The Bells - Edgar Allan Poe

graphic by dimdimich

The Bells

Hear the sledges with the bells --

       Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

     How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

       In the icy air of night!

     While the stars that oversprinkle

     All the heavens, seem to twinkle

       With a crystalline delight;

     Keeping time, time, time,

     In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

     From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

       Bells, bells, bells --

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Hear the mellow wedding bells --

       Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

     Through the balmy air of night

     How they ring out their delight!--

     From the molten-golden notes,

       And all in tune,

     What a liquid ditty floats

     To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

       On the moon!

     Oh, from out the sounding cells,

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

       How it wells!

       How it dwells

     On the Future! -- how it tells

     Of the rapture that impels

To the swinging and the ringing

     Of the bells, bells, bells, bells--

     Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

       Bells, bells, bells--

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

Hear the loud alarum bells--

       Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror, now their turbulency tells!

     In the startled ear of night

     How they scream out their affright!

       Too much horrified to speak,

       They can only shriek, shriek,

         Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,

     Leaping higher, higher, higher,

     With a desperate desire,

       And a resolute endeavour

       Now--now to sit, or never,

     By the side of the pale-faced moon,

       Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

       What a tale their terror tells

         Of Despair!

     How they clang, and clash, and roar!

     What a horror they outpour

     On the bosom of the palpitating air!

       Yet the ear, it fully knows,

         By the twanging,

         And the clanging,

     How the danger ebbs and flows,

     Yet the ear distinctly tells,

       In the jangling,

       And the wrangling,

     How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking of the swelling in the anger of the bells--

       Of the bells--

     Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

       Bells, bells, bells--

In the clamor and the clanging of the bells!

Hear the tolling of the bells--

       Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

     In the silence of the night,

     How we shiver with affright

     At the melancholy menace of their tone!

     For every sound that floats

     From the rust within their throats

       Is a groan.

     And the people--ah, the people--

     They that dwell up in the steeple,

       All alone,

     And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,

       In that muffled monotone,

     Feel a glory in so rolling

       On the human heart a stone--

     They are neither brute nor human--

         They are Ghouls:--

     And their king it is who tolls:--

     And he rolls, rolls, rolls,

         Rolls

     A paen from the bells!

     And his merry bosom swells

     With the paen of the bells!

     And he dances, and he yells;

       Keeping time, time, time,

       In a sort of Runic rhyme,

         To the paen of the bells:--

           Of the bells:

       Keeping time, time, time

       In a sort of Runic rhyme,

         To the throbbing of the bells--

         Of the bells, bells, bells:--

       Keeping time, time, time,

         As he knells, knells, knells,

       In a happy Runic rhyme,

         To the rolling of the bells--

         Of the bells, bells, bells:--

         To the tolling of the bells--

       Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

           Bells, bells, bells--

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

~ Edgar Allan Poe ~

BIOGRAPHY: (1809-1849) A member of the Romantic Movement, Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic whose writings laid the ground work for future horror, mystery, detective, and science fiction writers. In 1835, he married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, who died a few years later from tuberculosis. Poe died mysteriously in Baltimore, Maryland in 1849. He is best known for his works of the macabre.

 

Saint Nikolaus's Companion, Knecht Ruprecht

 

From out the forest I now appear,

To proclaim that Christmastide is here!

For at the top of every tree

Are golden lights for all to see;

And there from heaven's gate on high

I saw our Christ-child in the sky.

And in among the darkened trees,

A loud voice it was that called to me:

"Knecht Ruprecht, old fellow," it cried,

"Hurry now, make haste. Don't hide!

All the candles have now been lit --

Heaven's gate has opened wide!

Both young and old should now have rest

Away from cares and daily stress;

And when tomorrow to earth I fly

'It's Christmas again!' will be the cry."

And then I said: "O Lord so dear.

My journey's end is now quite near;

But to the town I've still to go,

Where the children are good, I know."

"But have you then that great sack?"

"I have," I said, "It's on my back,

For apples, almonds, fruit and nuts

For God-fearing children are a must."

"And is that cane there by your side?"

"The cane's there too," I did reply;

"But only for those, those naughty ones,

Who have it applied to their backsides."

The Christ-child spoke: "Then that's all right!

My loyal servant, go with God this night!"

From out the forest I now appear;

To proclaim that Christmastide is here!

Now speak, what is there here to be had?

Are there good children, are there bad?

Theodor Storm

Translated from the German by Denis Jackson, Isle of Wight.

BIO: Theodor Storm (1817-1888) was a German poet, novelist, and lawyer known for the lyrical quality of his work. He died of cancer in 1888. Knecht Ruprecht (Krampus) is still a popular figure seen in Germany at Christmas, even today.

