Remembrance Day

I have two different music videos posted today to commemorate the brave soldiers who have died for their country and for peace.

Since I first heard it in 1985, I've loved the song Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits. The lyrics are moving and so appropriate for the message they send.

This is a powerful video of the song and shows the horror, the senselessness, and stupidity of war. Who gains? A wealthy few. Who loses? Everyone.







I heard The White Cliffs of Dover by Vera Lynn on Remembrance Day several years ago on CBC public radio. 

The song was written in 1941 and recorded in 1942, when Europe was in the grip of the second world war. An immensely popular song, it's filled with hope that there will be an end, there will be an 'after.'

Can we now, seventy years later, still have that hope?






I cry when I hear both of these.

-- Cat

July 12 -- Henry David Thoreau

                                       Maxham daguerreotype of Thoreau made in 1856

                                Henry David Thoreau  July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862

Massachusetts-born Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, based on journals he wrote during a two-year solitary stay [1845-1847] at Walden Pond, and his essay Civil Disobedience, a statement of his philosophy of passive resistance against unjust laws and wars. [Later influencing Gandhi and others]

He was a historian, a philosopher, an ardent naturalist and environmentalist, was involved in the transcendental movement along with Emerson and Alcott, opposed war, championed abolition. He wrote detailed observations of nature and his surroundings, wrote several travel books, and became a follower of Darwin.

He left an impressive body of work: essays, poetry, books and articles on natural history, philosophy, politics...

He died of tuberculosis at the age of 44.






Nature
by Henry David Thoreau   
 
O Nature! I do not aspire
To be the highest in thy choir, -
To be a meteor in thy sky,
Or comet that may range on high;
Only a zephyr that may blow
Among the reeds by the river low;
Give me thy most privy place
Where to run my airy race.

In some withdrawn, unpublic mead
Let me sigh upon a reed,
Or in the woods, with leafy din,
Whisper the still evening in:
Some still work give me to do, -
Only - be it near to you!

For I'd rather be thy child
And pupil, in the forest wild,
Than be the king of men elsewhere,
And most sovereign slave of care;
To have one moment of thy dawn,
Than share the city's year forlorn.




Mist
by Henry David Thoreau   

Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of the lake and seas and rivers,
Bear only perfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men's fields!




The Inward Morning
by Henry David Thoreau

Packed in my mind lie all the clothes
Which outward nature wears,
And in its fashion's hourly change
It all things else repairs.
In vain I look for change abroad,
And can no difference find,
Till some new ray of peace uncalled
Illumes my inmost mind.

What is it gilds the trees and clouds,
And paints the heavens so gay,
But yonder fast-abiding light
With its unchanging ray?

Lo, when the sun streams through the wood,
Upon a winter's morn,
Where'er his silent beams intrude,
The murky night is gone.

How could the patient pine have known
The morning breeze would come,
Or humble flowers anticipate
The insect's noonday hum--

Till the new light with morning cheer
From far streamed through the aisles,
And nimbly told the forest trees
For many stretching miles?

I've heard within my inmost soul
Such cheerful morning news,
In the horizon of my mind
Have seen such orient hues,

As in the twilight of the dawn,
When the first birds awake,
Are heard within some silent wood,
Where they the small twigs break,

Or in the eastern skies are seen,
Before the sun appears,
The harbingers of summer heats
Which from afar he bears.




I am the Autumnal Sun
by Henry David Thoreau

Sometimes a mortal feels in himself Nature
-- not his Father but his Mother stirs
within him, and he becomes immortal with her
immortality. From time to time she claims
kindredship with us, and some globule
from her veins steals up into our own.

I am the autumnal sun,
With autumn gales my race is run;
When will the hazel put forth its flowers,
Or the grape ripen under my bowers?
When will the harvest or the hunter's moon
Turn my midnight into mid-noon?
I am all sere and yellow,
And to my core mellow.
The mast is dropping within my woods,
The winter is lurking within my moods,
And the rustling of the withered leaf
Is the constant music of my grief...




