dawn. We grow less intelligent
For we closely watch the hour of victory:
No night in our night lit up by the shelling
Our enemies are watchful and light the light for us
In the darkness of cellars.

Here there is no "I".
Here Adam remembers the dust of clay.

On the verge of death, he says:
I have no trace left to lose:
Free I am so close to my liberty. My future lies in my own hand.
Soon I shall penetrate my life,
I shall be born free and parentless,
And as my name I shall choose azure letters . . .

You who stand in the doorway, come in,
Drink Arabic coffee with us
And you will sense that you are men like us
You who stand in the doorways of houses
Come out of our morningtimes,
We shall feel reassured to be
Men like you!

When the planes disappear, the white, white doves
Fly off and wash the cheeks of heaven
With unbound wings taking radiance back again, taking possession
Of the ether and of play. Higher, higher still, the white, white doves
Fly off. Ah, if only the sky
Were real [a man passing between two bombs said to me].

Cypresses behind the soldiers, minarets protecting
The sky from collapse. Behind the hedge of steel
Soldiers piss -- under the watchful eye of a tank --
And the autumnal day ends its golden wandering in
A street as wide as a church after Sunday mass . . .

[To a killer] If you had contemplated the victim's face
And thought it through, you would have remembered your mother in the
Gas chamber, you would have been freed from the reason for the rifle
And you would have changed your mind: this is not the way
to find one's identity again.

The siege is a waiting period
Waiting on the tilted ladder in the middle of the storm.

Alone, we are alone as far down as the sediment
Were it not for the visits of the rainbows.

We have brothers behind this expanse.
Excellent brothers. They love us. They watch us and weep.
Then, in secret, they tell each other:
"Ah! if this siege had been declared . . ." They do not finish their sentence:
"Don't abandon us, don't leave us."

Our losses: between two and eight martyrs each day.
And ten wounded.
And twenty homes.
And fifty olive trees . . .
Added to this the structural flaw that

Will arrive at the poem, the play, and the unfinished canvas.

A woman told the cloud: cover my beloved
For my clothing is drenched with his blood.

If you are not rain, my love
Be tree
Sated with fertility, be tree
If you are not tree, my love
Be stone
Saturated with humidity, be stone
If you are not stone, my love
Be moon
In the dream of the beloved woman, be moon
[So spoke a woman
to her son at his funeral]

Oh watchmen! Are you not weary
Of lying in wait for the light in our salt
And of the incandescence of the rose in our wound
Are you not weary, oh watchmen?

A little of this absolute and blue infinity
Would be enough
To lighten the burden of these times
And to cleanse the mire of this place.

It is up to the soul to come down from its mount
And on its silken feet walk
By my side, hand in hand, like two longtime
Friends who share the ancient bread
And the antique glass of wine
May we walk this road together
And then our days will take different directions:
I, beyond nature, which in turn
Will choose to squat on a high-up rock.

On my rubble the shadow grows green,
And the wolf is dozing on the skin of my goat
He dreams as I do, as the angel does
That life is here . . . not over there.

In the state of siege, time becomes space
Transfixed in its eternity
In the state of siege, space becomes time
That has missed its yesterday and its tomorrow.

The martyr encircles me every time I live a new day
And questions me: Where were you? Take every word
You have given me back to the dictionaries
And relieve the sleepers from the echo's buzz.

Translated by Marjolijn De Jager

BIO:  Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) was born in Western Galilee. He fled with his family to Lebanon after foreign forces destroyed his village. A year later, the family moved to Acre, Israel.

In 1970, Darwish traveled to the U.S.S.R. to study at the Lomonosov Moscow State University. A year later, he moved to Egypt and then back to Lebanon. He joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1973 and was banned from returning to Israel.

Darwish makes frequent references in his poetry to the ideal of HOMELAND. A member of the Israeli Communist Party, he later wrote a manifesto of independence for the PLO Executive Committee. He resigned from the committee in 1993.

Darwish was critical of both Israel and the Palestinian leadership, but he believed that a Middle East Peace Treaty was a realistic objective. After Hamas imposed a strict Islamic social code, Darwish objected to the further erosion of freedom for the Palestinian people.

Always feeling like a man in exile, he died of a heart attack in Houston, Texas. Darwish was buried in Ramallah near the Palace of Culture, on a hill overlooking Jerusalem. He has been called the National Poet of Palestine and received numerous awards during his lifetime.

How Easter Eggs Get Their Colors and Other Poems

How Easter Eggs Get Their Colors

At Halloween we had more treats
than we had trick-or-treaters
and at least one of us
living in this house
is not much of a candy eater

We had some red and green
M&Ms left over after
this Christmas season
there is some ribbon candy
left here as well for that
very same reason

Those Valentine hearts
I wrote about
Pink, Yellow, Orange
and other assorted pastel
will likely get leftover
past their prime as well

Though Spring is not
quite yet here
in the mornings we
have noticed
A Bunny lurking near

He seems rather hungry
seeking yummies for his tummy
and though you may think it funny
we have decided leftover candy
when ground up might be dandy
to feed to that very hungry bunny

That way he will have
exactly what he needs to make
each colored Easter egg.

