A Song for Edgar, Bless His Heart

A Cento upon the verse of Edgar Allan Poe, by Yours Truly, because I love Poe, and I learned a new word during National Poetry Month.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Beloved! amid the earnest woes
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
Deliriously sweet was dropped down from Heaven
The loveliness of loving well.

Roaming the forest and the wild,
From ev’ry depth of good and ill,
With many a muttered, “Hope to be forgiven,”
We grew in age and love together.

At morn – at noon – at twilight dim –
In visions of the dark night,
On the earth mine eyes were cast
Again – again – again –

All Nature speaks, and ev’n ideal things –
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope)
And I am happy now.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Poems used:

To F——
The Coliseum
Al Aaraaf
Tamerlane

Tamerlane
Alone
Al Aaraaf
Tamerlane

Fairy Land
A Dream
The Village Street
Fairy Land

Al Aaraaf
The City in the Sea
To Helen (I saw thee once – once only – years ago)
Bridal Ballad

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

A note on the phrase "Bless His Heart"

Some people are under the mistaken impression that we Southerners only use this phrase when we are being sarcastic.  Dear Reader, I assure you this is not the case -- it has a dozen uses, at least, most of them positive and sincere, otherwise the phrase would be useless to us as sarcasm.  In the title I am being perfectly sincere.  I love Poe, and I wish he'd had a happy life.

Waiting at the Window

~ A. A. Milne (1882-1956)

These are my two drops of rain
Waiting on the window-pain.

I am waiting here to see
Which the winning one will be.

Both of them have different names.
One is John and one is James.

All the best and all the worst
Comes from which of them is first.

James has just begun to ooze.
He's the one I want to lose.

John is waiting to begin.
He's the one I want to win.
 
James is going slowly on.
Something sort of sticks to John.

John is moving off at last.
James is going pretty fast.

John is rushing down the pane.
James is going slow again.

James has met a sort of smear.
John is getting very near.

Is he going fast enough?
(James has found a piece of fluff.)

John has hurried quickly by.
(James was talking to a fly.)

John is there, and John has won!
Look!  I told you!  Here's the sun!

The Song of the Jellicles

[My mom's new kitty -- the inspiration for today's poem]


~ T.S. Elliot (1888-1965)

        Jellicle Cats come out to-night
        Jellicle Cats come one come all:
        The Jellicle Moon is shining bright−
        Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.

Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats are rather small;
Jellicle Cats are merry and bright,
And pleasant to hear when they caterwaul.
Jellicle Cats have cheerful faces,
Jellicle Cats have bright black eyes;
They like to practise their airs and graces
And wait for the Jellicle Moon to rise.

Jellicle Cats develop slowly,
Jellicle Cats are not too big;
Jellicle Cats are roly-poly,
They know how to dance a gavotte and a jig.
Until the Jellicle Moon appears
They make their toilette and take their repose:
Jellicle Cats wash behind their ears,
Jellicle dry between their toes.

Jellicle Cats are white and black,
Jellicle Cats are of moderate size;
Jellicle Cats jump like a jumping-jack,
Jellicle Cats have moonlit eyes.
They're quitet enough in the morning hours,
They're quitet enough in the afternoon,
Reserving their terpsichorean powers
To dance by the light of the Jellicle Moon.

Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats (as I said) are small;
If it happends to be a stormy night
They will practise a caper or two in the hall.
If it happens the sun is shining bright
You would say they had nothing to do at all:
They are resting and saving themselves to be right
For the Jellicle Moon and the Jellicle Ball.

Oh yet we trust that somehow good

~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

from In Memoriam

     LIV.

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
     Will be the final goal of ill,
     To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
     That not one life shall be destroy’d,
     Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
     That not a moth with vain desire
     Is shrivell’d in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s gain.

