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Category Archives: Poetry

Ode on Indolence

25 Monday Jan 2021

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

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A Poem by John Keats

‘They toil not, neither do they spin.’

One morn before me were three figures seen,
    With bowèd necks, and joinèd hands, side-faced;
And one behind the other stepp’d serene,
    In placid sandals, and in white robes graced;
        They pass’d, like figures on a marble urn,
    When shifted round to see the other side;
They came again; as when the urn once more
        Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;
    And they were strange to me, as may betide
With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.

How is it, Shadows! that I knew ye not?
    How came ye muffled in so hush a mask?
Was it a silent deep-disguisèd plot
    To steal away, and leave without a task
        My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;
    The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
Benumb’d my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;
        Pain had no sting, and pleasure’s wreath no flower:
    O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense
Unhaunted quite of all but—nothingness?

A third time pass’d they by, and, passing, turn’d
    Each one the face a moment whiles to me;
Then faded, and to follow them I burn’d
    And ached for wings, because I knew the three;
        The first was a fair Maid, and Love her name;
    The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,
And ever watchful with fatiguèd eye;
        The last, whom I love more, the more of blame
    Is heap’d upon her, maiden most unmeek,—
I knew to be my demon Poesy.

They faded, and, forsooth! I wanted wings:
    O folly! What is Love? and where is it?
And for that poor Ambition! it springs
    From a man’s little heart’s short fever-fit;
        For Poesy!—no,—she has not a joy,—
    At least for me,—so sweet as drowsy noons,
And evenings steep’d in honey’d indolence;
        O, for an age so shelter’d from annoy,
    That I may never know how change the moons,
Or hear the voice of busy common-sense!

And once more came they by:—alas! wherefore?
    My sleep had been embroider’d with dim dreams;
My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o’er
    With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams:
        The morn was clouded, but no shower fell,
    Tho’ in her lids hung the sweet tears of May;
The open casement press’d a new-leaved vine,
    Let in the budding warmth and throstle’s lay;
        O Shadows! ’twas a time to bid farewell!
Upon your skirts had fallen no tears of mine.

So, ye three Ghosts, adieu! Ye cannot raise
    My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;
For I would not be dieted with praise,
    A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!
        Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more
    In masque-like figures on the dreamy urn;
Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,
    And for the day faint visions there is store;
Vanish, ye Phantoms! from my idle spright,
    Into the clouds, and never more return!

The “Ode on Indolence” is one of five odes composed by English poet John Keats in the spring of 1819. (see more)

Ode on a Grecian Urn

24 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

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A Poem by John Keats

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
       Of deities or mortals, or of both,
               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
       Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
       Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
       Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
       She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
         For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
         For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
                For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
                A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
         To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
         Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
                Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
                Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
         Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
         When old age shall this generation waste,
                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
         “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a poem written by the English Romantic poet John Keats (see more)

Godiva

23 Saturday Jan 2021

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

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A Poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I waited for the train at Coventry;
I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
To watch the three tall spires; and there I shaped
The city’s ancient legend into this:
Not only we, the latest seed of Time,
New men, that in the flying of a wheel
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,
And loathed to see them overtax’d; but she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled
In Coventry: for when he laid a tax
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought
Their children, clamoring, “If we pay, we starve!”
She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode
About the hall, among his dogs, alone,
His beard a foot before him and his hair
A yard behind. She told him of their tears,
And pray’d him, “If they pay this tax, they starve.”
Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,
“You would not let your little finger ache
For such as these?” — “But I would die,” said she.
He laugh’d, and swore by Peter and by Paul;
Then fillip’d at the diamond in her ear;
“Oh ay, ay, ay, you talk!” — “Alas!” she said,
“But prove me what I would not do.”
And from a heart as rough as Esau’s hand,
He answer’d, “Ride you naked thro’ the town,
And I repeal it;” and nodding, as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.
So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bade him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition; but that she would loose
The people: therefore, as they loved her well,
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down, she passing; but that all
Should keep within, door shut, and window barr’d.
Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasp’d the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl’s gift; but ever at a breath
She linger’d, looking like a summer moon
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
And shower’d the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reach’d
The Gateway, there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazon’d with armorial gold.
Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listen’d round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-mouth’d heads upon the spout
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
Made her cheek flame; her palfrey’s foot-fall shot
Light horrors thro’ her pulses; the blind walls
Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less thro’ all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flower’d elder-thicket from the field,
Gleam thro’ the Gothic archway in the wall.
Then she rode back, clothed on with chastity;
And one low churl, compact of thankless earth,
The fatal byword of all years to come,
Boring a little auger-hole in fear,
Peep’d — but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivel’d into darkness in his head,
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait
On noble deeds, cancell’d a sense misused;
And she, that knew not, pass’d: and all at once,
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon
Was clash’d and hammer’d from a hundred towers,
One after one: but even then she gain’d
Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown’d,
To meet her lord, she took the tax away
And built herself an everlasting name.

