November Poems

I like the Crapsey Cinquain (sounds funny, doesn't it?) but oh, I love that poem by Burns. Clever of you to remember he wrote it in November!

I wonder, with each of these poems, how it goes with the rest of you. I usually take the time to read them and often read them two or three times. It is not too often though that the poems demand to be read out loud. The Burns was one... and there was another, too. This is a good thread, Jjorge!

Thanks for posting the picture of a red Bottle-Brush, Olga. I think there is a plant of like that in Arizona... I don't know if it is native or maybe an Australian transplant. I wish I could be standing in some grungy shorts, watching the birds enjoy the Bottle Brush plants. It sounds nice.

Bree -- that's hilarious... and bittersweet. What would Yogi say? Maybe: "The future ain't what it used to be."

For me, since the Mariners (my team) has never made it to the World Series... every season is "deja vu all over again." We had that one season where we beat New York and then were beaten by the Indians in the playoffs. As for a World Series... nope. Baseball ends earlier here! I'm glad for the Boston Red Sox and all their fans. I feel like I shared with them more than I usually do because we were watching to lunar eclipse at the same time. (Though who was it said, no true Red Sox fan even noticed the moon?)

I've been reading Sara Teasdale... here is a poem by her about a winter night.

Compensation

I should be glad of loneliness
And hours that go on broken wings,
A thirsty body, a tired heart
And the unchanging ache of things,
If I could make a single song
As lovely and as full of light,
As hushed and brief as a falling star
On a winter night.

Oh, I read the poems several times, Piffka and from earlier threads I have copied many to my Microsoft Works file. And, I too, am reading Teasdale - Sonnets to Duse and Other Poems (1907), a book which I purchased several months ago. I love it. Here's another:

Winter

I shall have winter now and lessening days,
Lit by a smoky sun with slanting rays,
And after falling leaves, the first determined frost,
The colors of the world will all be lost,
So be it; the faint buzzing of the snow
Will fill the empty boughs,
And after sleet storms I shall wake to see
A glittering glassy plume of every tree.
Nothing shall tempt me from my firelit house.
And I shall find at night a friendly ember
And make my life of what I can remember.

Hi Raggedyaggie, Nice poem. Is it by Teasdale?

I like that poem, RaggedyAggie! Often in winter I don't even want a temptation to leave my cozy house either and wish I hadn't bought tickets or agreed to a party. Funny that young as she was (I am pretty sure this is Teasdale and in 1907 she would have 23), she seems to already be wondering what she can remember.

Oh yes, I should have said "here's another Teasdale". And I'm so glad you mentoned her age, Piffka, because I just realized that my book is comprised of seven sections of poetry, each section a different year. "Winter" is from the Dark of the Moon collection (1926.) The title of the book is "The Collected Poems of Sara Teasdale. Perhaps, this is the collection you own, Piffka.

Hi Aggie - My Teasdale book is an original edition from 1936 -- I bought it at a used book sale. I'm always on the lookout for poetry books. They don't come up too often.

Sara Teasdale does seem to be an interesting poet, not as flashy as Millay, I think, nor as clever with words as Emily Dickinson. She has a certain something though, a mysticism, I guess, and a good eye for detail. I looked up your poem "Winter" to see if it was there. Yep, page 81. Then I noticed there's an interesting poem on the left-hand page (page 80). These poems seem to be connected and are part of a larger series called Arcturus in Autumn. I may post another one later but meanwhile, here's this...

Foreknown
They brought me with a secret glee
The news I knew before they spoke,
And though they hoped to see me riven,
They found me light as dry leaves driven
Before the storm that splits the oak.

For I had learned from many an autumn
The way a leaf can drift and go,
Lightly, lightly, almost gay
Taking the unreturning way
To mix with winter and the snow.
S. Teasdale

There are 8 poems under the heading "Arcturus in Autumn" in my book, Piffka. But several of my favorite Teasdale poems are not included in my edition. I became interested in Teasdale when a friend read "Barter" (a poem I dearly love) to me. But, although I am sorely tempted, I'll not post it here. No reference to winter in that poem. You all are probably familiar with it anyway.


Aside -- Did you ever buy "Savage Beauty", the life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford? We discussed it once some time ago, but I can't remember on which thread.

<hanging head>
No. I haven't. I keep hoping to see that Nancy Milford at the used book sale where I can snap it for a dollar or two.

You have the same group of poems I have, plus many more, I think. I checked my only volume of Teasdale, btw, it was printed in 1936 as a reprint of the 1926 Dark of the Moon, so... not an original edition. Still a venerable book and one I'm fond of.

I understand your decision in posting a non-November poem, good as it might be. I'm also not going to add Teasdale's poem, "A November Night." I've added the link and it's a good match for our theme, but so long and to me, drawn out -- a stream of consciousness that it not my favorite read. If a poet can't say it all in a sonnet, there's something wrong. Anyway, I will post the first few lines -- I see, I'm posting 14 lines but this is definitely not a sonnet:

There! See the line of lights,
A chain of stars down either side the street --
Why can't you lift the chain and give it to me,
A necklace for my throat? I'd twist it round
And you could play with it. You smile at me
As though I were a little dreamy child
Behind whose eyes the fairies live. . . . And see,
The people on the street look up at us
All envious. We are a king and queen,
Our royal carriage is a motor bus,
We watch our subjects with a haughty joy. . . .
How still you are! Have you been hard at work
And are you tired to-night? It is so long
Since I have seen you -- four whole days, I think.

