Archive for the Poetry Category

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The End of May

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on May 31, 2012 by telescoper

How the wind howls this morn
About the end of May,
And drives June on apace
To mock the world forlorn
And the world’s joy passed away
And my unlonged-for face!
The world’s joy passed away;
For no more may I deem
That any folk are glad
To see the dawn of day
Sunder the tangled dream
Wherein no grief they had.
Ah, through the tangled dream
Where others have no grief
Ever it fares with me
That fears and treasons stream
And dumb sleep slays belief
Whatso therein may be.
Sleep slayeth all belief
Until the hopeless light
Wakes at the birth of June
More lying tales to weave,
More love in woe’s despite,
More hope to perish soon.

by William Morris (1834-96).

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Keeping Things Whole

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on May 22, 2012 by telescoper

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

by Mark Strand (b. 1934).

 

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The Moving Finger

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on May 18, 2012 by telescoper

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (trans. E.M. Fitzgerald)

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Rigid Body Sings

Posted in Poetry, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on May 14, 2012 by telescoper

Gin a body meet a body
Flyin’ thro the air,
Gin a body hit a body,
Will it fly? And where?

Ilka impact has its measure
Ne’er a’ ane hae I
Yet a’ the lads they measure me,
Or, at least, they try.

Gin a body meet a body
Altogether free,
How they travel afterwards
We do not always see.

Ilka problem has its method
By analytics high;
For me, I ken na ane o’ them,
But what the waur am I?

by James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)

P.S. This poet is of course much better known as a physicist, but this is a nice little parody of Robert Burns’ Comin’ through the Rye in authentic Scots.

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Song on a May Morning

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on May 9, 2012 by telescoper

Now the bright morning-star, Day’s harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire!
Woods and groves are of thy dressing;
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

by John Milton (1608-1674).

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Those earthly godfathers of Heaven’s lights

Posted in Literature, Poetry, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on May 2, 2012 by telescoper

What was it that Ernest Rutherford said about science and stamp-collecting? It seems Shakespeare had much the same idea!

Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun,
That will not be deep-search’d with saucy looks;
Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others’ books.
These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights
That give a name to every fixed star,
Have no more profit of their shining nights
Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

from Love’s Labour’s Lost (Act I, Scene I) by William Shakespeare.

P.S. “wot” in the last line is an archaic form of  the verb “wit”, meaning “to know”; cf “I wot not what I ought to have braught” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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May Day

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on May 1, 2012 by telescoper

A delicate fabric of bird song
Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
Is everywhere.

Oh I must pass nothing by
Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
The grass with my touch;

For how can I be sure
I shall see again
The world on the first of May
Shining after the rain?

by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

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April Rain Song

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on April 26, 2012 by telescoper

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night—

And I love the rain.

by Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

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The Word

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on April 19, 2012 by telescoper

Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between “green thread”
and “broccoli” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”

Resting on the page, the word
is as beautiful, it touches you
as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present
he had sent you from some place distant
as this morning — to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing,

that also needs accomplishing
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds

of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue

but today you get a telegram,
from the heart in exile
proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,

– to any one among them
who can find the time,
to sit out in the sun and listen.

by Tony Hoagland (b. 1953)

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The Birth of Shaka

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on April 14, 2012 by telescoper

His baby cry
was of a cub
tearing the neck
of the lioness
because he was fatherless.

The gods
boiled his blood
in a clay pot of passion
to course in his veins.

His heart was shaped into an ox shield
to foil every foe.

Ancestors forged
his muscles into
thongs as tough
as water bark
and nerves
as sharp as
syringa thorns.

His eyes were lanterns
that shone from the dark valleys of Zululand
to see white swallows
coming across the sea.
His cry to two assassin brothers:

“Lo! you can kill me
but you’ll never rule this land!”

by Oswald Mtshali (b. 1940)

Shaka was a Zulu chief of the 19th Century who built such a  giant empire in what is now South Africa that he became known in Europe as the Black Napoleon. He was eventually killed by his half brothers, but the Zulu empire crumbled soon after when the British Army took it on.

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