One of my own poems ...

Un baiser sous le pont des soupirs

From 1600 till now,
the Ponte dei Sospiri
has inspired marvelous legends --
the one most people find inspirational
was used in a fine film of romance.
It's inspired many a sweet rendezvous
in a gondola at dying of day.

The bridge's white limestone walls
and pouting, dark barred windows
overshadow Venice’s Grand Canal.
The legend states that lovers
will be blessed with a love as strong
as the arching massif itself.
It’s said that one simple kiss
at twilight, when the bells toll,
will bind two lovers forever
in eternal, undying bliss.

The tale has burgeoned and spread
across the wide breadth of our world,
and many’s the happy couple
who’ve kissed with that bridge overhead.

If love is your ultimate goal,
perhaps you might want to explore
the gorgeous Old World charm of Venice,
with someone you’ve come to adore.

Now, Rupert Brooke ...

Rupert Brooke's sonnet 'The Treasure' was the first in a sonnet sequence entitled '1914'. The five numbered sonnets, preceded by this unnumbered sonnet were first published in the periodical New Numbers (number 4) in January of 1915:

The Treasure

When colour goes home into the eyes,
And lights that shine are shut again,
With dancing girls and sweet bird's cries
Behind the gateways of the brain;
And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close
The rainbow and the rose:—

Still may Time hold some golden space
Where I'll unpack that scented store
Of song and flower and sky and face,
And count, and touch, and turn them o'er,
Musing upon them: as a mother, who
Has watched her children all the rich day through,
Sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,
When children sleep, ere night.

August 1914.

Emily Bronte:

The Night 

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me,
And I cannot, cannot go.
The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow;
The storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.
Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me:
I will not, cannot go.

Today we have Zayra Yves coming to us from San Francisco, CA, USA.

Life Titles

Those other titles for my life are not right.
This is how I know they are not.

 

I arrived late to San Luis Obispo where my family sleeps
surrounded in the cove of Seven Sisters.

The coyotes were on the hill
digging up our dead dog buried next to the cats.
I did not stop them.  I did not cry.
I got out of my car to look up at the Milky Way,
the great belt of light, because here
like Maui, one can actually see these things.

I thought about what is true; what is real.

 

In the morning scraps of fur were stuck to the bushes
bits of cloth were rolling around in the wind.
And, I asked myself what of my life would be translated
by the wind after the coyotes came for me?

Now I am ready to write the truth

She Who Remembers is someone else's story.

I have told it well because I could.
It is time to write about my life.  The title will change
as I unravel it from words that belong to anyone
they just happen to be mine in this moment.

When I am finished the wind will tell you what I lived.
Stay with me for the journey.

 

 

Zayra Yves

Zayra can be found here:

http://allpoetry.com/Zayra%20Yves

Check her out.

Today, we have a poem from John Greenleaf Whittier.

A Word for the Hour

The firmament breaks up. In black eclipse Light after light goes out. One evil star, Luridly glaring through the smoke of war, As in the dream of the Apocalypse, Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep Our faith and patience; wherefore should we leap On one hand into fratricidal fight, Or, on the other, yield eternal right, Frame lies of laws, and good and ill confound? What fear we? Safe on freedom's vantage ground Our feet are planted; let us there remain In unrevengeful calm, no means untried Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied, The sad spectators of a suicide! They break the lines of Union: shall we light The fires of hell to weld anew the chain On that red anvil where each blow is pain? Draw we not even now a freer breath, As from our shoulders falls a load of death Loathsome as that the Tuscan's victim bore When keen with life to a dead horror bound? Why take we up the accursed thing again? Pity, forgive, but urge them back no more Who, drunk with passion, flaunt disunion's rag With its vile reptile blazon. Let us press The golden cluster on our brave old flag In closer union, and, if numbering less, Brighter shall shine the stars which still remain.  John Greenleaf Whittier

Born: 17-Dec-1807
Birthplace: Haverhill, MA
Died: 7-Sep-1892
Location of death: Hampton Falls, NH
Cause of death: unspecified
Remains: Buried, Amesbury, MA

Gender: Male
Religion: Quaker
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Poet, Activist

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: American abolitionist poet

John Greenleaf Whittier, America's "Quaker poet" of freedom, faith and the sentiment of the common people, was born in a Merrimack Valley farmhouse, Haverhill, Massachusetts, on the 17th of December 1807. The dwelling was built in the 17th century by his ancestor, the sturdy immigrant, Thomas Whittier, notable through his efforts to secure toleration for the disciples of George Fox in New England. Thomas's son Joseph joined the Society of Friends and bore his share of obloquy. Successive generations obeyed the monitions of the Inner Light. The poet was born in the faith, and adhered to its liberalized tenets, its garb and speech, throughout his lifetime. His father, John, was a farmer of limited means but independent spirit. His mother, Abigail Hussey, whom the poet strongly resembled, was of good stock. The Rev. Stephen Bachiler, an Oxford man and a Churchman, who became a Nonconformist and emigrated to Boston in 1632, was one of her forebears and also an ancestor of Daniel Webster. The poet and the statesman showed their kinship by the "dark, deep-set and lustrous eyes" that impressed one who met either of these uncommon men. The former's name of Greenleaf is thought to be derived from the French Feuillevert, and to be of Huguenot origin; and there was Huguenot blood as well in Thomas Whittier, the settler. The poet thus fairly inherited his conscience, religious exaltation and spirit of protest. All the Whittiers were men of stature and bodily strength, John Greenleaf being almost the first exception, a lad of delicate mould, scarcely adapted for the labor required of a Yankee farmer and his household. He bore a fair proportion of it, but throughout his life was frequently brought to a halt by pain and physical debility. In youth he was described as "a handsome young man, tall, slight, and very erect, bashful, but never awkward." His shyness was extreme, though covered by a grave and quiet exterior, which could not hide his love of fun and sense of the ludicrous. In age he retained most of these characteristics, refined by a serene expression of peace after contest. His eyes never lost their glow, and were said by a woman to be those of one "who had kept innocency all his days."

