Poetry

[Padraig]

I appreciate your interest and comments, Global and silvestrione.
I would like to have included the Irish version of Frost, but while I struggle to pronounce the words I fear that it would be even worse for you(se). Irish has 'sibh' for 'you', plural.
The poem Reo has beautiful sounds, lots of rhyme, end and internal, and I feel that you have spotted these elements in the English Frost, silvestrione. I imagine that the original gains greatly from its own language and that one day I'll be able to read it aloud as it should sound - delicately haunted.

[Padraig]

having problems posting. That's life.

[johncorrigan]

I posted about the song 'Norlan' Wind' elsewhere which set Angus poet, Violet Jacobs' poem 'The Wild Geese' to the tune of 'Magheracloone'. Thought I'd post the original, a sad poem of longing for home.
The Wild Geese


Oh tell me what was on your road, ye roarin’ norlan’ Wind,

As ye cam’ blawin’ frae the land that’s niver frae my mind?

My feet they traivel England, but I’m deein’ for the north.

My man, I heard the siller tides rin up the Firth o Forth”



Aye, Wind, I ken them weel eneuch, and fine they fa’ and rise,

And fain I’d feel the creepin’ mist on yonder shore that lies,

But tell me, ere ye passed them by, what saw ye on the way?

My man, I rocked the rovin’ gulls that sail abune the Tay.



But saw ye naething, leein’ Wind, afore ye cam’ to Fife?

There’s muckle lyin’ ‘yont the Tay that’s mair to me nor life.

My man, I swept the Angus braes ye ha’ena trod for years.

O Wind, forgi’e a hameless loon that canna see for tears!



And far abune the Angus straths I saw the wild geese flee,

A lang, lang skein o’ beatin’ wings wi’ their heids towards the sea,

And aye their cryin’ voices trailed ahint them on the air –

O Wind, hae maircy, haud yer whisht, for I daurna listen mair!

Violet Jacobs

[Padraig]

A poem for reciting, John, or singing. Sounds familiar to my ear - it must be the Irish in those words.

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Portrait of a Woman from the Fayum

The painter of mummy portraits came today
And spoke to father about my symptoms.
Overhearing words like 'mortal illness',
I was not surprised, given how I feel.
A girl, they call me, but I look years older,
My skin the colour of papyrus, brown eyes
Facing other eyes with open-ended questions
And a mind that gloats over the present,
Having no wish to be other-worldly.

When he comes to make a sketch from the life,
With his paints, brushes, charcoal stove and wax,
I shall put on my emeralds and garnets,
Small though they are, as well as my gold ball earrings,
With an understated Roman-style fringe
Above my forehead and enquiring eyebrows.
And I shall ask my mother to dress my body
In that fine peplum (with the purple border),
When the real me has embarked for the underworld.

I've not been specially good, but I've tried
Not to scandalize the impartial gods.
Forgive me, self-pity is wrong, I know,
But tears seem to have a will of their own.
Through the doorway I can see the bulrushes
Swaying in the wind off the Libyan desert
And hear the teal burbling on Lake Moeris,
While down the road the light-hearted village women
Ululate at somone else's wedding feast.

Fergus Allen.

[Padraig]

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Portrait of a Woman from the Fayum

Fergus Allen.

A poem written by a man concerning a woman, and death; followed by a poem written by a woman concerning a woman, and death.

Ship of Death
(for my mother)

Watching you, for the first time,
turn to prepare your boat, my mother;
making it clear you have other business now -
the business of your future -
I was washed-through with anger.

It was a first survey,
an eye thrown
over sails, oars, timbers,
as many a time I'd seen that practised eye
scan a laden table.

How can you plan going off like this
when we stand at last, close enough, if the wind is right,
to hear what the other is saying?
I never thought you'd do this, turning away,
mid-sentence, your hand testing a rope,

your ear tuned
to the small thunder of the curling wave
on the edge of the great-night sea,
neither regretful nor afraid -
anxious only for the tide.

Kerry Hardie

[Tevot]

All My Pretty Ones

By Anne Sexton (1928-1974)


Father, this year’s jinx rides us apart

where you followed our mother to her cold slumber;

a second shock boiling its stone to your heart,

leaving me here to shuffle and disencumber

you from the residence you could not afford:

a gold key, your half of a woolen mill,

twenty suits from Dunne’s, an English Ford,

the love and legal verbiage of another will,

boxes of pictures of people I do not know.

I touch their cardboard faces. They must go.


But the eyes, as thick as wood in this album,

hold me. I stop here, where a small boy

waits in a ruffled dress for someone to come ...

for this soldier who holds his bugle like a toy

or for this velvet lady who cannot smile.

Is this your father’s father, this commodore

in a mailman suit? My father, time meanwhile

has made it unimportant who you are looking for.

I’ll never know what these faces are all about.

I lock them into their book and throw them out.


