May, poem by A.E. Housman

MAY
by A.E. Housman

Yonder see the morning blink:
The sun is up, and up must I,
To wash and dress and eat and drink
And look at things and talk and think
And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed
And what’s to show for all my pain?
Let me lie abed and rest:
Ten thousand times I’ve done my best
And all’s to do again.

How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
Soars the delightful day.

Today I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
I never kept before.

Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
Falls the remorseful day.

IMAGE: “May Morning” by Jan Bickerton. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alfred Edward Housman (1859–1936), an English classical scholar and poet, has been ranked as one of the greatest scholars who ever lived, and was appointed Professor of Latin at University College London and then at Cambridge. Housman published two volumes of poetry during his life: A Shropshire Lad (1896) and Last Poems (1922). After A Shropshire Lad was turned down by several publishers, Housman published it at his own expense. Several composers created musical settings for Housman’s work, deepening his popularity. When Last Poems was published in 1922, it was an immediate success. A third volume, More Poems, was released posthumously in 1936, as was an edition of Housman’s Complete Poems (1939). Despite acclaim as a scholar and a poet in his lifetime, Housman lived as a recluse, rejecting honors and avoiding the public eye.

Oh! That We Two Were Maying, poem by Charles Kingsley

OH! THAT WE TWO WERE MAYING (Excerpt)
by Charles Kingsley

Oh! that we two were Maying
Down the stream of the soft spring breeze;
Like children with violets playing
In the shade of the whispering trees.

MORE: Read “Oh! That We Two Were Maying” by Charles Kingsley in its entirety at poemhunter.com.

IMAGE: “Spring Violets on White” by Elena Elisseeva. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Charles Kingsley (1919-1875) was a priest of the Church of England, university professor, historian, poet, and novelist. His novel Westward Ho! led to the founding of a town by the same name (the only place name in England that contains an exclamation mark).

The May Queen, poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

THE MAY QUEEN (Excerpt)
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow ’ll be the happiest time of all the glad new-year,—
Of all the glad new-year, mother, the maddest, merriest day;
For I ’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I ’m to be Queen o’ the May.

There ’s many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;
There ’s Margaret and Mary, there ’s Kate and Caroline;
But none so fair as little Alice in all the land, they say:
So I ’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I ’m to be Queen o’ the May.

I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,
If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break;
But I must gather knots of flowers and buds, and garlands gay;
For I ’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I ’m to be Queen o’ the May.

MORE: Read “The May Queen” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in its entirety at bartleby.com.

PHOTO: “For I’m to be queen of the May, Mother, I’m to be Queen of the May” by Julia Margaret Cameron (1875, J. Paul Getty Museum).  To learn more about the May Queen traditions, visit wikipedia.org.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria’s reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. His most famous composition is “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854), written about a battle during the Crimean War. The poem includes the often-quoted line: “Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die.”

April Midnight, poem by Arthur Symons

APRIL MIDNIGHT
by Arthur Symons

Side by side through the streets at midnight,
Roaming together,
Through the tumultuous night of London,
In the miraculous April weather.
 
Roaming together under the gaslight,
Day’s work over,
How the Spring calls to us, here in the city,
Calls to the heart from the heart of a lover!
 
Cool to the wind blows, fresh in our faces,
Cleansing, entrancing,
After the heat and the fumes and the footlights,
Where you dance and I watch your dancing.
 
Good it is to be here together,
Good to be roaming,
Even in London, even at midnight,
Lover-like in a lover’s gloaming.
 
You the dancer and I the dreamer,
Children together,
Wandering lost in the night of London,
In the miraculous April weather.

PAINTING: “Blackman Street, London, 1885” by Stefan Kuhn. Prints available at fineartamerica.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: British poet, critic, and translator Arthur Symons (1865-1945) was born in Wales and educated by private tutors. At 16, Symons moved to London, where he joined a vibrant literary community and participated, alongside poets like William Butler Yeats. Selections from four of Symons’s early collections of poetry—Silhouettes (1892), London Nights (1896), Amoris Victima (1897), and Images of Good and Evil (1899)—were later collected in his two-volume Poems (1902). Symons also translated the work of French and Italian poets Paul Verlaine, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Gabriele D’Annunzio into English.