Do you think for a minute
I am the kind of person
who would pull your leg?

Mary Havran

On Easter Day

The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:
The people knelt upon the ground with awe:
And borne upon the necks of men I saw,
Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.
Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,
And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,
Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:
In splendor and in light the Pope passed home.
My heart stole back across wide wastes of years
To One who wandered by a lonely sea,
And sought in vain for any place to rest:
"Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest,
I, only I, must wander wearily,
And bruise My feet, and drink wine salt with tears."

Oscar Wilde

The Easter Flower

Far from this foreign Easter damp and chilly
My soul steals to a pear-shaped plot of ground,
Where gleamed the lilac-tinted Easter lily
Soft-scented in the air for yards around;

Alone, without a hint of guardian leaf!
Just like a fragile bell of silver rime,
It burst the tomb for freedom sweet and brief
In the young pregnant year at Eastertime;

And many thought it was a sacred sign,
And some called it the resurrection flower;
And I, a pagan, worshiped at its shrine,
Yielding my heart unto its perfumed power.

Claude McKay

HAVE A HAPPY AND BLESSED EASTER!

Irish Blessings for St. Paddy's Day

~May your day be touched

By a bit if IRISH LUCK,

Brightened by a song in your heart,

And warmed by the smiles

Of the people you LOVE.~

~May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind always be at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

And rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.~

~May good luck be with you

Wherever you go,

And your blessings outnumber

The shamrocks that grow.~

~May your days be many and your troubles be few,

May all God's blessings descend upon you,

May peace be within you,

May your heart be strong,

May you find what you're seeking

Wherever you roam.~

~May you have the hindsight to know where you've been,

The foresight to know where you're going,

And the insight to know when you're going too far.~

~May you always have walls for the winds,

A roof for the rain, tea beside the fire,

Laughter to cheer you, those you love near you,

And all your heart might desire.~

~May the lilt of Irish laughter lighten every load,

May the mist of Irish magic shorten every road,

May you taste the sweetest pleasures that fortune ere bestowed,

And may all your friends remember all the favors you are owed.~

~May the Irish hills caress you.

May her lakes and rivers bless you.

May the luck of the Irish enfold you.

May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.~

~Here's to a long life and a merry one,

A quick death and an easy one,

A pretty girl and an honest one,

A cold beer and another one!~

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!

My Life is a Desert

My Life is a Desert

My life is a desert. Big and brown and empty.

A chill wind blows sand across my heart,

       burying it forever.

Cactus needles pierce my feet and hands,

       making the blood flow red.

I place the Crown of Thorns upon my head.

Broken and bent, I ascend the Cross.

Hanging like rotten fruit from a dead tree,

I gaze across the barren landscape and cry,

"My God! My God! Why have You forsaken me?"

Published on Masticadores USA on March 21, 2022.

Dawn Pisturino

January 30, 2020; March 21, 2022

Copyright 2020-2022 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.

On the Morning of Christ's Nativity

Poem by John Milton

This is the month, and this the happy morn,

       Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,

Of wedded maid, and Virgin Mother born,

       Our great redemption from above did bring;

       For so the holy sages once did sing,

              That he our deadly forfeit should release,

              And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.

That glorious Form, that Light unsufferable,

       And that far-beaming blaze of Majesty,

Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-table,

       To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

       He laid aside, and here with us to be,

              Forsook the courts of everlasting day,

              And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

Say Heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein

       Afford a present to the Infant God?

Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,

       To welcome him to this his new abode,

       Now while the heav'n, by the Sun's team untrod,

              Hath took no print of the approaching light,

              And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

See how far upon the eastern road

       The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet:

O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,

       And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;

       Have thou the honour first they Lord to greet,

              And join thy voice unto the angel quire,

              From out is secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

While the Heav'n-born child,

       All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;

Nature in awe to him

Had doff'd her gaudy trim,

       With her great Master so to sympathize:

It was no season then for her

To wanton with the Sun, her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair

She woos the gentle air

       To hide her guilty front with innocent snow,

And on her naked shame,

Pollute with sinful blame,

       The saintly veil of maiden white to throw,

Confounded, that her maker's eyes

Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But he, her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-ey'd Peace:

       She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding

Down through the turning sphere,

His ready harbinger,

       With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing;

And waving wide her myrtle wand,

She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

No war or battle's sound

Was heard the world around;

       The idle spear and shield were high uphung;

The hooked chariot stood

Unstain'd with hostile blood;

       The trumpet spake not to the armed throng;

And kings sate still with awful eye,

As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

But peaceful was the night

Wherein the Prince of Light

       His reign of peace upon the earth began:

The winds with wonder whist,

Smoothly the waters kist,

       Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

the Stars with deep amaze

Stand fix'd in steadfast gaze,

       Bending one way their precious influence;

And will not take their flight,

For all the morning light,

       Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence,

But in their glimmering orbs did glow,

Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.

And thought the shady gloom

Had given day her room,

       The Sun himself withheld his wonted speed,

And hid his head for shame,

As his inferior flame

       The new-enlighten'd world no more should need:

He saw a greater Sun appear

Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree could bear.

