realiz wrote: He comes!
Lo, where the grassy meadow runs in wives!

I assume that is supposed to be "waves,", unless WCB is saying something really surprising here! Thanks for posting this. I hadn't read it before. I like "Thanatopsis", too.

DWill wrote: Thanks for posting this. I hadn't read it before. I like "Thanatopsis", too.

You beat me to the thanking. I'll say it anyway, thanks to both Realiz and Krysondra for posting. I enjoy Sara Teasdale. She sometimes seems to be a very dramatic Emily D.

And what of this poem "Thanatopsis", anyone want to post and comment on it?

At August 9th we are on the down slide toward fall. Although today it will be hard to tell, with the temperature predict at near 100 today. I thought I'd better squeeze in a few more summer poems before the days are so sort we trip into Autumn.

A Lesson for This Sunday
by Derek Walcott


The growing idleness of summer grass
With its frail kites of furious butterflies
Requests the lemonade of simple praise
In scansion gentler than my hammock swings
And rituals no more upsetting than a
Black maid shaking linen as she sings
The plain notes of some Protestant hosanna—
Since I lie idling from the thought in things—

Or so they should, until I hear the cries
Of two small children hunting yellow wings,
Who break my Sabbath with the thought of sin.
Brother and sister, with a common pin,
Frowning like serious lepidopterists.
The little surgeon pierces the thin eyes.
Crouched on plump haunches, as a mantis prays
She shrieks to eviscerate its abdomen.
The lesson is the same. The maid removes
Both prodigies from their interest in science.
The girl, in lemon frock, begins to scream
As the maimed, teetering thing attempts its flight.
She is herself a thing of summery light,
Frail as a flower in this blue August air,
Not marked for some late grief that cannot speak.

The mind swings inward on itself in fear
Swayed towards nausea from each normal sign.
Heredity of cruelty everywhere,
And everywhere the frocks of summer torn,
The long look back to see where choice is born,
As summer grass sways to the scythe's design.

Saffron wrote: And what of this poem "Thanatopsis", anyone want to post and comment on it?

"Thanatopsis" might be mostly of historical interest, but I still like its stateliness and formality. Bryant wrote this at age 17 in 1812, which is amazingly early for an American poem of this quality, I think. The title means "A view of Death," so you will know why I like it, Saffron. William Harmon calls it "a favorite moral poem for Americans." It's notable that although it is about death, his view of death would not disturb an atheist. It's in the mode of classical high paganism and stoicism. It's rather long, so I'll give the first 25 lines or so, and if you like it you can look up the rest.

Thanatopsis

by William Cullen Bryant

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;--
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,--
Comes a still voice--Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that hourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolv'd to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrend'ring up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to th' insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

I never did say thanks to DWill for posting Thanatopsis , Thanks!

The past 2 days have only been in the low 70's around here and that is rather unusual. I love the transition between summer and fall. It has always been one of my most favorite times of the year. I like a few of the lines in the following Jane Kenyon poem very much, although I'm not sure what to make of the whole.



Three Songs at the End of Summer

by Jane Kenyon

A second crop of hay lies cut
and turned. Five gleaming crows
search and peck between the rows.
They make a low, companionable squawk,
and like midwives and undertakers
possess a weird authority.

Crickets leap from the stubble,
parting before me like the Red Sea.
The garden sprawls and spoils.

Across the lake the campers have learned
to water ski. They have, or they haven’t.
Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone
suffuse the hazy air. “Relax! Relax!”

Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,
fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.
The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod
brighten the margins of the woods.

Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;
water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.

*

The cicada’s dry monotony breaks
over me. The days are bright
and free, bright and free.

Then why did I cry today
for an hour, with my whole
body, the way babies cry?

*

A white, indifferent morning sky,
and a crow, hectoring from its nest
high in the hemlock, a nest as big
as a laundry basket ...
In my childhood
I stood under a dripping oak,
while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,
waiting for the school bus
with a dread that took my breath away.

The damp dirt road gave off
this same complex organic scent.

I had the new books—words, numbers,
and operations with numbers I did not
comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled
by use, in a blue canvas satchel
with red leather straps.

Spruce, inadequate, and alien
I stood at the side of the road.
It was the only life I had.