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Thread: A poem a day

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    For the Fallen

    Poem by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in The Times newspaper on 21st September 1914.

    For the Fallen

    With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
    England mourns for her dead across the sea.
    Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
    Fallen in the cause of the free.

    Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
    Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
    There is music in the midst of desolation
    And a glory that shines upon our tears.

    They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
    Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
    They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
    They fell with their faces to the foe.

    They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
    Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
    At the going down of the sun and in the morning
    We will remember them.

    They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
    They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
    They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
    They sleep beyond England's foam.

    But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
    Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
    To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
    As the stars are known to the Night;

    As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
    Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
    As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
    To the end, to the end, they remain.



    Inspiration for “For the Fallen”
    Plaque unveiled in 2003 at Polzeath to commemorate the place where For the Fallen is believed to have been composed.
    Plaque for For the Fallen poem.
    Laurence Binyon composed his best known poem while sitting on the cliff-top looking out to sea from the dramatic scenery of the north Cornish coastline. A plaque marks the location at Pentire Point, north of Polzeath. However, there is also a small plaque on the East Cliff north of Portreath, further south on the same north Cornwall coast, which also claims to be the place where the poem was written.

    The poem was written in mid September 1914, a few weeks after the outbreak of the First World War. During these weeks the
    British Expediti ....................
    ******************************

    Gets me every time I read it, much the same way as John MacCrae's world famous poem, "In Flander's Field", does..-Tyr
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    When I Have Fears
    - Poem by John Keats

    When I have fears that I may cease to be
    Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
    Before high-piled books, in charactery,
    Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
    When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
    Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
    And think that I may never live to trace
    Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
    And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
    That I shall never look upon thee more,
    Never have relish in the faery power
    Of unreflecting love; - then on the shore
    Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
    Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
    John Keats
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    Grief
    BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
    I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
    That only men incredulous of despair,
    Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
    Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
    Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
    In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
    Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
    Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
    Grief for thy dead in silence like to death—
    Most like a monumental statue set
    In everlasting watch and moveless woe
    Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
    Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
    If it could weep, it could arise and go.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    https://owlcation.com/humanities/Dyl...ve-No-Dominion


    Introduction and Text of "And Death Shall Have No Dominion"
    From the King James Version of the Judeo-Christian scripture, Romans 6:9, "Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him" (my emphasis).

    In Dylan Thomas' poem, "And Death Shall Have No Dominion," the speaker employs that sentiment in his title and five other repetitions as a refrain. The three novtets—9-line stanzas—seek to demonstrate the efficacy of that a claim that death shall not have any control over the human soul. While the quotation from Romans specifically focused on the advanced state of consciousness of the Christ, Who rose above death's grasp, the speaker of Thomas' poem muses on the possibilities of the human soul as it conquers death.

    And Death Shall Have No Dominion

    And death shall have no dominion.
    Dead man naked they shall be one
    With the man in the wind and the west moon;
    When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
    They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
    Though they go mad they shall be sane,
    Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
    Though lovers be lost love shall not;
    And death shall have no dominion.

    And death shall have no dominion.
    Under the windings of the sea
    They lying long shall not die windily;
    Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
    Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
    Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
    And the unicorn evils run them through;
    Split all ends up they shan't crack;
    And death shall have no dominion.

    And death shall have no dominion.
    No more may gulls cry at their ears
    Or waves break loud on the seashores;
    Where blew a flower may a flower no more
    Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
    Though they be mad and dead as nails,
    Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
    Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
    And death shall have no dominion.

    Dylan Thomas' poem
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    Fidelis
    - Poem by Adelaide Anne Procter



    You have taken back the promise
    That you spoke so long ago;
    Taken back the heart you gave me-
    I must even let it go.
    Where Love once has breathed, Pride dieth,
    So I struggled, but in vain,
    First to keep the links together,
    Then to piece the broken chain.

    But it might not be-so freely
    All your friendship I restore,
    And the heart that I had taken
    As my own forevermore.
    No shade of reproach shall touch you,
    Dread no more a claim from me-
    But I will not have you fancy
    That I count myself as free.

