Poem of the Day

[Halethala]

I saw this in someone's signature somewhere . . it really stuck with me *grins* :

“Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.” ~ Thomas Babington Macaulay

[Dream Loxley]

*Nods lots* Absolutely Letha

I was reminded of this poem I have posted before, and just how like her I am fast becoming! *L*

Warning
by Jenny Joseph
"The nations favourite post war poem"


When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn't go and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only eat bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old and start to wear purple.

[Dream Loxley]

Autumn


Autumn, you are the season about loss.

There is sadness as the leaves drop from your trees.

And I crunch them under my feet.

The sound, reminding me of the breaking of hearts when relationships end.

Bareness of trees, reminding me I'm getting older as another year comes to an end.

And winter approaches with her loneliness.

(Author unknown)

I found this rather thought provoking.......especially as Autumn to me has always been a time needed to be calmer and quiet......to rest, tuck up the garden and make ready for renewal. A lovely time of year.......filled with promise..........

[Halethala]

Fitting poem . . I think that's why Autumn is the favorite season of so many. Easier to identify as one accumulates summers . .

I have tried to think of it this way, in my private campaign to be less melancholy about life . . as each leaf is shed, there remains, with most trees, those graceful, uplifted branches . . bare, yes, but still reaching for the sky in praise and in hope.

[Dream Loxley]

To Autumn
John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.


Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.


Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

[taran]

This is a poem, ( or close enough to one), that accompanys the song Judgement from a favorite band of mine, Anathema.

Asleep is the rose, in tired innocence dreaming time away. Serene in the comfort of slumbers faint embrace. Blissfully ignorant, unaware of the imminence.
Recurring memories emerge from the deep of old secrets unforgotten sleep. They sink beneath the surface just long enough for you to breathe. Then return to choke you when you wake up alone. Shredded inside there's one place left to turn. A long-term problem, a temporary remedy, but fuck it all anyway you can pretend to be happy.
So many years of pathetic lies, empty promises and unfulfilled dreams are scattered like dust into the winds. Looking for the sun that eclipsed behind black feathered wings. Tomorrow never comes, there was only ever one day but now it's too late.

(Vincent and Danny Cavanagh)

[Halethala]

In the spirit of the season . . a classic:

The Pumpkin
by John Greenleaf Whittier

Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,
The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,
And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,
With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,
Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew,
While he waited to know that his warning was true,
And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain
For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.

On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden
Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden;
And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold
Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;
Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,
On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,
Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,
And the sun of September melts down on his vines.

Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South comes the pilgrim and guest;
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored;
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before;
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye,
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin, - our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!

Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine!
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky
Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!

[Dream Loxley]

Has to be this one again as I look out at all my 'daffs'!

Daffodils by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.