We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
God spede the plow And send us all corne enow Our purpose for to mak At crow of cok Of the plwlete of Sygate Be mery and glade Wat Goodale this work mad
It's his birthday week. The youth may not know what a talented fellow he was with words, rhythm, wit, and wisdom, and it's tough to know that if you are under age 18 or more. Shakespeare: The Ultimate Dead White Male? Every word he wrote is best read aloud.
Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed---and gazed---but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
If on a summer afternoon a man should find himself in love with only one woman in a sea of women, all the others mere half-naked swimmers and floaters, and if that one woman therefore is clad in radiance while the mere others are burdened by their bikinis, then what does he do with a world suddenly so small, the once unbiased sun shining solely on her? And if that afternoon turns dark, fat clouds like critics dampening the already wet sea, does the man run - he normally would - for cover, or does he dive deeper in, get so wet he is beyond wetness in an underworld utterly hers? And when he comes up for air, as he must, when he dries off and dresses up, as he must, how will the pedestrian streets feel? What will the street lamps illuminate? How exactly will he hold her so that everyone can see she doesn't belong to him, and he won't let go?
"Questions" by Stephen Dunn, from Local Visitations. W.W. Norton & company, 2003. Short bio of Stephen Dunn here.
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which was my sin, though it were done before? Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run, And do run still, though still I do deplore? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, For I have more.
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won Others to sin, and made my sin their door? Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score? When thou hast done, thou hast not done, For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore; And, having done that, thou hast done; I fear no more.
There lived a carl in Kellyburn Braes, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; And he had a wife was the plague of his days, And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
Ae day as the carl gaed up the lang glen, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; He met with the Devil, says, "How do you fen?" And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
I've got a bad wife, sir, that's a' my complaint, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; "For, savin your presence, to her ye're a saint," And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
It's neither your stot nor your staig I shall crave, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; "But gie me your wife, man, for her I must have," And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
"O welcome most kindly!" the blythe carl said, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; "But if ye can match her ye're waur than ye're ca'd," And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
The Devil has got the auld wife on his back, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; And, like a poor pedlar, he's carried his pack, And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
He's carried her hame to his ain hallan door, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; Syne bade her gae in, for a bitch, and a whore, And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
Then straight he makes fifty, the pick o' his band, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme: Turn out on her guard in the clap o' a hand, And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
The carlin gaed thro' them like ony wud bear, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; Whae'er she gat hands on cam near her nae mair, And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
A reekit wee deevil looks over the wa', Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; "O help, maister, help, or she'll ruin us a'!" And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
The Devil he swore by the edge o' his knife, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; He pitied the man that was tied to a wife, And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
The Devil he swore by the kirk and the bell, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; He was not in wedlock, thank Heav'n, but in hell, And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
Then Satan has travell'd again wi' his pack, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; And to her auld husband he's carried her back, And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
I hae been a Devil the feck o' my life, Hey, and the rue grows bonie wi' thyme; "But ne'er was in hell till I met wi' a wife," And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird.
II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds.
III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one.
V I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.
VI Icicles filled the long window With barbaric glass. The shadow of the blackbird Crossed it, to and fro. The mood Traced in the shadow An indecipherable cause.
VII O thin men of Haddam, Why do you imagine golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you?
VIII I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know.
IX When the blackbird flew out of sight, It marked the edge Of one of many circles.
X At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply.
XI He rode over Connecticut In a glass coach. Once, a fear pierced him, In that he mistook The shadow of his equipage For blackbirds.
XII The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying.
XIII It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar-limbs.
Wiki: ″The Nymph′s Reply to the Shepherd″ (1596), by Sir Walter Raleigh, is a poem that responds to ″The Passionate Shepherd to His Love″ by Christopher Marlowe (published in 1599) wherein the courted nymph presents her rejection of the shepherd's invitation to pastoral life as perpetual idyll. We posted that Marlow poem a couple of weeks ago here.
