A poem a day

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcb...m_for_the.html

« Marine Team Roundup for Nov. 10th | Main | On Veterans Day »
November 10, 2010
A Poem for the Marine Corps Birthday

VC reader Tim Taylor sent me a poem he wrote for the Marine Corps Birthday.

It's not easy to write poetry and even harder to share it. Tim writes:

"This came to me in a flash after hearing a story about a young Marine blinded by his wounds reaching up to feel the insignia of his visitor and then firing off a sharp salute to that officer."

Amazing.

***************

Semper Fi

Though the body is battered
and broken
and no longer fit for the fray

The spirit cries out
and is willing
and again will carry the day

Semper Fi is a code
and a motto
but some know its deeper side
that lives in the heart
of the soldier
who is this nation's pride
for it's the heart that
is always faithful
that is ever so willing
to die

For the Cause
and the Nation
and Freedom
it has always been
Semper Fi

When liberty's honor
is threatened
and the straits
are desperately dire
the Corps will come
to the forefront
to offer her men
for the pyre
that burns on the
altar of freedom
and must not ever
die

Though we often
forget these heroes
they never forget
their cry:

"For the Cause
and the Nation
and Freedom
there will always be
Semper Fi"

Posted by Cassandra at November 10, 2010 01:52 PM

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Scotland's Winter
--------- by Edwin Muir

Now the ice lays its smooth claws on the sill,
The sun looks from the hill
Helmed in his winter casket,
And sweeps his arctic sword across the sky.
The water at the mill
Sounds more hoarse and dull.
The miller's daughter walking by
With frozen fingers soldered to her basket
Seems to be knocking
Upon a hundred leagues of floor
With her light heels, and mocking
Percy and Douglas dead,
And Bruce on his burial bed,
Where he lies white as may
With wars and leprosy,
And all the kings before
This land was kingless,
And all the singers before
This land was songless,
This land that with its dead and living waits the Judgement Day.
But they, the powerless dead,
Listening can hear no more
Than a hard tapping on the floor
A little overhead
Of common heels that do not know
Whence they come or where they go
And are content
With their poor frozen life and shallow banishment.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Ashes of Soldiers.
-------- by Walt Whitman
ASHES of soldiers!
As I muse, retrospective, murmuring a chant in thought,
Lo! the war resumes—again to my sense your shapes,
And again the advance of armies.

Noiseless as mists and vapors,
From their graves in the trenches ascending,
From the cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee,
From every point of the compass, out of the countless unnamed graves,
In wafted clouds, in myraids large, or squads of twos or threes, or single ones, they
come,
And silently gather round me.

Now sound no note, O trumpeters!
Not at the head of my cavalry, parading on spirited horses,
With sabres drawn and glist’ning, and carbines by their thighs—(ah, my brave
horsemen!
My handsome, tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride,
With all the perils, were yours!)

Nor you drummers—neither at reveille, at dawn,
Nor the long roll alarming the camp—nor even the muffled beat for a burial;
Nothing from you, this time, O drummers, bearing my warlike drums.

But aside from these, and the marts of wealth, and the crowded promenade,
Admitting around me comrades close, unseen by the rest, and voiceless,
The slain elate and alive again—the dust and debris alive,
I chant this chant of my silent soul, in the name of all dead soldiers.

Faces so pale, with wondrous eyes, very dear, gather closer yet;
Draw close, but speak not.

Phantoms of countless lost!
Invisible to the rest, henceforth become my companions!
Follow me ever! desert me not, while I live.

Sweet are the blooming cheeks of the living! sweet are the musical voices sounding!
But sweet, ah sweet, are the dead, with their silent eyes.

Dearest comrades! all is over and long gone;
But love is not over—and what love, O comrades!
Perfume from battle-fields rising—up from foetor arising.

Perfume therefore my chant, O love! immortal Love!
Give me to bathe the memories of all dead soldiers,
Shroud them, embalm them, cover them all over with tender pride!

Perfume all! make all wholesome!
Make these ashes to nourish and blossom,
O love! O chant! solve all, fructify all with the last chemistry.

Give me exhaustless—make me a fountain,
That I exhale love from me wherever I go, like a moist perennial dew,
For the ashes of all dead soldiers.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Death of Grandfather
------------- by Aleksandr Blok
We waited commonly for sleep or even death.
The instances were wearisome as ages.
But suddenly the wind's refreshing breath
Touched through the window the Holy Bible's pages:

An old man goes there - who's now all white-haired -
With rapid steps and merry eyes, alone,
He smiles to us, and often calls with hand,
And leaves us with a gait, that is well-known.

And suddenly we all, who watched the old man's track,
Well recognized just him who now lay before us,
And turning in a sudden rapture back,
Beheld a corpse with eyes forever closed ...

And it was good for us the soul's way to trace,
And, in the leaving one, to find the glee it's forming.
The time had come. Recall and love in grace,
And celebrate another house-warming!

--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------

http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-...leksandr-blok/

Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Blok
November 28, 1880 — August 7, 1921


From cradle to literature

Blok was born on November 28, 1880, in St. Petersburg. The son of a lawyer, musician and writer, he didn’t remember much of his father as his parents separated soon after his birth.

He grew up in his mother’s family, a richly intellectual milieu, where his talent and potential was generously indulged. His grandfather was the head of St. Petersburg University, while his grandmother, mum and aunts were writers and translators; the little boy was exposed to literature from the cradle.
Education and early poetry

In 1898 Blok entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, but three years later his predilection for literature overcame him, and he switched to Philology. By 1906 he was already a recognised poet.



Blok began writing verse at the age of five, but as he writes in his autobiography, his first serious work came at the age of 18.

His first efforts were inspired by the early 19th-century Romantic poetry of Vasily Zhukovsky and Aleksandr Pushkin. It wasn’t until he reached university that he learnt about Symbolism, a literary trend which became popular in the 1890s and later influenced Blok’s poetry and life.
Family life

He spent all his summers in the family’s country house in Shakhmatovo, an estate which neighboured the world-famous chemist Dmitry Mendeleev .

It was there that Blok fell in love with Mendeleev’s daughter, Lyubov, and married her in 1903. His first book called Verses about the Beautiful Lady (Stikhi o Prekrasnoy Dame, 1904) was dedicated to Lyubov and brought him fame. He was greeted enthusiastically both by patriarchs of the Symbolist movement and also the younger generation.

By this time Blok was already under the influence of the philosophy and mystical poetry of Vladimir Solovyev.

His wife became the main source of inspiration as the unachievable ideal of a woman, a symbol of the World Soul and Eternal Femininity (like Greek Sophia in Solovyev’s philosophy). Blok kept this religious worship of his love for all his life which almost destroyed his family, as the couple rarely had sexual relations.