Winter Poems - William Blake

 

Echo Summit, South Lake Tahoe, by Jared Manninen

To Winter

O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:

The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark

Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,

Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.

He hears me not, but o'er the yawning deep

Rides heavy; his storms are unchain'd; sheathed

In ribbed steel, I dare not lift mine eyes;

For he hath rear'd his sceptre o'er the world.

Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings

To his strong bones, strides o'er the groaning rocks:

He withers all in silence, and his hand

Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.

He takes his seat upon the cliffs, the mariner

Cries in vain. Poor little wretch! that deal'st

With storms; till heaven smiles, and the monster

Is drv'n yelling to his caves beneath mount Hecla.

Silent, Silent Night

Silent Silent Night

Quench the holy light

Of thy torches bright

For possessed of Day

Thousand spirits stray

That sweet joys betray

Why should joys be sweet

Used with deceit

Nor with sorrows meet

But an honest joy

Does itself destroy

For a harlot coy

Soft Snow

I walked abroad in a snowy day

I asked the soft snow with me to play

She playd & she melted in all her prime

And the winter calld it a dreadful crime

BIO: William Blake (1757-1827) was a poet, painter, engraver, and mystic. Born in London, he studied at the Royal Academy School. He became proficient at watercolors and often illustrated books for a living. A dreamer, he hated rationalism and materialism, which stressed science and acute awareness of the physical world. He believed in freedom of thought and inspiring the imagination. He published three books of poetry between 1783 and 1794. He also published several works of mystical writings -- The Book of Thel (1789), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1791), and The Song of Los (1795).

The New Jerusalem - William Blake

 

The New Jerusalem

And did those feet in ancient time

       Walk upon England's mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God

       On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine

       Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here

       Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!

       Bring me my arrows of desire!

Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!

       Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental flight,

       Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

       In England's green and pleasant land.

~ William Blake ~

Ah, Sunflower!

Ah, Sunflower! weary of time,

Who countest the steps of the Sun;

Seeking after that sweet golden clime,

Where the traveler's journey is done;

Where the Youth pined away with desire,

And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow,

Arise from their graves, and aspire

Where my Sunflower wishes to go!

~ William Blake ~

BIO: William Blake (1757-1827) was a poet, painter, engraver, and mystic. Born in London, he studied at the Royal Academy School. He became proficient at watercolors and often illustrated books for a living. A dreamer, he hated rationalism and materialism, which stressed science and acute awareness of the physical world. He believed in freedom of thought and inspiring the imagination. He published three books of poetry between 1783 and 1794. He also published several works of mystical writings -- The Book of Thel (1789), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1791), and The Song of Los (1795).

HAVE A HAPPY, SAFE, AND BLESSED THANKSGIVING 2021!

Dawn Pisturino

The Messenger - H.P. Lovecraft

 

The Messenger

The thing, he said, would come that night at three

From the old churchyard on the hill below;

But crouching by an oak fire's wholesome glow,

I tried to tell myself it could not be.

Surely, I mused, it was a pleasantry

Devised by one who did not truly know

The Elder Sign, bequeathed from long ago,

That sets the fumbling forms of darkness free.

He had not meant it -- no -- but still I lit

Another lamp as starry Leo climbed

Out of the Seekonk, and a steeple chimed

Three -- and the firelight faded, bit by bit.

Then at the door that cautious rattling came --

And the mad truth devoured me like a flame!

~H.P. Lovecraft ~

The Horror of Lovecraft is a low-budget horror comedy film from 2006 that was originally titled LovecraCked! The Movie. It can be rented on Amazon Prime as of this writing.

Story: Per IMDb, "a bumbling investigative journalist . . . struggles to discover the truth behind enigmatic horror author H.P. Lovecraft and his mysterious past."

Tagline: "The truth is out there . . .we're just not entirely sure where."

LOL! 4.5 stars out of 10 on IMDb.

Biography: H.P Lovecraft (1890 - 1937) wrote horror, fantasy, and science fiction. He is best known for crafting "weird fiction" or "cosmic horror." He believed that life cannot be understood by the human mind and that the universe is largely unfriendly to human beings. He has had a profound influence on modern horror authors, including Stephen King. His Cthulhu Mythos and fictional grimoire, the Necronomicon, have endured to become classics of American horror.  

Best H.P. Lovecraft Movie: The Dunwich Horror (1970), starring Sandra Dee and Dean Stockwell. All the rest suck!

The Haunted Palace

 

In the greenest of our valleys

     By good angels tenanted,

Once a fair and stately palace --

     Radiant palace -- reared its head.

In the monarch Thought's dominion --

     It stood there!