Whittier's early education was restricted to what he could gain from the primitive "district school" of the neighborhood. His call as a poet came when a teacher lent to him the poems of Robert Burns. He was then about fifteen, and his taste for writing, bred thus far upon the quaint Journals of Friends, the Bible and The Pilgrim's Progress, was at once stimulated. There was little art or inspiration in his boyish verse, but in his nineteenth year an older sister thought a specimen of it good enough for submission to the Free Press, a weekly paper which William Lloyd Garrison, the future emancipationist, had started in the town of Newburyport. This initiated Whittier's literary career. The poem was printed with a eulogy, and the editor sought out his young contributor: their alliance began, and continued until the triumph of the anti-slavery cause thirty-seven years later. Garrison overcame the elder Whittier's desire for the full services of his son, and gained permission for the latter to attend the Haverhill academy. To meet expenses the youth worked in various ways, even making slippers by hand in after-hours; but when he came of age his textbook days were ended. Meanwhile he had written creditable student verse, and contributed both prose and rhyme to newspapers, thus gaining friends and obtaining a decided if provincial reputation. He soon essayed journalism, first spending a year and a half in the service of a publisher of two Boston newspapers, theManufacturer, an organ of the Clay protectionists, and the Philanthropist, devoted to humane reform. Whittier edited the former, having a bent for politics, but wrote for the latter also. His father's last illness recalled him to the homestead, where both farm and family became his pious charge. Money had to be earned, and he now secured an editorial post at Hartford, Connecticut, which he sustained until forced by ill-health, early in his twenty-fifth year, to re-seek the Haverhill farm. There he remained from 1832 to 1836, when the property was sold, and the Whittiers removed to Amesbury in order to be near their meeting-house and to enable the poet to be in touch with affairs. The new home became, as it proved, that of his whole later life; a dwelling then bought and in time remodelled was the poet's residence for fifty-six years, and from it, after his death on the 7th of September 1892, his remains were borne to the Amesbury graveyard.

Grant Mason, known as Aesthete on Allpoetry.com, lives in Rapid City, S.D., USA. He can be found here:

http://allpoetry.com/Aesthete

The flaming ship of love that overlooks the frozen sea

The telephone defies a foolish wish

To hear the old voice brought from fatal days

That shrieked and flared the sacred “love you” piss

Of swirling torments raised against the grays;

Salute themselves and burn with raucous joy

That fears collapse and counteracts with dark

Obsession, seething reds and yellows.  Ahoy!

For no land seen from blazing, racing, bark 

That still maintains the preference, despite

The lavish lusting of impassioned freight-

The fire, ideal against the frigid bite

Of oceans deep and dull, though fierce with hate.

To freeze alone, or burn with pained delight?

Whichever way is chosen, sadness blights.

Check him out.

Robert Burns, his most famous poem of all ...

TO A MOUSE

ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER, 1785

by: Robert Burns (1759-1796)

I

 

EE, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,

Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi' bickering brattle!

I was be laith to rin an' chase thee,

Wi' murd'ring pattle!

 

II

 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

An' justifies that ill opinion

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion

An' fellow-mortal!

 

III

 

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen-icker in a thrave

'S a sma' request;

I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,

And never miss't!

 

IV

 

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!

Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!

An' naething, now, to big a new ane,

O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's winds ensuin,

Baith snell an' keen!

 

V

 

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,

An' weary winter comin fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel coulter past

Out thro' thy cell.

 

VI

 

That wee bit heap o' leaves an stibble,

Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!

Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,

But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,

An' cranreuch cauld!

 

VII

 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft a-gley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!

 

VIII

 

Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But och! I backward cast my e'e,

On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I cannot see,

I guess an' fear!

At the age of fifteen, he fell in love and shortly thereafter he wrote his first poem. As a young man, Burns pursued both love and poetry with uncommon zeal. In 1785, he fathered the first of his fourteen children. His biographer, DeLancey Ferguson, had said, "it was not so much that he was conspicuously sinful as that he sinned conspicuously." Between 1784 and 1785, Burns also wrote many of the poems collected in his first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, which was printed in 1786 and paid for by subscriptions. This collection was an immediate success and Burns was celebrated throughout England and Scotland as a great "peasant-poet."  (from Wikipedia)