Love’s Philosophy BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the ocean, The winds of heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine?— See the mountains kiss high heaven And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth And the moonbeams kiss the sea: What is all this sweet work worth If thou kiss not me? This is one of mine <3
On the Move by Thom Gunn | Poetry Foundation On the Move BY THOM GUNN The blue jay scuffling in the bushes follows Some hidden purpose, and the gust of birds That spurts across the field, the wheeling swallows, Has nested in the trees and undergrowth. Seeking their instinct, or their poise, or both, One moves with an uncertain violence Under the dust thrown by a baffled sense Or the dull thunder of approximate words. On motorcycles, up the road, they come: Small, black, as flies hanging in heat, the Boys, Until the distance throws them forth, their hum Bulges to thunder held by calf and thigh. In goggles, donned impersonality, In gleaming jackets trophied with the dust, They strap in doubt – by hiding it, robust – And almost hear a meaning in their noise. Exact conclusion of their hardiness Has no shape yet, but from known whereabouts They ride, direction where the tyres press. They scare a flight of birds across the field: Much that is natural, to the will must yield. Men manufacture both machine and soul, And use what they imperfectly control To dare a future from the taken routes. It is a part solution, after all. One is not necessarily discord On earth; or damned because, half animal, One lacks direct instinct, because one wakes Afloat on movement that divides and breaks. One joins the movement in a valueless world, Choosing it, till, both hurler and the hurled, One moves as well, always toward, toward. A minute holds them, who have come to go: The self-defined, astride the created will They burst away; the towns they travel through Are home for neither bird nor holiness, For birds and saints complete their purposes. At worst, one is in motion; and at best, Reaching no absolute, in which to rest, One is always nearer by not keeping still.
When I was at school, we studied a book called Seven Modern Poets, and Thom Gunn was one of them, along with Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney. I loved them all, and really enjoyed those classes. But then I studied science and didn't carry on with English Literature. Your thread has got me thinking I should really explore more poetry. I actually wrote a few poems years ago, that would be another avenue to explore.
One from my youth that left a lasting impression = The Charge of the Light Brigade - BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON I Half a league, half a league, - Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death, - Rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade! - Charge for the guns!” he said. Into the valley of Death - Rode the six hundred. II “Forward, the Light Brigade!” - Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew - Someone had blundered. Theirs not to make reply, - Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. - Into the valley of Death - Rode the six hundred. III Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, - Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, - Into the mouth of hell - Rode the six hundred. IV Flashed all their sabres bare, - Flashed as they turned in air Sabring the gunners there, - Charging an army, while - All the world wondered. Plunged in the battery-smoke, - Right through the line they broke; Cossack and Russian - Reeled from the sabre stroke Shattered and sundered. Then they rode back, but not - Not the six hundred. V Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volleyed and thundered; - Stormed at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell. - They that had fought so well Came through the jaws of Death, - Back from the mouth of hell, All that was left of them, - Left of six hundred. VI When can their glory fade? - O the wild charge they made! All the world wondered.- Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!
A Winter Rose - A Sonnet I walk through the glistening virgin snow That covers the sorrow of autumn’s death Where I find on a bush a frozen rose Its beauty held ageless in winter’s breath How I long to touch those petals again Those moist velvet lips that promise such bliss Opened in passion whispering my name As I drift in dreams of a breathless kiss Oh! To pluck this rose from the winter snow And hold it closely to my aching heart And free it from that ice so bitter cold That now my love keeps you and me apart But if I were to pluck this winter rose Would all its petals fall upon the snow? Author: Elaine Cecelia George of Canada
Unwatered 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?' Were I to be more truthful, and less kind Once fair, your hair now more consumed by gray Your dewy luster I struggle to find As weighted toll of years fills in your frame And roses on your cheeks falter and fade I can not say if it is age I blame Or from the fall of youth, a cynic's made Is it my eyes too blighted to recall The fragile beauty your face once possessed No large gash dealt, only dying in small Moments I turned away from your caress Unwatered, our garden lies bleak and spent Winter coating the stems where summers went by Michelle Faulkner
1. CINDY WILLIAMS GUTIÉRREZ “THE SMALL CLAIM OF BONES” What my body knows is not a lie, it’s not a lie I tell you it is not, it’s nothing short of truth and nothing larger my past lodges. In my marrow and if I wanted a transplant there’d be no match others’ sorrows dwarf my petty traumas still these bones are mine when they creak when they moan when they whine there’s only one thing I can claim these bones are mine I tell you they are mine and kind to abandon no thing that makes this pulse no one but me.
"It is only when we are aware of the earth and of the earth as poetry that we truly live, Ages and people which sever the earth from the poetic spirit, or do not care, or stop their ears with knowledge as with dust, find their veins hollow and their hearts an emptiness echoing to questioning. For the earth is more than the upper field and the lower field, the tree and the hill. Here is the mystery banded about the forehead with green, here are Gods ascending, here is benignancy and the corn in the sun, here terror and night, here life, here death, here fire, here waves coursing in the sea. It is this earth which is the true inheritance of man, his link with his human past, the source of his religion, without whose splendor he lapses from his mysterious estate of man to a baser world which is without the other virtue and the other integrity of the animal. True humanity is no inherent right but an achievement; and only through the earth may we we be as one with all who have been and all who are yet to be, sharers and partakers of the mystery of living, reaching ot tjhe full of human peace and the full of human joy. Herbs and the Earth By Henry Beston