Epitaph On The World
by Henry David Thoreau
                                                       
Here lies the body of this world,
Whose soul alas to hell is hurled.
This golden youth long since was past,
Its silver manhood went as fast,
An iron age drew on at last;
'Tis vain its character to tell,
The several fates which it befell,
What year it died, when 'twill arise,
We only know that here it lies.





– Cat

June 2 - Thomas Hardy

  

Thomas Hardy (June 2, 1840 – January 11, 1928)

English poet and novelist Hardy's first fame and success came with his popular novels. Some  of his better-known works include Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). Along with receiving literary praise, his work was criticized  as too shocking for  Victorian sensibilities, especially Tess... [about a fallen woman] and Jude... [called obscene by many]. The negative outcry against Jude prompted Hardy to stop writing novels and return to his first love, poetry. Most of his poetry was published after he was 55. He wrote more than 800 poems, many while in in his eighties.

Having achieved fame in his lifetime as great as Dickens', Thomas Hardy died on January 11, 1928, at the age of 87. His ashes are entombed in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey. He is considered one of the most influential English poets of the 20th century.

The Darkling Thrush 

by Thomas Hardy

       

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.

The land's sharp features seemed to me

The Century's corpse outleant,

Its crypt the cloudy canopy,

The wind its death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

Seemed fervorless as I.

At once a voice arose among

The bleak twigs overhead,

In a full-hearted evensong

Of joy illimited.

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,

In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew,

And I was unaware.

             

An August Midnight 

by Thomas Hardy

                                                                         

I 

A shaded lamp and a waving blind,

And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:

On this scene enter--winged, horned, and spined -

A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;

While 'mid my page there idly stands

A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . .

II

Thus meet we five, in this still place,

At this point of time, at this point in space.

- My guests parade my new-penned ink,

Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.

"God's humblest, they!" I muse. Yet why?

They know Earth-secrets that know not I.

A Commonplace Day 

by Thomas Hardy

                                           

The day is turning ghost,

And scuttles from the kalendar in fits and

furtively,

To join the anonymous host

Of those that throng oblivion; ceding his place,

maybe,

To one of like degree.

I part the fire-gnawed logs,

Rake forth the embers, spoil the busy flames, and

lay the ends

Upon the shining dogs;

Further and further from the nooks the twilight's

stride extends,

And beamless black impends.

Nothing of tiniest worth

Have I wrought, pondered, planned; no one thing

asking blame or

praise,

Since the pale corpse-like birth

Of this diurnal unit, bearing blanks in all its

rays -

Dullest of dull-hued Days!

Wanly upon the panes

The rain slides as have slid since morn my

colourless thoughts; and

yet

Here, while Day's presence wanes,

and over him the sepulchre-lid is slowly lowered

and set,

He wakens my regret.

Regret--though nothing dear

That I wot of, was toward in the wide world at his

prime,

Or bloomed elsewhere than here,

To die with his decease, and leave a memory sweet,

sublime,

Or mark him out in Time . . .

--Yet, maybe, in some soul,

In some spot undiscerned on sea or land, some

impulse rose,

Or some intent upstole

Of that enkindling ardency from whose maturer

glows

The world's amendment flows;

But which, benumbed at birth

By momentary chance or wile, has missed its hope

to be

Embodied on the earth;

And undervoicings of this loss to man's futurity

May wake regret in me.

       

           

We Are Getting to the End 

by Thomas Hardy

             

We are getting to the end of visioning

The impossible within this universe,

Such as that better whiles may follow worse,

And that our race may mend by reasoning.

We know that even as larks in cages sing

Unthoughtful of deliverance from the curse

That holds them lifelong in a latticed hearse,

We ply spasmodically our pleasuring.

