Christmas Poems by Christina Rossetti

 

Christmas Eve

Christmas hath a darkness

     Brighter than the blazing noon,

Christmas hath a chillness

     Warmer than the heat of June,

Christmas hath a beauty

     Lovelier than the world can show:

For Christmas bringeth Jesus,

     Brought for us so low.

Earth, strike up your music,

     Birds that sing and bells that ring;

Heaven hath answering music

     For all Angels soon to sing:

Earth, put on your whitest

     Bridal robe of spotless snow:

For Christmas bringeth Jesus,

     Brought for us so low.

~Christina Rossetti~

1893

A Christmas Carol

(Set to music as "In the Bleak Mid-winter)

In the bleak mid-winter

     Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

     Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

     Snow on snow,

In the bleak mid-winter

     Long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him

     Nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away

     When He comes to reign:

In the bleak mid-winter

     A stable-place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty

     Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim

     Worship night and day,

A breastful of milk

     And a mangerful of hay;

Enough for Him, whom angels

     Fall down before,

The ox and ass and camel

     Which adore.

Angels and archangels

     May have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim

     Thronged the air;

But only His mother

     In her maiden bliss

Worshipped the Beloved

     With a kiss.

What can I give Him,

     Poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd

     I would bring a lamb,

If I were a Wise Man

     I would do my part,--

Yet what can I give Him,

     Give my heart.

~Christina Rossetti~

BIO:  Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) came from a family of talented poets, writers, and painters. Her father, Gabriele Rossetti, emigrated to England as a poet and political exile from Vasto, Abruzzo, Italy. Her mother, Frances Polidori, was the sister of the notorious Lord Byron physician, John William Polidori. Her brother was the renowned poet and painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Christina often posed for her brother's paintings and became a popular poetess in her own right. In popularity, she became the successor of Elizabeth Barrett Browning after the famous poetess died in 1861. Christina published her first collection of poems in 1862, Goblin Market and Other Poems, which remains popular even today. Two of her poems were set to music: A Christmas Carol and Love Came Down at Christmas. She is buried in London's Highgate Cemetery.

"Nature's Child" won Honorable Mention

 

I'm pleased and honored to announce that my poem, "Nature's Child," won Honorable Mention in the Arizona Authors Association 2022 Literary Contest.

Thanks for visiting!

Dawn Pisturino

Autumn to Winter

 

(Photo by Lester Hine on Unsplash)

Autumn to Winter

by Dawn Pisturino

The old year is fading

and Autumn blows

the misty clouds

of Winter our way.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Vampire - Charles Baudelaire

 

The Vampire

by Charles Baudelaire

You who, like the stab of a knife,

Entered my plaintive heart;

You who, strong as a herd

Of demons, came, ardent and adorned,

To make your bed and your domain

Of my humiliated mind

-- Infamous bitch to whom I'm bound

Like the convict to his chain,

Like the stubborn gambler to the game,

Like the drunkard to his wine,

Like the maggots to the corpse,

-- Accurst, accurst be you!

I begged the swift poniard

To gain for me my liberty,

I asked perfidious poison

To give aid to my cowardice.

Alas! both poison and the knife

Contemptuously said to me:

"You do not deserve to be freed

From your accursed slavery,

Fool! -- if from her domination

Our efforts could deliver you,

Your kisses would resuscitate

The cadaver of your vampire!"

~Charles Baudelaire~

(Translated by William Aggeler, from The Flowers of Evil)

BIO: Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a French poet, art critic, essayist, and translator whose innovative style influenced such poets as Paul Verlaine, Stephane Mallarme, and Arthur Rimbaud. A close friend of painter Edouard Manet, he is best known for his collection of poems, The Flowers of Evil.

October Sunrise

 

Photo by Dawn Pisturino.

October Sunrise

by Dawn Pisturino

Orange cotton candy balls

Burst across the sky,

Playing peek-a-boo with Mr. Sun,

Slowly rising from his slumber,

A comical clown dressed in lemon yellow.

