A poem a day

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Old Times
------------by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Friend of my youth, let us talk of old times;
Of the long lost golden hours.
When "Winter" meant only Christmas chimes,
And "Summer" wreaths of flowers.
Life has grown old, and cold, my friend,
And the winter now, means death.
And summer blossoms speak all too plain
Of the dear, dead forms beneath.

But let us talk of the past to-night;
And live it over again,
We will put the long years out of sight,
And dream we are young as then.
But you must not look at me, my friend,
And I must not look at you,
Or the furrowed brows, and silvered locks,
Will prove our dream untrue.

Let us sing of the summer, too sweet to last,
And yet too sweet to die.
Let us read tales, from the book of the past,
And talk of the days gone by.
We will turn our backs to the West, my friend,
And forget we are growing old.
The skies of the Present are dull, and gray,
But the Past's are blue, and gold.

The sun has passed over the noontide line
And is sinking down the West.
And of friends we knew in days Lang Syne,
Full half have gone to rest.
And the few that are left on earth, my friend
Are scattered far, and wide.
But you and I will talk of the days
Ere any roamed, or died.

Auburn ringlets, and hazel eyes
Blue eyes and tresses of gold.
Winds joy laden, and azure skies,
Belong to those days of old.
We will leave the Present's shores awhile
And float on the Past's smooth sea.
But I must not look at you, my friend,
And you must not look at me.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Sonnet 84: While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn yields
--By Anna Seward
While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn yields,
Trembles upon the thin, and naked spray,
November, dragging on this sunless day,
Lours, cold and sullen, on the watery fields;
And Nature to the waste dominion yields,
Stripped her last robes, with gold and purple gay —
So droops my life, of your soft beams despoiled,
Youth, Health, and Hope, that long exulting smiled;
And the wild carols, and the bloomy hues
Of merry Spring-time, spruce on every plain
Her half-blown bushes, moist with sunny rain,
More pensive thoughts in my sunk heart infuse
Than Winter’s grey, and desolate domain
Faded like my lost Youth, that no bright Spring renews.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

My Firstborn Picks an Apple



One day in apple country

on a small hill

dappled with afternoon,

the light stood still.



Windfall about our steps

dimpled the grass

eloquent in praise

of things that pass



while overhead the season

moved without haste

teaching a kind of patience

sweet to the taste.



Four of us linked together

combed that hillside,

your father and I,

you and your bride



sharing your single apple

down to the core,

ourselves whole as good fruit.

Who could ask more



than such an hour,

such hands to hold,

walking in apple weather,

harvesting gold?



Rhina P. Espaillat

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

https://allpoetry.com/poem/8495769-A...-Philip-Larkin

Aubade
---- by Phillip Larkin

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

© by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Monimia. An Ode


In weeds of sorrow wildly 'dight,
Alone beneath the gloom of night,
Monimia went to mourn;
She left a mother's fond alarms;
Ah! never to return!

The bell had struck the midnight hour,
Disastrous planets now had power,
And evil spirits resign'd;
The lone owl, from the cloister'd isle,
O'er falling fragments of the pile,
Ill-boding prophet, plain'd

While down her devious footsteps stray,
She tore the willows by the way,
And gazed upon the wave;
Then raising wild to Heaven her eyes,
With sobs and broken accent, cries,
'I'll meet thee in the grave.'

Bright o'er the border of the stream,
Illumined by a transient beam,
She knew the wonted grove;
Her lover's hand had deck'd it fine,
And roses mix'd with myrtles twine
To form the bower of love.

The tuneful Philomela rose,
And, sweetly mournful, sung her woes,
Enamour'd of the tree;
Touch'd with the melody of wo,
More tender tears began to flow:
'She mourns her mate like me.

'I loved my lover from a child,
And sweet the youthful cherub smiles,
And wanton'd o'er the green;
He train'd my nightingale to sing,
He spoil'd the gardens of the spring
To crown me rural queen.

'My brother died before his day;
Sad, through the church-yard's dreary way,
We wont to walk at eve:
And bending o'er th' untimely urn,
Long at the monument to mourn,
And look upon his grave.

'Like forms funereal while we stand,
In tender mood he held my hand,
And laid his cheek to mine;
My bosom beat unknown alarms,
We wept in one another's arms,
And mingled tears divine.

'From sweet compassion love arose,
Our hearts were wedded by our woes,
And pair'd upon the tomb;
Attesting all the Powers above,
A fond romance of fancied love
We vowed our days to come.

'A wealthy lord from Indian skies,
Illustrious in my parent's eyes,
Implored a mutual mind;
Sad to my chamber I withdrew,
But Harry's footsteps never flew
The wonted scene to find.

'Three nights in dire suspense I sat
Alone; the fourth convey'd my fate,
Sent from a foreign shore;—
"Go, where thy wandering wishes tend
Go, and embrace thy father's friend,
You never see me more!"—

'Despair! distraction! I obey'd,
And one disordered moment made
An ever-wretched wife:
Ah! in the circuit of one Sun,
Heaven! I was wedded and undone,
And desolate for life!