And that when nations set them to lay waste

Thy neighbours' heritage by foot and horse,

And hack their pleasant plains in festering seams,

They may again, - not warily, or from taste,

But tickled mad by some demonic force. -

Yes. We are getting to the end of dreams!

                             

Weathers 

by Thomas Hardy

          

This is the weather the cuckoo likes,

And so do I;

When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,

And nestlings fly;

And the little brown nightingale bills his best,

And they sit outside at 'The Traveller's Rest,'

And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest,

And citizens dream of the south and west,

And so do I.

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,

And so do I;

When beeches drip in browns and duns,

And thresh and ply;

And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe,

And Meadow rivulets overflow,

And drops on gate bars hang in a row,

And rooks in families homeward go,

And so do I.

              

--Cat 

Memorial to Shakespeare

William Shakespeare died April 23, 1616 at the age of 52.

396 years after his passing his works are as popular as ever.

Some tributes by poets.

 


         To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr. William 
         Shakespeare, and What He Hath Left Us
         by Ben Jonson (1572-1637 / England)


                    To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name,
                    Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
                    While I confess thy writings to be such
                    As neither man nor Muse can praise too much.
                    `Tis true, and all men`s suffrage. But these ways
                    Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
                    For silliest Ignorance on these may light,
                    Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
                    Or blind Affection, which doth ne`er advance
                    The truth, but gropes and urgeth all by chance;
                    Or crafty Malice might pretend this praise,
                    And think to ruin where it seem`d to raise.
                    These are as some infamous bawd or whore
                    Should praise a matron. What could hurt her more?
                    But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
                    Above the ill - fortune of them, or the need.
                    I, therefore, will begin. Soul of the age!
                    The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,
                    My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
                    Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
                    A little further, to make thee a room:
                    Thou art a monument without a tomb,
                    And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
                    And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
                    That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses;
                    I mean, with great but disproportion`d Muses.
                    For, if I thought my judgment were of years,
                    I should commit thee, surely, with thy peers.
                    And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
                    Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe`s mighty line.
                    And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
                    From thence, to honour thee, I would not seek
                    For names; but call forth thund`ring Aeschylus,
                    Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
                    Paccuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead
                    To life again, to hear thy buskin tread
                    And shake a stage; or when thy socks were on,
                    Leave thee alone, for the comparison
                    Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome
                    Sent forth; or since did from their ashes come.
                    Triumph, my Britain! Thou hast one to show
                    To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
                    He was not of an age, but for all time!
                    And all the Muses still were in their prime,
                    When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
                    Our ears, or, like Mercury, to charm.
                    Nature herself was proud of his designs,
                    And joy`d to wear he dressing of his lines,
                    Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit
                    As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
                    The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
                    Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
                    But antiquated and deserted lie,
                    As they were not of Nature`s family.
                    Yet must I not give Nature all! Thy art,
                    My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.
                    For though the Poet`s matter Nature be
                    His art doth give the fashion. And that he
                    Who casts to write a living line, must sweat
                    (Such as thine are), and strike the second heat
                    Upon the Muses` anvil, turn the same
                    (And himself with it), that he thinks to frame;
                    Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn!
                    For a good Poet`s made as well as born;
                    And such wert thou! Look how the father`s face
                    Lives in his issue; even so, the race
                    Of Shakespeare`s mind and manners brightly shines
                    In his well - turned and true - filed lines;
                    In each of which he seems to shake a lance
                    As brandish`d at the eyes of Ignorance.
                    Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
                    To see thee in our water yet appear,
                    And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
                    That so did take Eliza, and our James!
                    But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
                    Advanc`d, and made a constellation there!
                    Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage
                    Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage;
                    Which since thy flight from hence hath mourn`d
                    like night,
                    And despairs day, but for thy volume`s light.