“Godiva” is a poem written in 1840 (see more)

Analysis of “Godiva”

With Dickens

22 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

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A Poem by Henry Lawson

In Windsor Terrace, number four,
    I’ve taken my abode—
A little crescent from the street,
    A bight from City Road;
And, hard up and in exile, I
    To many fancies yield;
For it was here Micawber lived
    And David Copperfield.

A bed, a table, and a chair,
    A bottle and a cup.
The landlord’s waiting even now
    For something to turn up.
The landlady is spiritless—
    They both seem tired of life;
They cannot fight the battle like
    Micawber and his wife.

But in the little open space
    That lies back from the street,
The same old ancient, shabby clerk
    Is sitting on a seat.
The same sad characters go by,
    The ragged children play—
And things have very little changed
    Since Dickens passed away.

Some seek religion in their grief,
    And some for friendship yearn;
Some fly to liquor for relief,
    But I to Dickens turn.
I find him ever fresh and new,
    His lesson ever plain;
And every line that Dickens wrote
    I’ve read and read again.

The tavern’s just across the ‘wye,’
    And frowsy women there
Are gossiping and drinking gin,
    And twisting up their hair.
And grubby girls go past at times,
    And furtive gentry lurk—
I don’t think anyone has died
    Since Dickens did his work.

There’s Jingle, Tigg, and Chevy Slyme,
    And Weevle—whom you will;
And hard-up virtue proudly slinks
    Into the pawnshop still.
Go east a bit from City Road,
    And all the rest are there—
A friendly whistle might produce
    A Chicken anywhere.

My favourite author’s heroes I
    Should love, but somehow can’t.
I don’t like David Copperfield
    As much as David’s Aunt,
And it may be because my mind
    Has been in many fogs—
I don’t like Nicholas Nickleby
    So well as Newman Noggs.

I don’t like Richard Carstone, Pip,
    Or Martin Chuzzlewit,
And for the rich and fatherly
    I scarcely care a bit.
The honest, sober clods are bores
    Who cannot suffer much,
And with the Esther Summersons
    I never was in touch.

The ‘Charleys’ and the haggard wives,
    Kind hearts in poverty—
And yes! the Lizzie Hexams, too—
    Are very near to me;
But men like Brothers Cheeryble,
    And Madeline Bray divine,
And Nell, and Little Dorrit live
    In a better world than mine.

The Nicklebys and Copperfields,
    They do not stand the test;
And in my heart I don’t believe
    That Dickens loved them best.
I can’t admire their ways and talk,
    I do not like their looks—
Those selfish, injured sticks that stalk
    Through all the Master’s books.

They’re mostly selfish in their love,
    And selfish in their hate,
They marry Dora Spenlows, too,
    While Agnes Wickfields wait;
And back they come to poor Tom Pinch
    When hard-up for a friend;
They come to wrecks like Newman Nogga
    To help them in the end.

And—well, maybe I am unjust,
    And maybe I forget;
Some of us marry dolls and jilt
    Our Agnes Wickfields yet.
We seek our friends when fortune frowns—
    It has been ever thus—
And we neglect Joe Gargery
    When fortune smiles on us.