Ah, but it is one of my favorite Teasdale's and I've already posted it on the first page of this thread.

Oh god, you did. Now I'm embarassed. It is a lovely poem, RaggedyAggie... don't mind me!
I think I was so intent on my Les Murray run, I didn't even notice. <huge sigh>

Glad you like it after all, Piffka. It is long. (lol)

'Gathering Wood'

On short, still days
At the shut of the year
We search the pathways
Where the coverts were.

For kindling-wood we come,
And make up bundles,
Carrying them home
Down long low tunnels.

Soon air-frosts haze
Snow-thickened shires;
O short still days!
O burrow fires!
-Philip Larkin

Good poem, Jjorge. I love the phrase... "the shut of the year" and wonder about "burrow fires." All sorts of things go on in my head when I read that. As for me, I'm a little 'fraid to post this ode, long as it is, yet it seems a good match for this stormy time of year. An incantation, better be careful if you say it out loud!

Ode to the West Wind
Percy Bysshe Shelley

O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill;

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

II


Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear!

III


Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystàlline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

IV


If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision?-I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee?-tameless, and swift, and proud.

V


Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Hi Pif!

After such a cool selection,
another is owed:



'Autumn Has Caught Us in Our Summer Wear'


Autumn has caught us in our summer wear
Brother, and the day
Breathes coldly from fields far away
As white air.
We are cold at our feet, and cold at our throats,
Crouching, cold, deaf to the morning's half-notes.

See, over the fields are coming the girls from the Church,
Gathering the fruits
For their Harvest Festival; leaves, berries and roots
- Such is their search.
I do not think that we shall be
Troubled by their piety.

Tomorrow we shall hear their old bells ringing
For another year;
We shall achingcold be here
- Not singing.
Outside, the frost will bite, thaw then return;
Inside, the candle will burn.
-Philip Larkin

Love that Larkin! Thanks, Jjorge.

Here is a poem for today from 'The Divine Miss Em' ...




#1624

Apparently with no surprise
To any happy Flower
The Frost beheads it at its play?-
In accidental power?-
The blonde Assassin passes on?-
The Sun proceeds unmoved
To measure off another Day
For an Approving God.
-Emily Dickinson






_________________

Hmmm, was just thinking about frost and how it prunes the plants.

Helga

THE WISHES on this child's mouth
Came like snow on marsh cranberries;
The tamarack kept something for her;
The wind is ready to help her shoes.
The north has loved her; she will be
A grandmother feeding geese on frosty
Mornings; she will understand
Early snow on the cranberries
Better and better then.
Carl Sandburg - 1922

NOVEMBER 10TH, IS THE MARINE CORPS BIRTHDAY.


On November 10th, 1775 the Committee of Safety of the Second Continental Congress created the Continental Marines:

"Resolved, That two Battalions of Marines be raised, consisting of one Colonel, two Lieutenant Colonels, two Majors, and other officers as usual in other regiments; and that they consist of an equal number of privates with other battalions; that particular care be taken, that no persons be appointed to office, or inlisted into said Battalion, but such are good seamen, or so acquainted with maritime affairs as to be able to serve to advantage by sea when required: that they be inlisted and commissioned to serve for and during the present war between Great Britain and the colonies, unless dismissed by order of Congress: that they be distinguished by the names of the first and second battalion of American Marines, and that they be considered as part of the number which the continental Army before Boston is ordered to consist of."




U.S. Marine Corps Hymn (Marine Hymn)

From the Halls of Montezuma
To the Shores of Tripoli;
We fight our country's battles
In the air, on land and sea;
First to fight for right and freedom
And to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title
of United States Marine.

Our flag's unfurled to every breeze
From dawn to setting sun;
We have fought in ev'ry clime and place
Where we could take a gun;
In the snow of far-off Northern lands
And in sunny tropic scenes;
You will find us always on the job--
The United States Marines.

Here's health to you and to our Corps
Which we are proud to serve
In many a strife we've fought for life
And never lost our nerve;
If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven's scenes;
They will find the streets are guarded
By United States Marines.




For more Marine Corps history see:
http://www.acidus.com/Continental_Marines.html

I salute you, Jjorge, and all your compatriots. Probably few people suspect that under your poetry-loving gentle chest beats the heart of a Marine. I admit, I laughed out loud at that last cut by the Marines towards the Army & Navy. (If they happen to make it to heaven....)

This poem by Wordsworth nicely echoes the bravery and courage of the Marines. The history behind it is the fall of Prussia and England left alone to face Napoleon.


November, 1806

Another year!?-another deadly blow!
Another mighty Empire overthrown!
And We are left, or shall be left, alone;
The last that dare to struggle with the Foe.
'Tis well! from this day forward we shall know
That in ourselves our safety must be sought;
That by our own right hands it must be wrought;
That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low.
O dastard whom such foretaste doth not cheer!
We shall exult, if they who rule the land
Be men who hold its many blessings dear,
Wise, upright, valiant; not a servile band,
Who are to judge of danger which they fear,
And honour which they do not understand.

William Wordsworth