(Inter)National Poetry Month
It may or may not already be public knowledge that I adore good poetry. I believe that it should be read more, analyzed less, and enjoyed thoroughly. Poetry is an essential part of the human experience, and has been for thousands of years.
In that spirit, I offer the following six selections in honour of National Poetry Month, and encourage all of you to post poems in your own journals. I did not write any of these; nor am I profiting from their re-publication in any way.
I.
Death is before me today:
Like the healing of a sick man,
Like going forth into a garden after sickness.
Death is before me today:
Like the fragrance of myrrh,
Like sitting under the sails on a windy day.
Death is before me today:
Like the fragrance of the lotus,
Like tottering at the verge of drunkenness.
Death is before me today:
Like the course of the Nile,
As when men return home from a campaign.
Death is before me today:
Like the clearing of the sky,
As when a man understands
What had been unknown to him.
Death is before me today:
Like the home that a man longs to see
After passing many years in exile.
-Excerpt from 'The Man Who Was Weary of Life', an ancient Egyptian poem. Dates given range from 3000 to 1850 B.C.E.
II.
"But when my limbs were worn out with fatigue
And I lay half dead on my couch
I made this poem for you, my sweet friend,
That from it you may learn my suffering.
Now be not too proud, and do not, I pray you,
Apple of my eye, do not reject my prayers."
-Excerpt from Catullus, Poem 50 -- 1st century B.C.E.
III.
If white is the colour
of mourning in Andalusia
it is a proper custom.
Look at me.
I dress myself in the white
of white hair
in mourning for youth.
-Abu l-Hasan al Husri - 11th century
IV.
Weep you no more, sad fountains;
What need you flow so fast?
Look how the snowy mountains
Heaven's sun doth gently waste.
But my sun's heavenly eyes
View not your weeping,
That now lies sleeping:
Softly, now softly
Lies sleeping.
Sleep is a reconciling,
A rest that peace begets:
Doth not the sun rise smiling
When fair at even he sets?
Rest you then, rest, sad eyes,
Melt not in weeping,
While she lies sleeping:
Softly, now softly
Lies sleeping.
-Anonymous - Elizabethan era
V.
So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart still be as loving,
And the moon still be as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul outwears the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
-George Gordon, Lord Byron - Early 19th century
VI.
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.
-Dylan Thomas - 20th Century
I particularly enjoy the recurrence of the same theme down through thousands of years of human history, and the attitudes taken towards death as societies change -- both the differences and the things that remain the same.