~

Dawn Pisturino

Poem and Photo: Copyright 2022 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.

Song of Autumn

 

(Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash)

Song of Autumn

I

Soon we shall plunge into cold darkness;

Farewell, strong light of our too brief summers!

I already hear falling, with funereal thuds,

The wood resounding on the pavement of the courtyards.

All of winter will gather in my being: anger,

Hate, chills, horror, hard and forced labor,

And, like the sun in its polar hell,

My heart will be only a red icy block.

I listen shuddering to each log that falls;

The scaffold which is being built has not a hollower echo.

My mind is like the tower which falls

Under the blows of the indefatigable heavy battering ram.

It seems to me, lulled by the monotonous thuds,

That somewhere a casket is being nailed in great haste.

For whom? Yesterday it was summer; here is autumn!

This mysterious noise sounds like a departure.

II

I love the green light of your long eyes,

Sweet beauty, but everything today is bitter for me,

And nothing, neither your love, nor the boudoir, nor the hearth,

Is worth as much to me as the sun shining over the sea.

But despite all that, love me, tender heart! be maternal,

Even for an ingrate, even for a wicked man;

Lover or sister, be the passing tenderness

Of a glorious autumn or of a setting sun.

A brief task! The grave is waiting; it is avid!

My head resting on your knees, let me

Enjoy, as I grieve for the white torrid summer,

The yellow gentle ray of the earlier season!

~Charles Baudelaire, translated by Wallace Fowlie, from The Flowers of Evil~

BIO: Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a French poet, art critic, essayist, and translator whose innovative style influenced such poets as Paul Verlaine, Stephane Mallarme, and Arthur Rimbaud. A close friend of painter Edouard Manet, he is best known for his collection The Flowers of Evil.

 

Autumn Equinox

 

Autumn Equinox

by Dawn Pisturino

The autumn equinox

brought the first morning dew

sparkling in the sun

like tiny crystals

welcoming a new day

September 22, 2022

Copyright 2022 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.

BIO: Dawn Pisturino is a retired nurse in Arizona whose publishing credits include poems, limericks, short stories, and articles. Her poetry has appeared in these anthologies: World Poetry Anthology, 1987; Best New Poems of 1988; Great Poems of Today, 1987; New American Poetry Anthology, 1988; National Poetry Anthology, 1988; American Poetry Anthology, 1988; Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women, 2022. In 2007, she had her own health and wellness column in the Kingman Daily Miner and published articles in The Standard and the Bullhead City Bee. Her poems, limericks, short stories, and articles have appeared in MasticadoresUSA, Underneath the Juniper Tree, Brooklyn Voice, Danse Macabre du Jour, Psychic Magic Ezine, Working Writer, and others.  She has several novels in progress. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America and the Arizona Authors Association.

Boudica's Soliloquy

 

Boudica's Soliloquy

by 

Dawn Pisturino

Foul deeds of war  have broken me.

Come, smell the blood! Hear the moans of the dying!

The corpses of my daughters lay silently at my feet,

Shamed and murdered by our Roman tormentors.

Colchester and London -- what glorious victories! --

The blood flowed freely from Roman wounds.

They howled in rage as they died. How we cheered!

But Rome's crawling legions caught us in their snare,

And now, we are vanquished.

Britannia is no more. Weep for a chastised people!

No longer Queen, I am marked for death.

No longer Mother, I will not be consoled.

No longer Wife, I burn with revenge.

I lift the flask of poison to my lips, tasting the bitterness in my mouth.

I will lie here with my daughters, my shield across my breast

And my spear by my side, and welcome Death with honor.

Published in the June 2022 Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women anthology, #1 Amazon best-seller in New Releases of Poetry Anthologies. Available now on Amazon in print or Kindle.

