Sunday, November 11, 2007

What, y'all not reading poetry?

Durham Cathedral

Nobody has to comment on anything I post here, of course. But I was kinda hoping at least a few folks would share poems (snippets, titles) that have meant a lot to them. The invitation still stands.
--the BB

4 comments:

June Butler said...

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.
The lowing heard winds slowly toward the lea.
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

...

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learned to stray.
Along the cool sequestered vale of life,
The kept the noiseless tenor of their way.


There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,
Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in misery.


Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York.
And all the clouds that lowered upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.


I did not lose my heart in summer's even,
When roses to the moonrise burst apart.
When plumes were under heel and lead was flying,
In blood and smoke and flames, I lost my heart.

I lost it to a soldier and a foeman,
A chap who did not kill me, but who tried,
Who took my saber straight and took it striking,
And laughed and kissed his hand to me and died.


Poetry for you, Paul, random poems from memory from long ago, not favorites, really. I especially don't like the last from Housman, romanticizing war and killing. I don't feel like thinking, and these just came. I expect this is not what you wanted.

Paul said...

Dear Mimi,
Thank you. What I wanted was sharing and you just shared. Mary Ann did too, delurking at last. (What did we do before the verb "delurk"? I love the sound of it.}

Maybe not a favorite poem but a powerful one this Veterans' Day weekend, yes?

I am glad Shakespeare is such a part of you that it rises, seemingly unbidden. While I cannot recite any scene in toto, I am amazed at how many lines of the bard have become part of me (mostly acquired in my teens when I could still absorb easily).

Thanks for being such a good sport, Mimi. Rest well tonight and have a fabulous rest of the week!

June Butler said...

Paul, I'm looking at my typos and thinking that I must have been tired. Sometimes it's best to lurk.

I must admit the Housman poem kept coming back to haunt me during the remembrance holiday.

Paul said...

As well it might haunt one on Remembrance Day, Mimi. I could tell you were tired too, because you are a person of such precise thought. We are all entitled to fatigue and other manifestations of our mortal condition. It was "no never mind" to me. I'm glad you shared.