They get some rich old grandfather
    Or aunt to see them through,
And you can trace self-interest
    In nearly all they do.
And scoundrels like Ralph Nickleby,
    In spite of all their crimes,
And crawlers like Uriah Heep
    Told bitter truths at times.

But—yes, I love the vagabonds
    And failures from the ranks,
And hard old files with hidden hearts
    Like Wemmick and like Pancks.
And Jaggers had his ‘poor dreams, too,’
    And fond hopes like the rest—
But, somehow, somehow, all my life
    I’ve loved Dick Swiveller best!

But, let us peep at Snagsby first
    As softly he lays down
Beside the bed of dying Joe
    Another half-a-crown.
And Nemo’s wretched pauper grave—
    But we can let them be,
For Joe has said to Heaven: ‘They
    Wos werry good to me.’

And Wemmick with his aged P——
    No doubt has his reward;
And Jaggers, hardest nut of all,
    Will be judged by the Lord.
And Pancks, the rent-collecting screw,
    With laurels on his brow,
Is loved by all the bleeding hearts
    In Bleeding Heart Yard now.

Tom Pinch is very happy now,
    And Magwitch is at rest,
And Newman Noggs again might hold
    His head up with the best;
Micawber, too, when all is said,
    Drank bravely Sorrow’s cup—
Micawber worked to right them all,
    And something did turn up.

How do ‘John Edward Nandy, Sir!’
    And Plornish get along?
Why! if the old man is in voice
    We’ll hear him pipe a song.
We’ll have a look at Baptiste, too,
    While still the night is young—
With Mrs. Plornish to explain
    In the Italian tongue.

Before we go we’ll ask about
    Poor young John Chivery:
‘There never was a gentleman
    In all his family.’
His hopeless love, his broken heart,
    But to his rival true;
He came of Nature’s gentlemen,
    But young John never knew.

We’ll pass the little midshipman
    With heart that swells and fills,
Where Captain Ed’ard Cuttle waits
    For Wal’r and Sol Gills.
Jack Bunsby stands by what he says
    (Which isn’t very clear),
And Toots with his own hopeless love—
    As true as any here.

And who that read has never felt
    The sorrow that it cost
When Captain Cuttle read the news
    The ‘Son and Heir’ was lost?
And who that read has not rejoiced
    With him and ‘Heart’s Delight,’
And felt as Captain Cuttle felt
    When Wal’r came that night?

And yonder, with a broken heart,
    That people thought was stone,
Deserted in his ruined home,
    Poor Dombey sits alone.
Who has not gulped a something down,
    Whose eye has not grown dim
While feeling glad for Dombey’s sake
    When Florence came to him?

(A stately house in Lincolnshire—
    The scene is bleak and cold—
The footsteps on the terrace sound
    To-night at Chesney Wold.
One who loved honour, wife, and truth,
    If nothing else besides,
Along the dreary Avenue
    Sir Leicester Dedlock rides.)

We’ll go round by Poll Sweedlepipe’s,
    The bird and barber shop;
If Sairey Gamp is so dispoged
    We’ll send her up a drop.
We’ll cross High Holborn to the Bull,
    And, if he cares to come,
By streets that are not closed to him
    We’ll see Dick Swiveller home.
He’s looking rather glum to-night,
    The why I will not ask—
No matter how we act the goat,
    We mostly wear a mask.
Some wear a mask to hide the false
    (And some the good and true)—
I wouldn’t be surprised to know
    Mark Tapley wore one too.

We wear a mask called cheerfulness
    While feeling sad inside;
And men like Dombey, who was shy,
    Oft wear a mask called pride.
A front of pure benevolence
    The grinding ‘Patriarch’ bore;
And kind men often wear a mask
    Like that which Jaggers wore.