         An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatic Poet W. Shakespeare
         by John Milton (1608-1674 / England)

          
                    What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones
                    The labor of an age in piled stones?
                    Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
                    Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
                    Dear son of Memory, great heir of Fame,
                    What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
                    Thou in our wonder and astonishment
                    Hast built thy self a livelong monument.
                    For whilst, to th' shame of slow-endeavoring art,
                    Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
                    Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
                    Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,
                    Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
                    Dost make us marble with too much conceiving,
                    And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie
                    That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

 




              Shakespeare and Milton
              by Walter Savage Landor (1775 - 1864 / England)

                          
                    THE TONGUE of England, that which myriads
                    Have spoken and will speak, were paralyz’d
                    Hereafter, but two mighty men stand forth
                    Above the flight of ages, two alone;
                    One crying out,
                    All nations spoke through me.
                    The other:
                    True; and through this trumpet burst God’s word;
                    The fall of Angels, and the doom
                    First of immortal, then of mortal, Man.
                    Glory! be glory! not to me, to God.







              Shakespeare
              by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882 / United States)

                    A vision as of crowded city streets,
                    With human life in endless overflow;
                    Thunder of thoroughfares; trumpets that blow
                    To battle; clamor, in obscure retreats,
                    Of sailors landed from their anchored fleets;
                    Tolling of bells in turrets, and below
                    Voices of children, and bright flowers that throw
                    O'er garden-walls their intermingled sweets!
                    This vision comes to me when I unfold
                    The volume of the Poet paramount,
                    Whom all the Muses loved, not one alone; --
                    Into his hands they put the lyre of gold,
                    And, crowned with sacred laurel at their fount,
                    Placed him as Musagetes on their throne.






              Shakespeare
              by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888 / England)
                             

                    Others abide our question. Thou art free.
                    We ask and ask--Thou smilest and art still,
                    Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,
                    Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

                    Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
                    Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
                    Spares but the cloudy border of his base
                    To the foil'd searching of mortality;

                    And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
                    Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd,
                    self-secure,
                    Didst tread on earth unguess'd at.--Better so!

                    All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
                    All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
                    Find their sole speech in that victorious brow

                   



             Shakespear
             by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1882 / England)


                Dear friend, if there be any bond
                Which friendship wins not much beyond—
                So old and fond, since thought began—
                It may be that whose subtle span
                Binds Shakespear to an English man.





              The Poetry Of Shakespeare
              by George Meredith (1828 - 1909 / England)
                 
                    Picture some Isle smiling green 'mid the
                    white-foaming ocean; -
                    Full of old woods, leafy wisdoms, and frolicsome
                    fays;
                    Passions and pageants; sweet love singing
                    bird-like above it;
                    Life in all shapes, aims, and fates, is there
                    warm'd by one great
                    human heart.





              Shakespeare And Cervantes
              by Robert William Service (1874 - 1958 / Canada)

                Shakespeare And Cervantes
                Obit 23rd April 1616

                Is it not strange that on this common date,
                Two titans of their age, aye of all Time,
                Together should renounce this mortal state,
                And rise like gods, unsullied and sublime?
                Should mutually render up the ghost,
                And hand n hand join Jove's celestial host?

                What wondrous welcome from the scribes on high!
                Homer and Virgil would be waiting there;
                Plato and Aristotle standing nigh;
                Petrarch and Dante greet the peerless pair:
                And as in harmony they make their bow,
                Horace might quip: "Great timing, you'll allow."

                Imagine this transcendant team arrive
                At some hilarious banquet of the gods!
                Their nations battled when they were alive,
                And they were bitter foes - but what's the odd?
                Actor and soldier, happy hand in hand,
                By death close-linked, like loving brothers stand.

                But how diverse! Our Will had gold and gear,
                Chattels and land, the starshine of success;
                The bleak Castilian fought with casque and spear,
                Passing his life in prisons - more or less.
                The Bard of Avon was accounted rich;
                Cervantes often bedded in a ditch.

                Yet when I slough this flesh, if I could meet
                By sweet, fantastic fate one of these two,
                In languorous Elysian retreat,
                Which would I choose? Fair reader, which would you?
                Well, though our William more divinely wrote,
                By gad! the lousy Spaniard has my vote.