The Oak, poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson

THE OAK
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Live thy Life,
Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold;

Summer-rich
Then; and then
Autumn-changed
Soberer-hued
Gold again.

All his leaves
Fall’n at length,
Look, he stands,
Trunk and bough
Naked strength. 

Photo: “Old Oak Tree” by Sue Bristo, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria’s reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. His most famous composition is “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854), written about a battle during the Crimean War. The poem includes the often-quoted line: “Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die.” (For more about Tennyson, visit Wikipedia.)

Laughing Song, poem by William Blake

LAUGHING SONG
by William Blake

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;

When the meadows laugh with lively green,
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene,
When Mary and Susan and Emily
With their sweet round mouths sing “Ha, ha he!”

When the painted birds laugh in the shade,
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread:
Come live, and be merry, and join with me,
To sing the sweet chorus of “Ha, ha, he!”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: William Blake (1757-1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. For the most part unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake is now considered one of the greatest poets of all time in any language. As a visual artist, he has been lauded by one art critic as “far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced.” (Source: Wikipedia)

PHOTO: Zsaj, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Happy Birthday, John Keats

October 31, 2013 marks the 218th anniversary of the birth of British poet John Keats. Let’s celebrate the occasion with his paean to the fall season.

TO AUTUMN (Excerpt)
by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
      For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells…

…Read “To Autumn” in its entirety at poetryfoundation.org.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John Keats (1795–1821) was an English poet, one of the main figures of the second generation of Romantic poets along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His reputation grew after his death from tuberculosis at age 25, and by the end of the 19th century he was one of the most beloved of all English poets. He had a significant influence on a diverse range of poets and writers, including Jorge Luis Borges, who stated that his first encounter with Keats was the most significant literary experience of his life. (Read more at wikipedia.org.)

Autumn Birds, poem by John Clare

AUTUMN BIRDS
by John Clare

The wild duck startles like a sudden thought,

And heron slow as if it might be caught.

The flopping crows on weary wings go by

And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly.

The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by,

And darken like a clod the evening sky.

The larks like thunder rise and suthy round,

Then drop and nestle in the stubble ground.

The wild swan hurries height and noises loud

With white neck peering to the evening cloud.

The weary rooks to distant woods are gone.

With lengths of tail the magpie winnows on

To neighboring tree, and leaves the distant crow

While small birds nestle in the edge below.

Painting: “Autumn Birds” by Lin Fengmian (1901-1991), ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Learn more about the painting at artvalue.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from Wikipedia.org): John Clare (1793-1864) was an English poet, the son of a farm labourer, who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption. His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be among the most important 19th-century poets. His biographer Jonathan Bate states that Clare was “the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self.”

Editor’s Note: I tried to find out the meaning of “starnels” and “suthy” without success. So interpret as you will. I will picture “starnels” as birds covered in stars and define “suthy” as  “soar all around.” Would love to hear your thoughts!

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket, poem by John Keats

ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET
By John Keats (1795-1821)

The poetry of earth is never dead:
   When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
   And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s — he takes the lead
   In summer luxury, — he has never done
   With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
   On a lone winter evening, when the frost
      Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
   And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
      The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

Illustration: “Grasshopper” (mixed media) by ShulmanArts, available at etsy.com.

The Oak, poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson

THE OAK

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Live thy Life,
Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold;

Summer-rich
Then; and then
Autumn-changed
Soberer-hued
Gold again.

All his leaves
Fall’n at length,
Look, he stands,
Trunk and bough
Naked strength. 

Photo: “Old Oak Tree” by Sue Bristo, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria’s reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. His most famous composition is “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854), written about a battle during the Crimean War. The poem includes the often-quoted line: “Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die.” (For more about Tennyson, visit Wikipedia.)