Amazon Description:

“Award-winning authors, Pushcart nominees, emerging poets, voices of women and men, come to the fore in this stunning, powerful, and unique anthology. Their poems testify to the challenges that women face in our society, and to their power to overcome them. A memorable collection of over 200 poems by more than 100 authors, this anthology is a must-have for anyone. We all can benefit from the poetry of survival, and of healing. We all can benefit from the experiences so beautifully evoked in this book. We can all come together to emerge triumphant from pain.”

~

Dawn Pisturino

September 6, 2022

Copyright 2022 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.

Joe Biden

 

Joe Biden

The decrepit old fool in the White House

With creaky jaws

Squeaks out lie after lie

Until nobody believes him anymore.

~ Dawn Pisturino ~

Copyright 2022 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.

Fern Hill - Dylan Thomas

 

Fern Hill

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs

About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,

     The night above the dingle starry,

       Time let me hail and climb

     Golden in the heydays of his eyes,

And honored among wagons I was prince of the apple towns

And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves

       Trail with daisies and barley

     Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns

About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,

     In the sun that is young once only,

       Time let me play and be

     Golden in the mercy of his means,

And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves

Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,

       And the sabbath rang slowly

     In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay-

Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air

     And playing, lovely and watery

       And fire green as grass.

     And nightly under the simple stars

As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,

All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars

     Flying with the ricks, and the horses

       Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white

With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all

     Shining, it was Adam and maiden,

       The sky gathered again

     And the sun grew round that very day.

So it must have been after the birth of the simple light

In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm

     Out of the whinnying green stable

       On to the fields of praise.

And honored among foxes and pheasants by the gay house

Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,

     In the sun born over and over,

       I ran my heedless ways,

     My wishes raced through the house-high hay

And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows

In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs

     Before the children green and golden

       Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me

Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,

     In the moon that is always rising,

       Nor that riding to sleep

     I should hear him fly with the high fields

And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,

       Time held me green and dying

     Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

~ Dylan Thomas ~ 

BIO:  Dylan Marlais Thomas was born on October 27, 1914 in Swansea, South Wales. His father, an  English literature professor, recited Shakespeare to the young boy, instilling in him a lifelong love of poetry. At the age of 16, Thomas quit school and became a junior reporter for the South Wales Daily Post. In 1932, Thomas quit working to become a full-time poet, winning the Poet's Corner book prize in 1934. His first book, 18 Poems, was released to rave reviews. Thomas loved the poetry of Hopkins, Yeats, Poe, and D.H. Lawrence. Attracted to the ballads of the Romantic tradition, he wrote in lyrical rhythms that evoked deep emotions. He died of complications related to alcoholism on November 9, 1953 in New York City.

Available Now - "Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women" Anthology

 

#1 Amazon Bestseller!

Get your copy today!

Editor/Curator: Gabriela Marie Milton

Publisher: Experiments in Fiction/Ingrid Wilson

Artwork: Nick Reeves

My poem, "Boudica's Soliloquy," is included in the anthology.

Thank you sincerely!

Dawn Pisturino

Official Anthology Launch Date: June 18, 2022

 

Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women anthology officially launches on Amazon and Kindle on Saturday, June 18, 2022.

Here's the official Amazon description:

“Award-winning authors, Pushcart nominees, emerging poets, voices of women and men, come to the fore in this stunning, powerful, and unique anthology. Their poems testify to the challenges that women face in our society, and to their power to overcome them. A memorable collection of over 200 poems by more than 100 authors, this anthology is a must-have for anyone. We all can benefit from the poetry of survival, and of healing. We all can benefit from the experiences so beautifully evoked in this book. We can all come together to emerge triumphant from pain.”

Editor and Curator: Gabriela Marie Milton

Publisher: Experiments in Fiction/Ingrid Wilson

Artwork: Nick Reeves

Get YOUR copy soon!

Dawn Pisturino

"Wounds I Healed" Anthology Acceptance

 

I am pleased and proud to announce that my poem, "Boudica's Soliloquy," has been accepted for publication in the upcoming anthology, Wounds I Healed: The Poetry of Strong Women. It will be released this month.