 
              Shakespeare's Kingdom
              by Alfred Noyes (1880 – 1958 / England)                       

                    When Shakespeare came to London
                    He met no shouting throngs;
                    He carried in his knapsack
                    A scroll of quiet songs.

                    No proud heraldic trumpet
                    Acclaimed him on his way;
                    Their court and camp have perished;
                    The songs live on for ay.

                    Nobody saw or heard them,
                    But all around him there,
                    Spirits of light and music
                    Went treading the April air.

                    He passed like any pedlar,
                    Yet he had wealth untold.
                    The galleons of th' armada
                    Could not contain his gold.

                    The kings rode on to darkness.
                    In England's conquering hour,
                    Unseen arrived her splendour;
                    Unknown, her conquering power.





              With a Copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets on Leaving College   
              by Alan Seeger (1888 - 1916 / United States)


                With a Copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets on Leaving College
                As one of some fat tillage dispossessed,
                Weighing the yield of these four faded years,
                If any ask what fruit seems loveliest,
                What lasting gold among the garnered ears, --
                Ah, then I'll say what hours I had of thine,
                Therein I reaped Time's richest revenue,
                Read in thy text the sense of David's line,
                Through thee achieved the love that Shakespeare knew.
                Take then his book, laden with mine own love
                As flowers made sweeter by deep-drunken rain,
                That when years sunder and between us move
                Wide waters, and less kindly bonds constrain,
                Thou may'st turn here, dear boy, and reading see
                Some part of what thy friend once felt for thee.

 

--Cat

March 21 -- World Poetry Day

World Poetry Day - Declared by UNESCO to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry on an international level.

On poetry, by poets



Notes on the Art of Poetry
by Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953)

I could never have dreamt that there were such goings-on
in the world between the covers of books,
such sandstorms and ice blasts of words...
such staggering peace, such enormous laughter,
such and so many blinding bright lights...
splashing all over the pages
in a million bits and pieces
all of which were words, words, words,
and each of which were alive forever
in its own delight and glory and oddity and light.




Ars Poetica
by Archibald MacLeish (1892 – 1982)

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown--
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,
Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,
Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves.
Memory by memory the mind--
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.
For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.
For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea--
A poem should not mean
But be.




Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry
by Howard Nemerov (1920 – 1991)

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned into pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.
There came a moment that you couldn't tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.




My Life Has Been The Poem
by Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

My life has been the poem
I would have writ,
But I could not both live
and utter it.




The Poet in the Nursery
by Robert Graves (1895 – 1985)

The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling
In a dim library, just behind the chair
From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling
A song about some Lovers at a Fair,
Pulling his long white beard and gently grumbling
That rhymes were beastly things and never there.

And as I groped, the whole time I was thinking
About the tragic poem I’d been writing,...
An old man’s life of beer and whisky drinking,
His years of kidnapping and wicked fighting;
And how at last, into a fever sinking,
Remorsefully he died, his bedclothes biting.

But suddenly I saw the bright green cover
Of a thin pretty book right down below;
I snatched it up and turned the pages over,
To find it full of poetry, and so
Put it down my neck with quick hands like a lover,
And turned to watch if the old man saw it go.

The book was full of funny muddling mazes,
Each rounded off into a lovely song,
And most extraordinary and monstrous phrases
Knotted with rhymes like a slave-driver’s thong.
And metre twisting like a chain of daisies
With great big splendid words a sentence long.

I took the book to bed with me and gloated,
Learning the lines that seemed to sound most grand;
So soon the pretty emerald green was coated
With jam and greasy marks from my hot hand,
While round the nursery for long months there floated
Wonderful words no one could understand.




The Poet's Thought
by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874 – 1942)

It came to him in rainbow dreams,
Blent with the wisdom of the sages,
Of spirit and of passion born;
In words as lucent as the morn
He prisoned it, and now it gleams
A jewel shining through the ages.




