jfp Report post Posted December 10, 2018 CAPULET God's bread! it makes me mad: Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play, Alone, in company, still my care hath been To have her match'd: and having now provided A gentleman of noble parentage, Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd, Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts, Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man; And then to have a wretched puling fool, A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender, To answer 'I'll not wed; I cannot love, I am too young; I pray you, pardon me.' But, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you: Graze where you will you shall not house with me: Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest. Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise: An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend; And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee, Nor what is mine shall never do thee good: Trust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet III/v Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Report post Posted December 10, 2018 On Monday, when the sun is hot I wonder to myself a lot: “Now is it true, or is it not, “That what is which and which is what?” On Tuesday, when it hails and snows The feeling on me grows and grows That hardly anybody knows If those are these or these are those. On Wednesday, when the sky is blue, And I have nothing else to do, I sometimes wonder if it’s true That who is what and what is who. On Thursday, when it starts to freeze And hoar-frost twinkles on the trees, How very readily one sees That these are whose - but whose are these? On Friday - [At this point Kanga interrupted, and the rest of the poem is lost.] A.A. Milne – ‘Lines Written by a Bear of Very Little Brain’ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jfp Report post Posted December 11, 2018 (edited) FATHER'S GHOST I am thy father's spirit, Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confin'd to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood. Shakespeare, Hamlet I/v Edited December 14, 2018 by jfp porcupine > porpentine Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Report post Posted December 12, 2018 Shouldn't that be 'porpentine'? But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white--then melts for ever; Or like the borealis race, That flit ere you can point their place; Or like the rainbow's lovely form Evanishing amid the storm.-- Nae man can tether time or tide; The hour approaches Tam maun ride; That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane, That dreary hour he mounts his beast in; And sic a night he taks the road in As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last; The rattling showers rose on the blast; The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd: That night, a child might understand, The Deil had business on his hand. Robert Burns - from 'Tam O'Shanter' Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jfp Report post Posted December 14, 2018 (edited) On 12/12/2018 at 18:54, Heather said: Shouldn't that be 'porpentine'? Odd that he [Hamlet's ghost] should have said porpentine when he meant porcupine. Slip of the tongue, no doubt, as so often happens with ghosts.}} [https://wikidiff.com/porpentine/porcupine] It does appear to be porpentine in most editions (but not the one I copied/pasted from)... I'll change it... Out of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow. Even as our cloudy fancies take Suddenly shape in some divine expression, Even as the troubled heart doth make In the white countenance confession, The troubled sky reveals The grief it feels. This is the poem of the air, Slowly in silent syllables recorded; This is the secret of despair, Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, Now whispered and revealed To wood and field. Henry Wasworth Longfellow, "Snow-flakes" Edited December 14, 2018 by jfp Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Report post Posted December 14, 2018 He could not die when trees were green, For he loved the time too well. His little hands, when flowers were seen, Were held for the bluebell, As he was carried o'er the green. His eye glanced at the white-nosed bee; He knew those children of the spring: When he was well and on the lea He held one in his hands to sing, Which filled his heart with glee. Infants, the children of the spring! How can an infant die When butterflies are on the wing, Green grass, and such a sky? How can they die at spring? He held his hands for daisies white, And then for violets blue, And took them all to bed at night That in the green fields grew, As childhood's sweet delight. And then he shut his little eyes, And flowers would notice not; Birds' nests and eggs caused no surprise, He now no blossoms got; They met with plaintive sighs. When winter came and blasts did sigh, And bare were plain and tree, As he for ease in bed did lie His soul seemed with the free, He died so quietly. John Clare - 'The Dying Child' Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jfp Report post Posted December 14, 2018 (edited) PERDITA You'd be so lean, that blasts of January Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair'st friend, I would I had some flowers o'th'spring, that might Become your time of day - and yours, and yours, That wear upon your virgin branches yet Your maidenheads growing: O Proserpina, For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall From Dis's wagon! Daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses That die unmarried ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength—a malady Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds, The flower-de-luce being one: O, these I lack, To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend, To strew him o'er and o'er! Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale IV/iv Edited December 17, 2018 by jfp Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Report post Posted December 18, 2018 And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames, Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass Where black-wing'd swallows haunt the glittering Thames, To bathe in the abandon'd lasher pass, Have often pass'd thee near Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown; Mark'd thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare, Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air— But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone! At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills, Where at her open door the housewife darns, Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate To watch the threshers in the mossy barns. Children, who early range these slopes and late For cresses from the rills, Have known thee eyeing, all an April-day, The springing pasture and the feeding kine; And mark'd thee, when the stars come out and shine, Through the long dewy grass move slow away. Matthew Arnold - from 'The Scholar-Gipsy' Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jfp Report post Posted December 22, 2018 [...] Oh! when I have hung Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock But ill sustain'd, and almost, as it seem'd, Suspended by the blast which blew amain, Shouldering the naked crag; Oh! at that time, While on the perilous ridge I hung alone, With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind Blow through my ears! the sky seem'd not a sky Of earth, and with what motion mov'd the clouds! [...] From: William Wordsworth, The Prelude (Book I) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Report post Posted December 23, 2018 He did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood and wine are red, And blood and wine were on his hands When they found him with the dead, The poor dead woman whom he loved, And murdered in her bed. He walked amongst the Trial Men In a suit of shabby grey; A cricket cap was on his head, And his step seemed light and gay; But I never saw a man who looked So wistfully at the day. I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky, And at every drifting cloud that went With sails of silver by. I walked, with other souls in pain, Within another ring, And was wondering if the man had done A great or little thing, When a voice behind me whispered low, "That fellow’s got to swing." Oscar Wilde - from 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jfp Report post Posted December 24, 2018 I A traveller on the skirt of Sarum's Plain Pursued his vagrant way, with feet half bare; Stooping his gait, but not as if to gain Help from the staff he bore; for mien and air Were hardy, though his cheek seemed worn with care Both of the time to come, and time long fled: Down fell in straggling locks his thin grey hair; A coat he wore of military red But faded, and stuck o'er with many a patch and shred. II While thus he journeyed, step by step led on, He saw and passed a stately inn, full sure That welcome in such house for him was none. No board inscribed the needy to allure Hung there, no bush proclaimed to old and poor And desolate, "Here you will find a friend!" The pendent grapes glittered above the door;-- On he must pace, perchance 'till night descend, Where'er the dreary roads their bare white lines extend. [...] William Wordsworth, "Guilt and Sorrow", stanzas I & II Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Report post Posted December 26, 2018 YET if His Majesty, our sovereign lord, Should of his own accord Friendly himself invite, And say 'I'll be your guest to-morrow night,' How should we stir ourselves, call and command All hands to work! 'Let no man idle stand! 'Set me fine Spanish tables in the hall; See they be fitted all; Let there be room to eat And order taken that there want no meat. See every sconce and candlestick made bright, That without tapers they may give a light. 'Look to the presence: are the carpets spread, The dazie o'er the head, The cushions in the chairs, And all the candles lighted on the stairs? Perfume the chambers, and in any case Let each man give attendance in his place!' Thus, if a king were coming, would we do; And 'twere good reason too; For 'tis a duteous thing To show all honour to an earthly king, And after all our travail and our cost, So he be pleased, to think no labour lost. But at the coming of the King of Heaven All 's set at six and seven; We wallow in our sin, Christ cannot find a chamber in the inn. We entertain Him always like a stranger, And, as at first, still lodge Him in the manger. Thought to be by Thomas Ford - 'Preparations' Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
megustaleer Report post Posted December 26, 2018 Now the festive season's ended Comes the sequel parents dread; Pale and visibly distended Bilious Tommy lies in bed, Face to face with retribution And an outraged constitution. What a change since, pink and perky Tommy swiftly put away Three enormous goes of turkey At the feast on Christmas Day, Getting by judicious bluffing Double quantities of stuffing. As to pudding, who could reckon Tommy's load in terms of size? Who attempt to keep a check on Tommy's numberless mince pies? Hopeless task! His present pallor Proves his prodigies of valour. Then I found him, notwithstanding Such colossal feats as these, After dinner on the landing Secretly devouring cheese, Flanked by ginger-beer-and-coffee, Sweetened with a slab of toffee. I, his uncle, gave him warning, Showed him the error of his ways, Hinted at tomorrow morning, Talked about my boyhood days; All in vain I waved the bogey He despised me as a fogey. Well, perhaps the pains he suffers May be gifts of fairy gold, Since he now says, 'Only duffers Eat as much as they can hold.' Thus, through physic and privations, Tommy learns his limitations. The Reckoning - Published in 'Punch', 2 Jan 1907, author unknown Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jfp Report post Posted December 28, 2018 MACBETH Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it. Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff. Seyton, send out. Doctor, the thanes fly from me. Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast The water of my land, find her disease, And purge it to a sound and pristine health, I would applaud thee to the very echo, That should applaud again.—Pull't off, I say.— What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug, Would scour these English hence? Shakespeare, Macbeth V/iii Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Report post Posted December 28, 2018 Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins. But there was no information, and so we continued And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory. T.S. Eliot - from 'Journey of the Magi' Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jfp Report post Posted December 28, 2018 (edited) VI. Most epic poets plunge "in medias res" (Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road), And then your hero tells, whene'er you please, What went before--by way of episode, While seated after dinner at his ease, Beside his mistress in some soft abode, Palace, or garden, paradise, or cavern, Which serves the happy couple for a tavern. VII. That is the usual method, but not mine -- My way is to begin with the beginning; The regularity of my design Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning, And therefore I shall open with a line (Although it cost me half an hour in spinning), Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father, And also of his mother, if you'd rather. Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto I Edited December 29, 2018 by jfp Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Report post Posted December 29, 2018 Home is where one starts from. As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated Of dead and living. Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before and after, But a lifetime burning in every moment And not the lifetime of one man only But of old stones that cannot be deciphered. There is a time for the evening under starlight, A time for the evening under lamplight (The evening with the photograph album). Love is most nearly itself When here and now cease to matter. Old men ought to be explorers Here or there does not matter We must be still and still moving Into another intensity For a further union, a deeper communion Through the dark cold and the empty desolation, The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning. T.S. Eliot - from 'East Coker' Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jfp Report post Posted December 30, 2018 To write one song, I said, As sad as the sad wind That walks around my bed, Having one simple fall As a candle-flame swells, and is thinned, As a curtain stirs by the wall - For this I must visit the dead. Headstone and wet cross, Paths where the mourners tread, A solitary bird, These call up the shade of loss, Shape word to word. That stones would shine like gold Above each sodden grave, This, I had not foretold, Nor the birds' clamour, nor The image morning gave Of more and ever more, As some vast seven-piled wave, Mane-flinging, manifold, Streams at an endless shore. Philip LARKIN Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Report post Posted December 30, 2018 It was like a church to me. I entered it on soft foot, Breath held like a cap in the hand. It was quiet. What God there was made himself felt, Not listened to, in clean colours That brought a moistening of the eye, In a movement of the wind over grass. There were no prayers said. But stillness Of the heart’s passions — that was praise Enough; and the mind’s cession Of its kingdom. I walked on, Simple and poor, while the air crumbled And broke on me generously as bread. R.S. Thomas - 'The Moor' Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jfp Report post Posted December 31, 2018 (edited) HAMLET ‘A took my father grossly, full of bread, With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May, And how his audit stands who knows save heaven? But in our circumstance and course of thought ’Tis heavy with him. And am I then revenged, To take him in the purging of his soul, When he is fit and season’d for his passage? No! Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent: When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage, Or in th’ incestuous pleasure of his bed, At game a-swearing, or about some act That has no relish of salvation in’t — Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven, And that his soul may be as damn’d and black As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays, This physic but prolongs thy sickly days. Shakespeare, Hamlet III/iii Edited December 31, 2018 by jfp Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Report post Posted January 2 In going to my naked bed, as one that would have slept, I heard a wife sing to her child that long before had wept. She sighed sore and sang full sweet to bring the babe to rest, That would not cease but cried still in sucking at her breast. She was full weary of her watch, and grieved with her child, She rocked it and rated it till that on her it smiled: Then did she say now have I found this proverb true to prove, The falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love. Richard Edwardes - from 'Amantium Irae' Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jfp Report post Posted January 2 And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon Englands mountains green: And was the holy Lamb of God, On Englands pleasant pastures seen! And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills? Bring me my Bow of burning gold: Bring me my arrows of desire: Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my Chariot of fire! I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand: Till we have built Jerusalem, In Englands green & pleasant Land. William BLAKE, "Jerusalem" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Report post Posted January 3 I've been trying to link to this all week. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. Alfred, Lord Tennyson - 'Ring Out, Wild Bells' Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jfp Report post Posted January 5 Dogs, or men (for I flatter you in saying That ye are dogs - your betters far), ye may Read, or read not, what I am now essaying To show ye what ye are in every way. As little as the moon stops for the baying Of wolves, will the bright Muse withdraw one ray From out her skies. Then howl your idle wrath, While she still silvers o'er your gloomy path! 'Fierce loves and faithless wars' - I am not sure If this be the right reading - 'tis no matter. The fact's about the same, I am secure. I sing them both and am about to batter A town which did a famous siege endure, And was beleaguered both by land and water By Suvaroff or anglice Suwarrow, Who loved blood as an alderman loves marrow. Lord Byron, Don Juan, canto VII, stanzas 7 & 8 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Report post Posted January 5 Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forc'd fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear Compels me to disturb your season due; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. He must not float upon his wat'ry bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear. Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. Hence with denial vain and coy excuse! So may some gentle muse With lucky words favour my destin'd urn, And as he passes turn And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud! John Milton - from 'Lycidas' Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites