Poem on your mind

Penelope · Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:48 am

It's Burns' Night tomorrow - 25th. Hope you've all got your haggis and neeps at the ready. (No single malt whiskey for me this year as I'm struggling to recover from a recent virus.

)

I think this is one of his best:

Thou whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deck'd in silken stole,
Grave these maxims on thy soul.
Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
Day, how rapid in its flight--
Day, how few must see the night;
Hope not sunshine every hour,
Fear not clouds will always lower.
Happiness is but a name,
Make content and ease thy aim.

Ambition is a meteor gleam;
Fame, a restless idle dream:
Pleasures, insects on the wing
Round Peace, the tenderest flower of Spring;
Those that sip the dew alone,
Make the butterflies thy own;
Those that would the bloom devour,
Crush the locusts--save the flower.
For the future be prepar'd,
Guard wherever thou canst guard;
But, thy utmost duly done,
Welcome what thou canst not shun.
Follies past, give thou to air,
Make their consequence thy care:
Keep the name of man in mind,
And dishonour not thy kind.
Reverence with lowly heart
Him whose wondrous work thou art;
Keep His goodness still in view,
Thy trust--and thy example, too.

Stranger, go! Heaven be thy guide!
Quod the Beadsman on Nithside.

* * * * *
Robert Burns

WRITTEN IN
FRIARS-CARSE HERMITAGE,
ON THE BANKS OF NITH.
JUNE. 1788.

wwwatch · Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:59 pm

some fine fine reading on 14 volumes of the sewanee review of university of the south tennessee 1967-70. google geojand73. this person has it up for sale.

giselle · Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:23 pm


	Penelope wrote: It's Burns' Night tomorrow - 25th. Hope you've all got your haggis and neeps at the ready. (No single malt whiskey for me this year as I'm struggling to recover from a recent virus. )

Happy Burns Night Penny. Hope you successfully navigate the perils of single malt Whiskey. And thanks for the Burns poem, this is a great one. I did look up a bit of info on the River Nith. Quite interesting and what a great name for a river. I have to admit my ignorance of scottish tradition and food, I'm familiar with haggis, but I have not idea what 'neeps' is?

Penelope · Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:35 pm


	Quote: giselle: I'm familiar with haggis, but I have not idea what 'neeps' is?

Neeps is turnips. Couldn't resist the bad grammar there! Bashed Neeps and Tatties is traditional with haggis - that is potatoes and turnips mashed together with lots of butter and pepper and very nice too. I don't like haggis, but we still eat it for the sake of tradition....and we're not even Scots.

I might even manage a glass or two of single malt tonight because, you know, we did have that lovely steam-train holiday in Scotland in October last, and we did bring some very nice bottles of whiskey home....and I want the empty bottles to make table lamps....she lied.

I'm going to post this and then go and find a nice 'Scottish' picture which we took on our holiday......and I haven't quite got the knack of uploading images into these posts....so I may be some time. :wink:

Penelope · Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:58 pm

Lone Piper

giselle · Wed Jan 25, 2012 2:33 pm

Nice pic Penny. It's so cool how there are stone structures all over the place in Britain, like this wall, or maybe its a dam, can't tell ... anyway, I think the stone walls, bridges and buildings etc. add a lot to the countryside, asthetic, romantic and historic .. and on your last post, 'not' was 'not' so much 'bad' grammar as 'bad' typing ... but sometimes my grammar is bad too .. lol.

chris120694 · Sun Jan 29, 2012 3:22 pm

I absolutely love this poem by Charlotte Bronte, an excerpt from Jane Eyre...

“The truest love that ever heart
Felt at its kindled core,
Did through each vein, in quickened start,
The tide of being pour.

“Her coming was my hope each day,
Her parting was my pain;
The chance that did her steps delay
Was ice in every vein.

“I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,
As I loved, loved to be;
And to this object did I press
As blind as eagerly.

“But wide as pathless was the space
That lay our lives between,
And dangerous as the foamy race
Of ocean-surges green.

“And haunted as a robber-path
Through wilderness or wood;
For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,
Between our spirits stood.

“I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned
I omens did defy:
Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,
I passed impetuous by.

“On sped my rainbow, fast as light;
I flew as in a dream;
For glorious rose upon my sight
That child of Shower and Gleam.

“Still bright on clouds of suffering dim
Shines that soft, solemn joy;
Nor care I now, how dense and grim
Disasters gather nigh.

“I care not in this moment sweet,
Though all I have rushed o’er
Should come on pinion, strong and fleet,
Proclaiming vengeance sore:

“Though haughty Hate should strike me down,
Right, bar approach to me,
And grinding Might, with furious frown,
Swear endless enmity.

“My love has placed her little hand
With noble faith in mine,
And vowed that wedlock’s sacred band
Our nature shall entwine.

“My love has sworn, with sealing kiss,
With me to live — to die;
I have at last my nameless bliss.
As I love — loved am I!”

Perhaps you guys could take a look at a few of the poems I've written over the years and tell me what you think...

http://authspot.com/poetry/raindrops-24/

http://authspot.com/poetry/in-a-world-without/

Also, take a look at my Top 5 List of Classic novels:!:

http://christopher-c.quazen.com/shoppin ... must-read/

giselle · Thu Feb 02, 2012 7:54 pm

I post this poem with a notice as follows - "there were no animals harmed in the posting of this poem" ....

Not sure I can say that I like the poem but it has a haunting quality to it.

Poodle in the Painting

The poodle in the painting is a decoy.
Notice her perfectly curled fur,
her pillbox mane, her dark beady eyes.

Think that behind the poodle
exists nothing, painting ceases
to derive any sort of meaning without the poodle.

