The Poetry Thread

[Zwing]

Post ‘em here, those natural and those supernatural, the sacred and the profane…whatsoever you find moving or beautiful. Feel free to post other than English language poems, but if you do, please provide a translation into English, and if you are able, a transliteration, so that we all might see how it sounds in the original language.

Let us all share in and discuss the beauty of poetry together!

 

[Zwing]

I’ll start.

Here’s one by Alfred Tennyson, excerpted from Canto 54 of his epic poem in Iambic Pentameter In Memoriam. In this excerpt Tennyson speaks of the succor that he found in faith, and his hope that science and religion might be reconciled into one:

Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope thro' darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

[In Just-]
e.e. cummings

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

 

[Guitar's Cry]

[In Just-]
e.e. cummings

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

Unfortunately, it didn't appear to post with the specific spacing that shaped a satyr.

[in Just-] by E. E. Cummings | Poetry Foundation

in Just-

www.poetryfoundation.org

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

My personal favourite poem is a Shakespeare sonnet, number 29. It was written to the "young man," who was most likely his patron, Henry Wriothesly, 3rd Earl of Southampton

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

 

[Zwing]

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

Very nice, indeed! I’ve not read the Bard in some time. The sonnets were once favorites of mine, my copy being very well-worn. The one thing that I don’t like in this particular sonnet is the failure of the normal Shakespearean ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme in line 8. Perhaps “With what I most enjoy not pleas’ed best;” would have won the day (?) (Very cheeky, aren’t I?)

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Very nice, indeed! I’ve not read the Bard in some time. The sonnets were once favorites of mine, my copy being very well-worn. The one thing that I don’t like in this particular sonnet is the failure of the normal Shakespearean ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme in line 8. Perhaps “With what I most enjoy not pleas’ed best;” would have won the day (?)

That, my friend, is a very complex topic indeed. I think most scholars today (I'm not a scholar, so I don't include me) suppose that Shakespeare was pretty good at rhyming -- within the context of the pronounciation of his day. That seems to indicate that some of the ways we think words should be pronounced in the plays or sonnets may not be correct.

Here's a very good example, from Much Ado About Nothing:

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, and one in shore,
To one thing constant never,
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into ‘Hey nonny, nonny’.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo
Of dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leafy.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into ‘Hey nonny, nonny’.

How do you reconcile "heavy" and "leafy?" In modern English, it's impossible. But in Shakespeare's day, "heavy" is probably best sounded as "heffy" (with a bit longer 'e'), and so would "leafy" be pronounced as "leffy" (again with a bit longer 'e').

It's a fascinating study.

 

[Zwing]

I dedicate this one to @Rival and all the other Kemetecists on the site. It is Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley (Ozymandias was an Archaic Greek name for Rameses 2 of the 13th Century BCE). This poem makes a poignant statement about the ultimate futility of human endeavor within an entropic universe:

Ozymandias​

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

One thing that stands out in this poem is its eclecticism. “King of Kings” was an ancient Persian, rather than an Egyptian royal title, originated by Kurus (Cyrus 1), the first Achaemenid emperor following his conquest of Media.

 

[Rival]

I dedicate this one to @Rival and all the other Kemetecists on the site. It is Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley (Ozymandias was an Archaic Greek name for Rameses 2 of the 13th Century BCE). This poem makes a poignant statement about the ultimate futility of human endeavor within an entropic universe:

Ozymandias​

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

One thing that stands out in this poem is its eclecticism. “King of Kings” was an ancient Persian, rather than an Egyptian royal title, originated by Kurus (Cyrus 1), the first Achaemenid emperor following his conquest of Media.

I've always loved Shelley.

 

[Eddi]

From William Blake:

Little Lamb who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life and bid thee feed
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice:
Little Lamb who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek and he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name:
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.

 

[Zwing]

…William Blake…

Doubtlessly, one of the most unique personages ever!

 

[rocala]

​

In one salutation to thee, my God, let all my senses spread out and touch this world at thy feet.

Like a rain-cloud of July hung low with its burden of unshed showers let all my mind bend down at thy door in one salutation to thee.

Let all my songs gather together their diverse strains into a single current and flow to a sea of silence in one salutation to thee.

Like a flock of homesick cranes flying night and day back to their mountain nests let all my life take its voyage to its eternal home in one salutation to thee.

​

Rabindranath Tagore,

 

[Revoltingest]

There once was a gal from MacBride,
who gobbled green apples & died
They quickly fermented
inside the lamented
to cider inside her insides.

 

[Zwing]

Here is one for @Aupmanyav, @SalixIncendium, and all other Dharmic observers on the site.

This presents a remarkable use of wordplay by the Sanskrit poet Bhāravi, which appears in his epic poem Kiratarjuniya. It is the 52nd verse of the 15th canto of that work, and presents an example of a skillful use of a poetic literary device which is called in Sanskrit Mahāyamaka, wherein all four feet of the verse are exactly the same, but each foot has a different meaning derived partly from the skillful manipulation of homonymic, homophonic and homographic properties of certain Sanskrit words and their declentives, and partially from the differing senses of the same Sanskrit words. Beneath the Sanskrit text, you will find the English transliteration and translation written in interlinear fashion, so that you may appreciate the literary device:

विकाशमीयुर्जगतीशमार्गणा
विकाशमीयुर्जगतीशमार्गणाः ।
विकाशमीयुर्जगतीशमार्गणा
विकाशमीयुर्जगतीशमार्गणाः ॥

vikāśamīyurjagatīśamārgaṇā
The arrows of the king Arjuna spread out
vikāśamīyurjagatīśamārgaṇāḥ ।
The arrows of the lord of the earth spread out
vikāśamīyurjagatīśamārgaṇā
The Gaṇas who’re the slayers of demons rejoiced
vikāśamīyurjagatīśamārgaṇāḥ ॥
The seekers of Śiva reached the sky

Note how each line of the verse sounds the same when spoken, but uses homophony to create four lines of differing meaning, and of utterly different sense, in context.

 

[Zwing]

There once was a gal from MacBride,

There once was a girl from Nantucket…

 

[Revoltingest]

There once was a girl from Nantucket…

There once was a girl named Enis,
a harlot of a diff'rent genus.
With only one tooth,
& keeping it couth,
we'll keep what she shan't do between us.

Edit...
Wirey once challenged me to write a limerick about "Enis".
Of course, the obvious rhyme would be inadequate.

 

[Aupmanyav]

विकाशमीयुर्जगतीशमार्गणा

vikāśamīyurjagatīśamārgaṇā

To really enjoy the verse, it will be necessary to parse the line in four various ways. Beyond my reach.

 

[Zwing]

To really enjoy the verse, it will be necessary to parse the line in four various ways. Beyond my reach.

Beyond mine, too!

 

[Revoltingest]

Wirey is a sometimes muse.
This ode celebrated his finally ending a
medication regime that gave him the
"squirts" (after brain surgery).

His netherly regions were squalid
& joyless, so he became stolid.
But giving up pills
is bringing new thrills.
His doo doo is finally solid!

 

[Zwing]

His netherly regions were squalid
& joyless, so he became stolid.
But giving up pills
is bringing new thrills.
His doo doo is finally solid!

Hahaha, this wouldn’t, by chance, be an autobiographical ditty, would it?