Never seraph spread a pinion

     Over fabric half so fair!

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,

     On its roof did float and flow,

(This -- all this -- was in the olden

     Time long ago,)

And every gentle air that dallied,

     In that sweeet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

     A winged odor went away.

Wanderers in that happy valley,

     Through two luminous windows, saw

Spirits moving musically,

     To a lute's well-tuned law,

Round about a throne where, sitting

     (Porphyrogene!)

In state his glory well befitting,

     The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing

     Was the fair palace-door,

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,

     And sparkling evermore,

A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty

     Was but to sing,

In voices of surpassing beauty,

     The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

     Assailed the monarch's high estate.

(Ah, let us mourn! -- for never morrow

     Shall dawn upon him desolate!)

And round about his home, the glory

     That blushed and bloomed

Is but a dim-remembered story

     Of the old time entombed.

And travelers now, within that valley,

     Through the red-litten windows see

Vast forms, that move fantastically

     To a discordant melody,

While, like a ghastly rapid river,

     Through the pale door

A hideous throng rush out forever

     And laugh -- but smile no more.

~ Edgar Allan Poe ~~

BIOGRAPHY: (1809-1849) A member of the Romantic Movement, Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic whose writings laid the ground work for future horror, mystery, detective, and science fiction writers. In 1835, he married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, who died a few years later from tuberculosis. Poe died mysteriously in Baltimore, Maryland in 1849. He is best known for his works of the macabre.

Belief

 

I'm stumbling down a trail of broken hearts

Where shadows haunt and taunt my sordid soul;

A grimaced tale of woe each face imparts.

Clouds overhead, I hear the thunder roll.

I turn my collar up to choke the wind

As rain now mixes with my tear-stained eyes.

Each lovely lie I told, I do rescind,

Although this does not soften love's demise.

But if your heart should have a change of mind

To suffer forgiveness for my own sake,

And if the Creator has thus designed,

Then from this hellish nightmare I shall wake.

To leave at last this shadowland of grief

And die with you in bliss beyond belief.

~ Candice James, 2011 ~

Candice James, born in 1948, is a Canadian poet.

websites:

http://www.candicejames.com

http://www.urantiaartisans.com/urantia-artisans/visual-arts/candice-james/

For James Dean

 

Rest in Peace

September 30, 2021 marks the 66th anniversary of his death

For James Dean 

Welcome me, if you will,

as the ambassador of a hatred

who knows its cause

and does not envy you your whim

of ending him.

 

For a young actor I am begging

peace, gods. Alone

in the empty streets of New York

I am its dirty feet and head

and he is dead.

 

He has banged into your wail

of air, your hubris, racing

towards your heights and you

have cut him from your table

which is built, how unfairly

for us l not on trees, but on clouds.

 

I speak as one whose filth

is like his own, of pride

and speed and your terrible

example nearer than the siren's speech,

a spirit eager for the punishment

which is your only recognition.

 

Peace! to be true to a city

of rats and to loved the envy

of the dreary, smudged mouthers

of an arcane dejection

smoldering quietly in the perception

of hopelessness and scandal

at unnatural vigor. Their dreams

are their own, as are the toilets

of a great railway terminal

and the sequins of a very small,

very fat eyelid.

                       I take this

for myself, and you take up

the thread of my life between your teeth

tin thread and tarnished with abuse.

you still shall hear

as long as the beast in me maintains

its taciturn power to close my lids

in tears, and my loins move yet

in the ennobling pursuit of all the worlds

you have left me alone in, and would be

the dolorous distraction from,

while you summon your army of anguishes

which is a million hooting blood vessels

on the eyes and in the ears

at the instant before death.

                                         And

the menus who surrounded him critically,

languorously waiting for a

final impertinence to rebel

and enslave him, starlets and other

glittering things in the hog-wallow,

lunging mireward in their inane

moth-like adoration of niggardly

cares and stagnant respects

paid themselves, you spared,

as a hospital preserves its orderlies.

Are these your latter-day saints

these unctuous starers, muscular

somnambulists, these stages for which

no word's been written hollow

enough, these exhibitionists in

well veiled booths, these navel-suckers?

 

Is it true that you high ones, celebrated

among amorous flies, hated the

prodigy and invention of his nerves?

To withhold your light

from painstaking paths!

your love

should be difficult; as his was hard.

 

Nostrils of pain dawn avenues

of luminous spit-globes breathe in

the fragrance of his innocent flesh

like smoke, the temporary lift,

the post-cancer excitement

of vile manners and veal-thin lips,

obscure in the carelessness of your scissors,

 

Men cry from the grave while they still live

and now I am this dead man's voice,

stammering, a little in the earth.

I take up

the nourishment of his pale green eyes,

out of which I shall prevent

flowers from growing, your flowers.

~ Frank O'Hara ~

BIO: James Dean died in a car crash on September 30, 1955. A coroner's jury determined that he had been speeding at the time of the crash. His death shocked the nation because he had become a familiar face on the Big Screen. His most famous movie, Rebel Without a Cause, made him a Hollywood legend. He is still remembered as the troubled Bad Boy who just couldn't get a break. Dean started his career in television, then got his big break in the movies. He also enjoyed playing on stage in Broadway and Off Broadway productions. He openly admitted to being bisexual and often used his sexuality to get special favors. He was only 24 years old when he died. 

The King-Ghost by Aleister Crowley

 

Aleister Crowley as Baphomet

The King-Ghost is abroad. His spectre legions

     Sweep from their icy lakes and bleak ravines

Unto these weary and untrodden regions

     Where man lies penned among his Might-have-beens.

       Keep us in safety, Lord,

       What time the King-Ghost is abroad!

The King-Ghost from his grey malefic slumbers

     Awakes the malice of his bloodless brain.

He marshals the innumerable numbers

     Of shrieking shapes on the sepulchral plain.

       Keep us, for Jesu's sake,

       What time the King-Ghost is awake!

The King-Ghost wears a crown of hopes forgotten:

     Dead loves are woven in his ghastly robe;

Bewildered wills and faiths grown old and rotten

     And deeds undared his sceptre, sword and globe.

       Keep us, O Mary maid,

       What time the King-Ghost goes arrayed!

The Hell-Wind whistles through his plumeless pinions;

     Clanks all that melancholy host of bones;

Fate's principalities and Death's dominions

     Echo the drear discord, the tuneless tones.

       Keep us, dear God, from ill,

       What time the Hell-Wind whistles shrill.

The King-Ghost hath no music but their rattling;

     No scent but death's grown faint and fugitive;

No fight but this their leprous pallor battling

     Weakly with night, Lord, shall these dry bones live?

       O keep us in the hour

       Wherein the King-Ghost hath his power!

The King-Ghost girds me with his gibbering creatures,

     My dreams of old that never saw the sun.

He shows me, in a mocking glass, their features,

       The twin fiends 'Might-have-been' and 'Should-have-done'.

       Keep us, by Jesu's ruth,

       What time the King-Ghost grins the truth!

The King-Ghost boasts eternal usurpature;

     For in this pool of tears his fingers fret

I had imagined, by enduring nature,

     The twin gods 'Thus-will-I' and 'May-be-yet'.

       God, keep us most from ill,

       What time the King-Ghost grips the will!

Silver and rose and gold what flame resurges?

     What living light pours forth in emerald waves?

What inmost Music drowns the clamorous dirges?

       Shrieking they fly, the King-Ghost and his slaves.

       Lord, let Thy Ghost indwell,

       And keep us from the power of Hell!

~Aleister Crowley~

Watch a videotaped reading of The King-Ghost on YouTube!

http://youtu.be/TJgu45-VVLw

BIO: Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) nicknamed himself "the Beast 666." He grew up in a strict religious household, and his mother often called him a "beast." Always preoccupied with the mystical, Crowley lived out his life as an  adept of the occult. He wrote The Book of the Law, based on a paranormal experience he had in Egypt. He became a novelist, poet, magician, mountaineer, chest master, and founder of a new religion in which "Do What Thou Wilt" became the central theme. He was often associated with the Dark Arts and influenced rock bands such as Led Zeppelin and The Beatles. He descended into heroin addiction and hedonism and died alone in 1947. 

       

     

To Isadore - Edgar Allan Poe

 

Artwork by Cicely Mary Barker

To Isadore

I

Beneath the vine-clad eaves,

       Whose shadows fall before

       Thy lowly cottage door --

Under the lilac's tremulous leaves --

Within thy snowy clasped hand

       The purple flowers it bore.

Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,

Like queenly nymphs from fairy-land --

Enchantress of the flowery wand,

       Most beauteous Isadore!

II

And when I bade the dream

       Upon thy spirit flee,

       Thy violet eyes to me

Upturned, did overflowing seem

With the deep, untold delight

       Of Love's serenity;

Thy classic brow, like lilies white

And pale as the Imperial Night

Upon her throne, with stars bedight,

       Enthralled my soul to thee!

III

Ah! ever I behold

       Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,

       Blue as the languid skies

Hung with the sunset's fringe of gold;

Now strangely clear thine image grows,

       And olden memories

Are startled from their long repose

Like shadows on the silent snows

When suddenly the night-wind blows

       Where quiet moonlight lies.

IV

Like music heard in dreams,

       Like strains of harps unknown,

       Of birds forever flown --

Audible as the voice of streams

That murmur in some leafy dell,

       I hear thy gentlest tone,

And Silence cometh with her spell

Like that which on my tongue doth dwell,

When tremulous in dreams I tell

       My love to thee alone!

V

In every valley heard,

       Floating from tree to tree,

       Less beautiful to me,

The music of the radiant bird,

Than artless accents such as thine

       Whose echoes never flee!

Ah! how for thy sweet voice I pine:--

For uttered in thy tones benign

(Enchantress) this rude name of mine

       Doth seem a melody!

~ Edgard Allan Poe ~

BIOGRAPHY: (1809-1849) A member of the Romantic Movement, Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic whose writings laid the ground work for future horror, mystery, detective, and science fiction writers. In 1835, he married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm, who died a few years later from tuberculosis. Poe died mysteriously in Baltimore, Maryland in 1849. He is best known for his works of the macabre.

       

Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

The Poet's Dream

On a Poet's lips I slept

Dreaming like a love-adept

In the sound his breathing kept;

Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,

But feeds on the aerial kisses

Of shapes that haunt Thought's wildernesses.

He will watch from dawn to gloom

The lake-reflected sun illume

The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,

     Nor heed nor see what things they be --

But from these create he can

Forms more real than living Man,

     Nurslings of Immortality!

Music When Soft Voices Die

Music when soft voices die,

Vibrates in the memory --

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,

Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

Are heap'd for the beloved's bed;

And so thy thoughts, when Thou art gone,

Love itself shall slumber on.

Hymn to the Spirit of Nature

Life of Life! Thy lips enkindle

With their love the breath between them;

And thy smiles before they dwindle

Make the cold air fire; then screen them

In those locks, where whoso gazes

Faints, entangled in their mazes.

Child of Light! Thy limbs are burning

Through the veil which seems to hide them,

As the radiant lines of morning

Through thin clouds, ere they divide them;

And this atmosphere divinest

Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.

Fair are others: none beholds Thee;

But thy voice sounds low and tender

Like the fairest, for it folds thee

From the sight, that liquid splendour;

And all feel, yet see thee never,--

As I feel now, lost for ever!

Lamp of earth! where'er thou movest

Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,

And the souls of whom thou lovest

Walk upon the winds with lightness

Till they fail, as I am failing,

Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!

BIO: Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was only 30 years old when he died, but he left a lasting legacy of poetical works that aspiring poets and lovers of poetry still admire today. He was expelled from Oxford in 1811 for his irreligious pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism. His first wife, Harriet Westbrook, committed suicide in 1816. Shelley was already involved with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, with whom he eloped in 1814. The couple married in 1816 and moved to Italy in 1818. There, they met Lord Byron. Under his influence, Mary wrote her ground-breaking novel, Frankenstein, and Percy composed his drama-in-verse, Prometheus Unbound. Percy Shelley drowned in the Bay of Spezia near Livorno, Italy in 1822. His body was cremated on the beach. Allegedly, his heart was rescued from the flames and kept as a memento.

Women in Celtic History and Lore

 

                                           Photo by Nigel Cox

The Celtic world spread over a large territory, from central Europe to Spain to the British Isles. Celtic culture originated in the Iron Age and continues to this day in places such as Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and Brittany.

The Romans, in particular, wrote about the Celts because their armed forces invaded Celtic territory and enslaved the Celtic people. Most Celts had been absorbed into the Roman Empire by the 1^st century C.E. By 500 C.E., Celtic culture was confined to Brittany and the British Isles. Because of their commonly-held language and traditions, these Celts stood out from other cultures and became the historical model for Celtic culture.

Celtic women were protected throughout their lives: first, by their fathers; secondly, by their husbands; and lastly, by their sons. But Celtic women were not weak and dependent creatures. They were highly regarded as daughters, wives, mothers, and warriors, if the need arose. They were expected to give good counsel, keep their households in good order, and remain virtuous and loyal to husband, family, and tribe.

Queen Boudicca

The best historical example of a fierce Celtic woman is Queen Boudicca of the Iceni tribe, who reigned in the East Anglia region of Britain. In 60 C.E., she led a revolt against the Romans. Bravely driving a chariot against Roman forces, she fought for the liberation of her tribe and vengeance for the rape of her two daughters by Roman soldiers. Although defeated, she went down in history as a British folk hero.

The Old Hag of Beara

The Old Hag of Beara is a legendary Irish Cailleach (divine crone) whose story originated in the Beara Peninsula in County Cork, Ireland. She represented a woman’s life cycle. In her youth, she was the consort of kings, toasting the king and giving sage advice to her royal lover. As an ugly old crone, she sits on the Beara Peninsula as a pile of stones, wielding power over the wind and sea. She has been associated with the coming of winter.

The Old Woman of Beare Poem

It is of Corca Dubhne she was, and she had her youth seven times over, and every man that had lived with her died of old age, and her grandsons and great-grandsons were tribes and races.

And through a hundred years she wore upon her head the veil Cuimire had blessed. Then age and weakness came upon her and it is what she said:

Ebb-tide to me as to the sea; old age brings me reproach; I used to wear a shift that was always new; to-day, I have not even a cast one.

It is riches you are loving, it is not men; it was men we loved in the time we were living.

There were dear men on whose plains we used to be driving; it is good the time we passed with them; it is little we were broken afterwards.

When my arms are seen it is long and thin they are; once they used to be fondling, they used to be around great kings.

The young girls give a welcome to Beltaine when it comes to them; sorrow is more fitting for me; an old pitiful hag.

I have no pleasant talk; no sheep are killed for my wedding; it is little but my hair is grey; it is many colours I had over it when I used to be drinking good ale.

I have no envy against the old, but only against women; I myself am spent with old age, while women's heads are still yellow.

The stone of the kings on Feman; the chair of Ronan in Bregia; it is long since storms have wrecked them, they are old mouldering gravestones.

The wave of the great sea is speaking; the winter is striking us with it; I do not look to welcome to-day Fermuid son of Mugh.  

I know what they are doing; they are rowing through the reeds of the ford of Alma; it is cold is the place where they sleep.

The summer of youth where we were has been spent along with its harvest; winter age that drowns everyone, its beginning has come upon me.

It is beautiful was my green cloak, my king liked to see it on me; it is noble was the man that stirred it, he put wool on it when it was bare.

Amen, great is the pity; every acorn has to drop. After feasting with shining candles, to be in the darkness of a prayer-house.

I was once living with kings, drinking mead and wine; to-day I am drinking whey-water among withered old women.

There are three floods that come up to the dun of Ard-Ruide: a flood of fighting-men, a flood of horses, a flood of the hounds of Lugaidh's son.

The flood-wave and the two swift ebb-tides; what the flood-wave brings you in, the ebb-wave sweeps out of your hand.

The flood-wave and the second ebb-tide; they have all come as far as me, the way that I know them well.

The flood-tide will not reach to the silence of my kitchen; though many are my company in the darkness, a hand has been laid upon them all.

My flood-tide! It is well I have kept my knowledge. It is Jesus Son of Mary keeps me happy at the ebb-tide.

It is far is the island of the great sea where the flood reaches after the ebb: I do not look for floods to reach to me after the ebb-tide.

There is hardly a little place I can know again when I see it; what used to be on the flood-tide is all on the ebb to-day!

From The Kiltartan Poetry Book by Lady Augusta Persse Gregory, 1919.

Dawn Pisturino

August 24, 2021

Copyright 2021 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.

 

"The Look" and "The Meaning of the Look" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 

Artwork by Eero Jarnefelt

The Look

The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word,

No gesture of reproach; the Heavens serene

Though heavy with armed justice, did not lean

Their thunders that way: the forsaken Lord

Looked only, on the traitor. None record

What that look was, none guess; for those who have seen

Wronged lovers loving through a death-pang keen,

Or pale-cheeked martyrs smiling to a sword,

Have missed Jehovah at the judgment call.

And Peter, from the height of blasphemy --

'I never knew this man' -- did quail and fall

As knowing straight THAT God; and turned free

And went out speechless from the face of all,

And filled the silence, weeping bitterly.

The Meaning of the Look

I think that look of Christ might seem to say --

'Thou Peter! art thou then a common stone

Which I at last must break my heart upon,

For all God's charge to his high angels may

Guard my foot better? Did I yesterday

Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they should run

Quick to deny me 'neath the morning sun?

And do thy kisses, like the rest, betray?

The cock crows coldly. -- Go, and manifest

A late contrition, but no bootless fear!

For when thy final need is dreariest,

Thou shalt not be denied, as I am here;

My voice to God and angels shall attest,

Because I KNOW this man, let him be clear.'

~Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from POEMS, 1844~

BIO: Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on March 6, 1806 and died June 29, 1861. During the Victorian age, she was considered England's Greatest Living Poet. This was a rare honor for a woman as women did not have the rights and privileges that they enjoy today. By her teen years, Barrett had been self-taught in Greek and Latin, with an adequate knowledge of Greek and Roman literature. Many of her poems refer to heroes and philosophers from Greek and Roman culture. She suffered a spinal injury and became an invalid. Later on, she developed lung problems which may have been due to tuberculosis. She was confined to the house, where she read books and wrote poetry. She would later admit that "books and dreams were what I lived in and domestic life only seemed to buzz gently around, like bees about the grass." She was living with her family at 50 Wimpole Street, London, when the poet Robert Browning discovered her book, Poems, published in 1844. He wrote to her in January of 1845, saying, "I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett." Their love affair progressed against the wishes of her father, and they were secretly married on September 12, 1846. 