But, never mind, Dick Swiveller!
    We’ll see it out together
Beneath the wing of friendship, Dick,
    That never moults a feather.
We’ll look upon the rosy yet
    Full many a night, old friend,
And tread the mazy ere we woo
    The balmy in the end.
Our palace walls are rather bare,
    The floor is somewhat damp,
But, while there’s liquor, anywhere
    Is good enough to camp.
What ho! mine host! bring forth thine ale
    And let the board be spread!—
It is the hour when churchyards yawn
    And wine goes to the head.

’Twas you who saved poor Kit, old chap,
    When he was in a mess—
But, what ho! Varlet! bring us wine!
    Here’s to the Marchioness!
‘We’ll make a scholar of her yet,’
    She’ll be a lady fair,
‘And she shall go in silk attire
    And siller have to spare.’

From sport to sport they hurry her
    To banish her regrets,
And when we win a smile from her
    We cannot pay our debts!
Left orphans at a tender age,
    We’re happiest in the land—
We’re Glorious Apollos, Dick,
    And you’re Perpetual Grand!

You’re king of all philosophers,
    And let the Godly rust;
Here’s to the obscure citizen
    Who sent the beer on trust?
It sure would be a cheerful world
    If never man got tight;
You spent your money on your friends,
    Dick Swiveller! Good night!

‘A dissolute and careless man—
    An idle, drunken path;’
But see where Sidney Carton spills
    His last drink on the hearth!
A ruined life! He lived for drink
    And but one thing beside—
And Oh! it was a glorious death
    That Sidney Carton died.

And ‘Which I meantersay is Pip’—
    The voices hurry past—
‘Not to deceive you, sir’—‘Stand by!’
    ‘Awast, my lass, awast!’
‘Beware of widders, Samivel,’
    And shun strong drink, my friend;
And, ‘not to put too fine a point
    Upon it,’ I must end.

A Valentine

21 Thursday Jan 2021

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

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An Acrostic Poem by Edgar Allan Poe

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!– they hold a treasure
Divine– a talisman– an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure–
The words– the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets– as the name is a poet’s, too,
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto– Mendez Ferdinando–
Still form a synonym for Truth– Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

Analysis of A Valentine

What The Birds Said

20 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

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A Poem by John Greenleaf Whittier

The birds against the April wind
Flew northward, singing as they flew;
They sang, “The land we leave behind
Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew.”

“O wild-birds, flying from the South,
What saw and heard ye, gazing down?”
“We saw the mortar’s upturned mouth,
The sickened camp, the blazing town!

“Beneath the bivouac’s starry lamps,
We saw your march-worn children die;
In shrouds of moss, in cypress swamps,
We saw your dead uncoffined lie.

“We heard the starving prisoner’s sighs
And saw, from line and trench, your sons
Follow our flight with home-sick eyes
Beyond the battery’s smoking guns.”

“And heard and saw ye only wrong
And pain,” I cried, “O wing-worn flocks?”
“We heard,” they sang, “the freedman’s song,
The crash of Slavery’s broken locks!

“We saw from new, uprising States
The treason-nursing mischief spurned,
As, crowding Freedom’s ample gates,
The long-estranged and lost returned.

“O’er dusky faces, seamed and old,
And hands horn-hard with unpaid toil,
With hope in every rustling fold,
We saw your star-dropt flag uncoil.

“And struggling up through sounds accursed,
A grateful murmur clomb the air;
A whisper scarcely heard at first,
It filled the listening heavens with prayer.

“And sweet and far, as from a star,
Replied a voice which shall not cease,
Till, drowning all the noise of war,
It sings the blessed song of peace!”

So to me, in a doubtful day
Of chill and slowly greening spring,
Low stooping from the cloudy gray,
The wild-birds sang or seemed to sing.

They vanished in the misty air,
The song went with them in their flight;
But lo! they left the sunset fair,
And in the evening there was light.

Read about John Greenleaf Whittier and What The Birds Said

Harvard Square

19 Tuesday Jan 2021

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

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A Poem by Edward Smyth Jones

‘Tis once in life our dreams come true,
The myths of long ago,
Quite real though fairy-like their view,
They surge with ebb and flow;
Thus thou, O haunt of childhood dreams,
More beauteous and fair
Than Nature’s landscape and her streams,
Historic Harvard Square.