The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd
If all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold When rivers rage and rocks grow cold, And Philomel becometh dumb; The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall,
Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten-- In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, Thy coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee and be thy love.
But could youth last and love still breed, Had joys no date nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move To live with thee and be thy love.
Written the night before his death in 1618, this version of the last stanza of one of Raleigh's earlier poems was found in the flyleaf of his Bible in the Abbey Gatehouse at Westminster. Sir Walter was one heck of a fellow.
Even such is Time, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days. And from which earth, and grave, and dust, The Lord shall raise me up I trust.
I bought a dollar and a half’s worth of small red potatoes, took them home, boiled them in their jackets and ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt. Then I walked through the dried fields on the edge of town. In middle June the light hung on in the dark furrows at my feet, and in the mountain oaks I overheard the birds were gathering for the night, the jays and mockers squawking back and forth, the finches still darting into the dusty light. The woman who sold me the potatoes was from Poland; she was someone out of my childhood in a pink spangled sweater and sunglasses praising the perfection of all her fruits and vegetables at the road-side stand and urging me to taste even the pale, raw sweet corn trucked all the way, she swore, from New Jersey. “Eat, eat,” she said, “Even if you don’t I’ll say you did.”
Some things you know all your life. They are so simple and true they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme, they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker, the glass of water, the absence of light gathering in the shadows of picture frames, they must be naked and alone, they must stand for themselves. My friend Henri and I arrived at this together in 1965 before I went away, before he began to kill himself, and the two of us to betray our love. Can you taste what I’m saying? It is onions or potatoes, a pinch of simple salt, the wealth of melting butter, it is obvious, it stays in the back of your throat like a truth you never uttered because the time was always wrong, it stays there for the rest of your life, unspoken, made of that dirt we call earth, the metal we call salt, in a form we have no words for, and you live on it.
Dylan's recording on Empire Burlesque is better and deeper than this one with Patti Smith, but this is all I could find.
The remarkable lyrics:
Oh, the gentlemen are talking and the midnight moon is on the riverside They're drinking up and walking and it is time for me to slide I live in another world where life and death are memorized Where the earth is strung with lover's pearls and all I see are dark eyes.
A cock is crowing far away and another soldier's deep in prayer Some mother's child has gone astray, she can't find him anywhere But I can hear another drum beating for the dead that rise Whom nature's beast fears as they come and all I see are dark eyes.
They tell me to be discreet for all intended purposes They tell me revenge is sweet and from where they stand, I'm sure it is But I feel nothing for their game, where beauty goes unrecognized All I feel is heat and flame, and all I see are dark eyes.
Oh, the French girl, she's in paradise and a drunken man is at the wheel Hunger pays a heavy prize to the falling gods of speed and steel Oh, time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies A million faces at my feet but all I see are dark eyes.
Beechwood fires burn bright and clear If the logs are kept a year Store your beech for Christmastide With new holly laid beside Chestnuts only good they say If for years 'tis stayed away Birch and firwood burn too fast Blaze too bright and do not last Flames from larch will shoot up high Dangerously the sparks will fly But Ashwood green and Ashwood brown Are fit for a Queen with a golden crown
Oaken logs, if dry and old Keep away the winters cold Poplar gives a bitter smoke Fills your eyes and makes you choke Elmwood burns like churchyard mould Even the very flames burn cold Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread So it is in Ireland said Applewood will scent the room Pears wood smells like a flower in bloom But Ashwood wet and Ashwood dry A King may warm his slippers by.
The keen stars were twinkling, And the fair moon was rising among them, Dear Jane. The guitar was tinkling, But the notes were not sweet till you sung them Again.
As the moon's soft splendour O'er the faint cold starlight of Heaven Is thrown, So your voice most tender To the strings without soul had then given Its own.
The stars will awaken, Though the moon sleep a full hour later To-night; No leaf will be shaken Whilst the dews of your melody scatter Delight.
Though the sound overpowers, Sing again, with your dear voice revealing A tone Of some world far from ours, Where music and moonlight and feeling Are one.