The shepherds on the lawn,

Or ere the point of dawn,

       Sate simply chatting in a rustic row;

Full little thought they than

That the mighty Pan

       Was kindly come to live with them below:

Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,

Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep;

When such music sweet

Their hearts and ears did greet,

       As never was by mortal finger strook,

Divinely warbled voice

Answering the stringed noise,

       As all their souls in blissful rapture took:

The air such pleasure loth to lose,

With thousand echoes still prolongs each heav'nly close.

Nature, that heard such sound

beneath the hollow round

       Of Cynthia's seat, the Airy region thrilling,

Now was almost won

To think her part was done,

       And that her reign had here its last fulfilling:

She knew such harmony alone

Could hold all heav'n and earth in happier union.

At last surrounds their sight

A globe of circular light,

       That with long beams she shame-fac'd Night array'd;

The helmed Cherubim

And sworded Seraphim

       Are seen in glittering ranks with wings display'd,

Harping in loud and solemn quire,

With unexpressive notes to heav'n's new-born Heir.

Such music (as 'tis said)

Before was never made,

       But when of old the sons of morning sung,

While the Creator great

His constellations set,

       And the well-balanc'd world on hinges hung,

And cast the dark foundations deep,

And bid the welt'ring waves their oozy channel keep.

Ring out ye crystal sphere!

Once bless our human ears

       (If ye have power to touch our senses so)

And let your silver chime

Move in melodious time,

       And let the bass of Heav'n's deep organ blow;

And with your ninefold harmony

Make up full consort to th'angelic symphony.

For if such holy song

Enwrap our fancy long,

       Time will run back and fetch the age of gold,

And speckl'd Vanity

Will sicken soon and die,

       And leprous Sin will melt from earthly mould;

And Hell itself will pass away,

And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering Day.

Yea, Truth and Justice then

Will down return to men,

       Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,

Mercy will sit between,

Thron'd in celestial sheen,

       With radiant feet the tissu'd  clouds down steering;

And Heav'n, as at some festival,

Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.

But wisest Fate says no:

This must not yet be so;

       The babe lies yet in smiling infancy,

That on the bitter cross

Must redeem our loss,

       So both himself and us to glorify:

yet first to those ychain'd in sleep,

The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

With such a horrid clang

As on Mount Sinai rang

       While the red fire and smould'ring clouds outbrake:

The aged earth, aghast

With terror of that blast,

       Shall from the surface to the centre shake,

When at the world's last session,

The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.

And then at last our bliss

Full and perfect is,

       But now begins; for from this happy day

Th'old Dragon under ground,

In straiter limits bound,

       Not half so far casts his usurped sway,

And, wrath to see his kingdom fail,

Swings the scaly horror of his folded tail.

the Oracles are dumb;

No voice or hideous hum

       Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.

Apollo from his shrine

Can no more divine,

       With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.

No nightly trance or breathed spell

Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell.

The lonely mountains o'er,

And the resounding shore,

       A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;

From haunted spring, and dale

Edg'd with poplar pale,

       The parting Genius is with sighing sent;

With flow'r-inwoven tresses torn

The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.

In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

       The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;

In urns and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

       Affrights the flamens at their service quaint;

And the chill marble seems to sweat,

While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.

Peor and Ba{:a}lim

Forsake their temples dim,

       With that twice-batter'd god of Palestine;

And mooned Ashtaroth,

Heav'n's queen and mother both,

       Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine;

The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn;

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz mourn.

And sullen Moloch fled,

Hath left in shadows dread

       His burning idol all of blackest hue;

In vain with cymbals' ring

They call the grisly king,

       In dismal dance about the furnace blue.

The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

Isis and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

Nor is Osiris seen

In Memphian grove or green,

       Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud;

Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest,

       Naught but profoundest Hell can be his shroud:

In vain with timbrel'd anthems dark

The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipp'd ark.

He feels from Juda's land

The dreaded infant's hand,

       The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn;

Nor all the gods beside

Longer dare abide,

       Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine:

Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,

Can in his swaddling bands control the damned crew.

So when the Sun in bed,

Curtain'd with cloudy red,

       Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

The flocking shadows pale

Troop to th'infernal jail,

       Each fetter'd ghost slips to his several grave,

And the yellow-skirted fays

Fly after the night-steeds, leaving their moon-lov'd maze.

But see, the Virgin blest

Hath laid her babe to rest:

       Time is our tedious song should here have ending.

Heav'n's youngest-teemed star,

Hath fix'd her polish'd car,

       Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;

And all about the courtly stable,

Bright-harness'd Angels sit in order serviceable.

John Milton

December 25, 1629

(original spellings retained)

BIO:  John Milton (1608-1674), the Blind Poet, has been second only to William Shakespeare in greatness, critical study, and admiration.  By 1652, he was completely blind. A staunch Puritan, he supported Cromwell during the English Civil War (1642-1648). After Charles II was restored to the throne, Milton was imprisoned for his political and religious views. He is best known for his lengthy poem, Paradise Lost, which was published in 1667.