Amateur Poet
by Robert William Service (1874 - 1958)

You see that sheaf of slender books
Upon the topmost shelf,
At which no browser ever looks,
Because they're by . . . myself;
They're neatly bound in navy blue,
But no one ever heeds;
Their print is clear and candid too,
Yet no one ever reads.

Poor wistful books! How much they cost
To me in time and gold!
I count them now as labour lost,
For none I ever sold;
No copy could I give away,
For all my friends would shrink,
And look at me as if to say:
"What waste of printer's ink!"

And as I gaze at them on high,
Although my eyes are sad,
I cannot help but breathe a sigh
To think what joy I had -
What ecstasy as I would seek
To make my rhyme come right,
And find at last the phrase unique
Flash fulgent in my sight.

Maybe that rapture was my gain
Far more than cheap success;
So I'll forget my striving vain,
And blot out bitterness.
Oh records of my radiant youth,
No broken heart I'll rue,
For all my best of love and truth
Is there, alive in you.




To The Stone-Cutters
by Robinson Jeffers (1887 – 1962)

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore-defeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly:
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth dies, the brave sun
Die blind, his heart blackening:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey peace in old poems.




Epigram
by Samuel Coleridge (1772 – 1834)

Sir, I admit your general rule,
That every poet is a fool,
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.



--Cat

Poets on Books – Part II

Continuing with poetry about books:



The Bibliomaniac's Bride
by Eugene Field [1850 – 1895]

The women-folk are like to books,--
Most pleasing to the eye,
Whereon if anybody looks
He feels disposed to buy.

I hear that many are for sale,--
Those that record no dates,
And such editions as regale
The view with colored plates.

Of every quality and grade
And size they may be found,--
Quite often beautifully made,
As often poorly bound.

Now, as for me, had I my choice,
I'd choose no folio tall,
But some octavo to rejoice
My sight and heart withal,--

As plump and pudgy as a snipe;
Well worth her weight in gold;
Of honest, clean, conspicuous type,
And just the size to hold!

With such a volume for my wife
How should I keep and con!
How like a dream should run my life
Unto its colophon!

Her frontispiece should be more fair
Than any colored plate;
Blooming with health, she would not care
To extra-illustrate.

And in her pages there should be
A wealth of prose and verse,
With now and then a jeu d'esprit,--
But nothing ever worse!

Prose for me when I wished for prose,
Verse when to verse inclined,--
Forever bringing sweet repose
To body, heart, and mind.

Oh, I should bind this priceless prize
In bindings full and fine,
And keep her where no human eyes
Should see her charms, but mine!

With such a fair unique as this
What happiness abounds!
Who--who could paint my rapturous bliss,
My joy unknown to Lowndes!



Bookshelf
by Robert William Service [1874 – 1958]

I like to think that when I fall,
A rain-drop in Death's shoreless sea,
This shelf of books along the wall,
Beside my bed, will mourn for me.

Regard it. . . . Aye, my taste is queer.
Some of my bards you may disdain.
Shakespeare and Milton are not here;
Shelly and Keats you seek in vain.
Wordsworth, Tennyson, Browning too,
Remarkably are not in view.

Who are they? Omar first you see,
With Vine and Rose and Nightingale,
Voicing my pet philosphy
Of Wine and Song. . . . Then Reading Gaol,
Where Fate a gruesome pattern makes,
And dawn-light shudders as it wakes.

The Ancient Mariner is next,
With eerie and terrific text;
The Burns, with pawky human touch -
Poor devil! I have loved him much.
And now a gay quartette behold:
Bret Harte and Eugene Field are here;
And Henly, chanting brave and bold,
And Chesteron, in praise of Beer.

Lastly come valiant Singers three;
To whom this strident Day belongs:
Kipling, to whom I bow the knee,
Masefield, with rugged sailor songs. . . .
And to my lyric troupe I add
With greatful heart - The Shropshire Lad.

