Weekly/Fortnightly Poetry Suggestions

[aradlaw]

I don't know if David realised - but that text was published 1994 so another source would be needed ?

Anne

No, I missed that.

[annise]

I was just curious about the poems and was somewhat amazed to see it was a borrowing book . The scan looked fine so I checked its publication date. So I don't blame you for not noticing

Anne

[fshort]

.Here' a poem written by Kitty O'Meara in the mid-19th century during a cholera outbreak,

And the people stayed home.
And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised,
and made art, and played games,
and learned new ways of being, and were still.
And listened more deeply.
Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.
Some met their shadows.
And the people began to think differently.
And the people healed
And, in the absence of people living
in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways,
the earth began to heal.
And when the danger passed,
and the people joined together again.
They grieved their losses,
and made new choices,
and dreamed new images,
and created new ways to live
and heal the earth fully,
as they had been healed."

[msfry]

Oh, lordie, that's good Florence!

[TriciaG]

We'd need a PD, trusted link for it.

EDIT: According to this page, it was written a few days ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/quoteporn/comments/fjvn1w/origin_of_quote_attributed_to_kitty_o_meara/

[SonOfTheExiles]

"After Many Years", by Henry Kendall

The song that once I dreamed about,
The tender, touching thing,
As radiant as the rose without—
The love of wind and wing—
The perfect verses, to the tune
Of woodland music set,
As beautiful as afternoon,
Remain unwritten yet.

It is too late to write them now—
The ancient fire is cold;
No ardent lights illume the brow,
As in the days of old.
I cannot dream the dream again;
But when the happy birds
Are singing in the sunny rain,
I think I hear its words.

I think I hear the echo still
Of long-forgotten tones,
When evening winds are on the hill
And sunset fires the cones;
But only in the hours supreme,
With songs of land and sea,
The lyrics of the leaf and stream,
This echo comes to me.

No longer doth the earth reveal
Her gracious green and gold;
I sit where youth was once, and feel
That I am growing old.
The lustre from the face of things
Is wearing all away;
Like one who halts with tired wings,
I rest and muse to-day.

There is a river in the range
I love to think about;
Perhaps the searching feet of change
Have never found it out.
Ah! oftentimes I used to look
Upon its banks, and long
To steal the beauty of that brook
And put it in a song.

I wonder if the slopes of moss,
In dreams so dear to me—
The falls of flower, and flower-like floss—
Are as they used to be!
I wonder if the waterfalls,
The singers far and fair,
That gleamed between the wet, green walls,
Are still the marvels there!

Ah! let me hope that in that place
The old familiar things
To which I turn a wistful face
Have never taken wings.
Let me retain the fancy still
That, past the lordly range,
There always shines, in folds of hill,
One spot secure from change!

I trust that yet the tender screen
That shades a certain nook,
Remains, with all its gold and green,
The glory of the brook.
It hides a secret to the birds
And waters only known:
The letters of two lovely words—
A poem on a stone.

Perhaps the lady of the past
Upon these lines may light,
The purest verses, and the last
That I may ever write.
She need not fear a word of blame—
Her tale the flowers keep—
The wind that heard me breathe her name
Has been for years asleep.

But in the night, and when the rain
The troubled torrent fills,
I often think I see again
The river in the hills;
And when the day is very near,
And birds are on the wing,
My spirit fancies it can hear
The song I cannot sing.


https://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/kendall-henry/poems/after-many-years-0007126

[msfry]

Should we save this for Halloween, or do it now during this glum time ----- while we are all haunting our own houses?

Haunted Houses
https://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=132

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table, than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star,
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,--

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[aradlaw]

Good find Michele, where to put this one

This one line contradicts the new norm -

There are more guests at table, than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged...

[msfry]

Social distancing and quarantining ourselves might well give us more time to sort through photos, remember people and times gone by. But with constant Facebook, Facetime, messaging, and texting, I suspect most people are staying in virtual touch with the living. But if the cell towers go down, look out!!!!!!

[ValdeniaAlves]

Hi, I'm new here, I've been trying to read up on all Librivox instructions before I record anything but I still can't figure out how to post the recordings I make or where are the options to choose from. I came to this forum to look for one, but I saw no indication of which poems were available for reading/recording. If some lovely soul could help me out here, I'd appreciate it very much.

[annise]

Best thing to do is follow your welcome email and tweak your settings by doing the 1 minute test - that will answer some of your questions
https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php?title=1-Minute_Test
If you learn better visually try Phils videos try https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php?title=Instructional_Videos.
Once your settings have been checked, all projects in the readers wanted are waiting eagerly for you

Anne

[msfry]

Hi, I'm new here, I've been trying to read up on all Librivox instructions before I record anything but I still can't figure out how to post the recordings I make or where are the options to choose from. I came to this forum to look for one, but I saw no indication of which poems were available for reading/recording. If some lovely soul could help me out here, I'd appreciate it very much.

Whenever you record for any project, the instructions what to name your file and where to upload it are included in the First Post, along with the required Intro and Outro phrases you need to add. Before you record, be sure and post a request to be assigned that file and wait for your request to be accepted. It helps to scan the material too, to be sure it's something that interests you. Once you've done it a time or two it becomes clear what to do.