    I am bound by the old promise;
    What can break that golden chain?
    Not even the words that you have spoken,
    Or the sharpness of my pain:
    Do you think, because you fail me
    And draw back your hand today,
    That from out the heart I gave you
    My strong love can fade away?

    It will live. No eyes may see it;
    In my soul it will lie deep,
    Hidden from all; but I shall feel it
    Often stirring in its sleep.
    So remember that the friendship
    Which you now think poor and vain,
    Will endure in hope and patience,
    Till you ask for it again.

    Perhaps in some long twilight hour,
    Like those we have known of old,
    When past shadows gather round you,
    And your present friends grow cold,
    You may stretch your hands out towards me-
    Ahl You will-I know not when-
    I shall nurse my love and keep it
    Faithfully, for you, till then.

    Adelaide Anne Procter
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    1.

    The Bait
    BY JOHN DONNE
    Come live with me, and be my love,
    And we will some new pleasures prove
    Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
    With silken lines, and silver hooks.

    There will the river whispering run
    Warm'd by thy eyes, more than the sun;
    And there the 'enamour'd fish will stay,
    Begging themselves they may betray.

    When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
    Each fish, which every channel hath,
    Will amorously to thee swim,
    Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.

    If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,
    By sun or moon, thou dark'nest both,
    And if myself have leave to see,
    I need not their light having thee.

    Let others freeze with angling reeds,
    And cut their legs with shells and weeds,
    Or treacherously poor fish beset,
    With strangling snare, or windowy net.

    Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
    The bedded fish in banks out-wrest;
    Or curious traitors, sleeve-silk flies,
    Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.

    For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
    For thou thyself art thine own bait:
    That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
    Alas, is wiser far than I.
    BY JOHN DONNE
    ******************************************

    2.

    The Man with the Hoe
    BY EDWIN MARKHAM
    Written after seeing Millet’s World-Famous Painting

    God made man in His own image,
    in the image of God made He him. —Genesis.

    Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
    Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
    The emptiness of ages in his face,
    And on his back the burden of the world.
    Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
    A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
    Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
    Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
    Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
    Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
    Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
    To have dominion over sea and land;
    To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
    To feel the passion of Eternity?
    Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
    And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
    Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
    There is no shape more terrible than this—
    More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed—
    More filled with signs and portents for the soul—
    More fraught with danger to the universe.

    What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
    Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
    Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
    What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
    The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
    Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
    Time’s tragedy is in that aching stoop;
    Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
    Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
    Cries protest to the Judges of the World,
    A protest that is also prophecy.

    O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
    is this the handiwork you give to God,
    This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched ?
    How will you ever straighten up this shape;
    Touch it again with immortality;
    Give back the upward looking and the light;
    Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
    Make right the immemorial infamies,
    Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?

    O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
    How will the Future reckon with this Man?
    How answer his brute question in that hour
    When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?
    How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
    With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
    When this dumb Terror shall reply to God
    After the silence of the centuries?
    BY EDWIN MARKHAM
    Last edited by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot; 04-12-2019 at 05:55 AM.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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  10. #712
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    ~ "For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
    For thou thyself art thine own bait"~



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    Black Messengers
    (Translation of Los Heraldos Negros)
    -- poem by César Vallejo


    There are in life such hard blows . . . I don't know!
    Blows seemingly from God's wrath; as if before them
    the undertow of all our sufferings
    is embedded in our souls . . . I don't know!

    There are few; but are . . . opening dark furrows
    in the fiercest of faces and the strongest of loins,
    They are perhaps the colts of barbaric Attilas
    or the dark heralds Death sends us.


    They are the deep falls of the Christ of the soul,
    of some adorable one that Destiny Blasphemes.
    Those bloody blows are the crepitation
    of some bread getting burned on us by the oven's door

    And the man . . . poor . . . poor!
    He turns his eyes around, like
    when patting calls us upon our shoulder;
    he turns his crazed maddened eyes,
    and all of life's experiences become stagnant, like a puddle of guilt, in a daze.

