William Shakespeare April 23, 1564

 

 William Shakespeare

April 23, 1564 - April 23, 1616

 

*The actual date of his birth is not known -- this is deemed close based on the April 26th date on his baptismal certificate.

Shakespeare's pithy (I love that word!) phrases are so pervasive we often don't realize that many common sayings, as well as book, movie, even song titles, were first found in his works until we happen to read him.

I'm by no means a Shakespeare scholar. I remember almost nothing about the first play I studied -- The Merchant of Venice, back in junior high school. For me, coming to appreciate him was an evolution of sorts. (I saw more movies of his plays than read them.)

So I have nothing new to offer about the Bard, only my own experiences with his works.

When I was in high school I memorized the first 8 lines of the Friends, Romans, countrymen speech from Julius Caesar and have over the years often tested my memory by repeating them to myself. I still know them all these years later.

Here is Mark Antony's clever speech made at Caesar's funeral:

Julius Caesar
Act 3, Scene 2,

Mark Antony:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interréd with their bones,
So let it be with Caesar…. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it….
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all; all honourable men)
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral….
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man….
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.



I will never forget an episode of Gilligan's Island where the castaways performed a musical version of Hamlet. It was, to borrow a famous advertising word, priceless. I can still "hear" them sing Neither a borrower nor a lender be to the Toreador Song from the opera Carmen. That speech follows:

Polonius, a pompous old windbag, offers advice to his son Laertes, leaving for Paris.

Hamlet
Act 1 scene 3

Lord Polonius:

Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!



And a pair of favorite sonnets:

Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,
Crookèd eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth despite his cruel hand.


Sonnet 29: When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings. 

 

--Cat

 [originally published   April 23, 2006]

 

 

 

 

November poems 2

 

 

 

                              

Rita Dove

August 28 1952

 

November for Beginners

 

Snow would be the easy

 way out - that softening

 sky like a sigh of relief

 at finally being allowed

 to yield.  No dice.

 We stack twigs for burning

 in glistening patches

 but the rain won't give.

 

 So we wait, breeding

 mood, making music

 of decline.  We sit down

 in the smell of the past

 and rise in a light

 that is already leaving.

 We ache in secret,

 memorizing

 

 a gloomy line

 or two of German.

 When spring comes

 we promise to act

 the fool.  Pour,

 rain!  Sail, wind,

 with your cargo of zithers!

 

 

 

   Thomas Hardy

   June 2, 1840   –   January 11, 1928                

   

                               At Day-Close In November                           

 

                               The ten hours' light is abating,

                              And a late bird flies across,

                              Where the pines, like waltzers waiting,

                              Give their black heads a toss.

 

                              Beech leaves, that yellow the noon-time,

                              Float past like specks in the eye;

                              I set every tree in my June time,

                              And now they obscure the sky.

 

                              And the children who ramble through here

                              Conceive that there never has been

                              A time when no tall trees grew here,

                              A time when none will be seen.

 

 

 

Adelaide Crapsey

September 9, 1878   –   October 8, 1914

 

November Night

 

Listen. With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees

And fall.

 

 

 

Edward Thomas

March 3, 1878   –   April 9, 1917

 

There's Nothing Like The Sun

 

There’s nothing like the sun as the year dies,

Kind as it can be, this world being made so,

To stones and men and beasts and birds and flies,

To all things that it touches except snow,

Whether on mountain side or street of town.

The south wall warms me: November has begun,

Yet never shone the sun as fair as now

While the sweet last-left damsons from the bough

With spangles of the morning's storm drop down

Because the starling shakes it, whistling what

Once swallows sang. But I have not forgot

That there is nothing, too, like March's sun,

Like April's, or July's, or June's, or May's,

Or January's, or February's, great days:

And August, September, October, and December

Have equal days, all different from November.

No day of any month but I have said--

Or, if I could live long enough, should say--

"There's nothing like the sun that shines to-day"

walk will There's nothing like the sun till we are dead.

 

 

 

AE Housman      

March 26, 1859   –   April 30, 1936

 

The Night Is Freezing Fast

 

The night is freezing fast,

   To-morrow comes December;

        And winterfalls of old

Are with me from the past;

    And chiefly I remember

        How Dick would hate the cold.

 

 Fall, winter, fall; for he,

    Prompt hand and headpiece clever,

        Has woven a winter robe,

And made of earth and sea

    His overcoat for ever,

        And wears the turning globe.

 

 

--Cat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 quick updateclick update

November poems

 

 Ah, November!

 

 

Thomas Hood

May 23, 1799     –    May 3, 1845

 

November

              

No sun — no moon!

No morn — no noon —

No dawn — no dusk — no proper time of day.

 

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,

No comfortable feel in any member —

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,

No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! —

November!