Behold my minstrels, just eleven.
For half my life I've loved them well.
And though I have no hope of Heaven,
And more than Highland fear of Hell,
May I be damned if on this shelf
ye find a rhyme I made myself.



His Books
by Robert Southey [1774 – 1843]

My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.

With them I take delight in weal
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

My thoughts are with the Dead; with them
I live in long-past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears;
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.

My hopes are with the Dead; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all Futurity;
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.



Perhaps the ultimate anti-television/pro books rant, this long piece is from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 1964

Television
by Roald Dahl [1916 – 1990]

The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.

--Cat

Poets on Books - Part I

I received an e-book reader for Christmas, and as I reluctantly embrace this new way of reading books, I can't help wondering what the old poets would think about this. Here are some poems about books.



Picture-Books in Winter
by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Summer fading, winter comes--
Frosty mornings, tingling thumbs,
Window robins, winter rooks,
And the picture story-books.

Water now is turned to stone
Nurse and I can walk upon;
Still we find the flowing brooks
In the picture story-books.

All the pretty things put by,
Wait upon the children's eye,
Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks,
In the picture story-books.

We may see how all things are
Seas and cities, near and far,
And the flying fairies' looks,
In the picture story-books.

How am I to sing your praise,
Happy chimney-corner days,
Sitting safe in nursery nooks,
Reading picture story-books?



May and the Poets
by James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)

There is May in books forever;
May will part from Spenser never;
May's in Milton, May's in Prior,
May's in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer;
May's in all the Italian books:--
She has old and modern nooks,
Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves,
In happy places they call shelves,
And will rise and dress your rooms
With a drapery thick with blooms.
Come, ye rains, then if ye will,
May's at home, and with me still;
But come rather, thou, good weather,
And find us in the fields together.



The Bibliomaniac's Prayer
by Eugene Field (1850-1895)

Keep me, I pray, in wisdom's way
That I may truths eternal seek;
I need protecting care to-day,--
My purse is light, my flesh is weak.
So banish from my erring heart
All baleful appetites and hints
Of Satan's fascinating art,
Of first editions, and of prints.
Direct me in some godly walk
Which leads away from bookish strife,
That I with pious deed and talk
May extra-illustrate my life.
But if, O Lord, it pleaseth Thee
To keep me in temptation's way,
I humbly ask that I may be
Most notably beset to-day;
Let my temptation be a book,
Which I shall purchase, hold, and keep,
Whereon when other men shall look,
They 'll wail to know I got it cheap.
Oh, let it such a volume be
As in rare copperplates abounds,
Large paper, clean, and fair to see,
Uncut, unique, unknown to Lowndes.



My Hundred Books
by Robert Service (1874-1958)

A thousand books my library
Contains;
And all are primed, it seems to me
With brains.
Mine are so few I scratch in thought
My head;
For just a hundred of the lot
I've read.

A hundred books, but of the best,
I can
With wisdom savour and digest
And scan.
Yet when afar from kin and kith
In nooks
Of quietness I'm happy with
Sweet books.

So as nine hundred at me stare
In vain,
My lack I'm wistfully aware
Of brain;
Yet as my leave of living ends,
With looks
Of love I view a hundred friends,
My books.



74. Unto my books so good to turn
by Emily Dickinson (1830–86)

Unto my Books -- so good to turn --
Far ends of tired Days --
It half endears the Abstinence --
And Pain -- is missed -- in Praise --

As Flavors -- cheer Retarded Guests
With Banquettings to be --
So Spices -- stimulate the time
Till my small Library --

It may be Wilderness -- without --
Far feet of failing Men --
But Holiday -- excludes the night --
And it is Bells -- within --

I thank these Kinsmen of the Shelf --
Their Countenances bland
Enamor -- in Prospective --
And satisfy -- obtained --



And Yet The Books
by Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004)

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are, ” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant,
Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.



– Cat