Celebrate Poetry with The Heretik: Yeats, Shakespeare, and Auden

Consider this post your chance to post whatever you like about poetry here and elsewhere in this world, to drop in favorite poems and songs in part or in whole that mean the world to you, to do whatever you like.  Thanks, Joe.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
William Butler Yeats

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'

"Sonnet Eight"
William Shakespeare

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

"Funeral Blues"
W.H. Auden

Comments

[Amanda]

Boy, that Auden brought a tear to my eye.

[Missouri Mule]

Tell me not, in mournful numbness

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

Is our destined end or way

But to act, that each tomorrow

Finds us farther than today

Art is long, and time is fleating

And our hearts, though stout and brave

Still, like muffled drums are beating

Funeral marches to the grave

In the word's broad field of battle

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[The Heretik]

There is freedom within, there is freedom without
Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup
There's a battle ahead, many battles are lost
But you'll never see the end of the road
While you're traveling with me
Don't Dream It's Over

Neil Finn Crowded House

[Missouri Mule]

I think there are many delightful children who somehow cannot stand to grow up; they come to nothing. And in the same way later on in life there are many people who cannot endure age--the good qualities they had in their youth disappears and nothing comes to replace them. It is as if they merely fade---without maturing.
I have actually have often thought about this: how age is the greatest test for everyone--just like wine. It takes a really good vintage to stand up to long keeping. The lesser harvest is best drunk right away, without illusion, its goes down well enough.
But the really good onoe--what charm and worth it acquires through being matured. As long as it quite fresh no one could tell what is the worth. But after fifty or only twenty years. Oy!

[The Heretik]

Oy indeed!

Red red wine you make me feel so fine
You keep me rocking all of the time
Red red wine you make me feel so grand
I feel a million dollars when your just in my hand
Red red wine you make me feel so sad
Any time I see you go it make me feel bad
Red red wine you make me feel so fine
Monkey pack him rizla pon the sweet dep line
Red red wine you give me whole heap of zing
Whole heap of zing mek me do me own thing
Red red wine you really know how fi love
Your kind of loving like a blessing from above
Red red wine I love you right from the start
Right from the start with all of my heart
Red red wine in a 80's style
Red red wine in a modern beat style, yeah

[Missouri Mule]

The days of wine and roses.
Just a passing breeze
Filled with memories
Of the golden days that introduced me to
The days of wine and roses and you. XOXOXO

[bitchphd]

The Auden is great, and always reminds me of Dylan Thomas's "Do not go Gentle"

[michelle]

We were looking up, your breath stirred
tendrils on my neck, your wet mouth
was atop my head, I was a grass

waving. It was our first night, you
were a stranger. Fragments
of constellations whirled, wildness
cabled down through the woods, you went
into me, I went into you, some kind of light
wheeled as we stood, we were a grass

entered. Black heaven was alive,
had reached us across immeasurable spaces.
And was there as we drove back,
and was waiting all through the days
I did not know how to love you.
You waited, and we grew like grasses.

Rosemary Winslow

http://washingtonart.com/beltway/winslow.html

[KathyF]

Thanks for reminding me why Auden is my favorite poet.