Poetry thread

I have much enjoyed reading this thread. It appears that Lash, Setanta and I share similar tastes in poetry.

Here's one I like; by Earnest Dowson

THEY are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

I don't recall this getting posted before

“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
― William Ernest Henley, Invictus

(Curtsy)🙋‍♀️Fellow Irisher.

The Whole Mess ... Almost
BY GREGORY CORSO

I ran up six flights of stairs
to my small furnished room
opened the window
and began throwing out
those things most important in life

First to go, Truth, squealing like a fink:
“Don’t! I’ll tell awful things about you!”
“Oh yeah? Well, I’ve nothing to hide ... OUT!”
Then went God, glowering & whimpering in amazement:
“It’s not my fault! I’m not the cause of it all!” “OUT!”
Then Love, cooing bribes: “You’ll never know impotency!
All the girls on Vogue covers, all yours!”
I pushed her fat ass out and screamed:
“You always end up a bummer!”
I picked up Faith Hope Charity
all three clinging together:
“Without us you’ll surely die!”
“With you I’m going nuts! Goodbye!”

Then Beauty ... ah, Beauty—
As I led her to the window
I told her: “You I loved best in life
... but you’re a killer; Beauty kills!”
Not really meaning to drop her
I immediately ran downstairs
getting there just in time to catch her
“You saved me!” she cried
I put her down and told her: “Move on.”

Went back up those six flights
went to the money
there was no money to throw out.
The only thing left in the room was Death
hiding beneath the kitchen sink:
“I’m not real!” It cried
“I’m just a rumor spread by life ... ”
Laughing I threw it out, kitchen sink and all
and suddenly realized Humor
was all that was left—
All I could do with Humor was to say:
“Out the window with the window!”

Here's an Irish one, by Austin Clarke -

'The Planter's Daughter'

When night stirred at sea
And the fire brought a crowd in,
They say that her beauty
Was music in mouth
And few in the candlelight
Thought her too proud,
For the house of the planter
Is known by the trees.

Men that had seen her
Drank deep and were silent,
The women were speaking
Wherever she went-
As a bell that is rung
Or a wonder told shyly
And O she was the Sunday
In every week



And a favorite Englishman< Robert Herrick


A SWEET disorder in the dress

Kindles in clothes a wantonness:—
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distractiòn,—
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthrals the crimson stomacher,—
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly,—
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat,—
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility,—
Do more bewitch me, than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Richard Lovelace was a royalist officer during the first civil war in England from 1642 to 1646. Having been captured,m he was sent to Coventry, literally. Royalist officers were imprisoned there, and that is the origin of the expression. The poem below, "To Althea, from Prison," will be recognizable to many for a pair of lines at the end of it:

I.

When love with unconfinèd wings
Hovers within my gates;
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;

When I lye tangled in her haire,
And fetter'd to her eye,
The birds, that wanton in the aire,
Know no such libertie.

II.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our carelesse heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;

When thirsty griefe in wine we steepe,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deepe,
Know no such libertie.

III.

When (like committed linnets) I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetnes, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King.

When I shall voyce aloud, how good
He is, how great should be,
Inlargèd winds, that curle the flood,
Know no such libertie.

IV.

Stone walls doe not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Mindes innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;

If I have freedome in my love,
And in my soule am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such libertie.

Here's an (abbreviated by me) favorite of mine by Longfellow.

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:

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

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

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why

Edna St Vincent Millay


What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

I have done the Belle of Amherst, but I don't think I posted this one. This for our theistical friends here:

I never saw a moor,
I never saw the sea;
Yet know I how the heather looks,
And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,
Nor visited in heaven;
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the chart were given.

Thank you- I liked it.

Here's one I learned as a young man in my first squadron - young and Old, Charles Kingsley

When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;

Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.

When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down;

Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among;
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.

I agree about "Invictus" - a masterpiece.

For some ( probably not very good) reason I often conflate the works of Henley with those of William Blake - both English, but almost a century separates them. Anyway here's a Blake favorite;

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Careful there. I believe Setanta is Irish too ( he lived there for a while).

I took one of those genealogical tests - it indicated I'm 94% Irish; 4% Finnish; and 2% Italian. Go figure.

Dude, I completely @ -ed you.

My son’s trying to convince us all to get the 23&me test. We’re under the impression that we’re extreme mutts.

Most of my ancestors are also Irish,to my complete surprise, when I was tested.

It doesn't surprise me. You have the spirit.

We all are if you go back far enough. My parents were poor folk from the West of Ireland: apart from some Vikings a millennium ago no one went there - except. apparently. for the occasional Italian tourist.

Of my eight great-grandparents, seven were born in Ireland, or in the United States to Irish immigrants. One was Scots, and born there. She married an Irishman, who died before they could emigrate. She brought her family over when they had saved enough money for the passage. She was born one hundred years before me, and died in the summer before my fifth birthday. Given that character is not necessarily a product of genetics, and is, I would say, demonstrably the product of one's cultural milieu, that's what counts for me. When I first arrived in Ireland in 1977, it was a completely familiar experience, so much so that it was kind of creepy. It was like going to a family reunion with millions of family members I had never met before.

And here, from my favorite Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, is an early work which he hoped would help his contemporaries understand Ireland (the rose is a female symbol, rood means a cross, a crucifix), The Rose upon the Rood of Time:

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide;
The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet eyed,
Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold;
And thine own sadness, whereof stars, grown old
In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea,
Sing in their high and lonely melody.
Come near, that no more blinded by man's fate,
I find under the boughs of love and hate,
In all poor foolish things that live a day,
Eternal beauty wandering on her way.

Come near, come near, come near—Ah, leave me still
A little space for the rose-breath to fill!
Lest I no more hear common things that crave;
The weak worm hiding down in its small cave,
The field-mouse running by me in the grass,
And heavy mortal hopes that toil and pass;
But seek alone to hear the strange things said
By God to the bright hearts of those long dead,
And learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know
Come near; I would, before my time to go,
Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways:
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days.

(Cuchulain is the great Irish mythic hero--that's a cognomen which means the Hound of Cullen. His given name was Setanta.)

I agree with you about the importance of one's cultural milieu. Mine was in old Detroit in a mostly Irish neighborhood where most parents were Irish immigrants, all making frequent references to "the old country" and the towns where they grew up. All appeared to know each other in a tangle of vague relationships which I hardly understood. To a child such things constitute the universe, and that was mine. I also had a similar experience on my first trip to Ireland, In the small village where she lived, Ardmore, just West of Dungarvan. I felt surrounded by people, many related, whom I already knew, though I had met but few before.

It's a new world there now: economic development and the EU have changed everything.

We lost cultural identity. My folks had no notion of it, beyond knowing themselves to be "Okies" and they followed the crops until I was a toddler. Even so, I worked in an apricot shed and picked cotton for a time. Their notion of their ancestry was garbled. Only a newly discovered cousin in Dallas had the info to set the record straight, to an extent. The DNA test piqued my curiosity, in that I have 1% Siberian ancestry.