from Chesterton's "a Hymn",  1906

O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.

From all that terror teaches,
From lies of tongue and pen,
From all the easy speeches
That comfort cruel men,
( Read more... )

We were very tired, we were very merry-
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable-
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon....

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back ( Read more... )

Tonight, under a great big full moon, I shook hands with the great nephew of the Werewolf of London.
I'm pretty thrilled about that!
We really have had some good adventures on this vacation =)

But, as my friend Stephen used to say in his letters,
"on that, more Anon!"

For poetry Friday, something doubly weird--
this is part of a series of "Literary ( Read more... )

O but he was fair as a garden in flower,
As slender and tall as the great Eiffel Tower,
When the waltz throbbed out on the long promenade
O his eyes and his smile, they went straight to my heart;
'O marry me, Johnny, I'll love and obey':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.

O last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover,
You'd ( Read more... )

You can almost feel the contained horror of the delegate as he rises from his chair and hurries to make his exit...

My Last Duchess
by Robert Browning

at Ferrera

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you ( Read more... )

Leigh Hunt (1784 --1859)
British, an associate of many of the great poets of his day,
a very prolific and varied writer, better known as a crusading journalist who fought for labor reform than a poet;
but he has lest us some gems that are very beautiful in their simplicity.

Here are two of the best known. Sweet, aren't they?

Rondeau

Jenny kissed me when ( Read more... )

on Westminster Abbey

When I behold, with deep astonishment,
to famous Westminster how there resorte
living in brasse or stoney monument,
the princes and the worthies of all sorte:
Doe not I see reformde nobilitie,
without contempt, or pride, or ostentation,
and looke upon offenselesse majesty,
naked of pomp or earthly domination?
And how a play-game of a ( Read more... )

When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart--

Go forth, under the open sky....

The title translates from the latin
as roughly, "Vision of Death"

When Bryant wrote it in the ( Read more... )

 from e. e. cummings

i fear ( Read more... )

An extra poetry post this week...
how could I resist?
( 'Twas the Night Before Christmas... )