Shelley was not a typical Maggie's Farm sort of fellow.He was a fan of all of the hip and rebellious ideas of the early 1800s: vegetarianism, free love, atheism, (and anti-monarchism and related radical politics of the time), and he always seemed to be chasing 16 year-old girls.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings, 1919 (here's what a copybook is, and, by "markets," he means the political speakers in the marketplace of ideas)
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race, I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn: But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind, So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace, Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place, But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch, They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch; They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings; So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed, they sold us and delivered us bound to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife) Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
I long to talk with some old lover's ghost, Who died before the god of love was born. I cannot think that he, who then loved most, Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn. But since this god produced a destiny, And that vice-nature, custom, lets it be, I must love her that loves not me.
Sure, they which made him god, meant not so much, Nor he in his young godhead practised it. But when an even flame two hearts did touch, His office was indulgently to fit Actives to passives. Correspondency Only his subject was; it cannot be Love, till I love her, who loves me.
But every modern god will now extend His vast prerogative as far as Jove. To rage, to lust, to write to, to commend, All is the purlieu of the god of love. O! were we waken'd by this tyranny To ungod this child again, it could not be I should love her, who loves not me.
Rebel and atheist too, why murmur I, As though I felt the worst that love could do? Love might make me leave loving, or might try A deeper plague, to make her love me too; Which, since she loves before, I'm loth to see. Falsehood is worse than hate; and that must be, If she whom I love, should love me.
First, her tippet made of tulle, easily lifted off her shoulders and laid on the back of a wooden chair.
And her bonnet, the bow undone with a light forward pull.
Then the long white dress, a more complicated matter with mother-of-pearl buttons down the back, so tiny and numerous that it takes forever before my hands can part the fabric, like a swimmer's dividing water, and slip inside.
You will want to know that she was standing by an open window in an upstairs bedroom, motionless, a little wide-eyed, looking out at the orchard below, the white dress puddled at her feet on the wide-board, hardwood floor.
The complexity of women's undergarments in nineteenth-century America is not to be waved off, and I proceeded like a polar explorer through clips, clasps, and moorings, catches, straps, and whalebone stays, sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.
Later, I wrote in a notebook it was like riding a swan into the night, but, of course, I cannot tell you everything - the way she closed her eyes to the orchard, how her hair tumbled free of its pins, how there were sudden dashes whenever we spoke.
What I can tell you is it was terribly quiet in Amherst that Sabbath afternoon, nothing but a carriage passing the house, a fly buzzing in a windowpane.
So I could plainly hear her inhale when I undid the very top hook-and-eye fastener of her corset
and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed, the way some readers sigh when they realize that Hope has feathers, that reason is a plank, that life is a loaded gun that looks right at you with a yellow eye.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Shelley (1792-1822) led one heck of a rebellious life - a classic poet's life full of tragedy,
unconformity, love, and pain.
I would build a cloudy House For my thoughts to live in; When for earth too fancy-loose And too low for Heaven! Hush! I talk my dream aloud I build it bright to see, I build it on the moonlit cloud, To which I looked with thee.
Cloud-walls of the morning's grey, Faced with amber column, Crowned with crimson cupola From a sunset solemn! May mists, for the casements, fetch, Pale and glimmering; With a sunbeam hid in each, And a smell of spring.
Build the entrance high and proud, Darkening and then brightening, If a riven thunder-cloud, Veined by the lightning. Use one with an iris-stain, For the door within; Turning to a sound like rain, As I enter in.
Build a spacious hall thereby: Boldly, never fearing. Use the blue place of the sky, Which the wind is clearing; Branched with corridors sublime, Flecked with winding stairs Such as children wish to climb, Following their own prayers.
In the mutest of the house, I will have my chamber: Silence at the door shall use Evening's light of amber, Solemnising every mood, Softening in degree, Turning sadness into good, As I turn the key.
Be my chamber tapestried With the showers of summer, Close, but soundless - glorified When the sunbeams come here; Wandering harpers, harping on Waters stringed for such, Drawing colours, for a tune, With a vibrant touch.