My soul hath panted long for thee,
Like as the wounded hart
That vainly strives himself to free
Full from the archer’s dart;
And struggled oft all, all alone
With burdens hard to bear,
But now I stand at Wisdom’s throne
To-night in Harvard Square.

A night most tranquil, – I was proud
My thoughts soared up afar,
To moonbeams pouring through the cloud,
Or some lone twinkling star;
And musing thus, my quickened pace
Beat to the printery’s glare,
Where first I saw a friendly face
In classic Harvard Square.

“Ho! stranger, thou art wan and worn
Of journey’s wear and tear;
Thy face all haggard and forlorn,
Pray tell me whence and where?”
“I came – from out – the Sunny South –
The spot – on earth – most fair,”
Fell lisping from my trembling mouth –
“In search – of – Harvard Square.”

“Here rest, my friend, upon this seat,
And feel thyself at home;
I’ll bring thee forth some drink and meat,
‘Twill give thee back thy form.”
And then I prayed the Lord to bless
Us, and that little lair –
Quite sure, I thought, I had found rest
Most sweet in Harvard Square.

“I came,” I said, “o’er stony ways,
Through mountain, hill and dale,
I’ve felt old Sol’s most scorching rays,
And braved the stormy gale;
I’ve done this, Printer, not for gold,
Nor diamonds rich and rare –
But for a burning in my soul
To learn in Harvard Square.

“I’ve journeyed long without a drink
Nor yet a bite of bread,
While in this state, O Printer, think –
No shelter for my head.
I mused, ‘Hope’s yet this side the grave’ –
My pluck and courage there
Then made my languid heart bear brave –
Each throb for Harvard Square.”

A sound soon hushed my heart’s rejoice –
“The watchman on his search?”
“No!” rang the printer’s gentle voice,
“‘Deak’ Wilson in from church.
O’er there, good ‘Deak’,” the printer said,
“The wanderer in that chair,
Hath come to seek the lore deep laid
Up here in Harvard Square.”

“It matters not how you implore,
He can no longer stay;
But on the night’s ‘Plutonian shore,’
Await the coming day.
I’m sorry, sir,” he calmly said,
“Though hard, I guess ’tis fair,
Thou hast no place to lay thy head –
Not yet in Harvard Square!”

“Good night!” he said, and we the same –
I sighed, “Where shall I go?”
He soon returned and with him came
An officer and – Oh!
“Now sir, you take this forlorn tramp
With all his shabby ware,
And guide him safely off the ‘Camp’
Of dear old Harvard Square.”

As soon as locked within the jail,
Deep in a ghastly cell,
Methought I heard the bitter wail
Of all the fiends of hell!
“O God, to Thee I humbly pray
No treacherous prison snare
Shall close my soul within for aye
From dear old Harvard Square.”

Just then I saw an holy Sprite
Shed all her radiant beams,
And round her shone the source of light
Of all the poets’ dreams!
I plied my pen in sober use,
And spent each moment spare
In sweet communion with the Muse
I met in Harvard Square!

I cried: “Fair Goddess, hear my tale
Of sorrow, grief and pain.”
That made her face an ashen pale,
But soon it glowed again!
“They placed me here; and this my crime,
Writ on their pages fair: –
‘He left his sunny native clime,
And came to Harvard Square!'”

“Weep not, my son, thy way is hard,
Thy weary journey long –
But thus I choose my favorite bard
To sing my sweetest song.
I’ll strike the key-note of my art
And guide with tend’rest care,
And breathe a song into thy heart
To honor Harvard Square.

“I called old Homer long ago,
And made him beg his bread
Through seven cities, ye all know,
His body fought for, dead.
Spurn not oppression’s blighting sting,
Nor scorn thy lowly fare;
By them I’ll teach thy soul to sing
The songs of Harvard Square.

“I placed great Dante in exile,
And Byron had his turns;
Then Keats and Shelley smote the while,
And my immortal Burns!
But thee I’ll build a sacred shrine,
A store of all my ware;
By them I’ll teach thy soul to sing
‘A place in Harvard Square.’