Instead, he had numerous extramarital affairs, thinking his relationship with his wife must not be spoiled by sex. Their relations even worsened when Blok’s friend and fellow Symbolist Andrey Bely also fell in love with Lyubov Blok. The two friends almost ended up in a duel.
Blok's poetry

Blok’s early poetry, dedicated mostly to his ideal of a woman, is full of symbols and mysticism. It reflects an impressionistic view of the surrounding world. Rhythm, music and sounds were of huge importance to the him.

His next poetry collections differed markedly from his first one and depicted everyday life, revolutionary events, human psychology and tragic love, in works like Inadvertent Joy (Nechayannaya Radost, 1907), Snow Mask (Snezhnaya Maska, 1907), Faina (1906-1908), and Earth in Snow (Zemlya v snegu, 1908). By this time Blok was established as a leader of Russian Symbolism, though some of his peers accused him of betraying the ideals reflected in his first collection.

The poet’s later works mostly reflected his thoughts on Russia: its past and future, the path it chose and the drastic changes it was undergoing at that time. They included the collections Night Hours (Nochnye Chasy, 1911), Poems about Russia (Stikhi o Rossii, 1915), Motherland (Rodina, 1907-1916) and the epic Retribution (Vozmezdie, 1910-1921).

Before the revolution of 1917, Blok wrote in his diary that he knew “a great event was coming”, and his thoughts and concerns about Russia’s future are reflected in his verse as well as political and social essays.

Drafted in 1916, Blok never took part in active combat during World War I, and served with an engineering unit near the city of Pskov until March 1917.
Blok and the Bolshevik Revolution

Surprisingly for most of his colleagues and admirers, Blok enthusiastically welcomed the Russian Revolution of 1917. He considered it an outburst of cathartic power and experienced a boost of creativity which was crowned with his best-known poems The Twelve (Dvenadtsat, 1918) and The Scythians (Skify, 1918).

The Twelve depicts a group of Red Army soldiers (a clear allusion to the Twelve Apostles) marching through revolutionary Petrograd and led by the figure of Christ – an image strongly condemned by Russian intellectuals. It featured numerous artistic devices like distinctive sounds, clear and chopped rhythms, gloomy colours, repetitive symbols and slang language – all of them helped to capture the mood of the time and Blok’s ambivalent view of the revolution.

Despite its controversy, over a million of copies of the poem were sold in the first year and it was even prohibited in some countries as blasphemous.

Blok quickly became disillusioned with the Bolsheviks and their methods of governing, and soon he even stopped composing poetry. From 1918 till 1921 he worked as an essayist, editor, translator, publisher and theatre worker in different government organisations and publishing houses.

From time to time he recited his verse in public in St. Petersburg and Moscow. His last remarkable public speech in February 1921 was called On the Poet's Calling and was dedicated to Aleksandr Pushkin. Blok considered him the greatest poet of all time, capable of uniting Russia in the difficult time of the Russian Civil war.

Aleksandr Blok died on August 7, 1921 in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) of unknown causes, although it’s believed deep depression and nervous and physical exhaustion might have played their part. Some say that, along with his mysterious death, the old pre-revolutionary Russia was also gone.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.pushkins-poems.com/

In the hope of making Pushkin available to more readers, especially those who have only a slight knowledge of Russian, or none at all, this web site is dedicated to providing a translation of some of his poems. The Russian text is set alongside the translation, to provide easy comparisons for those who wish to make their own efforts. There is very little of Pushkin available on the Internet in English, and this site was, at the time of writing (2001), the only one that provided an English version of Yevgeny (Eugene) Onegin.
All of Yevgeny Onegin and a few other poems are currently available, both in Russian and English. The Gypsies has been recently added (Sept 2009).
Below is one of Pushkin's well known poems. The Russian text is presented as a photographic image, to obviate the possible difficulty of downloading Russian script.


From April 2010 some early Chekhov short stories have been added. Check the link above to see what is available.



******* TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.

This translation of Yevgeny Onegin was done between January 2000 and February 2001 as a project for the Internet. It is not intended to supercede all other translations. The reality is that very little Pushkin in English was to be found on the Internet at the time of writing. Even the two providers of free texts, Project Gutenberg and the Oxford Text Archive, offer nothing at all of Pushkin's (Jan 2001). [Now however I am glad to say that more is available.]

The intention of this web site is to make some of Pushkin's work freely available in English to all who have access to a computer. The English translation offered is provided for those who cannot read the Russian, but who still wish to read Pushkin, and also as an aid to students. It has tried to follow the original fairly closely, so that as far as possible the English reader can see which line of the original the translation derives from. Nevertheless some freedom has been used, in particular by abandoning Pushkin's rhyme scheme. This is impossible to copy in English with any accuracy or fidelity to the sense. Many attempts have been made, and one looks in wonder at the achievements of translators, but I have often felt that the sheer cleverness of English translations distracts from the original and leads one away from Pushkin. This does not mean that I eschew verse and rhyme completely. Indeed I have been happy to pluck rhymes from the air, and I have been happy also to use hidden and oblique rhymes, wherever it improves the flow of language, or helps to suggest the subtlety and vivacity of the original. I have used more freedom in the translation of the closing couplets than elsewhere, as I believe that doing so preserves more of the spirit of Pushkin than could be achieved by adhering to a more wooden and technically accurate translation. The main aim has been to convey as much as possible of Pushkin's liveliness, the sheer abundance of his invention, and the daring unexpectedness of his wit. There is nothing like it in English literature, and non-Russian readers are depriving themselves of a great treasure by ignoring it. I hope this web site will go some way towards remedying this lack.

It is of course not possible to please everyone. That would be more than a minor miracle, as no doubt even the original was and is disliked by a few readers. I suspect my translation will appeal more to native English speakers than to Russians, since in some places it is slightly irreverent, although I trust that Pushkin's sense of humour would have ensured that he himself would not have felt offended.

I am conscious of inadequacies in the translation, some of which might be remediable, but others which it will probably be impossible to eradicate. Apologies also for any errors in the Russian text. Please keep me informed of these and I will do my best to correct them.

The translation is by G. R. Ledger.

Best wishes to all. И да поможет Господь всем бесприютным скитальцам.





G.R.Ledger. Aug. 2009.


By A. Pushkin



If I walk the noisy streets,
Or enter a many thronged church,
Or sit among the wild young generation,
I give way to my thoughts.

I say to myself: the years are fleeting,
And however many there seem to be,
We must all go under the eternal vault,
And someone's hour is already at hand.