Bring a shadow green and still From the chestnut forest, Bring a purple from the hill, When the heat is sorest; Spread them out from wall to wall, Carpet-wove around, Whereupon the foot shall fall In light instead of sound.
Bring the fantasque cloudlets home From the noontide zenith Ranged, for sculptures, round the room, Named as Fancy weeneth: Some be Junos, without eyes; Naiads, without sources Some be birds of paradise, Some, Olympian horses.
Bring the dews the birds shake off, Waking in the hedges, Those too, perfumed for a proof, From the lilies' edges: From our England's field and moor, Bring them calm and white in; Whence to form a mirror pure, For Love's self-delighting.
Bring a grey cloud from the east, Where the lark is singing; Something of the song at least, Unlost in the bringing: That shall be a morning chair, Poet-dream may sit in, When it leans out on the air, Unrhymed and unwritten.
Bring the red cloud from the sun While he sinketh, catch it. That shall be a couch, with one Sidelong star to watch it, Fit for poet's finest Thought, At the curfew-sounding; Things unseen being nearer brought Than the seen, around him.
Poet's thought, not poet's sigh! 'Las, they come together! Cloudy walls divide and fly, As in April weather! Cupola and column proud, Structure bright to see - Gone - except that moonlit cloud, To which I looked with thee!
Let them! Wipe such visionings From the Fancy's cartel Love secures some fairer things Dowered with his immortal. The sun may darken - heaven be bowed - But still, unchanged shall be, Here in my soul, that moonlit cloud, To which I looked with THEE!
SCARUS On our side like the tokened pestilence Where death is sure. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt— Whom leprosy o’ertake—i’ th’ midst o’ th’ fight, When vantage like a pair of twins appeared, Both as the same, or rather ours the elder, The breese upon her, like a cow in June, Hoists sails and flies.
Poetic language is an intensification of the use of words. Prof Booth likes to look at the "physics" of poetic language. When a person gets into a poetry state, whether writing or reading, the mind can take over and let the inner physics of the thing just happen the same way you can hit a moving car with a snowball without knowing the math and the brain physiology of it.
I found this essay to be fascinating, and had to re-read it: Shakespeare’s Genius Is Nonsense - What the Bard can teach science about language and the limits of the human mind. One quote:
As a playwright and businessman, of course, Shakespeare had a serious interest in shielding his audiences from the mechanics of his verse. In addition to its concordance with the 16th-century concept of sprezzatura—lightness, ease, the ability to make even the most difficult things look effortless—a play crafted to maximize delight helped Shakespeare fill theatres in a way that a lot of visible sweating over the lines might not have. For every ingenious device that Booth describes in the verse, he brings as much attention to the effort that went into keeping it unobtrusive. His theory may explain the ineffable mind-states that poetry creates in us: poetic experience as the interaction of barely perceptible mental processes whose delicate, scintillating play is usually washed out by the spotlight of conscious attention.
What Booth so elegantly shows us is how Shakespeare can free us from ourselves. His lush, prismatic verse grants us “a small but metaphysically glorious holiday” from how we usually comprehend language, a holiday that is in turn “a brief and trivial but effectively real holiday from the inherent limitation of the human mind.” Rather than plunging into the abyss of not-knowing, we soar above it. We are not falling, but flying.
It's his birthday week. The youth may not know what a talented fellow he was with words, rhythm, wit, and wisdom, and it's tough to know that if you are under age 18 or more. 
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Wiki: ″The Nymph′s Reply to the Shepherd″ (1596), by Sir Walter Raleigh, is a poem that responds to ″The Passionate Shepherd to His Love″ by Christopher Marlowe (published in 1599) wherein the courted nymph presents her rejection of the shepherd's invitation to pastoral life as perpetual idyll. We posted that Marlow poem a couple of weeks ago
He 
Come live with me and be my love, 
The Snow Man
The (no math)
The keen stars were twinkling,
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
Love's Deity
Ars Poetica 
The House Of Clouds