 

               

 

 

Walter de la Mare           

April 25, 1873    –    June 22, 1956

 

November

 

There is wind where the rose was,

Cold rain where sweet grass was,

And clouds like sheep

Stream o'er the steep

Grey skies where the lark was.

 

Nought warm where your hand was,

Nought gold where your hair was,

But phantom, forlorn,

Beneath the thorn,

Your ghost where your face was.

 

Cold wind where your voice was,

Tears, tears where my heart was,

And ever with me,

Child, ever with me,

Silence where hope was.

 

 

 

Amy Lowell        

February 9, 1874   –    May 12, 1925

 

November

 

The vine leaves against the brick walls of my house,

Are rusty and broken.

Dead leaves gather under the pine-trees,

The brittle boughs of lilac-bushes

Sweep against the stars.

And I sit under a lamp

Trying to write down the emptiness of my heart.

Even the cat will not stay with me,

But prefers the rain

Under the meagre shelter of a cellar window.

 

 

 

John Clare          

July 13, 1793   –    May 20, 1864

 

The Shepherds Calendar – November

 

      The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;

      And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face

      Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,

      When done the journey of her nightly race,

      Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place.

      For days the shepherds in the fields may be,

      Nor mark a patch of sky - blindfold they trace,

      The plains, that seem without a bush or tree,

      Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see.

 

      The timid hare seems half its fears to lose,

      Crouching and sleeping 'neath its grassy lair,

      And scarcely startles, tho' the shepherd goes

      Close by its home, and dogs are barking there;

      The wild colt only turns around to stare

      At passer by, then knaps his hide again;

      And moody crows beside the road forbear

      To fly, tho' pelted by the passing swain;

      Thus day seems turn'd to night, and tries to wake in vain.

 

      The owlet leaves her hiding-place at noon,

      And flaps her grey wings in the doubling light;

      The hoarse jay screams to see her out so soon,

      And small birds chirp and startle with affright;

      Much doth it scare the superstitious wight,

      Who dreams of sorry luck, and sore dismay;

      While cow-boys think the day a dream of night,

      And oft grow fearful on their lonely way,

      Fancying that ghosts may wake, and leave their graves by day.

 

      Yet but awhile the slumbering weather flings

      Its murky prison round - then winds wake loud;

      With sudden stir the startled forest sings

      Winter's returning song - cloud races cloud,

      And the horizon throws away its shroud,

      Sweeping a stretching circle from the eye;

      Storms upon storms in quick succession crowd,

      And o'er the sameness of the purple sky

      Heaven paints, with hurried hand, wild hues of every dye.

 

      At length it comes along the forest oaks,

      With sobbing ebbs, and uproar gathering high;

      The scared, hoarse raven on its cradle croaks,

      And stockdove-flocks in hurried terrors fly,

      While the blue hawk hangs o'er them in the sky.-

      The hedger hastens from the storm begun,

      To seek a shelter that may keep him dry;

      And foresters low bent, the wind to shun,

      Scarce hear amid the strife the poacher's muttering gun.

 

      The ploughman hears its humming rage begin,

      And hies for shelter from his naked toil;

      Buttoning his doublet closer to his chin,

      He bends and scampers o'er the elting soil,

      While clouds above him in wild fury boil,

      And winds drive heavily the beating rain;

      He turns his back to catch his breath awhile,

      Then ekes his speed and faces it again,

      To seek the shepherd's hut beside the rushy plain.

 

      The boy, that scareth from the spiry wheat

      The melancholy crow - in hurry weaves,

      Beneath an ivied tree, his sheltering seat,

      Of rushy flags and sedges tied in sheaves,

      Or from the field a shock of stubble thieves.

      There he doth dithering sit, and entertain

      His eyes with marking the storm-driven leaves;

      Oft spying nests where he spring eggs had ta'en,

      And wishing in his heart 'twas summer-time again.

 

      Thus wears the month along, in checker'd moods,

      Sunshine and shadows, tempests loud, and calms;

      One hour dies silent o'er the sleepy woods,

      The next wakes loud with unexpected storms;

      A dreary nakedness the field deforms -

      Yet many a rural sound, and rural sight,

      Lives in the village still about the farms,

      Where toil's rude uproar hums from morn till night

      Noises, in which the ears of Industry delight.

 

      At length the stir of rural labour's still,

      And Industry her care awhile forgoes;

      When Winter comes in earnest to fulfil

      His yearly task, at bleak November's close,

      And stops the plough, and hides the field in snows;

      When frost locks up the stream in chill delay,

      And mellows on the hedge the jetty sloes,

      For little birds - then Toil hath time for play,

      And nought but threshers' flails awake the dreary day.

 

 

--Cat