    There are such hard blows in life. I don't know.

    © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    THE SONG OF A SUMMER.

    I PLUCKED an apple from off a tree,
    Golden and rosy and fair to see,—
    The sunshine had fed it with warmth and light,
    The dews had freshened it night by night,
    And high on the topmost bough it grew,
    Where the winds of Heaven about it blew;
    And while the mornings were soft and young
    The wild birds circled, and soared, and sung,—
    There, in the storm and calm and shine,
    It ripened and brightened, this apple of mine,
    Till the day I plucked it from off the tree,
    Golden and rosy and fair to see.

    How could I guess 'neath that daintiest rind
    That the core of sweetness I hoped to find—
    The innermost, hidden heart of the bliss,
    Which dews and winds and the sunshine's kiss
    Had tended and fostered by day and night—
    Was black with mildew, and bitter with blight;
    Golden and rosy and fair of skin,
    Nothing but ashes and ruin within?
    Ah, never again, with toil and pain,
    Will I strive the topmost bough to gain,—
    Though its wind-swung apples are fair to see,
    On a lower branch is the fruit for me.
    By Louise Chandler Moulton
    ************************************************** ***************
    THE HOUSE OF DEATH.

    NOT a hand has lifted the latchet
    Since she went out of the door,—
    No footstep shall cross the threshold,
    Since she can come in no more.
    There is rust upon locks and hinges,
    And mold and blight on the walls,
    And silence faints in the chambers,
    And darkness waits in the halls,—
    Waits, as all things have waited,
    Since she went, that day of spring,
    Borne in her pallid splendor,
    To dwell in the Court of the King:
    With lilies on brow and bosom,
    With robes of silken sheen,
    And her wonderful frozen beauty
    The lilies and silk between.
    Red roses she left behind her,
    But they died long, long ago,—
    'Twas the odorous ghost of a blossom
    That seemed through the dusk to glow.

    The garments she left mock the shadows
    With hints of womanly grace,
    And her image swims in the mirror
    That was so used to her face.
    The birds make insolent music
    Where the sunshine riots outside;
    And the winds are merry and wanton,
    With the summer's pomp and pride.
    But into this desolate mansion,
    Where Love has closed the door,
    Nor sunshine nor summer shall enter,
    Since she can come in no more.
    By Louise Chandler Moulton

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

    ######
    I recently found and bought a book of this magnificent poet's poetry.
    This poet was quite famous in her time and now that I've read several dozen of her poems, I see she was a true poet
    and a genius at verse, and a very, very intelligent lady.--Tyr
    Last edited by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot; 04-16-2019 at 07:31 AM.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    Sonnet (1928)
    By Elizabeth Bishop


    I am in need of music that would flow
    Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
    Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
    With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
    Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
    Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
    A song to fall like water on my head,
    And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

    There is a magic made by melody:
    A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
    Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
    To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
    And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
    Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
    By Elizabeth Bishop
    © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes


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

    Love Lies Sleeping
    By Elizabeth Bishop

    Earliest morning, switching all the tracks
    that cross the sky from cinder star to star,
    coupling the ends of streets
    to trains of light.

    now draw us into daylight in our beds;
    and clear away what presses on the brain:
    put out the neon shapes
    that float and swell and glare

    down the gray avenue between the eyes
    in pinks and yellows, letters and twitching signs.
    Hang-over moons, wane, wane!
    From the window I see

    an immense city, carefully revealed,
    made delicate by over-workmanship,
    detail upon detail,
    cornice upon facade,

    reaching up so languidly up into
    a weak white sky, it seems to waver there.
    (Where it has slowly grown
    in skies of water-glass

    from fused beads of iron and copper crystals,
    the little chemical "garden" in a jar
    trembles and stands again,
    pale blue, blue-green, and brick.)

    The sparrows hurriedly begin their play.
    Then, in the West, "Boom!" and a cloud of smoke.
    "Boom!" and the exploding ball
    of blossom blooms again.