When I look at a solitary oak
I think: the patriarch of the woods.
It will outlive my forgotten age
As it outlived that of my grandfathers'.

If I caress a young child,
Immediately I think: farewell!
I will yield my place to you,
For I must fade while your flower blooms.


Each day, every hour
I habitually follow in my thoughts,
Trying to guess from their number
The year which brings my death.


And where will fate send death to me?
In battle, in my travels, or on the seas?
Or will the neighboring valley
Receive my chilled ashes?

And although to the senseless body
It is indifferent wherever it rots,
Yet close to my beloved countryside
I still would prefer to rest.


And let it be, beside the grave's vault
That young life forever will be playing,
And impartial, indifferent nature
Eternally be shining in beauty.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario’s Shores.
-------------by Walt Whitman
1
AS I sat alone, by blue Ontario’s shore,
As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace return’d, and the dead that return no
more,
A Phantom, gigantic, superb, with stern visage, accosted me;
Chant me the poem, it said, that comes from the soul of America—chant me
the
carol of victory;
And strike up the marches of Libertad—marches more powerful yet;
And sing me before you go, the song of the throes of Democracy.

(Democracy—the destin’d conqueror—yet treacherous lip-smiles everywhere,
And Death and infidelity at every step.)

2
A Nation announcing itself,
I myself make the only growth by which I can be appreciated,
I reject none, accept all, then reproduce all in my own forms.

A breed whose proof is in time and deeds;
What we are, we are—nativity is answer enough to objections;
We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded,
We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves,
We are executive in ourselves—We are sufficient in the variety of ourselves,
We are the most beautiful to ourselves, and in ourselves;
We stand self-pois’d in the middle, branching thence over the world;
From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn.

Nothing is sinful to us outside of ourselves,
Whatever appears, whatever does not appear, we are beautiful or sinful in ourselves only.

(O mother! O sisters dear!
If we are lost, no victor else has destroy’d us;
It is by ourselves we go down to eternal night.)

3
Have you thought there could be but a single Supreme?
There can be any number of Supremes—One does not countervail another, any more than
one
eyesight countervails another, or one life countervails another.

All is eligible to all,
All is for individuals—All is for you,
No condition is prohibited—not God’s, or any.

All comes by the body—only health puts you rapport with the universe.

Produce great persons, the rest follows.

4
America isolated I sing;
I say that works made here in the spirit of other lands, are so much poison in The States.


(How dare such insects as we see assume to write poems for America?
For our victorious armies, and the offspring following the armies?)

Piety and conformity to them that like!
Peace, obesity, allegiance, to them that like!
I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations,
Crying, Leap from your seats, and contend for your lives!

I am he who walks the States with a barb’d tongue, questioning every one I meet;
Who are you, that wanted only to be told what you knew before?
Who are you, that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense?

(With pangs and cries, as thine own, O bearer of many children!
These clamors wild, to a race of pride I give.)

O lands! would you be freer than all that has ever been before?
If you would be freer than all that has been before, come listen to me.

Fear grace—Fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse,
Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice;
Beware the advancing mortal ripening of nature,
Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and men.

Ages, precedents, have long been accumulating undirected materials,
America brings builders, and brings its own styles.

The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done their work, and pass’d to other
spheres,
A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have done.

America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at all hazards,
Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound—initiates the true use of precedents,
Does not repel them, or the past, or what they have produced under their forms,
Takes the lesson with calmness, perceives the corpse slowly borne from the house,
Perceives that it waits a little while in the door—that it was fittest for its days,
That its life has descended to the stalwart and well-shaped heir who approaches,
And that he shall be fittest for his days.

Any period, one nation must lead,
One land must be the promise and reliance of the future.

These States are the amplest poem,
Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation of nations,
Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcast doings of the day and night,
Here is what moves in magnificent masses, careless of particulars,
Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, the Soul loves,
Here the flowing trains—here the crowds, equality, diversity, the Soul loves.

6
Land of lands, and bards to corroborate!
Of them, standing among them, one lifts to the light his west-bred face,
To him the hereditary countenance bequeath’d, both mother’s and father’s,
His first parts substances, earth, water, animals, trees,
Built of the common stock, having room for far and near,
Used to dispense with other lands, incarnating this land,
Attracting it Body and Soul to himself, hanging on its neck with incomparable love,
Plunging his seminal muscle into its merits and demerits,
Making its cities, beginnings, events, diversities, wars, vocal in him,
Making its rivers, lakes, bays, embouchure in him,
Mississippi with yearly freshets and changing chutes—Columbia, Niagara, Hudson,
spending
themselves lovingly in him,
If the Atlantic coast stretch, or the Pacific coast stretch, he stretching with them north
or
south,
Spanning between them, east and west, and touching whatever is between them,
Growths growing from him to offset the growth of pine, cedar, hemlock, live-oak, locust,
chestnut, hickory, cottonwood, orange, magnolia,
Tangles as tangled in him as any cane-brake or swamp,
He likening sides and peaks of mountains, forests coated with northern transparent ice,
Off him pasturage, sweet and natural as savanna, upland, prairie,
Through him flights, whirls, screams, answering those of the fish-hawk, mocking-bird,
night-heron, and eagle;
His spirit surrounding his country’s spirit, unclosed to good and evil,
Surrounding the essences of real things, old times and present times,
Surrounding just found shores, islands, tribes of red aborigines,
Weather-beaten vessels, landings, settlements, embryo stature and muscle,
The haughty defiance of the Year 1—war, peace, the formation of the Constitution,
The separate States, the simple, elastic scheme, the immigrants,
The Union, always swarming with blatherers, and always sure and impregnable,
The unsurvey’d interior, log-houses, clearings, wild animals, hunters, trappers;
Surrounding the multiform agriculture, mines, temperature, the gestation of new States,
Congress convening every Twelfth-month, the members duly coming up from the uttermost
parts;
Surrounding the noble character of mechanics and farmers, especially the young men,
Responding their manners, speech, dress, friendships—the gait they have of persons
who
never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors,
The freshness and candor of their physiognomy, the copiousness and decision of their
phrenology,
The picturesque looseness of their carriage, their fierceness when wrong’d,
The fluency of their speech, their delight in music, their curiosity, good temper, and
open-handedness—the whole composite make,
The prevailing ardor and enterprise, the large amativeness,
The perfect equality of the female with the male, the fluid movement of the population,
The superior marine, free commerce, fisheries, whaling, gold-digging,
Wharf-hemm’d cities, railroad and steamboat lines, intersecting all points,
Factories, mercantile life, labor-saving machinery, the north-east, north-west,
south-west,
Manhattan firemen, the Yankee swap, southern plantation life,
Slavery—the murderous, treacherous conspiracy to raise it upon the ruins of all the
rest;
On and on to the grapple with it—Assassin! then your life or ours be the
stake—and
respite no more.

