Thursday, November 14, 2013

ANITA BIRT'S JOURNAL

Bear with me, if there is someone out there in cyberspace, who cares about what I write. I'm on a poetry kick this afternoon. Was hooked when I picked up my copy of ROMANTIC AND VICTORIAN POETRY, edited by William Frost. It's an old copy used by my son when he was in senior high school. His remarks are all over the poems he studied.

Back to me. As I flipped pages my eyes fell upon ULYSSES by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I have to share some lines. "How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life."

And this that I memorized and still recall. Tennyson again.
 "There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass, Or night dews on still waters between the walls Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass. Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes. Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. Here are cool mosses deep, And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep. And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep."

I didn't know back them when I was a teen that the poppy in Victorian poetry signified opium, one of the favourite drugs used at the time.

One more favourite. I could go on and on, boring you to tears. This is John Keats poem:
THE EVE OF ST. AGNES.
"St Agnes' Eve - Ah bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; The hair limped trembling through the frozen grass. And silent was the flock in woolly fold:"

I read those lines and almost feel the cold.

If there is a breathing human being out there, do you have a favourite poem. Please comment.

Anita




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