Dawn Pisturino

June 10, 2022

Copyright 2022 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.

Joyful Krishna: The Ten Incarnations

 

from Jayadeva's Gitagovinda:

Joyful Krishna

"Clouds thicken the sky.

Tamala trees darken the forest.

The night frightens him.

Radha, you take him home!"

They leave at Nanda's order,

Passing trees in thickets on the way,

Until secret passions of Radha and Madhava

Triumph on the Jumna riverbank.

Jayadeva, wandering king of bards

Who sing at Padmavati's lotus feet,

Was obsessed in his heart

By rhythms of the goddess of speech,

And he made this lyrical poem

From tales of the passionate play

When Krishna loved Sri.

Umapatidhara is prodigal with speech,

Sarana is renowned for his subtle flowing sounds,

But only Jayadeva divines the pure design of words.

Dhoyi is famed as king of poets for his musical ear,

But no one rivals master Govardhana

For poems of erotic mood and sacred truth.

If remembering Hari enriches your heart,

If his arts of seduction arouse you,

Listen to Jayadeva's speech

In these sweet soft lyrical songs.

In seas that rage as the aeon of chaos collapses,

You keep the holy Veda like a ship straight on course.

     You take form as the Fish, Krishna.

     Triumph, Hari, Lord of the World!

Where the world rests on your vast back,

Thick scars show the weight of bearing earth.

     You take form as the Tortoise, Krishna.

     Triumph, Hari, Lord of the World!

The earth clings to the tip of your tusk

Like a speck of dust caught on the crescent moon.

     You take form as the Boar, Krishna.

     Triumph, Hari, Lord of the World!

Nails on your soft lotus hand are wondrous claws

Tearing the gold-robed body of black bee Hiranyakasipu.

     You take form as the Man-lion, Krishna.

     Triumph, Hari, Lord of the World!

Wondrous dwarf, when you cheat demon Bali with wide steps,

Water falls from your lotus toenails to purify creatures.

     You take form as the dwarf, Krishna.

     Triumph, Hari, Lord of the World!

You wash evil from the world in a flood of warrior's blood,

And the pain of existence is eased.

     You take form as the axman Priest, Krishna.

     Triumph, Hari, Lord of the World!

Invited by gods who guard the directions in battle,

You hurl Ravana's ten demon heads to the skies.

     You take form as the prince Rama, Krishna.

     Triumph, Hari, Lord of the World!

The robe on your bright body is colored with rain clouds,

And Jumna waters roiling in fear of your plow's attack.

     You take form as the plowman Balarama, Krishna.

     Triumph, Hari, Lord of the World!

Moved by deep compassion, you condemn the Vedic way

That ordains animal slaughter in rites of sacrifice.

     You take form as the enlightened Buddha, Krishna.

     Triumph, Hari, Lord of the World!

You raise your sword like a fiery meteor

Slashing barbarian hordes to death.

     You take form as the avenger Kalki, Krishna.

     Triumph, Hari, Lord of the World!

Listen to the perfect invocation of poet Jayadeva, 

Joyously evoking the essence of existence!

     You take the tenfold cosmic form, Krishna.

     Triumph, Hari, Lord of the World!

For upholding the Vedas,

For supporting the earth,

For raising the world,

For tearing the demon asunder,

For cheating Bali,

For destroying the warrior class,

For conquering Ravana,

For wielding the plow,

For spreading compassion,

For routing the barbarians,

Homage to you, Krishna,

In your ten incarnate forms!

~ Translated by Barbara Stoler Miller ~

Trees by Joyce Kilmer

 

                                                (Photo by Brian Green)

Trees

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

~ Joyce Kilmer ~

BIO: Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) died at the tender age of 32, but his poem, Trees, is one of the most treasured in America. It was originally published in 1914 in his poetry collection, Trees and Other Poems, by George H. Doran Company. Kilmer fought in World War I and received the War Cross from the French government for bravery. He died from a sniper bullet on July 30, 1918. An old growth forest in North Carolina is named for him.

