Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
"Ode on Solitude," by Alexander Pope
Ode on
Solitude
- Alexander Pope
1
Happy the man whose wish and care
2 A few paternal
acres bound,
3 Content to breathe his native air,
4 In
his own ground.
5 Whose herds with milk, whose
fields with bread,
6 Whose flocks
supply him with attire,
7 Whose trees in summer yield him
shade,
8 In
winter fire.
9 Blest, who can unconcern’dly find
10 Hours, days, and
years slide soft away,
11 In health of body, peace of mind,
12 Quiet
by day,
13 Sound sleep by night; study and ease,
14 Together mixt; sweet
recreation;
15 And Innocence, which most does please
16 With
meditation.
17 Thus let me live, unseen, unknown,
18 Thus unlamented let
me die,
19 Steal from the world, and not a stone
20 Tell
where I lie.
"On the Grasshopper and Cricket," by John Keats
On the
Grasshopper and Cricket
- John Keats
1
The poetry of earth is never dead:
2 When all the birds
are faint with the hot sun,
3 And hide in
cooling trees, a voice will run
4 From hedge to hedge about the
new-mown mead;
5 That is the Grasshopper’s – he
takes the lead
6 In summer luxury,
- he has never done
7 With his delights;
for when tired out with fun
8 He rests at ease beneath some
pleasant weed.
9 The poetry of earth is ceasing
never:
10 On a lone winter
evening, when the frost
11 Has
wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
12 The Cricket’s song, in warmth
increasing ever,
13 And seems to one in
drowsiness half lost,
14 The
Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.
"Speech to the Young," by Gwendolyn Brooks
Speech to the
Young
Speech to the
Progress-Toward
(Among them
Nora and Henry III)
- Gwendolyn Brooks
1
Say to them,
2
say to the down-keepers,
3
the sun-slappers,
4
the self-soilers,
5
the harmony-hushers,
6
“Even if you are not ready for day
7
it cannot always be night.”
8
You will be right.
9
For that is the hard home-run.
10
Live not for battles won.
11
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
12
Live in the along.
"We Alone," by Alice Walker
We Alone
-Alice Walker
1 We alone can devalue gold
2 by not caring
3 if it falls or rises
4 in the marketplace.
5 Wherever there is gold
6 there is a chain, you know,
7 and if your chain
8 is gold
9 so much the worse
10 for you.
11 Feathers, shells
12 and sea-shaped stones
13 are all as rare.
14 This could be our revolution:
15 To love what is plentiful
16 as much as
17 what is scarce.
"It's all I have to bring today - " by Emily Dickinson
It’s all I
have to bring today -
-Emily Dickinson
1 It’s all I have to bring today -
2 This, and my heart beside -
3 This, and my heart, and all the fields -
4 And all the meadows wide -
5 Be sure you count – should I forget
6 Some one the sum could tell -
7 This, and my heart, and all the Bees
8 Which in the Clover dwell.
"the lesson of the moth," by Don Marquis
the lesson of
the moth
- Don Marquis
1
i was talking to
a moth 50 but at the same time i wish
2
the other evening 51 there was something i wanted
3
he was trying to
break into 52 as badly as he wanted to fry himself
4
an electric light
bulb
5
and fry himself
on the wires -archy
6
why do you
fellows
7
pull this stunt i
asked him
8
because it’s the
conventional
9
thing for moths
or why
10
if that had been
an uncovered
11
candle instead of
an electric
12
light bulb you
would
13
now be a small
unsightly cinder
14
have you no sense
15
plenty of it he
answered
16
but at times we
get tired
17
of using it
18
we get bored with
the routine
19
and crave beauty
20
and excitement
21
fire is beautiful
22
and we know that
if we get
23
too close it will
kill us
24
but what does
that matter
25
it is better to
be happy
26
for a moment
27
and be burned up
with beauty
28
than to live a
long time
29
and be bored all
the while
30
so we wad all our
life up
31
into one little
roll
32
and then we shoot
the roll
33
that is what life
is for
34
it is better to
be a part of beauty
35
for one instant
and then to cease to
36
exist than to
exist forever
37
and never be part
of beauty
38
our attitude
toward life
39
is to come easy
go easy
40
we are like human
beings
41
used to be before
they became
42
too civilized to
enjoy themselves
43
out of his
philosophy
44
he went and
immolated himself
45
on a patent cigar
lighter
46
i do not agree
with him
47
myself i would
rather have
48
half the
happiness and twice
49
the longevity
"Identity," by Julio Noboa
Identity
- Julio Noboa
1
Let them be flowers,
2
always watered, fed, guarded, admired,
3
but harnessed to a pot of dirt.
4
I’d rather be a tall, ugly weed,
5
clinging on cliffs, like an eagle
6
wind-wavering above high, jagged rocks.
7
To have broken through the surface of stone
8
to live, to feel exposed to the madness
9
of the vast, eternal sky.
10
To be swayed by the breezes of an ancient sea,
11
carrying my soul, my seed beyond the mountains
of time
12
or into the abyss of the bizarre.
13
I’d rather be unseen, and if,
14
then shunned by everyone
15
than to be a pleasant-smelling flower,
16
growing in clusters in the fertile valley
17
where they’re praised, handled, and plucked
18
by greedy, human hands.
19
I’d rather smell of musty, green stench
20
than of sweet, fragrant lilac.
21
If I could stand alone, strong and free,
22
I’d rather be a tall, ugly weed.
"Introduction to Poetry," by Billy Collins
Introduction
to Poetry
- Billy Collins
1
I ask them to take a poem
2
and hold it up to the light
3
like a color slide
4
or press an ear against its hive.
5
I say drop a mouse into a poem
6
and watch him probe his way out,
7
or walk inside the poem’s room
8
and feel the walls for a light switch.
9
I want them to waterski
10
across the surface of a poem
11
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
12
But all they want to do
13
is tie the poem to a chair with a rope
14
and torture a confession out of it.
15
They begin beating it with a hose
16
to find out what it really means.
"Simile: Willow and Ginkgo," by Eve Merriam
Simile: Willow and Ginkgo
- Eve Merriam
1
The willow is like an etching,
2
Fine-lined against the sky.
3
The ginkgo is like a crude sketch,
4
Hardly worth to be signed.
5
The willow’s music is like a soprano,
6
Delicate and thin.
7
The ginkgo’s tune is like a chorus
8
With everyone joining in.
9
The willow is sleek as a velvet-nosed calf;
10
The willow is leathery as an old bull.
11
The willow’s branches are like silken thread;
12
The ginkgo’s like stubby rough wool.
13
The willow is like a nymph with streaming hair;
14
Wherever it grows, there is green and gold and
fair.
15
The willow dips to the water,
16
Protected and precious, like the king’s favorite
daughter.
17
The ginkgo forces its way through gray concrete;
18
Like a city child, it grows up in the street.
19
Thrust against the metal sky,
20
Somehow it survives and even thrives.
21
My
eyes feast upon the willow,
22
But my
heart goes to the gingko.
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