The Top 500 Poems: 300-201

DWill · Fri Sep 03, 2010 9:19 pm

247. "Sweetest Love I Do Not Go," by John Donne. Even though this is a song and simpler than his other poems, he manages to work in some conceits.

Sweetest love, I do not go,

For weariness of thee,

Nor in hope the world can show

A fitter love for me;

But since that I

Must die at last, 'tis best

To use myself in jest

Thus by feign'd deaths to die.

Yesternight the sun went hence,

And yet is here today;

He hath no desire nor sense,

Nor half so short a way:

Then fear not me,

But believe that I shall make

Speedier journeys, since I take

More wings and spurs than he.

O how feeble is man's power,

That if good fortune fall,

Cannot add another hour,

Nor a lost hour recall!

But come bad chance,

And we join to'it our strength,

And we teach it art and length,

Itself o'er us to'advance.

When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,

But sigh'st my soul away;

When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,

My life's blood doth decay.

It cannot be

That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st,

If in thine my life thou waste,

That art the best of me.

Let not thy divining heart

Forethink me any ill;

Destiny may take thy part,

And may thy fears fulfil;

But think that we

Are but turn'd aside to sleep;

They who one another keep

Alive, ne'er parted be.

DWill · Sat Sep 04, 2010 9:23 pm

I don't know about anybody else, but J. Donne is for me too clever for his own good! Does he have to riddle quite so much? Well, let's see how he does in this next one. It must be from the period after he became Rev. Donne. Per fretum febris means "through the strait of fever," acc. to Harmon.

245. "Hymn to God the Father in My Sickness"

Since I am coming to that holy room,
Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made thy music; as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before.

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie
Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown
That this is my south-west discovery,
Per fretum febris, by these straits to die,

I joy, that in these straits I see my west;
For, though their currents yield return to none,
What shall my west hurt me? As west and east
In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,
So death doth touch the resurrection.

Is the Pacific Sea my home? Or are
The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem?
Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar,
All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them,
Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.

We think that Paradise and Calvary,
Christ's cross, and Adam's tree, stood in one place;
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me;
As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,
May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace.

So, in his purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord;
By these his thorns, give me his other crown;
And as to others' souls I preach'd thy word,
Be this my text, my sermon to mine own:
"Therefore that he may raise, the Lord throws down."

DWill · Mon Sep 06, 2010 6:58 am

T. S. Eliot rescued Donne from semi-obscurity in the 20s. Eliot praised Donne for his quality of "felt thought." There are some poems, or parts of poems, in which this quality of Donne's seems to be present, but for me it wouldn't be in this one. When the metaphors, or thought, so completely take over the poem, I lose a sense of the feeling altogether.

244. "Hark! Hark! the lark," by Shakespeare. From Cymbeline

Hark! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chalic'd flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes;
With everything that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise:
Arise, arise!

243. "Even Such is Time," by Sir Walter Raleigh. I imagine the last lines of this one have appeared on plenty of tombstones.

Even such is time, that takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust ;
Who, in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days ;
But from this earth, this grave, this dust
My God shall raise me up, I trust !

Saffron · Mon Sep 06, 2010 7:51 pm

I wish we had a way of dinging or marking poems we like. I'd give Shakespeare's Larks a ding or two!

DWill · Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:25 pm

How many dings would be allowed? I'm afraid to ask if raspberries would be part of the rating system, too.

Saffron · Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:38 pm


	DWill wrote: How many dings would be allowed? I'm afraid to ask if raspberries would be part of the rating system, too.

It only seems fair that they would. I wish as we read a poem and liked it we could press a key and a symbol would show up on the post - kind of like the "thank you".

froglipz · Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:54 pm

..or a thumbs up/down. I'm afraid I don't necessarily agree with everyone else's dings or raspberries, but it would be fun if it could keep a tally.

DWill · Tue Sep 07, 2010 2:41 pm

242. "The Three Ravens," by Anonymous. This is most often sung, I think, with a nice refrain. Here's one link to the song.
http://www.chivalry.com/cantaria/lyrics ... avens.html. I give this one (performance version) 3 dings! (shall we say out of four possible?)

The Three Ravens

There were three ravens sat on a tree,
They were as black as they might be.

The one of them said to his mate,
'Where shall we our breakefast take?'

'Downe in yonder greene field,
There lies a knight slain under his shield.

'His hounds they lie downe at his feete,
So well they can their master keepe.

'His haukes they flie so eagerly,
There's no fowle dare come him nie.'