During their courtship, Barrett wrote her most beautiful collection of poems, thanking her husband for loving her in spite of her disability and age (she was six years older than her husband.) She finally showed them to him several years later. He persuaded her to include them in her upcoming collection of poetry, Poems, which was published in 1850. These love poems are now known as Sonnets from the Portuguese and include her most famous poem, "How do I Love Thee?"

POWER

 

The wave plunges and the sea-birds cry;

Power is in the ocean and the sky.

The wind-driven tide

That would come whispering on still days

With a long ripple breaking in a sigh,

Now crashes down;

The wind-blown gulls

That stood in tranquil days

Like metal birds fixed on the lobster-floats,

Mirrored gray-silver in the glass tide,

Rush with the gale and, when they turn,

Struggle upright, tossed again back.

Heart that, once as still as they,

Idled with an unmeaning sigh,

Or gazed at bygone days in memory's glass,

Now with hard passion buffeted,

Beats up against the gale,

Or crashes on the shattered glass of memory,

And cries that there is power in destiny

As well as in the ocean and the sky.

~ Duncan Campbell Scott ~

April 1941

BIO: Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947) was a career civil servant with the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs. In 1913, he was appointed Deputy Superintendent and retired in 1932. He was a member of the Confederation Poets, a group comprised largely of Charles G.D. Roberts (1860-1943), Bliss Carman (1861-1929), and Archibald Lampman (1861-1899). The group focused primarily on nature and the Canadian wilderness. It was strongly influenced by English Victorian poetry and the Romantic School. Scott's travels across Canada while working for the Department of Indian Affairs, and his interactions with First People culture, inspired his poetical works.

"Renascence" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

 

Photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1933

All I could see from where I stood

Was three long mountains and a wood;

I turned and looked the other way,

And saw three islands in a bay.

So with my eyes I traced the line

Of the horizon, thin and fine,

Straight around till I was come

Back to where I'd started from;

And all I saw from where I stood

Was three long mountains and a wood.

Over these things I could not see;

These were the things that bounded me;

And I could touch them with my hand,

Almost, I thought, from where I stand.

And all at once things seemed so small

My breath came short, and scare at all.

But sure, the sky is big, I said;

Miles and miles above my head;

So here upon my back I'll lie

And look my fill into the sky.

And so I looked, and, after all,

The sky was not so very tall.

The sky, I said, must somewhere stop,

And -- sure enough! -- I see the top!

The sky, I thought, is not so grand;

I 'most could touch it with my hand!

And, reaching up my hand to try,

I screamed to feel it touch the sky.

I screamed, and -- lo! -- Infinity

Came down and settled over me;

And, pressing of the Undefined

The definition on my mind,

Held up before my eyes a glass

Through which my shrinking sight did pass

Until it seemed I must behold

Immensity made manifold;

Whispered to me a word whose sound

Deafened the air for worlds around,

And brought unmuffled to my ears

The gossiping of friendly spheres,

The creaking of the tented sky,

The ticking of Eternity.

I saw and heard, and knew at last

The How and Why of all things, past,

And present, and forevermore.

The universe, cleft to the core,

Lay open to my probing sense

That, sick'ning, I would fain pluck thence

But could not, -- nay! But needs must suck

At the great wound, and could not pluck

My lips away till I had drawn

All venom out. -- Ah, fearful pawn!

For my omniscience paid I toll

In infinite remorse of soul.

All sin was of my sinning, all

Atoning mine, and mine the gall

Of all regret. Mine was the weight

Of every brooded wrong, the hate 

That stood behind each envious thrust,

Mine every greed, mine every lust.

And all the while for every grief,

Each suffering, I craved relief

With individual desire, --

Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire

About a thousand people crawl;

Perished with each, -- then mourned for all!

A man was starving in Capri;

He moved his eyes and looked at me;

I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,

And knew his hunger as my own.

I saw at sea a great fog-bank

Between two ships that struck and sank;

A thousand screams the heavens smote;

And every scream tore through my throat.

No hurt I did not feel, no death

That was not mine; mine each last breath

That, crying, met an answering cry

From the compassion that was I.

All suffering mine, and mine its rod;

Mine, pity like the pity of God.