[TriciaG]

I loved this poem so much, I recorded it for the short poetry collection but am offering it up here also.

Pansies
by James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)
Text URL: https://archive.org/details/rhymesofchildhoo00rilemiss/page/10/mode/2up

Pansies! Pansies! How I love you, pansies!
Jaunty-faced, laughing-lipped and dewy-eyed with glee;
Would my song might blossom out in little five-leaved stanzas
As delicate in fancies
As your beauty is to me!

But my eyes shall smile on you, and my hands enfold you,
Pet, caress, and lift you to the lips that love you so,
That, shut ever in the years that may mildew or mold you,
My fancy shall behold you
Fair as in the long ago.

[SonOfTheExiles]

A little something in anticipation of the day when things return to normal and folks everywhere, particularly in the hospitality industry, are back at work.

https://allpoetry.com/The-Wail-Of-The-Waiter-

The Wail of the Waiter
by Marcus Clarke

All day long, at Scott's or Menzies', I await the gorging crowd,
Panting, penned within a pantry, with the blowflies humming loud,
There at seven in the morning do I count my daily cash,
While the home-returning reveller calls for 'soda and a dash'.
And the weary hansom-cabbies set the blinking squatters down,
Who, all night, in savage freedom, have been 'knocking round the town'.
Soon the breakfast gong resounding bids the festive meal begin,
And, with appetites like demons, come the gentle public in.
'Toast and butter!' 'Eggs and coffee!' 'Waiter, mutton cops for four!'
'Flatheads!' 'Ham!' 'Beef!' 'Where's the mustard?' 'Steak and onions!' 'Shut the door!'

Here sits bandicoot, the broker, eating in a desperate hurry,
Scowling at his left-hand neighbour, Cornstalk from the Upper Murray,
Who with brandy-nose enpurpled, and with blue lips cracked and dry,
In incipient delirium shoves the eggspoon in his eye.
'Bloater paste!' 'Some tender steak, sir?" 'Here, confound you, where's my chop?'
'Waiter!' 'Yessir!' 'Waiter!' 'Yessir!!' - running till I'm fit to drop.
Then at lunch time -- fearful crisis! In by shoals the gorgers pour,
Gobbling, crunching, swilling, munching -- ten times hungrier than before.
'Glass of porter!' 'Ale for me, John!' 'Where's my stick?' 'And where's my hat!'
'Oxtal soup!' 'I asked for curry!' 'Cold boiled beef, and cut it fat!'
'Irish stew!' 'Some pickled cabbage!' 'What, no beans?' 'Bring me some pork!'
'Soup, sir?' 'Yes. You grinning idiot, can I eat it with a FORK?'
'Take care, waiter!' 'Beg your pardon.' 'Curse you, have you two left legs?'
'I asked for bread an hour ago, sir!' 'Now then, have you laid those eggs?'

'Sherry!' 'No, I called for beer -- of all the fools I ever saw!'
'Waiter!' 'Yessir!' 'WAITER!!' 'Here, sir!' 'Damme, sir, this steak is RAW!'
Thus amid this hideous Babel do I live the livelong day,
While my memory is going, and my hair is turning grey.
All my soul is slowly melting, all my brain is softening fast,
And I know that I'll be taken to the Yarra bend at last.
For at night from fitful slumbers I awaken with a start,
Murmuring of steak and onions, babbling of apple-tart.
While to me the Poet's cloudland a gigantic kitchen seems,
And those mislaid table-napkins haunt me even in my dreams

Is this right? -- Ye sages tell me! -- Does a man live but to eat?
Is there nothing worth enjoying but one's miserable meat?
Is the mightiest task of genius but to swallow buttered beans,
And has man but been created to demolish pork and greens?
Is there no unfed Hereafter, where the round of chewing stops?
Is the atmosphere of heaven clammy with perpetual chops?
Do the friends of Mr Naylor sup on spirit-reared cow-heel?
Can the great Alexis Soyer really say 'Soyez tranquille?'
Or must I bring spirit beefsteak grilled in spirit regions hotter
For the spirit delectation of some spiritual squatter?
Shall I in a spirit kitchen hear the spirit blowflies humming,
Calming spiritual stomachs with a spiritual 'Coming!'?
Shall -- but this is idle chatter, I have got my work to do.
'WAITER!!' 'Yessir.' 'Wake up, stupid! Boiled calves' feet for Number Two!'

[williamjones]

An unusual sonnet by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

THE BROKEN OAR

Page 106 of "Keramos and other poems"
A sonnet
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Copyright 1878
https://archive.org/details/keramosandotherp00longiala/page/n6/mode/2up

Once upon Iceland's solitary strand
A poet wandered with his book and pen,
Seeking some final word, some sweet Amen,
Wherewith to close the volume in his hand.

The billows rolled and plunged upon the sand,
The circling sea-gulls swept beyond his ken,
And from the parting cloud-rack now and then
Flashed the red sunset over sea and land.

Then by the billows at his feet was tossed
A broken oar; and carved thereon he read,
"Oft was I weary, when I toiled at thee";
And like a man, who findeth what was lost,

He wrote the words, then lifted up his head,
And flung his useless pen into the sea.

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