7
(Lo! high toward heaven, this day,
Libertad! from the conqueress’ field return’d,
I mark the new aureola around your head;
No more of soft astral, but dazzling and fierce,
With war’s flames, and the lambent lightnings playing,
And your port immovable where you stand;
With still the inextinguishable glance, and the clench’d and lifted fist,
And your foot on the neck of the menacing one, the scorner, utterly crush’d beneath
you;
The menacing, arrogant one, that strode and advanced with his senseless scorn, bearing the
murderous knife;
—Lo! the wide swelling one, the braggart, that would yesterday do so much!
To-day a carrion dead and damn’d, the despised of all the earth!
An offal rank, to the dunghill maggots spurn’d.)

8
Others take finish, but the Republic is ever constructive, and ever keeps vista;
Others adorn the past—but you, O days of the present, I adorn you!
O days of the future, I believe in you! I isolate myself for your sake;
O America, because you build for mankind, I build for you!
O well-beloved stone-cutters! I lead them who plan with decision and science,
I lead the present with friendly hand toward the future.

Bravas to all impulses sending sane children to the next age!
But damn that which spends itself, with no thought of the stain, pains, dismay, feebleness
it
is bequeathing.

9
I listened to the Phantom by Ontario’s shore,
I heard the voice arising, demanding bards;
By them, all native and grand—by them alone can The States be fused into the compact
organism of a Nation.

To hold men together by paper and seal, or by compulsion, is no account;
That only holds men together which aggregates all in a living principle, as the hold of
the
limbs of the body, or the fibres of plants.

Of all races and eras, These States, with veins full of poetical stuff, most need poets,
and
are to have the greatest, and use them the greatest;
Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall.

(Soul of love, and tongue of fire!
Eye to pierce the deepest deeps, and sweep the world!
—Ah, mother! prolific and full in all besides—yet how long barren, barren?)

10
Of These States, the poet is the equable man,
Not in him, but off from him, things are grotesque, eccentric, fail of their full returns,

Nothing out of its place is good, nothing in its place is bad,
He bestows on every object or quality its fit proportion, neither more nor less,
He is the arbiter of the diverse, he is the key,
He is the equalizer of his age and land,
He supplies what wants supplying—he checks what wants checking,
In peace, out of him speaks the spirit of peace, large, rich, thrifty, building populous
towns,
encouraging agriculture, arts, commerce, lighting the study of man, the Soul, health,
immortality, government;
In war, he is the best backer of the war—he fetches artillery as good as the
engineer’s—he can make every word he speaks draw blood;
The years straying toward infidelity, he withholds by his steady faith,
He is no argurer, he is judgment—(Nature accepts him absolutely
He judges not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling round a helpless thing;
As he sees the farthest, he has the most faith,
His thoughts are the hymns of the praise of things,
In the dispute on God and eternity he is silent,
He sees eternity less like a play with a prologue and denouement,
He sees eternity in men and women—he does not see men and women as dreams or dots.

For the great Idea, the idea of perfect and free individuals,
For that idea the bard walks in advance, leader of leaders,
The attitude of him cheers up slaves and horrifies foreign despots.

Without extinction is Liberty! without retrograde is Equality!
They live in the feelings of young men, and the best women;
Not for nothing have the indomitable heads of the earth been always ready to fall for
Liberty.

11
For the great Idea!
That, O my brethren—that is the mission of Poets.

Songs of stern defiance, ever ready,
Songs of the rapid arming, and the march,
The flag of peace quick-folded, and instead, the flag we know,
Warlike flag of the great Idea.

(Angry cloth I saw there leaping!
I stand again in leaden rain, your flapping folds saluting;
I sing you over all, flying, beckoning through the fight—O the hard-contested fight!
O the cannons ope their rosy-flashing muzzles! the hurtled balls scream!

The battle-front forms amid the smoke—the volleys pour incessant from the line;
Hark! the ringing word, Charge!—now the tussle, and the furious maddening
yells;
Now the corpses tumble curl’d upon the ground,
Cold, cold in death, for precious life of you,
Angry cloth I saw there leaping.)

12
Are you he who would assume a place to teach, or be a poet here in The States?
The place is august—the terms obdurate.

Who would assume to teach here, may well prepare himself, body and mind,
He may well survey, ponder, arm, fortify, harden, make lithe, himself,
He shall surely be question’d beforehand by me with many and stern questions.

Who are you, indeed, who would talk or sing to America?
Have you studied out the land, its idioms and men?
Have you learn’d the physiology, phrenology, politics, geography, pride, freedom,
friendship, of the land? its substratums and objects?
Have you consider’d the organic compact of the first day of the first year of
Independence, sign’d by the Commissioners, ratified by The States, and read by
Washington
at the head of the army?
Have you possess’d yourself of the Federal Constitution?
Do you see who have left all feudal processes and poems behind them, and assumed the poems
and
processes of Democracy?
Are you faithful to things? do you teach as the land and sea, the bodies of men,
womanhood,
amativeness, angers, teach?
Have you sped through fleeting customs, popularities?
Can you hold your hand against all seductions, follies, whirls, fierce contentions? are
you
very strong? are you really of the whole people?
Are you not of some coterie? some school or mere religion?
Are you done with reviews and criticisms of life? animating now to life itself?
Have you vivified yourself from the maternity of These States?
Have you too the old, ever-fresh forbearance and impartiality?
Do you hold the like love for those hardening to maturity; for the last-born? little and
big?
and for the errant?

What is this you bring my America?
Is it uniform with my country?
Is it not something that has been better told or done before?
Have you not imported this, or the spirit of it, in some ship?
Is it not a mere tale? a rhyme? a prettiness? is the good old cause in it?
Has it not dangled long at the heels of the poets, politicians, literats, of enemies’
lands?
Does it not assume that what is notoriously gone is still here?
Does it answer universal needs? will it improve manners?
Does it sound, with trumpet-voice, the proud victory of the Union, in that secession war?
Can your performance face the open fields and the seaside?
Will it absorb into me as I absorb food, air—to appear again in my strength, gait,
face?
Have real employments contributed to it? original makers—not mere amanuenses?
Does it meet modern discoveries, calibers, facts face to face?
What does it mean to me? to American persons, progresses, cities? Chicago, Kanada,
Arkansas?
the planter, Yankee, Georgian, native, immigrant, sailors, squatters, old States, new
States?
Does it encompass all The States, and the unexceptional rights of all the men and women of
the
earth? (the genital impulse of These States
Does it see behind the apparent custodians, the real custodians, standing, menacing,
silent—the mechanics, Manhattanese, western men, southerners, significant alike in
their
apathy, and in the promptness of their love?
Does it see what finally befalls, and has always finally befallen, each temporizer,
patcher,
outsider, partialist, alarmist, infidel, who has ever ask’d anything of America?
What mocking and scornful negligence?
The track strew’d with the dust of skeletons;
By the roadside others disdainfully toss’d.