Ah, awful weight! Infinity

Pressed down upon the finite Me!

My anguished spirit, like a bird, 

Beating against my lips I heard;

Yet lay the weight so close about

There was no room for it without.

And so beneath the Weight lay I

And suffered death, but could not die.

Long had I lain thus, craving death,

When quietly the earth beneath

Gave way, and inch by inch, so great

At last had grown the crushing weight,

Into the earth I sank till I

Full six feet under ground did lie,

And sank no more, -- there is no weight

Can follow here, however great.

From off my breast I felt it roll,

And as it went my tortured soul

Burst forth and fled in such a gust

That all about me swirled the dust.

Deep in the earth I rested now;

Cool is its hand upon the brow

And soft its breast beneath the head

Of one who is so gladly dead.

And all at once, and over all,

The pitying rain began to fall;

I lay and heard each pattering hoof

Upon my lowly, thatched roof,,

And seemed to love the sound far more

Than ever I had done before.

For rain it hath a friendly sound

To one who's six feet underground;

And scarce the friendly voice or face:

A grave is such a quiet place.

The rain, I said, is kind to come

And speak to me in my new home.

I would I were alive again

To kiss the fingers of the rain,

To drink into my eyes the shine

Of every slanting silver line,

To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze

From drenched and dripping apple-trees.

For soon the shower will be done,

And then the broad face of the sun

Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth

Until the world with answering mirth

Shakes joyously, and each round drop

Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.

How can I bear it; buried here,

While overhead the sky grows clear

And blue again after the storm?

O, multi-colored, multiform,

Beloved beauty over me,

That I shall never, never see

Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,

That I shall never more behold!

Sleeping your myriad magics through,

Close-sepulchered away from you!

O God, I cried, give me new birth,

And put me back upon the earth!

Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd

And let the heavy rain, down-poured

In one big torrent, set me free,

Washing my grave away from me!

I ceased; and, through the breathless hush

That answered me, the far-off rush

Of herald wings came whispering

Like music down the vibrant string

Of my ascending prayer, and -- crash!

Before the wild wind's whistling lash

The startled storm-clouds reared on high

And plunged in terror down the sky,

And the big rain in one black wave

Fell from the sky and struck my grave.

I know not how such things can be

I only know there came to me

A fragrance such as never clings

To aught save happy living things;

A sound as of some joyous elf

Singing sweet songs to please himself,

And, through and over everything,

A sense of glad awakening.

The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,

Whispering to me I could hear;

I felt the rain's cool finger-tips

Brushed tenderly across my lips,

Laid gently on my sealed sight,

And all at once the heavy night

Fell from my eyes and I could see,--

A drenched and dripping apple-tree,

A last long line of silver rain,

A sky grown clear and blue again.

And as I looked a quickening gust

Of wind blew up to me and thrust

Into my face a miracle

Of orchard-breath, and with the smell, --

I know not how such things can be! --

I breathed my soul back into me.

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I

And hailed the earth with such a cry

As is not heard save from a man

Who has been dead, and lives again.

About the trees my arms I wound;

Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;

I raised my quivering arms on high;

I laughed and laughed into the sky,

Till at my throat a strangling sob

Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb

Sent instant tears into my eyes;

O God, I cried, no dark disguise

Can e'er hereafter hide from me

Thy radiant identity!

Thou canst not move across the grass

But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,

Nor speak, however silently,

But my hushed voice will answer Thee.

I know the path that tells Thy way

Through the cool eve of every day;

God, I can push the grass apart

And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side

No wider than the heart is wide;

Above the world is stretched the sky, --

No higher than the soul is high.

The heart can push the sea and land

Farther away on either hand;

The soul can split the sky in two,

And let the face of God shine through

But East and West will pinch the heart

That cannot keep them pushed apart;

And he whose soul is flat -- the sky

Will cave in on him by and by.

BIO: Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) grew up in poverty but managed to earn a degree from Vassar College when Caroline B. Dow offered to pay for her education. Millay was an independent, outspoken, and brash feminist, openly bisexual, and rabidly anti-Fascist during World War II. She married Eugen Jan Boissevain in 1923, even though she always feared that marriage and domestic responsibilities would hamper her writing.

By the age of fifteen, Millay had published poems in St. Nicholas' Children's Magazine, the Camden Herald, and the Current Literature Anthology. But her national recognition as a poet began when she entered her poem "Renascence" in a poetry contest in 1912. Although the poem only won fourth place, other winners in the contest openly declared Millay's poem to be the best in the contest. In 1923,  she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her poem, "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver." In 1943, she was awarded the Robert Frost Medal for her lifetime achievements. She died in 1950 after falling down a flight of stairs. Her death was ruled a heart attack.