Weekly/Fortnightly Poetry Suggestions

[msfry]

I could BC this sometime.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Stops_of_Various_Quills/Hope

HOPE , by William Dean Howells

We sailed and sailed upon the desert sea
Where for whole days we alone seemed to be.
At last we saw a dim, vague line arise
Between the empty billows and the skies,
That grew and grew until it wore the shape
Of cove and inlet, promontory and cape;
Then hills and valleys, rivers, fields, and woods,
Steeples and roofs, and village neighborhoods.
And then I thought, "Sometime I shall embark
Upon a sea more desert and more dark
Than ever this was, and between the skies
And empty billows I shall see arise
Another world out of that waste and lapse,
Like yonder land. Perhaps—perhaps—perhaps!"⁠

[KevinS]

Binsey Poplars

felled 1879

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow & river & wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew —
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc unselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44390/binsey-poplars

I could find another source, if need be.

A challenging poem in the reading, I think. It would be interesting to hear how others interpret this. (And I love the word 'unselve.')

[KevinS]

Oh, the accent on 'só' is Hopkins at work in his way. It can be ignored.

[leanneyauyau]

Have we done this?

Dulce et Decorum Est
BY WILFRED OWEN

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

[TriciaG]

Yes, in 2008: https://librivox.org/dulce-et-decorum-est-by-wilfred-owen/

[msfry]

Have we done this?

Dulce et Decorum Est
BY WILFRED OWEN

You can always find out by putting the title or author in the search bar on the home page. Yes, it's been done in a Poetry Weekly back in 2008, and 10 more times in various collections!!!!!

[msfry]

Here's one I could BC sometime. Published in 1881

Ina D. Coolbrith
Fruitionless

Text Source: https://www.bartleby.com/248/967.html

AH! little flower, upspringing, azure-eyed,
The meadow-brook beside,
Dropping delicious balms
Into the tender palms
Of lover-winds, that woo with light caress,
In still contentedness,
Living and blooming thy brief summer-day: —
So, wiser far than I,
That only dream and sigh,
And, sighing, dream my listless life away.

Ah! sweetheart birds, a-building your wee house
In the broad-leavëd boughs,
Pausing with merry trill
To praise each other’s skill,
And nod your pretty heads with pretty pride;
Serenely satisfied
To trill and twitter love’s sweet roundelay: —
So, happier than I,
That, lonely, dream and sigh,
And, sighing, dream my lonely life away.

Brown-bodied bees, that scent with nostrils fine
The odorous blossom-wine,
Sipping, with heads half thrust
Into the pollen dust
Of rose and hyacinth and daffodil,
To hive, in amber cell,
A honey feasting for the winter-day: —
So, better far than I,
Self-wrapt, that dream and sigh,
And, sighing, dream my useless life away.

[aradlaw]

Here's one I could BC sometime. Published in 1881

Ina D. Coolbrith
Fruitionless

Good one Michele, you can set this up as the Fortnightly this weekend if you wish.

[msfry]

Here's one I could BC sometime. Published in 1881

Ina D. Coolbrith
Fruitionless

Good one Michele, you can set this up as the Fortnightly this weekend if you wish.

WILL DO!

[leanneyauyau]

I've checked that Librivox does do NC-17 works such as the Erotica Romana and that piece by Kate Percival (https://librivox.org/the-life-and-amours-of-the-beautiful-gay-and-dashing-kate-percival-the-belle-of-the-delaware-by-kate-percival/). I was trawling around on Wikisource and came upon this surprising delight - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Pearl

The Pearl is a collection of erotic tales, rhymes, songs and parodies in magazine form that were published in London between 1879 to 1880, when they were forced to shut down by the authorities for publishing rude and obscene literature. There are 18 volumes (plus a Christmas Annual in 1881), and they're not that long.

If you're looking for poetry in particular, here's a list of poetry submissions to The Pearl: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Portal:Erotic_poetry

Some of the material's very shocking indeed but if anyone's up for doing some NSFW work, this would be the place to look.

[msfry]

Here's something love-sick sweet and pathetic, not yet in LV's catalog. Should be fun to read and we can surely do better than this computer generated recitation!!!!!https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-arise-from-dreams-of-thee/
I can BC this whenever you have a slot to fill.

I Arise From Dreams Of Thee
Percy Bysshe Shelley

I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me - who knows how? -
To thy chamber-window, sweet!

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream, -
The champak odors fall
Like sweet thoughts in a dream,
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O, beloved as thou art!

O, lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fall!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale,
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My Heart beats loud and fast
Oh! press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last!

[Peter Why]

A liitle Jonathan Swift poem. There's a programme on the BBC this afternoon about market cries and the way musicians and poets have preserved them, and I thought I'd see if we've already done this one. We haven't.
Peter


Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Swift

The poem's on Bartleby: https://www.bartleby.com/250/7.html

Market Women's Cries

APPLES

COME buy my fine wares,
Plums, apples and pears.
A hundred a penny,
In conscience too many:
Come, will you have any?
My children are seven,
I wish them in Heaven;
My husband ’s a sot,
With his pipe and his pot,
Not a farthen will gain them,
And I must maintain them.

ONIONS

Come, follow me by the smell,
Here are delicate onions to sell;
I promise to use you well.
They make the blood warmer,
You’ll feed like a farmer;
For this is every cook’s opinion,
No savoury dish without an onion;
But, lest your kissing should be spoiled,
Your onions must be thoroughly boiled:
Or else you may spare
Your mistress a share,
The secret will never be known:
She cannot discover
The breath of her lover,
But think it as sweet as her own.

HERRINGS

Be not sparing,
Leave off swearing.
Buy my herring
Fresh from Malahide,
Better never was tried.
Come, eat them with pure fresh butter and mustard,
Their bellies are soft, and as white as a custard.
Come, sixpence a dozen, to get me some bread,
Or, like my own herrings, I soon shall be dead.

[sarahrejoice]

Greetings all. May I suggest the poem "October" by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik as a weekly or fortnightly poetry selection at some point this month? It can be found at: https://www.bartleby.com/297/542.html

Thanks for considering it!

[Peter Why]

I'd like to suggest a sad little poem for our weekly collection:

Nocturne: in Anjou

I dreamed of Sappho on a summer night.
Her nightingales were singing in the trees
Beside the castled river; and the wind
Fell like a woman's fingers on my cheek.
And then I slept and dreamed and marked no change;
The night went on with me into my dream.
This only I remember, that I cried:
"O Sappho! ere I leave this paradise,
Sing me one song of those lost books of yours
For which we poets still go sorrowing;
That when I meet my fellows on the earth
I may rejoice them more than many pearls;"
And she, the sweetly smiling, answered me,
As one who dreams, "I have forgotten them."

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18007/18007-h/18007-h.htm#IN_ANJOU


From More Songs from Vagabondia, by Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18007

Peter

[SonOfTheExiles]

Romance, by Victor Daley https://archive.org/details/wineroses00dale/page/n29

They say that fair Romance is dead, and in her cold grave lying low,
The green grass waving o'er her head, the mould upon her breasts of snow;
Her voice, they say, is dumb for aye, that once was clarion-clear and high,
But in their hearts, their frozen hearts, they know that bitterly they lie.

Her brow of white, that was with bright rose-garland in the old days crowned,
Is now, they say, all shorn of light, and with a fatal fillet bound.
Her eyes divine no more shall shine to lead the hardy knight and good
Unto the Castle Perilous, beyond the dark Enchanted Wood.

And do they deem, these fools supreme, whose iron wheels unceasing whirr,
That, in this rushing Age of Steam, there is no longer room for her?
That, as they hold the Key of Gold that shuts or opens Mammon's Den,
Romance has vanished from the earth and left the homes and hearts of men?

Yea, some there be who fain would see this consummation sad and drear,
And set their god Machinery with iron rod to rule the year.
They go their way, day after day, with forward-staring, famished eyes,
Whose level glances never stray, fixed fast upon a sordid prize!

The sun may rise in god-like guise, the stars like burning seraphs shine,
But, ah, for those sad souls unwise, nor Earth nor Heaven bears a sign.
All visions fair, in earth and air, they gaze upon with sullen scorn.
God knows His own great business best; He only knows why they were born.

They never saw, with sacred awe, the Vision of the Starry Stream
That is the source of Love and Law; they never dreamt the Wondrous Dream;
They never heard the Magic Bird, whose strains the poet's soul entrance;
Their souls are in their money-bags, what should they know of fair Romance?

She still is here, the fair and dear, and walks the Earth with noiseless feet;
Her eyes are deep, and dark, and clear, her scarlet mouth is honey-sweet;
A chaplet fair of roses rare and lordly laurel crowns her head;
Her path is over land and sea. She is not dead; she is not dead.

On roads of clay, 'neath skies of grey, though Fate compel us to advance,
Beyond the turning of the way there sits and waits for us Romance.
Around yon cape, of lion-shape, that meets the wave with lion-brow,
A ship sails in from lands unknown; Romance stands shining on her prow.

At dead of night, a fiery light, from out the heart of darkness glares;
The engine, rocking in its flight, once more into the darkness flares;
The train flies fast, the bridge is past; white faces for a moment gleam,
And at the window sits Romance and gazes down into the stream.

When first the child, with wonder wild, looks on the world with shining eyes,
Romance becomes his guardian mild, and tells to him her stories wise.
And, when the light fades into night, and ended is this life's short span,
To other wonder-worlds she leads the spirit of the Dying Man.

Right grim gods be Reality, and iron-handed Circumstance.
Cast off their fetters, friend! Break free! and seek the shrine of fair Romance.
And, when dark days with cares would craze your brain, then she will take your hand,
And lead you on by greenwood ways unto a green and pleasant land.

There you will see brave company all making gay and gallant cheer,
Blanaid the Fair, and Deirdri rare, and Gold Gudrun and Guinevere;
And Merlin wise, with dreaming eyes, and Tristram of the Harp and Bow;
While from the Wood of Broceliande the horns of Elfland bravely blow.