'A part my wedding robes I tore,
And guarded tears now gushing o'er
Distain'd the bridal bed:
Wild I invoked the funeral yell,
And sought devoted now to dwell
For ever with the dead.

'My lord to India climates went,
A letter from my lover sent
Renew'd eternal woes;—
Before my love my last words greet,
Wrapp'd in the weary winding sheet,
I in the dust repose!

'Perhaps your parents have deceived,
Perhaps too rashly I believed
A tale of treacherous art;
Monimia! could you now behold
The youth you loved in sorrows old,
Oh! it would break my heart!

'Now in the grave for ever laid,
A constant solitary shade,
The Harry hangs o'er thee!
For you I fled my native sky:
Loaded with life, for you I die;
My love, remember me!

'Of all the promises of youth,
The tears of tenderness and truth,
The throbs that lovers send;
The vows in one another's arms,
The secret sympathy of charms;
My God! is this the end!

She said, and rushing from the bower,
Devoted sought in evil hour
The promontory steep;
Hung o'er the margin of the main,
Her fix'd and earnest eyeballs strain
The dashing of the deep.

'Waves that resound from shore to shore!
Rocks loud rebellowing to the roar
Of ocean, storm, and wing!
Your elemental war is tame,
To that which rages in my frame,
The battle of the mind!'

With downcast eye and musing mood,
A lurid interval she stood,
The victim of despair;
Her arms then tossing to the skies,
She pour'd in nature's ear her cries,
'My God! my father! where!'—

Wild on the summit of the steep
She ruminated long the deep,
And felt her freezing blood;
Approaching feet she heard behind,
Then swifter than the winged wind
She plunged into the flood.

Her form emerging from the wave,
Both parents saw, but could not save;
The shriek of death arose!
At once she sunk to rise no more;
And sadly sounding to the shore,
The parted billows close!

*******************
John Logan
1748-1788
John Logan (1748 - 1788), author of "Runnamede," was born in Midlothian, Scotland. Logan's character as a poet is easily conceived. Simplicity, elegance, and taste, are the genuine features of his compsition. His style, peculiarly chaste and delicate, is finely suited to natural, tender, or pathetic description, in which principally he excels.
Read More
John Logan, like many others of the same rank, was probably intended by his parents for the ministry, before he discovered either capacity for learning, or inclination for that sacred employment. Whether he received the first rudiments of his education at home, or in the parochial school, hast not hitherto been ascertained; but it is certain that some time before 1762, his father had removed from Soutra to Gosford Mains in East Lothian, and that the son was sent to Musselburgh school, then under the care of Mr. Jeffray. While there, instead of being boarded with the master, he was placed with an old woman of the same religious persuasion with his parents. By her he was made to read the scriptures every evening with a whining tone, which seldom failed to lull her into a profound sleep. Upon his removal to the University of Edinburgh in November 1762, where he attended the first Greek and second Latin classes, he discovered an uncommon proficiency in the learned languages,and was one of the few whom Mr. Hunter, then Professor of Greek, examined before Principal Robertson upon his first visitation after being installed.

As a student of philosophy his appearances were less brilliant than they had been with language. The abstract demonstrations of Euclid, the confused jargon of scholastic logic, and the abstruse doctrines of metaphysics, wanted charms to arrest and captivate his glowing and vigorous imagination.

The end of Logan was truly Christian. When he became too weak to hold a book, he employed his time hearing such young persons as visited him read the Scriptures. His conversation turned chiefly on serious subjects, and was most affecting and instructive. He foresaw, and prepared for the approach of death, gave directions about his funeral with the utmost composure, and dictated a distinct and judicious will, appointing Dr. Donald Grant, and his ancient steady friend Dr. Robertson, his executors; and bequething to them his property, books, and MSS. to be converted into money, for the payment of legacies, to those relations and friends, who had the strongest claims upon his affectionate remembrance in his dying moments. He died upon the 28th day of December, 1788.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Heartbroken I Stand Here So Strong

Heaven has demanded your return
I've only ashes in this urn
From golden halls, flies our love song
Heartbroken I stand here so strong.

You were my angel, love divine
In those flown yesterdays, so fine
I was lost, singing my sad song,
Heartbroken I stand here so strong.

Your loving heart gave mine soft beat
The world became tender and sweet
I left life's weeping morose throng
Heartbroken I stand here so strong.

You came, darkness melted away
An angel that taught me to pray
In hope's purest joy we belong
Heartbroken I stand here so strong.

Syllables Per Line:0 8 8 8 8 0 8 8 8 8 0 8 8 8 8 0 8 8 8 8
Total # Syllables: 128
Total # Words: 98

July 9, 2019
Writing Challenge 1, July 2019 - Repeating Refrain Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Dear Heart

Contest results, 7-16-2019
2nd place finish

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
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.