Behold, we know not anything;
     I can but trust that good shall fall
     At last–far off–at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
     An infant crying in the night:
     An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.

maggie and milly and molly and may

~ E. E. Cummings (1894-1962)

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubble:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world as and large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

La Corona: Ascention

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

7.        Salute the last, and everlasting day.
           Joy at the uprising of this Sunne, and Sonne,
           Yee whose just teares, or tribulation
           Have purely washt, or burnt your drossie clay;
           Behold the Highest, parting hence away,
           Lightens the darke clouds, which hee treads upon,
           Nor doth hee by ascending, show alone,
           But first hee, and hee first enters the way.
           O strong Ramme, which hast batter’d heaven for mee,
           Mild lambe, which with thy blood, hast mark’d the path;
           Bright torch, which shin’st, that I the way may see,
           Oh, with thy owne blood quench thy owne just wrath,
           And if thy holy Spirit, my Muse did raise,
           Deigne at my hands this crown of prayer and praise.

La Corona: Resurrection

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

6.        Moyst with one drop of thy blood, my dry soule,
           Shall (though she now be in extreme degree
           Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly,) bee
           Freed by that drop, from being starv’d, hard, or foule
           And life, by this death abled, shall controule
           Death, whom thy death slue; nor shall to mee
           Feare of first or last death, bring miserie,
           If in thy little booke my name thou enroule,
           Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified,
           But made that there, of which, and for which ’twas;
           Nor can by other meanes be glorified.
           May then sinnes sleep, and deaths soone from me passe,
           That wak’t from both, I againe risen may
           Salute the last, and everlasting day.

La Corona: Crucifying

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

5.       By miracles exceeding power of man,
           Hee faith in some, envie in some begat,
           For, what weake spirits admire, ambitious, hate;
           In both affections many to him ran,
           But Oh! the worst are most, they will and can,
           Alas, and do, unto the immaculate,
           Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a Fate,
           Measuring selfe-lifes infinity to’a span,
           Nay to an inch. Loe, where condemned hee
           Beares his owne crosse, with paine, yet by and by
           When it beares him, he must beare more and die;
           Now thou art lifted up, draw mee to thee,
           And at thy death giving such liberall dole,
           Moyst, with one drop of thy blood, my dry soule.

La Corona: Temple

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

4.       With his kind mother who partakes thy woe,
          Joseph turne back; see where your child doth sit,
          Blowing, yea blowing out those sparks of wit,
          Which himselfe on the Doctors did bestow;
          The Word but lately could not speake, and loe
          It sodenly speakes wonders, whence comes it,
          That all which was, and all which should be writ,
          A shallow seeming child, should deeply know?
          His Godhead was not soule to his manhood,
          Nor had time mellowed him to this ripenesse,
          But as for one which hath a long taske, ’tis good,
          With the Sunne to beginne his businesse,
          He in his ages morning thus began
          By miracles exceeding power of man.

La Corona: Nativitie

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

3.       Immensitie cloysterd in thy deare wombe,
          Now leaves his welbelov’d imprisonment,
          There he hath made himselfe to his intent
          Weake enough, now into our world to come;
          But Oh, for thee, for him, hath the’ Inne no roome?
          Yet lay him in this stall, and from the Orient,
          Starres, and wisemen will travell to prevent
          Th’effect of Herods jealous generall doome;
          Seest thou, my Soule, with thy faiths eyes, how he
          Which fils all place, yet none holds him, doth lye?
          Was not his pity towards thee wondrous high,
          That would have need to be pittied by thee?
          Kisse him, and with him into Egypt goe,
          With his kinde mother, who partakes thy woe.

La Corona: Annunciation

~ John Donne (1572-1631)

2.       Salvation to all that will is nigh,
          That All, which alwayes is All every where,
          Which cannot sinne, and yet all sinnes must beare,
          Which cannot die, yet cannot chuse but die,
          Loe, faithfull Virgin, yeelds himselfe to lye
          In prison, in they wombe; and though he there
          Can take no sinne, nor thou give, yet he’will weare
          Taken frmo thence, flesh, which deaths force may trie.
          Ere by the spheares time was created, thou
          Wast in h is minde, who is thy Sonne, and Brother,
          Whom thou conceiv’st, conceiv’d; yea thou art now
          Thy Makers maker, and thy Fathers mother,
          Thou’hast light in darke; and shutst in little roome,
          Immensity cloysterd in thy deare wombe.