This is the yellow scrapbook that you began

the year I was born; as crackling now and wrinkly

as tobacco leaves: clippings where Hoover outran

the Democrats, wiggling his dry finger at me

and Prohibition; news where the Hindenburg went

down and recent years where you went flush

on war. This year, solvent but sick, you meant

to marry that pretty widow in a one-month rush.

But before you had that second chance, I cried

on your fat shoulder. Three days later you died.


These are the snapshots of marriage, stopped in places.

Side by side at the rail toward Nassau now;

here, with the winner’s cup at the speedboat races,

here, in tails at the Cotillion, you take a bow,

here, by our kennel of dogs with their pink eyes,

running like show-bred pigs in their chain-link pen;

here, at the horseshow where my sister wins a prize;

and here, standing like a duke among groups of men.

Now I fold you down, my drunkard, my navigator,

my first lost keeper, to love or look at later.


I hold a five-year diary that my mother kept

for three years, telling all she does not say

of your alcoholic tendency. You overslept,

she writes. My God, father, each Christmas Day

with your blood, will I drink down your glass

of wine? The diary of your hurly-burly years

goes to my shelf to wait for my age to pass.

Only in this hoarded span will love persevere.

Whether you are pretty or not, I outlive you,

bend down my strange face to yours and forgive you.

[usher]

This is a splendid thread. Much is familiar but so much more here that is new and delightful. Thank you. This seems apt to a musical board:

GRATIANA DAUNCING AND SINGING

See! with what constant Motion
Even, and glorious, as the Sunne,
Gratiana steeres that Noble Frame,
Soft as her breast, sweet as her voyce
That gave each winding Law and poyze,
And swifter then the wings of Fame.

She beat the happy Pavement
By such a Starre made Firmament,
Which now no more the Roofe envies;
But swells up high with Atlas ev'n
Bearing the brighter, nobler Heav'n,
And in her, all the Deities.

Each step trod out a Lovers thought
And the Ambitious hopes he brought,
Chain'd to her brave feet with such arts;
Such sweet command, and gentle awe,
As when she ceas'd, we sighing saw
The floore lay pav'd with broken hearts.

So did she move; so did she sing
Like the Harmonious spheres that bring
Unto their Rounds their musick's ayd;
Which she performed such a way,
As all th' inamour'd world will say
The Graces daunced, and Apollo play'd.

Richard Lovelace.

[Padraig]

What a delightful poem, usher, and a timely reminder of the glories of other years. May I join in the welcome I see you have already received.

[usher]

What a delightful poem, usher, and a timely reminder of the glories of other years. May I join in the welcome I see you have already received.

Thank you!

[Lat-Literal]

This is a splendid thread. Much is familiar but so much more here that is new and delightful. Thank you. This seems apt to a musical board:

GRATIANA DAUNCING AND SINGING

See! with what constant Motion
Even, and glorious, as the Sunne,
Gratiana steeres that Noble Frame,
Soft as her breast, sweet as her voyce
That gave each winding Law and poyze,
And swifter then the wings of Fame.

She beat the happy Pavement
By such a Starre made Firmament,
Which now no more the Roofe envies;
But swells up high with Atlas ev'n
Bearing the brighter, nobler Heav'n,
And in her, all the Deities.

Each step trod out a Lovers thought
And the Ambitious hopes he brought,
Chain'd to her brave feet with such arts;
Such sweet command, and gentle awe,
As when she ceas'd, we sighing saw
The floore lay pav'd with broken hearts.

So did she move; so did she sing
Like the Harmonious spheres that bring
Unto their Rounds their musick's ayd;
Which she performed such a way,
As all th' inamour'd world will say
The Graces daunced, and Apollo play'd.

Richard Lovelace.

Which brings to mind W D Browne.

I am happy to accept Hyperion's conclusion that it is "one of the most beautiful creations in the entire repertoire of twentieth-century English song."

[usher]

Which brings to mind W D Browne.

I am happy to accept Hyperion's conclusion that it is "one of the most beautiful creations in the entire repertoire of twentieth-century English song."

It is lovely. I have the Bostridge/Drake recording.

[Lat-Literal]

It is lovely. I have the Bostridge/Drake recording.

It is the Ian Bostridge recording I know.

[Pabmusic]

"Truth," said a traveller,
"Is a rock, a mighty fortress;
Often have I been to it,
Even to its highest tower,
From whence the world looks black."

"Truth," said a traveller,
"Is a breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom;
Long have I pursued it,
But never have I touched
The hem of its garment."

And I believed the second traveller;
For truth was to me
A breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom,
And never had I touched
The hem of its garment.

Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

[Padraig]

It's an attractive poem, Pabmusic, but isn't there a catch?

Here's another with a sting in the tail:

Young and Old

When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.

When all the wotld is old, lad.
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down;
Creep home and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among;
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.

Charles Kingsley (1819 - 1875)

[Pabmusic]

It's an attractive poem, Pabmusic, but isn't there a catch?...

Yes indeed. It's very Wildean - and of the same era. (Also Hardy and Housman, come to think of it)