“To some a store of mystic lore,
To some to shine a star:
The first I gave to Allan Poe,
The last to Paul Dunbar.
Since thou hast waited patient, long,
Now by my throne I swear
To give to thee my sweetest song
To sing in Harvard Square.”

And when she gave her parting kiss
And bade a long farewell,
I sat serene in perfect bliss
As she forsook my cell.
Upon the altar-fire she poured
Some incense very rare;
Its fragrance sweet my soul assured
I’d enter Harvard Square.

Reclining on my couch, I slept
A sleep sweet and profound;
O’er me the blessed angels kept
Their vigil close around.
With dawning’s smile, my fondest hope
Shone radiant and fair:
The Justice cut each chain and rope
‘Tween me and Harvard Square!

Cell No. 40, East Cambridge Jail, Cambridge, Mass., July 26, 1910

Analysis of Harvard Square

Future Poetry

17 Sunday Jan 2021

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

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A Poem by Alice Christiana Gertrude Thompson Meynell

No new delights to our desire
The singers of the past can yield.
I lift mine eyes to hill and field,
And see in them your yet dumb lyre,
Poets unborn and unrevealed.

Singers to come, what thoughts will start
To song? what words of yours be sent
Through man’s soul, and with earth be blent?
These worlds of nature and the heart
Await you like an instrument.

Who knows what musical flocks of words
Upon these pine-tree tops will light,
And crown these towers in circling flight
And cross these seas like summer birds,
And give a voice to the day and night?

Something of you already is ours;
Some mystic part of you belongs
To us whose dreams your future throngs,
Who look on hills, and trees, and flowers,
Which will mean so much in your songs.

I wonder, like the maid who found,
And knelt to lift, the lyre supreme
Of Orpheus from the Thracian stream.
She dreams on its sealed past profound;
On a deep future sealed I dream.

She bears it in her wanderings
Within her arms, and has not pressed
Her unskilled fingers, but her breast
Upon those silent sacred strings;
I, too, clasp mystic strings at rest.

For I, i’ the world of lands and seas,
The sky of wind and rain and fire,
And in man’s world of long desire-
In all that is yet dumb in these-
Have found a more mysterious lyre.

The Passionate Reader To His Poet

16 Saturday Jan 2021

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

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A Poem by Richard Le Gallienne

Doth it not thrill thee, Poet,
Dead and dust though thou art,
To feel how I press thy singing
Close to my heart? –

Take it at night to my pillow,
Kiss it before I sleep,
And again when the delicate morning
Beginneth to peep?

See how I bathe thy pages
Here in the light of the sun,
Through thy leaves, as a wind among roses,
The breezes shall run.

Feel how I take thy poem
And bury within it my face,
As I pressed it last night in the heart of a flower,
Or deep in a dearer place.

Think, as I love thee, Poet,
A thousand love beside,
Dear women love to press thee too
Against a sweeter side.

Art thou not happy, Poet?
I sometimes dream that I
For such a fragrant fame as thine
Would gladly sing and die.

Say, wilt thou change thy glory
For this same youth of mine?
And I will give my days i’ the sun
For that great song of thine.

When Love Went

15 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

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A poem by Susan Coolidge (Sarah Chauncey Woolsey)

What whispered Love the day he fled?
Ah! this was what Love whispered;
“You sought to hold me with a chain;
I fly to prove such holding vain.

“You bound me burdens, and I bore
The burdens hard, the burdens sore;
I bore them all unmurmuring,
For Love can bear a harder thing.

“You taxed me often, teased me, wept;
I only smiled, and still I kept
Through storm and sun and night and day,
My joyous, viewless, faithful way.

“But, dear, once dearest, you and I
This day have parted company.
Love must be free to give, defer,
Himself alone his almoner.

“As free I freely poured my all,
Enslaved I spurn, renounce my thrall,
Its wages and its bitter bread.”
Thus whispered Love the day he fled!

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