13
Rhymes and rhymers pass away—poems distill’d from foreign poems pass away,
The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes;
Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the soul of literature;
America justifies itself, give it time—no disguise can deceive it, or conceal from
it—it is impassive enough,
Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to meet them,
If its poets appear, it will in due time advance to meet them—there is no fear of
mistake,

(The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr’d, till his country absorbs him as
affectionately as he has absorb’d it.)

He masters whose spirit masters—he tastes sweetest who results sweetest in the long
run;
The blood of the brawn beloved of time is unconstraint;
In the need of poems, philosophy, politics, manners, engineering, an appropriate native
grand-opera, shipcraft, any craft, he or she is greatest who contributes the greatest
original
practical example.

Already a nonchalant breed, silently emerging, appears on the streets,
People’s lips salute only doers, lovers, satisfiers, positive knowers;
There will shortly be no more priests—I say their work is done,
Death is without emergencies here, but life is perpetual emergencies here,
Are your body, days, manners, superb? after death you shall be superb;
Justice, health, self-esteem, clear the way with irresistible power;
How dare you place anything before a man?

14
Fall behind me, States!
A man before all—myself, typical before all.

Give me the pay I have served for!
Give me to sing the song of the great Idea! take all the rest;
I have loved the earth, sun, animals—I have despised riches,
I have given alms to every one that ask’d, stood up for the stupid and crazy, devoted
my
income and labor to others,
I have hated tyrants, argued not concerning God, had patience and indulgence toward the
people,
taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown,
I have gone freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the
mothers
of families,
I have read these leaves to myself in the open air—I have tried them by trees, stars,
rivers,
I have dismiss’d whatever insulted my own Soul or defiled my Body,
I have claim’d nothing to myself which I have not carefully claim’d for others
on the
same terms,
I have sped to the camps, and comrades found and accepted from every State;
(In war of you, as well as peace, my suit is good, America—sadly I boast;
Upon this breast has many a dying soldier lean’d, to breathe his last;
This arm, this hand, this voice, have nourish’d, rais’d, restored,
To life recalling many a prostrate form
—I am willing to wait to be understood by the growth of the taste of myself,
I reject none, I permit all.

(Say, O mother! have I not to your thought been faithful?
Have I not, through life, kept you and yours before me?)

15
I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things!
It is not the earth, it is not America, who is so great,
It is I who am great, or to be great—it is you up there, or any one;
It is to walk rapidly through civilizations, governments, theories,
Through poems, pageants, shows, to form great individuals.

Underneath all, individuals!
I swear nothing is good to me now that ignores individuals,
The American compact is altogether with individuals,
The only government is that which makes minute of individuals,
The whole theory of the universe is directed to one single individual—namely, to You.


(Mother! with subtle sense severe—with the naked sword in your hand,
I saw you at last refuse to treat but directly with individuals.)

16
Underneath all, nativity,
I swear I will stand by my own nativity—pious or impious, so be it;
I swear I am charm’d with nothing except nativity,
Men, women, cities, nations, are only beautiful from nativity.

Underneath all is the need of the expression of love for men and women,
I swear I have seen enough of mean and impotent modes of expressing love for men and
women,
After this day I take my own modes of expressing love for men and women.

I swear I will have each quality of my race in myself,
(Talk as you like, he only suits These States whose manners favor the audacity and sublime
turbulence of The States.)

Underneath the lessons of things, spirits, Nature, governments, ownerships, I swear I
perceive
other lessons,
Underneath all, to me is myself—to you, yourself—(the same monotonous old song.)


17
O I see now, flashing, that this America is only you and me,
Its power, weapons, testimony, are you and me,
Its crimes, lies, thefts, defections, slavery, are you and me,
Its Congress is you and me—the officers, capitols, armies, ships, are you and me,
Its endless gestations of new States are you and me,
The war—that war so bloody and grim—the war I will henceforth forget—was
you and
me,
Natural and artificial are you and me,
Freedom, language, poems, employments, are you and me,
Past, present, future, are you and me.

18
I swear I dare not shirk any part of myself,
Not any part of America, good or bad,
Not the promulgation of Liberty—not to cheer up slaves and horrify foreign despots,
Not to build for that which builds for mankind,
Not to balance ranks, complexions, creeds, and the sexes,
Not to justify science, nor the march of equality,
Nor to feed the arrogant blood of the brawn beloved of time.

I swear I am for those that have never been master’d!
For men and women whose tempers have never been master’d,
For those whom laws, theories, conventions, can never master.

I swear I am for those who walk abreast with the whole earth!
Who inaugurate one, to inaugurate all.

I swear I will not be outfaced by irrational things!
I will penetrate what it is in them that is sarcastic upon me!
I will make cities and civilizations defer to me!
This is what I have learnt from America—it is the amount—and it I teach again.

(Democracy! while weapons were everywhere aim’d at your breast,
I saw you serenely give birth to immortal children—saw in dreams your dilating form;
Saw you with spreading mantle covering the world.)

19
I will confront these shows of the day and night!
I will know if I am to be less than they!
I will see if I am not as majestic as they!
I will see if I am not as subtle and real as they!
I will see if I am to be less generous than they!
I will see if I have no meaning, while the houses and ships have meaning!
I will see if the fishes and birds are to be enough for themselves, and I am not to be
enough
for myself.

20
I match my spirit against yours, you orbs, growths, mountains, brutes,
Copious as you are, I absorb you all in myself, and become the master myself.

America isolated, yet embodying all, what is it finally except myself?
These States—what are they except myself?

I know now why the earth is gross, tantalizing, wicked—it is for my sake,
I take you to be mine, you beautiful, terrible, rude forms.

(Mother! bend down, bend close to me your face!
I know not what these plots and wars, and deferments are for;
I know not fruition’s success—but I know that through war and peace your work
goes
on, and must yet go on.)

21
.... Thus, by blue Ontario’s shore,
While the winds fann’d me, and the waves came trooping toward me,
I thrill’d with the Power’s pulsations—and the charm of my theme was upon
me,
Till the tissues that held me, parted their ties upon me.

And I saw the free Souls of poets;
The loftiest bards of past ages strode before me,
Strange, large men, long unwaked, undisclosed, were disclosed to me.