    (And all the employees who work in a plants
    where such a sound says "Danger," or once said "Death,"
    turn in their sleep and feel
    the short hairs bristling

    on backs of necks.) The cloud of smoke moves off.
    A shirt is taken of a threadlike clothes-line.
    Along the street below
    the water-wagon comes

    throwing its hissing, snowy fan across
    peelings and newspapers. The water dries
    light-dry, dark-wet, the pattern
    of the cool watermelon.

    I hear the day-springs of the morning strike
    from stony walls and halls and iron beds,
    scattered or grouped cascades,
    alarms for the expected:

    queer cupids of all persons getting up,
    whose evening meal they will prepare all day,
    you will dine well
    on his heart, on his, and his,

    so send them about your business affectionately,
    dragging in the streets their unique loves.
    Scourge them with roses only,
    be light as helium,

    for always to one, or several, morning comes
    whose head has fallen over the edge of his bed,
    whose face is turned
    so that the image of

    the city grows down into his open eyes
    inverted and distorted. No. I mean
    distorted and revealed,
    if he sees it at all.
    By Elizabeth Bishop
    © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes

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


    Song for the Rainy Season
    By Elizabeth Bishop

    Hidden, oh hidden
    in the high fog
    the house we live in,
    beneath the magnetic rock,
    rain-, rainbow-ridden,
    where blood-black
    bromelias, lichens,
    owls, and the lint
    of the waterfalls cling,
    familiar, unbidden.

    In a dim age
    of water
    the brook sings loud
    from a rib cage
    of giant fern; vapor
    climbs up the thick growth
    effortlessly, turns back,
    holding them both,
    house and rock,
    in a private cloud.

    At night, on the roof,
    blind drops crawl
    and the ordinary brown
    owl gives us proof
    he can count:
    five times—always five—
    he stamps and takes off
    after the fat frogs that,
    shrilling for love,
    clamber and mount.

    House, open house
    to the white dew
    and the milk-white sunrise
    kind to the eyes,
    to membership
    of silver fish, mouse,
    bookworms,
    big moths; with a wall
    for the mildew's
    ignorant map;

    darkened and tarnished
    by the warm touch
    of the warm breath,
    maculate, cherished;
    rejoice! For a later
    era will differ.
    (O difference that kills
    or intimidates, much
    of all our small shadowy
    life!) Without water

    the great rock will stare
    unmagnetized, bare,
    no longer wearing
    rainbows or rain,
    the forgiving air
    and the high fog gone;
    the owls will move on
    and the several
    waterfalls shrivel
    in the steady sun.
    By Elizabeth Bishop

    © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes
    Last edited by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot; 04-17-2019 at 10:26 AM.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    Edit - poem removed.
    Now presented in the correct thread, The Sonnet thread .
    I should never post until after I have had my morning coffee.
    Seems I was not awake enough to post in the correct thread here. -Tyr
    Last edited by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot; 04-18-2019 at 06:55 AM.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    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
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

  18. Thanks LongTermGuy thanked this post
  19. #718
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    Great Love Lost, Truth Only Then Found


    Where was I, journeying when I lost her heart,
    a stranger to tragedy and great pain!
    She that once healed me has now torn me apart,
    wading wastelands of despair almost insane.

    Where was I, when walking stone path so blind,
    traveler seeking waste of lust and greed!
    A damn fool devoid of care and looking to find,
    that which I so stupidly thought I need.

    While her faithful love battled to stay alive,
    my desires raced onward into dark deeds!
    She that gave all her love to help me survive,
    watched me in error sow my wild seeds.

    When did I, wake to this hell, long nightmare,
    a cut beast all set to moan and bleed!
    Crying out in misery how my life is so unfair,
    still forgetting her pain and need.

    When will, my soul lead me from my sad plight,
    a victim of my own lusts and dark acts!
    A beast screaming out for help in plain sight,
    only now getting truth and the facts.

    Where was I, journeying when I lost her heart,
    a stranger to tragedy and great pain!
    She that once healed me has now torn me apart,
    wading wastelands of despair almost insane.

