I have to admit that I like this poem much, much more after having its meaning enlarged upon by the long commentary.

I agree, Penelope, it made much more sense to me after reading the commentary, though I wished I'd read the poem a few more times before reading the commentary to try on my own to understand the meaning.

As Much as You Can
by CP Cavafy

And if you can’t shape your life the way you want,
at least try as much as you can
not to degrade it
by too much contact with the world,
by too much activity and talk.

Try not to degrade it by dragging it along,
taking it around and exposing it so often
to the daily silliness
of social events and parties,
until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on.

(From the Greek translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard.)

I had to be a bit careful with this one. I copied one from the net and found it was a different translation and wasn't nearly so 'right'. Although why it took two of them to translate it makes me wonder.

I do like it....and its sentiments. And I'm sure DWill agrees with this philosophy....

I like it too, It says don't cheapen yourself by making yourself too common, it's like the old "familiarity breeds contempt"

I think it is about spreading yourself lightly in the world and taking lots of time out for quiet reflection.

Sometimes we think we're only really alive if we are 'in amongst it', partying and so forth. But this poem is saying that the opposite is so.

As the Team's Head- Brass

As the team's head-brass flashed out on the turn
The lovers disappeared into the wood.
I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm
That strewed the angle of the fallow, and
Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square
Of charlock. Every time the horses turned
Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned
Upon the handles to say or ask a word,
About the weather, next about the war.
Scraping the share he faced towards the wood,
And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashed
Once more.

The blizzard felled the elm whose crest
I sat in, by a woodpecker's round hole,
The ploughman said. 'When will they take it away? '
'When the war's over.' So the talk began –
One minute and an interval of ten,
A minute more and the same interval.
'Have you been out? ' 'No.' 'And don't want to, perhaps? '
'If I could only come back again, I should.
I could spare an arm, I shouldn't want to lose
A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so,
I should want nothing more...Have many gone
From here? ' 'Yes.' 'Many lost? ' 'Yes, a good few.
Only two teams work on the farm this year.
One of my mates is dead. The second day
In France they killed him. It was back in March,
The very night of the blizzard, too. Now if
He had stayed here we should have moved the tree.'
'And I should not have sat here. Everything
Would have been different. For it would have been
Another world.' 'Ay, and a better, though
If we could see all all might seem good.' Then
The lovers came out of the wood again:
The horses started and for the last time
I watched the clods crumble and topple over
After the ploughshare and the stumbling team.

Edward Thomas

Although my teachers never assigned it, I can easily see this poem as an 8 or 9th grade assignment. It seems simple and straightforward, but the brighter students will find more to talk about, and even the hardest learners can find something in it to hopefully help them understand why we study poetry in school...

Agree, Frogpliz. On the surface it could be viewed as a simple narrative of a man resting, watching the world, and chatting with a farmer, but a class could find many discussion topics: The tree, whose death provided the man with the resting place, which would not have been there had the war not happened. The 'matter of fact' honesty in the discussion of the war between two strangers. The lovers and their brief appearance at the beginning and end of the poem, what do they represent? The line: If we could see all all might seem good, does everything happen for a reason? or do good things eventually come out of bad?

The ending, with the stumbling horses ploughing on is the way the life can sometimes feel.

Thanks Frog and Liz. This next one is by Sir Walter Raleigh. I have been watching a history series on TV and I've 'gone off' him so I can't be unbiased about this poem. Sycophantic twit....imo.


As you came from the holy land

As you came from the holy land
Of Walsinghame,
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came ?

How shall I know your true love,
That have met many one,
As I went to the holy land,
That have come, that have gone ?

She is neither white nor brown,
But as the heavens fair ;
There is none hath a form so divine
In the earth or the air.

Such a one did I meet, good sir,
Such an angel-like face,
Who like a queen, like a nymph, did appear,
By her gait, by her grace.

She hath left me here all alone,
All alone, as unknown,
Who sometimes did me lead with herself,
And me loved as her own.

What's the cause that she leaves you alone,
And a new way doth take,
Who loved you once as her own,
And her joy did you make ?

I have loved her all my youth,
But now old, as you see,
Love likes not the falling fruit
From the withered tree.

Know that Love is a careless child,
And forgets promise past ;
He is blind, he is deaf when he list,
And in faith never fast.

His desire is a dureless content,
And a trustless joy ;
He is won with a world of despair,
And is lost with a toy.

Of womankind such indeed is the love,
Or the word love abusèd,
Under which many childish desires
And conceits are excusèd.

But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.

Sir Walter Raleigh

Sometimes it is better if you can read a poem without knowing anything about the author first.

I am uncertain of the meaning of the last couple verses. Does it mean that this kind love (He is blind, a trustless joy...) is the only kind you can expect from a woman (Of womankind) or is the only kind a man can have for a woman? Is true love is something else altogether, maybe God?, or does it mean if true love can be found that it will never die?

I might be wrong here, but I thought he had written it about Queen Elizabeth the first, the Virgin Queen. He was one of her favourites at one time and I thought the verse:

I have loved her all my youth,
But now old, as you see,
Love likes not the falling fruit
From the withered tree.

meant that she had stopped loving him as he had grown older and less attractive.

Of womankind such indeed is the love,
Or the word love abusèd,
Under which many childish desires
And conceits are excusèd.

But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.

I think in these two verses he might be saying that his love of his lady, 'the queen', excuses her childish whims and desires but he loves her with constancy.

I think he might have been trying to get back into her favour.