22
O my rapt verse, my call—mock me not!
Not for the bards of the past—not to invoke them have I launch’d you forth,
Not to call even those lofty bards here by Ontario’s shores,
Have I sung so capricious and loud, my savage song.

Bards for my own land, only, I invoke;
(For the war, the war is over—the field is clear’d,)
Till they strike up marches henceforth triumphant and onward,
To cheer, O mother, your boundless, expectant soul.

Bards grand as these days so grand!
Bards of the great Idea! Bards of the peaceful inventions! (for the war, the war is over!)

Yet Bards of the latent armies—a million soldiers waiting, ever-ready,
Bards towering like hills—(no more these dots, these pigmies, these little piping
straws,
these gnats, that fill the hour, to pass for poets
Bards with songs as from burning coals, or the lightning’s fork’d stripes!
Ample Ohio’s bards—bards for California! inland bards—bards of the war
(As a wheel turns on its axle, so I find my chants turning finally on the war
Bards of pride! Bards tallying the ocean’s roar, and the swooping eagle’s
scream!
You, by my charm, I invoke!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Poem by Sergey Yesenin


1915

I"m tired of living in my land
With boring fields and buckwheat fragrant,
I"ll leave my home for ever, and
Begin the life of thief and vagrant.

I"ll walk through silver curls of life
In search of miserable dwelling.
My dearest friend will whet his knife
On me. The reason? There"s no telling.

The winding yellow road will go
Across the sunlit field of flowers,
The girl whose name I cherish so
Will turn me out of her house.

I will return back home to live
and see the others feeling happy,
I"ll hang myself upon my sleeve,
On a green evening it will happen.


The silky willows by the fence
Will bend their tops low down, gently,
To dogs" barking, by my friends,
Unwashed, I will be buried plainly.

The moon will float up in the sky
Dropping the oars into the water...
As ever, Russia will get by
And dance and weep in every quarter.

1915

[Balu]

Poem by Sergey Yesenin

Thank you, Robert!

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.poetryverse.com/european-...nin-poems.html

date place
born 3. October 1895 Konstantinovo
died 28. December 1925 Sankt Peterburg

Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin (sometimes spelled as Esenin, Russian: Серге́й Алекса́ндрович Есе́нин) was a Russian lyrical poet. He was one of the most popular and well-known Russian poets of the 20th century. Sergey Yesenin (Esenin) was born in Konstantinovo in Ryazan Governorate of the Russian Empire to a peasant family. He spent most of his childhood with his grandparents, who essentially reared him. In 1912, Yesenin moved to Moscow, where he supported himself working as a proofreader in a printing company. The following year he enrolled in Moscow Charnyavsky University as an external student and studied there for a year and a half. His early poetry was inspired by Russian folklore. In 1915, he moved to Petrograd, where he became acquainted with fellow-poets Alexander Blok, Sergey Gorodetsky, Nikolai Klyuev and Andrei Bely and became well known in literary circles. In 1916, Sergei Yesenin published his first book of poems: Radunitsa. Through his collections of poignant poetry about love and the simple life, he became one of the most popular poets of the day. His first marriage was in 1913 to Anna Izryadnova, a co-worker from the publishing house, with whom he had a son, Yuri. From 1916 to 1917, Sergei Yesenin was drafted into military duty, but soon after the October Revolution of 1917, Russia exited World War I. Believing that the revolution would bring a better life, Yesenin briefly supported it, but soon became disillusioned. In August 1917 Sergei married for a second time to Zinaida Raikh. They had two children, a daughter Tatyana and a son Konstantin. The parents quarreled and lived separately for some time prior to their divorce in 1921. In September 1918, Sergei Yesenin founded his own publishing house. In the fall of 1921, Yesenin met the Paris-based American dancer Isadora Duncan, a woman 18 years his senior. She knew only a dozen words in Russian, and he spoke no foreign languages. They married on 2 May 1922. Yesenin accompanied his celebrity wife on a tour of Europe and the United States. His marriage to Duncan was brief and in May 1923, he returned to Moscow. In 1923 Yesenin became romantically involved with the actress Augusta Miklashevskaya to whom he dedicated several poems. The same year he had a son by the poet Nadezhda Volpin. Their son, Alexander Yesenin-Volpin grew up to become a poet and a prominent activist in the Soviet dissident movement of the 1960s. He lives in the United States, a famous mathematician and teacher. In 1925 Sergey Yesenin met and married his fourth wife, Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya, a granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. On 28 December 1925 Sergey Yesenin was found dead in his room in the Hotel Angleterre. His last poem Goodbye my friend, goodbye (До свиданья, друг мой, до свиданья) according to Wolf Ehrlich was given to him the day before. Yesenin complained that there was no ink in the room, and he was forced to write with his blood. According to the version that is now also common among academic researchers of Yesenin's life, the poet was in a state of depression a week after the end of treatment in a mental hospital and committed suicide by hanging. Other theory claims that he was murderd by Soviet law enforcement agents who staged it to look like suicide. Yesenin's suicide triggered an epidemic of copycat suicides by his mostly female fans. Although he was one of Russia's most popular poets and had been given an elaborate funeral by the State, most of his writings were banned by the Kremlin during the reigns of Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev. Only in 1966 were most of his works republished. Today Yesenin's poems are taught to Russian schoolchildren; many have been set to music and recorded as popular songs. His early death, coupled with unsympathetic views by some of the literary elite, adoration by ordinary people, and sensational behavior, all contributed to the enduring and near mythical popular image of the Russian poet.

----------------------------------------

---------------------------------------


In Winter Flower Never Bloom


It's sad to look at you, my love,
and it's so painful to remember!
It seems, the only thing we have
is tint of willow in September.

Somebody's lips have outworn
your warmth and body trepidation,
as if the rain was drizzling down
the soul, that stiffened in congestion.

Well, let it be! I do not dread.
I have some other joyous gala.
There's nothing left for me except
for brown dust and grizzly colour.

I've been unable, to my rue,
to save myself, for smiles or any.
The roads that have been walked are few
mistakes that have been made are many.

With funny life and funny split
so it has been and will be ever.
The grove with birch-tree bones in it
is like a graveyard, well I never!

Likewise, we'll go to our doom
and fade, like callers of the garden.
In winter flowers never bloom,
and so we shouldn't grieve about them.


******************************************


The Night


The tired day droops, slowly waning,
the noisy waves are now tranquil.
The sun has set, the moon is sailing
above the world, absorbed and still.

The valley listens to the babbles
of peaceful river in the dale.
The forest, dark and bending, slumbers
to warbling of the nightingale.