Plant trees! Support the National Arbor Day Foundation.

Spring Poems

 

                                    (Photo by Reimar/Shutterstock)

Spring Poems

by Dawn Pisturino

~

April Showers

I looked into the heavens

And saw the face of God.

He was a kindly gentleman

And not too very loud.

He wore a watch upon his vest

Which gave the time of day.

He looked at it: "The time has come,"

Was all he had to say.

And soon a gentle rainfall

Came from the April sky.

It kissed my wondering up-turned face

And poked me in the eye.

But then a very curious thing

Did happen at my feet.

A tiny flower sprouted up,

All blooming and complete.

It opened up its tiny leaves,

Embracing fast the rain,

And if I ever doubted God -

I never did again.

~November 25, 1985~

Spring

Spring! The vigor of new life soars in my veins!

I am free and alive and wonderful,

Free as the silly sparrow twittering in the tree-top,

Too gaily alive.

Alive as the new-sprung fountain of youth in the riverbed,

Which knows not that it is bound by grassy banks,

But runs down the waterway in a mad race for the finish.

And, wonderful as the tiny petals of a flower,

First opening up to the Father Sun

Like a virgin bride in the marriage bed.

Sun gives new life to the blood,

And blood gives new life to the body,

And the body gives new life to the soul,

Ad infinitum, ad infinitum, ad infinitum.

But every Spring plays its part as a new beginning,

And we never tire of the encore.

~1987~

Robin Red-Breast

When Robin Red-breast comes to town,

All the children dance around,

Clapping hands and stamping feet,

Happy with their little treat!

~February 2, 1987~

Dawn Pisturino

Copyright 1985-1987 Dawn Pisturino. All Rights Reserved.

Poems by Wallace Stevens

 

What is Divinity

What is divinity if it can come

Only in silent shadows and in dreams?

Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,

In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else

In any balm or beauty of the earth,

Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?

Divinity must live within herself:

Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;

Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued

Elations when the forest blooms; gusty

Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;

All pleasures and all pains, remembering

The bough of summer and the winter branch,

These are the measures destined for her soul.

Depression Before Spring

The cock crows

But no queen rises.

The hair of my blonde

Is dazzling,

As the spittle of cows

Threading the wind.

Ho! Ho!

But ki-ki-ri-ki

Brings no rou-cou,

No rou-cou-cou.

But no queen comes

In slipper green.

BIO: Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) was a modern American poet who worked as a lawyer and businessman. As a young man, he became friends with Greenwich Village poets William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and E.E. Cummings. His first poem was published by Harriet Monroe in Poetry in 1914. His first collection of poems, Harmonium, was published in 1923. Steven's poetry was considered very modern and original for its time. In 1935, after a drinking binge, he got into an argument with poet, Robert Frost. A year later, Ernest Hemingway punched him out down in Key West, Florida. In 1955, not long before his death, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Works. He still has a large following of fans.

HAPPY EASTER!

Poems from Irish Poet Francis Ledwidge

 

Ireland

I called you by sweet names by wood and linn,

You answered not because my voice was new,

And you were listening for the hounds of Finn

And the long hosts of Lugh.

And so, I came unto a windy height

And cried my sorrow, but you heard no wind,

For you were listening to small ships in flight,

And the wail on hills behind.

And then I left you, wandering the war

Armed with will, from distant goal to goal,

To find you at the last free as of yore,

Or die to save your soul.

And then you called to us from far and near

To bring your crown from out the deeps of time,

It is my grief your voice I couldn't hear

In such a distant clime.

A Fairy Hunt

Who would hear the fairy horn

Calling all the hounds of Finn

Must be in a lark's nest born

When the moon is very thin.

I who have the gift can hear

Hounds and horn and tally ho,

And the tongue of Bran as clear

As Christmas bells across the snow.

