Yesterday's poem, "Death Be Not Proud", was from the thoughtful, more religious side of John Donne. Today, a more earthly love poem in rhymed couplets from Donne, who lived in the late 16th and early 17th century. About two hundred years after his birth, Dr. Samuel Johnson dubbed him a "Metaphysical Poet", part of (and in truth, founder of) a ( Read more... )

After yesterday's poem, "Full Fathom Five" by William Shakespeare, I seriously considered posting about The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. I even spent hours reading and pondering yesterday, but it's a ridiculous notion - I could spend a week on that poem, and more than one post on any one section of it. My next thought was to post "I started Early - ( Read more... )

Yesterday's post, a selection from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by George Gordon, Lord Byron, included references to wrecks at sea, immediately calling to mind "Full Fathom Five", one of Ariel's songs from The Tempest by William Shakespeare. I dwell in particular on the line "those are pearls that were his eyes", which often sticks in my brain - not ( Read more... )

I spent a lot of time today trying to figure out what poem should follow yesterday's choice, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by William Wordsworth. And I kept coming up blank, except for a possible return to some verses from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage of which I am particularly fond. And so it came to pass that Byron is my pick for today, even ( Read more... )

Before I even hit "post" on yesterday's poem, "Home-Thoughts from Abroad" by Robert Browning, I knew that this was today's choice. Amazing that it took me until after dinner to get around to posting it, huh? But I spent the morning reading Volume II of Sense and Sensibility, and the afternoon on writing and errands, and the day got away from me. ( Read more... )

Yesterday's post was "Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins was a tribute to spotted, speckled things - among them, the finch. Today's poem mentions finches as well, at least in passing - and how could I pass up this lovely poem by Robert Browning, the first two lines of which are often quoted on their own. Browning wrote it while he was living in ( Read more... )

We left off yesterday standing out in the moist evening air looking skyward with Walt Whitman in "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer", which put me in mind of poems praising nature, which led to Gerard Manley Hopkins and "Pied Beauty ( Read more... )

Yesterday's poem, Choose Something Like a Star by Robert Frost, had me thinking of sharing something by T.S. Eliot with you, but I really didn't feel like putting the time and effort into an analysis of The Wasteland today, so instead I've gone a slightly different direction. In the middle of yesterday's poem come these lines:

Say something! And ( Read more... )

Following yesterday's poem selection, A Man Said to the Universe by Stephen Crane, I considered posting something from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass that begins "A child said 'What is the grass?'", but it turns out I posted that as part of this series already, on April 2nd of last year. I toyed with posting a second Crane poem ("In the Desert"), ( Read more... )

Yesterday's poem involved Shakespeare's statements about the immortality of his verse. Hubris? Maybe, but it seems to have proven true. Today's poem looks, however, at the flip side. Known best for his realistic prose, including The Red Badge of Courage, one of the texts that was (and still is) widely read in U.S. high schools, Stephen Crane also ( Read more... )