The river, listening in and fondling,
talks with the banks in quiet hush.
And up above resounds, a-rolling,
the merry rustle of the rush.

***************************


It's Settled


Yes! It's settled! Now and for ever
I have left my dear old plain.
And the winged leaves of poplars will never
ring and rustle above me again.

Our house will sag in my absence,
and my dog died a long time ago.
Me, I'm fated to die with compassions
in the crooked streets of Moscow, I know.

I admire this city of elm-trees
with decrepit buildings and homes.
Golden somnolent Asian entities
are reposing on temple domes.

When the moonlight at night, dissipated,
shines... Like hell in the dark sky of blue!
I walk down the alley, dejected,
to the pub for a drink, maybe, two.

It's a sinister den, harsh and roaring,
but in spite of it, all through the night
I read poems for girls that go whoring
and carouse with thieves with delight.

Now I speak but my words are quite pointless,
and the beat of my heart is fast:
'Just like you, I am totally worthless,
and I cannot re-enter the past'.

Our house will sag in my absence.
And my dog died a long time ago.
Me, I'm fated to die with compassions
in the crooked streets of Moscow, I know.


--------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------

I AM SO GLAD THAT THIS GREAT POET WAS POINTED OUT TO ME.
In the coming days I plan on reading every poem of his that I can find that has been translated into English.-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

http://www.litsovet.ru/index.php/mat...rial_id=163258

Life Slowly Moved Like A Mature

Life slowly moved like a mature fortune teller
Mysteriously whispering forgotten words.
I sighed, regretting something , loss, or failure,
My head was filled with dreams of other worlds.

As I approached the fork I stopped to stare
At the serrated forest by the road.
By force of some volition , even there
The heaven seemed to be a heavy load.

And I remembered the untold and hidden reason
For captured power of youth and captured hopes,
While up ahead the fading day of season,
Was gilding the serrated verdure tops…

Spring, tell me, what do I regret? What failure?
What are the dreams that come into my head?
My life, like a mature fortune teller,
Is whispering the words I did forget.

Aleksandr Blok
March 16th, 1902

*************************************************

http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-...leksandr-blok/

Prominent Russians: Aleksandr Blok
November 28, 1880 — August 7, 1921


From cradle to literature

Blok was born on November 28, 1880, in St. Petersburg. The son of a lawyer, musician and writer, he didn’t remember much of his father as his parents separated soon after his birth.

He grew up in his mother’s family, a richly intellectual milieu, where his talent and potential was generously indulged. His grandfather was the head of St. Petersburg University, while his grandmother, mum and aunts were writers and translators; the little boy was exposed to literature from the cradle.
Education and early poetry

In 1898 Blok entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University, but three years later his predilection for literature overcame him, and he switched to Philology. By 1906 he was already a recognised poet.



Blok began writing verse at the age of five, but as he writes in his autobiography, his first serious work came at the age of 18.

His first efforts were inspired by the early 19th-century Romantic poetry of Vasily Zhukovsky and Aleksandr Pushkin. It wasn’t until he reached university that he learnt about Symbolism, a literary trend which became popular in the 1890s and later influenced Blok’s poetry and life.
Family life

He spent all his summers in the family’s country house in Shakhmatovo, an estate which neighboured the world-famous chemist Dmitry Mendeleev .

It was there that Blok fell in love with Mendeleev’s daughter, Lyubov, and married her in 1903. His first book called Verses about the Beautiful Lady (Stikhi o Prekrasnoy Dame, 1904) was dedicated to Lyubov and brought him fame. He was greeted enthusiastically both by patriarchs of the Symbolist movement and also the younger generation.

By this time Blok was already under the influence of the philosophy and mystical poetry of Vladimir Solovyev.

His wife became the main source of inspiration as the unachievable ideal of a woman, a symbol of the World Soul and Eternal Femininity (like Greek Sophia in Solovyev’s philosophy). Blok kept this religious worship of his love for all his life which almost destroyed his family, as the couple rarely had sexual relations.

Instead, he had numerous extramarital affairs, thinking his relationship with his wife must not be spoiled by sex. Their relations even worsened when Blok’s friend and fellow Symbolist Andrey Bely also fell in love with Lyubov Blok. The two friends almost ended up in a duel.
Blok's poetry

Blok’s early poetry, dedicated mostly to his ideal of a woman, is full of symbols and mysticism. It reflects an impressionistic view of the surrounding world. Rhythm, music and sounds were of huge importance to the him.

His next poetry collections differed markedly from his first one and depicted everyday life, revolutionary events, human psychology and tragic love, in works like Inadvertent Joy (Nechayannaya Radost, 1907), Snow Mask (Snezhnaya Maska, 1907), Faina (1906-1908), and Earth in Snow (Zemlya v snegu, 1908). By this time Blok was established as a leader of Russian Symbolism, though some of his peers accused him of betraying the ideals reflected in his first collection.

The poet’s later works mostly reflected his thoughts on Russia: its past and future, the path it chose and the drastic changes it was undergoing at that time. They included the collections Night Hours (Nochnye Chasy, 1911), Poems about Russia (Stikhi o Rossii, 1915), Motherland (Rodina, 1907-1916) and the epic Retribution (Vozmezdie, 1910-1921).

Before the revolution of 1917, Blok wrote in his diary that he knew “a great event was coming”, and his thoughts and concerns about Russia’s future are reflected in his verse as well as political and social essays.

Drafted in 1916, Blok never took part in active combat during World War I, and served with an engineering unit near the city of Pskov until March 1917.
Blok and the Bolshevik Revolution

Surprisingly for most of his colleagues and admirers, Blok enthusiastically welcomed the Russian Revolution of 1917. He considered it an outburst of cathartic power and experienced a boost of creativity which was crowned with his best-known poems The Twelve (Dvenadtsat, 1918) and The Scythians (Skify, 1918).

The Twelve depicts a group of Red Army soldiers (a clear allusion to the Twelve Apostles) marching through revolutionary Petrograd and led by the figure of Christ – an image strongly condemned by Russian intellectuals. It featured numerous artistic devices like distinctive sounds, clear and chopped rhythms, gloomy colours, repetitive symbols and slang language – all of them helped to capture the mood of the time and Blok’s ambivalent view of the revolution.

Despite its controversy, over a million of copies of the poem were sold in the first year and it was even prohibited in some countries as blasphemous.

Blok quickly became disillusioned with the Bolsheviks and their methods of governing, and soon he even stopped composing poetry. From 1918 till 1921 he worked as an essayist, editor, translator, publisher and theatre worker in different government organisations and publishing houses.