La Corona

~ John Donne (1572-1631)
A series of seven sonnets

1.       Deigne at my hands this crown of prayer and praise,
          Weav’d in my low devout melancholie,
          Thou which of good, hast, yea art treasury,
          All changing unchang’d Antient of dayes,
          But doe not, with a vile crowne of fraile bayes,
          Reward my muses white sincerity,
          But what thy thorny crowne gain’d, that give mee,
          A crowne of Glory, which doth flower alwayes;
          The ends crowne our workes, but thou crown’st our ends,
          For, at our end begins our endlesse rest,
          The first last end, now zealously possest,
          With a strong sober thirst, my soule attends.
          ’Tis time that heart and voice be lifted high,
          Salvation to all that will is nigh.

The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter

~ Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
[Freely translated from a poem by Chinese poet Li Po {701-762}]

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
Played I about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
                            As far as the Cho-fu-Sa.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

~ E.E. Cummings * (1894-1962)

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)

                                                                 i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

The rose growing into the house

~ Gibbons Ruark (b. 1941)

Lately I think of my love for you and the rose
Growing into the house, springing up from under the eaves
And spiraling upward to pierce the chink in the corner
Where the walls come together to keep out everything,
Weather, Mongrel dogs, and the rose coming on like a thief.
But I mean to let it grow forever if it wants to,
For lately I think of my love for you and the rose invading the darkness,
And I long never to learn the difference.

The Cremation of Sam McGee

~ Robert Service (1874-1958)

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
      I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam ’round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he’d often say in his homely way that “he’d sooner live in hell.”

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka’s fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we’d close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn’t see;
It wasn’t much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o’erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and “Cap,” says he, “I’ll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I’m asking that you won’t refuse my last request.”

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn’t say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
“It’s the cursèd cold, and it’s got right hold till I’m chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet ’tain’t being dead—it’s my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you’ll cremate my last remains.”

A pal’s last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn’t a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn’t get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: “You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it’s up to you to cremate those last remains.”

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I’d often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the “Alice May.”
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then “Here,” said I, with a sudden cry, “is my cre-ma-tor-eum.”

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: “I’ll just take a peep inside.
I guess he’s cooked, and it’s time I looked”; ... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
      I cremated Sam McGee.

Rain in Ohio

~ Mary Oliver (b. 1935)

The robin cries:  rain!
The crow calls:  plunder!

The blacksnake climbing
in the vines halts
his long ladder of muscle

while the thunderheads whirl up
out of the white west,

their dark hooves nicking
the tall trees as they come.

Rain, rain, rain! sings the robin
frantically, then flies for cover.

The crow hunches.
The blacksnake

pours himself swift and heavy
into the ground.

Most popular posts on poetry

In honor of National Poetry Month...

I get more hits for two poems I've posted in the past than for anything else I've ever posted -- the fun  Mummy Slept Late and Daddy Fixed Breakfast, by John Ciardi, and the delicate A Mongoloid Child Handling Shells on the Beach, by Richard Snyder.

In Time, Death, and Poetry, my most popular post about poetry, I compare Edward Lear's "Calico Pie" and Tennyson's "Break, Break, Break" and describe some conversations my special needs child and I have had, and mention how poetry gives us words to talk about what we're feeling.

My personal favorite is the series I did in April of 2008.  I posted a poem a day all month long.  I wish I could get the archives to arrange things from oldest to newest instead of the other way around, because they need to be read in the proper order, so if you click that link, go to the bottom of the next page and start with April 1.  That year I set myself a challenge:
1) Every poem had to be one I already knew and loved (with one exception I'll mention later);
2) Each poem had to connect in some way to the one that came before (style, theme, mood, author, contrast...);
3) Each Sunday's poem had to be a Psalm;
4) There had to be something special for St George's Day on the 23rd; and,
5) The one exception, Dana had challenged me to post something by a poet laureate from my home state, so I had to find something new that I could love and that would naturally follow the previous poem.

At the beginning of the month I'd already decided on the first three or four poems, but after that it was kind of an adventure, finding each new day's poem.

What is your favorite poem?

Sonnet—To Science

Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1949)

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!

    Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.

Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,

    Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,

    Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering

To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

    Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?

Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?

    And driven the Hamadryad from the wood

To seek a shelter in some happier star?

    Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,

The Elfin from the green grass, and from me

The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?