AMY LOWELL 1874-1925

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PETALS

Life is a stream

On which we strew

Petal by petal the flower of our heart;

The end lost in dream,

They float past our view,

We only watch their glad, early start.

Freighted with hope,

Crimsoned with joy,

We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;

Their widening scope,

Their distant employ,

We never shall know. And the stream as it flows

Sweeps them away,

Each one is gone

Ever beyond into infinite ways.

We alone stay

While years hurry on,

The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

Amy Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school. She posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1926. Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favoured precision of imagery and clear, sharp language.

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OH! EVER THUS

Thomas Moore 1779-1852

 Oh! ever thus, from childhood's hour,

   I've seen my fondest hopes decay;

 I never loved a tree or flower,

   But 'twas the first to fade away.

 I never nursed a dear gazelle,

   To glad me with its soft black eye,

 But when it came to know me well,

   And love me, it was sure to die!

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'TWAS EVER THUS

Henry Sambrooke Leigh 1837-83

  

I never rear'd a young gazelle, 

(Because, you see, I never tried); 

But, had it known and loved me well, 

No doubt the creature would have died. 

My rich and aged uncle John 

Has known me long and loves me well, 

But still persists in living on -

I would he were a young gazelle.

I never loved a tree or flower; 

But, if I had, I beg to say, 

The blight, the wind, the sun, or shower, 

Would soon have withered it away. 

I've dearly loved my uncle John, 

From childhood till the present hour, 

And yet he will go living on, - 

I would he were a tree or flower!

The new Poetry blog THE SONGS AND SONNETS OF JOHN DONNE is now online
http://thesongsandsonnetsofjohndonne.blogspot.com

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JOHN DONNE 1572-1631

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DAYBREAK

Stay! O sweet and do not rise!
The light that shines comes from thine eyes;
The day breaks not: it is my heart
Because that you and I must part.
Stay! or else my joys will die
And perish in their infancy.

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A new Poetry Blog 
THE SONGS AND SONNETS OF JOHN DONNE
 begins tomorrow at
http://thesongsandsonnetsofjohndonne.blogspot.com

POETRY - A PERSONAL CHOICE will continue to be updated every day

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PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 1792-1822

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LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY

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 another's being 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 disdain'd its brother; 

And the sunlight clasps the earth, 

And the moonbeams kiss the sea - 

What are all these kissings worth, 

If thou kiss not me?

Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets. He was a leading member of a group of visionary poets and writers which included Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt and his second wife Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.

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UNTITLED

Anon

"I’ll never use tobacco, no,

It is a filthy weed.

I’ll never put it in my mouth,"

Said little Robert Reid.

"Why, there was idle Jerry Jones,

As dirty as a pig,

Who smoked when only ten years old,

And thought it made him big.

"He’d puff along the open street,

As if he had no shame,

He’d sit beside the tavern door, 

And there he’d do the same.

"He spent his time and money too,

And made his mother sad,

She feared a worthless man would come

From such a worthless lad.

"Oh, no, I’ll never smoke or chew,

‘Tis very wrong indeed,

It hurts the health, it makes bad breath,"

Said little Robert Reid.

These lines may have been written towards the end of the 19th century.

The new Art Blog is now in its third week

THE PAINTINGS OF CLAUDE MONET

http://thepaintingsofclaudemonet.blogspot.com

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EDWARD THOMAS 1878-1917

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ADLESTROP

Yes, I remember Adlestrop -

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express-train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop - only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky. 

And for that minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Philip Edward Thomas was a British journalist, essayist, novelist and poet. In 1915, he enlisted in the British Army to fight in the First World War and was killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917, soon after he arrived in France.

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HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 1807-82

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A SLAVE'S DREAM

Beside the ungathered rice he lay,

  His sickle in his hand;

His breast was bare, his matted hair

  Was buried in the sand.

Again, in the mist and shadow of sleep,

  He saw his Native Land. 

Wide through the landscape of his dreams

  The lordly Niger flowed;

Beneath the palm-trees on the plain

  Once more a king he strode;

And heard the tinkling caravans

  Descend the mountain-road. 

He saw once more his dark-eyed queen

  Among her children stand;

They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,

  They held him by the hand! -

A tear burst from the sleeper's lids

  And fell into the sand. 

And then at furious speed he rode

  Along the Niger's bank;

His bridle-reins were golden chains,

  And, with a martial clank,

At each leap he could feel his scabbard of steel

  Smiting his stallion's flank. 

Before him, like a blood-red flag,

  The bright flamingoes flew;

From morn till night he followed their flight,

  O'er plains where the tamarind grew,

Till he saw the roofs of Caffre huts,

  And the ocean rose to view. 

At night he heard the lion roar,

  And the hyena scream,

And the river-horse, as he crushed the reeds

  Beside some hidden stream;

And it passed, like a glorious roll of drums,

  Through the triumph of his dream. 

The forests, with their myriad tongues,

  Shouted of liberty;

And the Blast of the Desert cried aloud,

  With a voice so wild and free,

That he started in his sleep and smiled

  At their tempestuous glee. 

He did not feel the driver's whip,

  Nor the burning heat of day;

For Death had illumined the Land of Sleep,

  And his lifeless body lay

A worn-out fetter, that the soul

  Had broken and thrown away! 

Longfellow was "a traveller, a linguist, and a romantic who identified with the great traditions of European literature and thought. At the same time, he was rooted in American life and history, which charged his imagination with untried themes and made him ambitious for success." - The Maine Historical Society Website.

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