From time to time he recited his verse in public in St. Petersburg and Moscow. His last remarkable public speech in February 1921 was called On the Poet's Calling and was dedicated to Aleksandr Pushkin. Blok considered him the greatest poet of all time, capable of uniting Russia in the difficult time of the Russian Civil war.

Aleksandr Blok died on August 7, 1921 in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) of unknown causes, although it’s believed deep depression and nervous and physical exhaustion might have played their part. Some say that, along with his mysterious death, the old pre-revolutionary Russia was also gone.

[Russ]

« Marine Team Roundup for Nov. 10th | Main | On Veterans Day »
November 10, 2010
A Poem for the Marine Corps Birthday

VC reader Tim Taylor sent me a poem he wrote for the Marine Corps Birthday.

It's not easy to write poetry and even harder to share it. Tim writes:

"This came to me in a flash after hearing a story about a young Marine blinded by his wounds reaching up to feel the insignia of his visitor and then firing off a sharp salute to that officer."

Amazing.

***************

Semper Fi

Though the body is battered
and broken
and no longer fit for the fray

The spirit cries out
and is willing
and again will carry the day

Semper Fi is a code
and a motto
but some know its deeper side
that lives in the heart
of the soldier
who is this nation's pride
for it's the heart that
is always faithful
that is ever so willing
to die

For the Cause
and the Nation
and Freedom
it has always been
Semper Fi

When liberty's honor
is threatened
and the straits
are desperately dire
the Corps will come
to the forefront
to offer her men
for the pyre
that burns on the
altar of freedom
and must not ever
die

Though we often
forget these heroes
they never forget
their cry:

"For the Cause
and the Nation
and Freedom
there will always be
Semper Fi"

Posted by Cassandra at November 10, 2010 01:52 PM

Excellent poem

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

On Anothers Sorrow
-----by William Blake
Can I see anothers woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see anothers grief,
And not seek for kind relief.

Can I see a falling tear.
And not feel my sorrows share,
Can a father see his child,
Weep, nor be with sorrow fill'd.

Can a mother sit and hear.
An infant groan an infant fear--
No no never can it be,
Never never can it be.

And can he who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small.
Hear the small bird's grief & care
Hear the woes that infants bear--

And not sit beside the nest
Pouring pity in their breast.
And not sit the cradle near
Weeping tear on infant's tear.

And not sit both night & day.
Wiping all our tears away.
O! no never can it be.
Never never can it be.

He doth give his joy to all,
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not. thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy maker is not by.
Think not, thou canst weep a tear,
And thy maker is not near.

O! he gives to us his joy.
That our grief he may destroy
Till our grief is fled & gone
He doth sit by us and moan

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Was There A Time
----- by Dylan Thomas
Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles
In children's circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What's never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands, and, as the heartless ghost
Alone's unhurt, so the blind man sees best.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Legion Of Iron
- Poem by Lola Ridge


They pass through the great iron gates -
Men with eyes gravely discerning,
Skilled to appraise the tunnage of cranes
Or split an inch into thousandths -
Men tempered by fire as the ore is
And planned to resistance
Like steel that has cooled in the trough;
Silent of purpose, inflexible, set to fulfilment -
To conquer, withstand, overthrow…
Men mannered to large undertakings,
Knowing force as a brother
And power as something to play with,
Seeing blood as a slip of the iron,
To be wiped from the tools
Lest they rust.

But what if they stood aside,
Who hold the earth so careless in the crook of their arms?

What of the flamboyant cities
And the lights guttering out like candles in a wind…
And the armies halted…
And the train mid-way on the mountain
And idle men chaffing across the trenches…
And the cursing and lamentation
And the clamor for grain shut in the mills of the world?
What if they stayed apart,
Inscrutably smiling,
Leaving the ground encumbered with dead wire
And the sea to row-boats
And the lands marooned -
Till Time should like a paralytic sit,
A mildewed hulk above the nations squatting?

Lola Ridge

------------------------------------------------

The greatest part of the beauty in this magnificent poem lays in its imagery and massive depth IMHO..-Tyr

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

The Spilling Of The Wine
- Poem by Lola Ridge


The soldiers lie upon the snow,
That no longer gyrates under the spinning lights
Night juggles in her fat black hands.
They will not babble any more secrets to loose-mouthed
nights
Expanding in golden auras,
While sleigh-bells jingle like new coins the darkness
shuffles . . .
They will not drink any more wine—
Wine of the Romanoffs,
Jewelled wine
The secret years worked slowly at
Till it was wrought to fire,
As stones are faceted
Until they give out light.
The soldiers lie very still.
Their shadows have shrunk up close
As toads shrink under a stone;
And night and silence,
The ancient cronies,
Foregather above them.

But still over the snow, that is white as a ram's fleece,
Arms swing like scythes . . .
And shadows in austere lines
Sway in a monstrous and mysterious ritual—
Shadows of the Kronstad sailors
Pouring blood and wine. . .
Wine
Spurting out of flagons in a spray of amethyst and gold,
Creeping in purple sluices;
Wine
And blood in thin bright streams
Besprinkling the immaculate snow;
Blood, high-powered with the heat of old vineyards,
Boring . . . into the cool snow . . .
Blood and wine
Mingling in bright pools
That suck at the lights of Petrograd
As dying eyes
Suck in their last sunset.

The night has a rare savor.
Out of the snow-piles—altar-high and colored as by a
rosy sacrifice— Scented vapor
Ascends in a pale incense . . .
Faint astringent perfume
Of blood and wine.

Lola Ridge
------------------------


Snow Dance For The Dead
- Poem by Lola Ridge


Dance, little children ... it is holy twilight . . .
Have you hung paper flowers about the necks of the ikons?
Dance soft . . . but very gaily ... on tip-toes like the snow.

Spread your little pinafores
And courtesy as the snow does . . .
The snow that bends this way and that
In silent salutation.
Do not wait to warm your hands about the fires.
Do not mind the rough licking of the wind.
Dance forth into the shaggy night that shakes itself upon you.

Dance beneath the Kremlin towers—golden
In the royal
Purple of the sky—
But not there where the light is strongest . . .
Bright hair is dazzling in the light.
Dance in the dim violet places
Where the snow throws out a faint lustre
Like the lustre of dead faces . . .
Snow downier than wild-geese feathers . . .
Enough filling for five hundred pillows ...
By the long deep trench of the dead.

Bend, little children,
To the rhythm of the snow
That undulates this way and that
In silver spirals.
Cup your hands like tiny chalices . . .
Let the flakes fill up the rosy
Hollows of your palms
And alight upon your hair,
Like kisses that cling softly
A moment and let go ...
Like many kisses falling altogether . . .
Quick . . . cool kisses.

Lola Ridge