And beside my secret place

Hurries by the fairy fox,

With the moonrise on his face,

Up and down the mossy rocks.

Then the music of a horn

And the flash of scarlet men,

Thick as poppies in the corn

All across the dusky glen.

Oh! the mad delight of chase!

Oh! the shouting and the cheer!

Many an owl doth leave his place

In the dusty tree to hear.

Fairies

Maiden-poet, come with me

To the heaped up cairn of Maeve,

And there we'll dance a fairy dance

Upon a fairy's grave.

In and out among the trees,

Filling all the night with sound,

The morning, strung upon her star,

Shall chase us round and round.

What are we but fairies too,

Living but in dreams alone,

Or, at the most, but children still,

Innocent and overgrown?

~Francis Ledwidge~

BIO: Francis Ledwidge was born in 1887 to a poor laboring family in Northern Ireland. In spite of their poverty, his mother encouraged him to stay in school until age thirteen. He loved to read Longfellow, Tennyson, Shakespeare, Shelley, and Keats, and finally began writing his own poetry. He become well-known in his local area and earned the support of Lord Dunsany, 18th Baron Dunsany. Ledwidge became a regular contributor to the Drogheda Independent newspaper. He enlisted in World War I in 1914 with Lord Dunsany as his captain. His first poetry collection was released in 1916 while still in the military. Instead of writing about the war, he wrote about his beloved Ireland. He died in Belgium in July 1917. Lord Dunsany compiled a collection of his works and published The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge in 1919.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

Morning Song - Poetry by Sylvia Plath

 

Morning Song

Love set you going like a fat gold watch,

The midwife slapped your foot soles, and your bald cry

Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.

In a drafty museum, your nakedness

Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother

Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow

Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath

Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:

A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral

In my Victorian nightgown.

Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try

Your handful of notes;

The clear vowels rise like balloons.

~ Sylvia Plath ~

The Night Dances

A smile fell in the grass.

Irretrievable!

And how will your night dances

Lose themselves. In mathematics?

Such pure leaps and spirals --

Surely they travel

The world forever, I shall not entirely

Sit emptied of beauties, the gift

Of your small breath, the drenched grass

Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.

Their flesh bears no relation.

Cold folds of ego, the calla,

And the tiger, embellishing itself --

Spots, and a spread of hot petals.

The comets

Have such a space to cross,

Such coldness, forgetfulness.

So your gestures flake off --

Warm and human, then their pink light

Bleeding and peeling

Through the black amnesias of heaven.

Why am I given

These lamps, these planets

Falling like blessings, like flakes

Six-sided, white

On my eyes, my lips, my hair

Touching and melting.

Nowhere.

~Sylvia Plath ~

BIO: Born in Massachusetts in 1932, Sylvia Plath suffered deeply from depression, which she wrote about in her celebrated book, The Bell Jar. Her poetry collections include The Colossus, Crossing the Water, Winter Trees, and The Collected Poems, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. She was married to poet Ted Hughes and committed suicide by gas inhalation in London in 1963.

Black Earth

 

                                    (Nasa Earth Observatory)

Black Earth

by Marianne Moore

Openly, yes,

       With the naturalness

       Of the hippopotamus or the alligator

When it climbs out on the bank to experience the

Sun, I do these

Things which I do, which please

       No one but myself. Now I breathe and now I am sub-

       Merged; the blemishes stand up and shout when the object

In view was a

Renaissance; shall I say

       The contrary? The sediment of the river which

       Encrusts my joints, makes me very gray but I am used

To it, it may

Remain there; do away

       With it and I am myself done away  with, for the

       Patina of circumstance can but enrich what was

There to begin

With. This elephant skin

       Which I inhabit, fibered over like the shell of

       The coco-nut, this piece of black glass through which no light

Can filter -- cut

Into checkers by rut

       Upon rut of unpreventable experience --

       It is a manual for the peanut-tongued and the

Hairy toed. Black

But beautiful, my back

       Is full of the history of power. Of power? What

       Is powerful and what is not? My soul shall never

Be cut into

By a wooden spear; through-

       Out childhood to the present time, the unity of

       Life and death has been expressed by the circumference

Described by my

Trunk; nevertheless, I

       Perceive feats of strength to be inexplicable after

       All; and I am on my guard; external poise, it

Has its centre

Well nurtured -- we know

       Where--in pride, it spiritual poise, it has its centre where?