If I told you that the poodle was not in fact a poodle
but only resembled a poodle because you cannot
fully picture death, would you believe me, or would
you find this whole adventure declasse?

Never shot a poodle; but I will shoot
the poodle in the painting. We've not much
to say to each other and the night is very long.

Priscila Uppal

Saffron · Thu Feb 02, 2012 10:49 pm

I heard today that the Polish poet, Wislawa Szymborska died today - I'd never heard of her before today. I'd like to post one of her poems, one I heard a few lines read on the radio and it really caught my attention. I've been thinking about it all day and have been looking forward to finding the whole poem, so I can really consider the poem.

Of course I copied the following from a webpage somewhere:

Poem of the Day–Wislawa Szymborska
by John Higgins, Akron Beacon Journal education reporter on April 16, 2010

in Poem of the Day,Uncategorized

I thought I’d close out our mini-series on Postwar Polish Poetry with another poem by Nobel Prize winner Wislawa Szymborska about the Holothurian, or Sea Cucumber.

Autotomy

In danger the holothurian splits itself in two:
it offers one self to be devoured by the world
and in its second self escapes.

Violently it divides itself into a doom and a salvation,
into a penalty and a recompense, into what was and what will be.

In the middle of the holothurian’s body a chasm opens
and its edges immediately become alien to each other.

On the one edge, death, on the other, life.
Here despair, there, hope.

If there is a balance, the scales do not move.
If there is justice, here it is.

To die as much as necessary, without overstepping the bounds.
To grow again from a salvaged remnant.

We, too, know how to split ourselves
but only into the flesh and a broken whisper.
Into the flesh and poetry.

On one side the throat, on the other, laughter,
slight, quickly calming down.

Here a heavy heart, there non omnis moriar,
three little words only, like three little plumes ascending.

The chasm doesn’t split us.
A chasm surrounds us.

To the memory of Halina Poswiatowska

giselle · Fri Feb 03, 2012 4:38 pm

This is a great poem, Saffron, thanks. It’s a bit sad that often we seem to hear about the great work people have done only when they pass away. This poem reminded me of creatures that have the ability to lop off bits of their body as a defense mechanism, I didn’t realize that this is called ‘autotomy (below). Also, I found out that there is a whole body of haiku poetry about the sea cucumber, I guess partly because of ‘autotomy’ and partly because it is popular Japanese cuisine!

“Autotomy (from the Greek auto = "self-" and tomy = "severing") or self amputation is the act whereby an animal severs one or more of its own appendages,[1] usually as a self-defense mechanism designed to elude a predator's grasp. The lost body part may be regenerated later.” Wikipedia

Saffron · Fri Feb 03, 2012 7:45 pm


	giselle wrote: This is a great poem, Saffron, thanks. It’s a bit sad that often we seem to hear about the great work people have done only when they pass away. This poem reminded me of creatures that have the ability to lop off bits of their body as a defense mechanism, I didn’t realize that this is called ‘autotomy (below). Also, I found out that there is a whole body of haiku poetry about the sea cucumber, I guess partly because of ‘autotomy’ and partly because it is popular Japanese cuisine! “Autotomy (from the Greek auto = "self-" and tomy = "severing") or self amputation is the act whereby an animal severs one or more of its own appendages,[1] usually as a self-defense mechanism designed to elude a predator's grasp. The lost body part may be regenerated later.” Wikipedia

Thanks for posting the definition. Hey, if you want to listen to the radio piece I heard on Wislawa Szymborska here is the link - it's a good spot.

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/02/146281183 ... dies-at-88

Saffron · Fri Feb 03, 2012 7:47 pm

Here is an excerpt about the poem Autotomy from the NPR website:

The sea cucumber can become two parts, one living, one dead. Szymborska compares this to the way in which writers have long argued that when they died, their work would live on — granting them a kind of immortality. But Szymborska is skeptical. She doesn't think anyone exists outside of time, or that writing poetry is a matter of falling on the right side of an abyss. As she puts it in the poem's conclusion:

Here the heavy heart, there non omnis moriar — (translation: I shall not wholly die)
Just three little words, like a flight's three feathers.

The abyss doesn't divide us.
The abyss surrounds us.

The ending of the poem could seem grim. After all, she's suggesting that there is, in the end, no way to cheat time. But if that's the case — if we can't continually evade death — then this is at least something we all share. It's no surprise that her poem is dedicated to the memory of one of her friends.

DWill · Fri Feb 03, 2012 8:28 pm

Is the title of the poem "Autotomy," then? On pasted-in webpage, it's "Autonomy." Is it also a translation? It appears somehow to have been written in English. But if not it's certainly a fine translation.

Saffron · Fri Feb 03, 2012 9:55 pm


	DWill wrote: Is the title of the poem "Autotomy," then? On pasted-in webpage, it's "Autonomy." Is it also a translation? It appears somehow to have been written in English. But if not it's certainly a fine translation.

My oops; it is Autotomy or maybe it was a mistake on the webpage I copied it from (why am I so quick to take blame?!). It was written in Polish. It definately works in English; still wish I could understand it in Polish - to see how it sounds.

giselle · Fri Feb 03, 2012 10:03 pm

Interesting point, DWill. I took the poem title as literally 'Autonomy' (with its attendant meaning) but 'autonomy' is awfully close to 'autotomy', which has a clearer meaning in the context of the poem. Strangely, 'autonomy' could also be an appropriate title in a way ... that is, referring to the 'autonomous', severed limb or whatever .. ? Strange crossover of meaning between two closely related words that are also spelled and pronounced similarly. Bit of a riddle.

Forum rules

Poem on your mind Tweet This Topic

Who is online

Chat Room Always Open!