Celebrate April with Hopkins, Frost, Eliot, and Rossetti

I’ve been stricken with spring fever and could not resist sharing the beauty of a few of my favorite spring poems. I’ll offer them without comment, as I believe they are best savored quietly. If you wish to learn more about the poet or the poem, I suggest browsing through Bartleby.com, as well as your own encyclopedia.

Spring
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling. Read more

The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy (and SAT Essay Prep)

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires. Read more

Gratefulnesse by George Herbert

GRATEFULNESSE

by George Herbert (1593- 1633)

Thou that hast giv’n so much to me,
Give one thing more, a grateful heart.
See how thy beggar works on thee
By art.

He makes thy gifts occasion more,
And says, If he in this be crossed,
All thou hast giv’n him heretofore
Is lost.

But thou didst reckon, when at first
Thy word our hearts and hands did crave,
What it would come to at the worst
To save.

Perpetual knockings at thy door,
Tears sullying thy transparent rooms,
Gift upon gift, much would have more,
And comes.

This not withstanding, thou wenst on,
And didst allow us all our noise:
Nay thou hast made a sigh and groan
Thy joys.

Not that thou hast not still above
Much better tunes, than groans can make;
But that these country-airs thy love
Did take.

Wherefore I cry, and cry again;
And in no quiet canst thou be,
Till I a thankful heart obtain
Of thee:

Not thankful, when it pleaseth me;
As if thy blessings had spare days:
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.

This lovely poem is one of my favorites, and I think often of the last stanza. I very much enjoy George Herbert’s way of visually and aurally emphasizing important elements in his poems.

In my beautiful old volume of Herbert’s poetry (left), a gift from my oldest son, the last line of each stanza is spaced flush right, so that it is emphasized. I tried very hard to make it appear this way in this post, but it didn’t cooperate, so you’ll just have to imagine it. Better yet, use the poem as copywork, and write it spaced this way, and both you and your students will have an increased appreciation of its beauty. Be sure to notice Herbert’s warm, intimate tone, as of a child speaking to a father.

With this, I wish you a joyous Thanksgiving!

‘To Autumn’ by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

“Remember” by Christina Rosetti

Thinking about September 11….

Remember

Christina Rosetti

 

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann’d:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

 

 

From Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems by Christina Rosetti. London: Macmillan 1879.

“Barbara Frietchie” for Independence Day

In honor of Independence Day 2007, here is a poem I have liked since I was very young.

Barbara Frietchie
by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple and peach tree fruited deep,

Fair as a garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,

On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When Lee marched over the mountain wall,—

Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.

Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,

Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;

Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down; Read more

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields
John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Read more

In Memory of Old Yeller- 199?-2007

He was old and his sweet muzzle was white, but we weren’t really ready to say good-bye. But as we prepared to tuck in for the night last evening, I realized that I hadn’t seen Old Yeller for a good part of the day. He usually divided his time between indoors and out, but he loved the deck on a cool, sunny day. We stepped outside to search, and there he was, lying on the brick walkway, as if asleep.

I’ll miss seeing him trot down the path toward the creek, tail waving. I’ll miss his excited puppy dance when he comes in feeling particularly frisky (as he sometimes still did). I’ll miss his diplomatic skills with visiting dogs– he’d greet them with waving tail, and escort them around the yard, as if showing them the sights. I’ll miss seeing him bestow sloppy kisses across the cat’s faces. I’ll probably even miss the occasions when we all exclaimed, “Old Yeller! What have you been rolling in?”

Read more

Coleridge on Math; Music for “Kubla Khan”

I have been coping with computer disasters of astonishing magnitude over the last week or so, but I had to share this wonderful quote with you. Leave it to a poet to tell the truth so very vividly!

“I have often been surprised, that Mathematics, the Quintessence of Truth, should have found admirers so few and so languid– Frequent consideration and minute scrutiny have at length unraveled the cause– Viz– That, though Reason is feasted, Imagination is starved: whilst Reason is luxuriating in its proper Paradise, Imagination is wearily traveling over a dreary desert.” (From a letter written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to his brother George, March 31, 1791. He follows this quote with a very funny poem on math.)

Coleridge’s images tend to stick in my mind, and I don’t always care for them, but if you like his classic “Kubla Kahn,” I think you’ll enjoy Juergen Matthias Shroeder’s website with an original symphony inspired by the poem. Shroeder provides an illustrated trip through “Kubla Khan,” with clips of the symphony along the way. He explains which instruments are used, and how each illustrates a portion of the poem. It’s a wonderful lesson in how art, music, and poetry are intertwined.

Read more on “Kubla Khan.”

Death Be Not Proud

In memory of those who died at Virginia Tech, April 16, 2007.

Death Be Not Proud

by John Donne (1573-1631)

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and souls delivery.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better then thy stroke; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms…

(Deuteronomy 33:27)

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