A Favorite Poem

Indigo · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 9:50 am Post subject:

Thanks, DWill. Smile

DWill · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 1:18 pm Post subject:

I've been wanting to post this one, and actually I think it could go on the verbal firepower thread, too. Like any literature, poetry is also good for letting us in on feelings or notions that are not our own, that may be in fact foreign to us until the poet takes us in. "Sailing to Byzantium" is like that for me. I am getting on in years, but I don't feel like an aged man. I certainly have never wished to remove myself from nature and enter the timeless world of art. But I identify with these feelings when I read the poem. Beyond that, I think that here Yeats is at the top of his form. He shows a Shakespeare-like ability to compress language and bend it to his will. It has the bold, famous declarative opening sentence, and it never lets up from there. It was a tough choice between this and his "The Circus Animals' Desertion."

Sailing to Byzantium

THAT is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

DWill

Jeremy · Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:19 pm Post subject:

One of my favorites is Keats' "Ode on Melancholy"

Ode on Melancholy
by John Keats

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty -Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine:
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

The thing I love about this poem is that it reminds us of the transitory nature of life and the illusiveness of happiness. It also lets us know that it is ok (even preferable) to embrace melancholy and not avoid it. This is because the more fully one experiences melancholy, the more intensley one can enjoy the next shortlived moment of happiness that comes along.

Saffron · Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:47 am Post subject:

Jeremy wrote:

Grim · Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:42 pm Post subject: The Road Not Taken

I have alway really respected this poem by Robert Frost, to me it is about choosing value in life, and accepting that you cannot live through every option. It also tells that following conventional wisdom is not the only option. The author does not tell weather the difference has been for the better or not, I like to think that it has been for the better.

In light of this poem I always try to find the road less travelled.

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN by Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20

Saffron · Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:54 am Post subject:

Grim,
Nice choice of poems. Frost is one of my favorite poets and for sure that is a favorite poem. I always think of this poem in conjunction with Thoreau's line from Walden, "follow your own drummer."

I think the last line -
And that has made all the difference
clues the reading in that it was a worth while and therefore positive choice.

Nice to have you aboard! I hope you will keep posting on the poetry threads.

Saffron

Rose Kolarich · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 5:13 am Post subject:

Hiya, this is my first post on this site.

I love that William Carlos Williams poem too. But after I read Kenneth Koch's parody of it, I'll never think of it the same way again.

I'm posting Koch's poem just in case you're not familiar with it:

"Variations On A Theme By William Carlos Williams"

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the
next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

Ophelia · Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 7:10 am Post subject:

Hello Rose, welcome to Booktalk! Smile

Would you like to tell us a little about yourself by writing an introduction in the "Introduce Yourself" threads?

DWill · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:44 pm Post subject:

DWill · Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:54 pm Post subject: Re: The Road Not Taken

Saffron · Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 2:48 pm Post subject:

Here is a poem I first read in college. It was the first poem I considered a favorite. At the time it rang loud and clear in my heart. At 20 I longed to find my way to be of use in the world. The bold is mine. That stanza I took as my own creed.

To Be of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

Marge Piercy

DWill · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 7:33 am Post subject:

That really is a great credo poem. It's also one that might cause a twinge to some who have reached the age of 56, naming no names.

Here's another by Robt. Frost that I thought of last week while watching and listening to the ocean waves. The poem has nothing to do with waves or water, but sometimes the mind works that way.

WINDOW TREE

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.

Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.

But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.

That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.

There aren't two other lines that I like better than these last two. This a terrific "relationship" poem, isn't it?

DWill

Saffron · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:08 am Post subject:

Grim · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 10:15 pm Post subject: Re: The Road Not Taken

[quote="DWill"]

Grim · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 10:23 pm Post subject:


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