       My ears are sensitized to more than the sound of

The wind. I see

And I hear, unlike the

       Wandlike body of which one hears so much, which was made

       To see and not to see; to hear and not to hear,

That tree trunk without

Roots, accustomed to shout

       Its own thoughts to itself like a shell, maintained intact

       By who knows what strange pressure of the atmosphere; that

Spiritual

Brother to the coral

       Plant, absorbed into which, the equable sapphire light

       Becomes a nebulous green. The I of each is to

The I of each,

A kind of fretful speech

       Which sets a limit on itself; the elephant is?

       Black earth preceded by a tendril? It is to that

Phenomenon

The above formation,

       Translucent like the atmosphere--a cortex merely--

       That on which darts cannot strike decisively the first

Time, a substance

Needful as an instance

       Of the indestructability of matter; it

       Has looked at the electricity and at the earth-

Quake and is still

Here; the name means thick. Will

       Depth be depth, thick skin be thick, to one who can see no

       Beautiful element of unreason under it?

BIO: With Bachelor degrees in biology and histology, Marianne Moore often used nature to convey profound observations about life. She was born in 1887, worked as the Editor of Dial

from 1925 - 1929, and created her best work in the 1930s and 1940s. Her Collected Poems (1951) earned her the Pulitzer Prize in poetry and a National Book Award. In 1953, she won the Bollingen Prize. The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore appeared in 1967. Before her death in 1972, she was given an honorary doctorate from Harvard University.

Love Poems from the Bard

Sonnet XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease shall hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

       So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

       So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

       If this be error and upon me proved,

       I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

~ William Shakespeare ~

BIO: The question is not whether William Shakespeare lived, but whether he actually wrote the plays and other compositions he is known for. Records show that he was baptized on April 26, 1564 at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. During his lifetime, he belonged to the King's Men theatrical group and helped to establish the Globe Theatre in London. His 37 plays are still performed today. He is known for some of the finest sonnets ever written. While some people believe Christopher Marlowe or Francis Bacon secretly wrote Shakespeare's works, the consensus seems to be that William Shakespeare created his own body of works. He died in 1616 and was buried at Trinity Church.

 

Poems About Books

 

There is no Frigate like a Book

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry –

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll –

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human Soul –

 

~ Emily Dickinson ~

 

The Land of Story-Books

 

These are the hills, these are the woods,
These are my starry solitudes;
And there the river by whose brink
The roaring lions come to drink.

I see the others far away
As if in firelit camp they lay,
And I, like to an Indian scout,
Around their party prowled about.

So, when my nurse comes in for me,
Home I return across the sea,
And go to bed with backward looks
At my dear land of Story-books.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson ~

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 

~ W.B. Yeats ~

Good Books

Good books are friendly things to own.
If you are busy they will wait.
They will not call you on the phone
Or wake you if the hour is late.
They stand together row by row,
Upon the low shelf or the high.
But if you're lonesome this you know:
You have a friend or two nearby.

The fellowship of books is real.
They're never noisy when you're still.
They won't disturb you at your meal.
They'll comfort you when you are ill.
The lonesome hours they'll always share.
When slighted they will not complain.
And though for them you've ceased to care
Your constant friends they'll still remain.

Good books your faults will never see
Or tell about them round the town.
If you would have their company
You merely have to take them down.
They'll help you pass the time away,
They'll counsel give if that you need.
He has true friends for night and day
Who has a few good books to read.

 

~ Edgar Albert Guest ~