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4 months ago
National Poetry Month - Day 29
Rhyme-Smith
Oh, I was
born a lyric babe
(That last word is a bore -
It's only rhyme is astrolabe,
Whose meaning I ignore.)
From cradlehood I lisped in numbers,
Made jingles even in my slumbers.
Said Ma: "He'll be a bard, I know it."
Said Pa: "Let's hope he will outgrow it."
Alas! I never did and so
A dreamer and a drone was I,
Who persevered in want and woe
His misery to versify.
Yea, I was doomed to be a failure
(Old Browning rhymes that last with "pale lure"):
And even starving in the gutter,
My macaronics I would utter.
Then in a poor, cheap book I crammed,
And to the public maw I tossed
My bitter Dirges of the Damned,
My Lyrics of the Lost.
"Let carping critic flay and flout
My Ditties of the Down and Out -
"There now," said I, "I've done with verse,
My love, my weakness and my curse."
Then lo! (As I would fain believe,
Before they crown, the fates would shame us)
I went to sleep one bitter eve,
And woke to find that I was famous. . . .
And so the sunny sequels were a
Gay villa on the Riviera,
A bank account, a limousine, a
Life patterned dolce e divina.
Oh, yes, my lyric flight is flighty;
My muse is much more mite than mighty:
But poetry has been my friend,
And rhyming's saved me in the end.
(That last word is a bore -
It's only rhyme is astrolabe,
Whose meaning I ignore.)
From cradlehood I lisped in numbers,
Made jingles even in my slumbers.
Said Ma: "He'll be a bard, I know it."
Said Pa: "Let's hope he will outgrow it."
Alas! I never did and so
A dreamer and a drone was I,
Who persevered in want and woe
His misery to versify.
Yea, I was doomed to be a failure
(Old Browning rhymes that last with "pale lure"):
And even starving in the gutter,
My macaronics I would utter.
Then in a poor, cheap book I crammed,
And to the public maw I tossed
My bitter Dirges of the Damned,
My Lyrics of the Lost.
"Let carping critic flay and flout
My Ditties of the Down and Out -
"There now," said I, "I've done with verse,
My love, my weakness and my curse."
Then lo! (As I would fain believe,
Before they crown, the fates would shame us)
I went to sleep one bitter eve,
And woke to find that I was famous. . . .
And so the sunny sequels were a
Gay villa on the Riviera,
A bank account, a limousine, a
Life patterned dolce e divina.
Oh, yes, my lyric flight is flighty;
My muse is much more mite than mighty:
But poetry has been my friend,
And rhyming's saved me in the end.
National Poetry Month - Day 24
If
If you can keep your head when all
about you
Are losing theirs
and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men
doubt you,
But make allowance
for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by
waiting,
Or being lied about,
don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to
hating,
And yet don’t look
too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -
and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and
Disaster
And treat those two
impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve
spoken
Twisted by knaves to make
a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build
’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your
beginnings
And never breathe a
word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve
and sinew
To serve your turn
long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in
you
Except the Will
which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep
your virtue,
Or walk with Kings -
nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can
hurt you,
If all men count
with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving
minute
With sixty seconds’
worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything
that’s in it,
And - which is more
- you’ll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling
National Poetry Month - Day 21
A Psalm of Life
Tell me not, in mournful
numbers,
Life is but an empty
dream!
For the soul is dead that
slumbers,
And things are not what
they seem.
Life is real! Life is
earnest!
And the grave is not its
goal;
Dust thou art, to dust
returnest,
Was not spoken of the
soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or
way;
But to act, that each
to-morrow
Find us farther than
to-day.
Art is long, and Time is
fleeting,
And our hearts, though
stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums,
are beating
Funeral marches to the
grave.
In the world’s broad field
of battle.
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven
cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, -act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"Winnie-the Pooh"
Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
- I'm quite horrified that I didn't read it in childhood, but I guess 'better late than never' applies to this!
- It's a delightful book full of charm and wonderful characters, and the writing is a treat to read.
- I was familiar with some of the characters: Winnie, Christopher Robin, Piglet, and Eyeore, but I didn't know what their personalities were like or how funny they are. These are characters worth getting to know.
- The natural world is a lovely part of the stories, as I find it is for most stories set in England.
- The stories have themes of friendship, loyalty, kindness and imagination, all without lecturing and without the over-sweetness of some children's books.
- I loved it!
National Poetry Month - Day 12
The Day Is Done
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:
A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
National Poetry Month Day 1