Downe there comes a fallow doe,
As great with yong as she might goe.

She lift up his bloudy hed,
And kist his wounds that were so red.

She got him up upon her backe,
And carried him to earthen lake.

She buried him before the prime,
She was dead herselfe ere even-song time.

God send every gentleman,
Such haukes, such hounds, and such a leman.

Saffron · Tue Sep 07, 2010 3:06 pm


	DWill wrote: 242. "The Three Ravens," by Anonymous. This is most often sung, I think, with a nice refrain. Here's one link to the song. http://www.chivalry.com/cantaria/lyrics ... avens.html. I give this one (performance version) 3 dings! (shall we say out of four possible?) The Three Ravens

4 dings it is. I love this song. I have a 4 ding version by The Boston Camerata on their CD, New Britain: The Roots of American Folksong.

DWill · Wed Sep 08, 2010 9:11 pm

In much the same vein is "Corpus Christi Carol," by Anonymous, no. 241. This is a 3-dinger for me. I like the way it combines pagan and Christian and is very spare (as Harmon says).

He bare hym up, he bare hym down,
He bare hym into an orchard brown.

In that orchard ther was an hall,
That was hanged with purpill and pall.

And in that hall ther was a bede,
Hit was hangid with gold so rede.

And yn that bede ther lythe a knyght,
His wowndes bledyng day and nyght.

By that bedes side ther kneleth a may,
And she wepeth both nyght and day.

And by that bedes side ther stondith a ston,
"Corpus Christi" wretyn theron.

Saffron · Thu Sep 09, 2010 6:44 am


	DWill wrote: In much the same vein is "Corpus Christi Carol," by Anonymous, no. 241. This is a 3-dinger for me. I like the way it combines pagan and Christian and is very spare (as Harmon says).

This one along with it's music can be found on youtube. I also like the twining together of pagan and Christian. This poem/song reminds me of the Christmas Revels. For those of you who do not know what Revels are, it is a modern invention that grew out of the 1970 folk revival in the USA. Musical artists in the 1960 had begun to draw on traditional music for inspiration and by the 1970s people had begun outright to investigate the musical traditions (both dance and music) that people brought to the USA from Europe. The origional Revel troop began with the idea of recreating a Mummers Christmas Play; an Enghisht tradition that goes back at least 1000 years. The Revels in the US grew from there. A Christmas Revels combines pagan and Christian symbols and stories.

Penelope · Thu Sep 09, 2010 11:37 am


	Quote: Saffron wrote: The origional Revel troop began with the idea of recreating a Mummers Christmas Play; an Enghisht tradition that goes back at least 1000 years. The Revels in the US grew from there. A Christmas Revels combines pagan and Christian symbols and stories.

In our local pub every Hallow e'en the Mummers come around and do the Passion Play. It is all very silly. We have been watching it for at least the last twenty years. I keep trying to capture it on film, but it always comes out too dark to make any sense of it. However, the Antrobus Soulers, have been performing this play, for at least 200 years, non stop, except for one year during World War I. The parts are played, passed on down from father to son, so far as I can gather. The horse, which is a horse's skull on a stick is reputed to be over 100years old, every year, more teeth fall out!!!

Next month, I promise, I will try again, and post a recording on here, just for Saffron and DWill. In the meantime you might find this website interesting.#

http://www.folktrax-archive.org/menus/c ... eshire.htm

Penelope · Thu Sep 09, 2010 11:52 am

Oh, Look, this is the one....I found it on YouTube....

It is always very funny...and very different.....with topical quipps, each year.

But the basic dialogue is the same....like - 'down thy thrittle throttle'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJetoAzO ... re=related

Saffron · Thu Sep 09, 2010 1:22 pm


	Penelope wrote: Oh, Look, this is the one....I found it on YouTube.... It is always very funny...and very different.....with topical quipps, each year. But the basic dialogue is the same....like - 'down thy thrittle throttle'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJetoAzO ... re=related

Thank you, Penny! So, nice to know you are peeking in on the poetry thread. What you describe is very much like the Washington Christmas Revels. THe basics stay the same, but topical stuff is added in. This year the Revels theme is Thomas Hardy's Wessex, so the setting of the Chirstmas Revels will be the town of Mellstock. The special guest performers this year will be the Mellstock band.

DWill · Thu Sep 09, 2010 5:28 pm

240. "anyone lived in a pretty how town," by e.e. cummings.This one dings at two, but I have to say the more I read it the more I like it.

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

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