    R.J. Lindley
    April 9th, 1975


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

    A Song That Lives On Just To Thrive


    Cling like the wild wind to a stormy night
    as a child to a sweet mother's hem
    Dare to step from safety , from the Light
    into shadows dancing free but dim
    Be bold in the whispers of a cooing dove
    a song that lives on just to thrive
    Willing angel flying down from far above
    to find the meaning of being alive!

    Ride the wild wind into a realm of delight
    across broad waters sail or skim
    Seeking promised land far from your sight
    land of beauty, so sleek and trim
    The perfect fit , like a custom made glove
    loving grace in a swan-like dive
    Sweet spirit of great magic of newfound Love
    greatest music any man can contrive!

    Cling like the wild wind to a stormy night
    as a child to a sweet mother's hem
    Dare to step from safety , from the Light
    into shadows dancing free but dim
    Be bold in the whispers of a cooing dove
    a song that lives on just to thrive
    Willing angel flying down from far above
    to find the meaning of being alive!


    Robert J. Lindley, March, 1984


    Note: Written long ago , revised for another poetry contest.
    28 lines or less, subject love and dreams.
    Must be any form of rhyme. No names, must
    be new poem , list date.
    Last edited by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot; 07-20-2019 at 04:40 PM.
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    Dreamers
    BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON
    Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,
    Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
    In the great hour of destiny they stand,
    Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
    Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
    Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
    Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
    They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

    I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
    And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
    Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
    And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
    Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
    And going to the office in the train.

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

    Attack
    BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON
    At dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
    In the wild purple of the glow'ring sun,
    Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
    The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,
    Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire.
    The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed
    With bombs and guns and shovels and battle-gear,
    Men jostle and climb to, meet the bristling fire.
    Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,
    They leave their trenches, going over the top,
    While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists,
    And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists,
    Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop!
    **************************************

    The Humbled Heart
    BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON
    Go your seeking, soul.
    Mine the proven path of time’s foretelling.
    Yours accordance with some mysteried whole.
    I am but your passion-haunted dwelling.

    Bring what news you can,
    Stranger, loved of body’s humbled heart.
    Say one whispered word to mortal man
    From that peace whereof he claims you part.

    Hither-hence, my guest,
    Blood and bone befriend, where you abide
    Till withdrawn to share some timeless quest.
    I am but the brain that dreamed and died.

    Sigfried Sassoon, “The Humbled Heart” from Collected Poems 1908-1956.
    Copyright Siegfried Sassoon. Reprinted by kind permission of George Sassoon.

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

    The Death Bed
    BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON
    He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
    Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
    Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
    Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep.
    Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
    Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

    Someone was holding water to his mouth.
    He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
    Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot
    The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
    Water—calm, sliding green above the weir;
    Water—a sky-lit alley for his boat,
    Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers
    And shaken hues of summer: drifting down,
    He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

    Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,
    Blowing the curtain to a gummering curve.
    Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars
    Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;
    Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,
    Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.

    Rain—he could hear it rustling through the dark;
    Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;
    Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers
    That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps
    Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace,
    Gently and slowly washing life away.

    He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain
    Leaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore
    His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.
    But someone was beside him; soon he lay
    Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.
    And death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.

    Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
    Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
    Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
    He's young; he hated war; how should he die
    When cruel old campaigners win safe through?

    But death replied: “I choose him.” So he went,
    And there was silence in the summer night;
    Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
    Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

    Source: The Old Huntsman and Other Poems (1917)

    *********************************************
    Siegfried Sassoon
    1886–1967
    Black and white photograph of Siegfried Sassoon.
    Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
    Siegfried Sassoon is best remembered for his angry and compassionate poems of the First World War, which brought him public and critical acclaim. Avoiding the sentimentality and jingoism of many war poets, Sassoon wrote of the horror and brutality of trench warfare and contemptuously satirized generals, politicians, and churchmen for their incompetence and blind support of the war. His later poems, often concerned with religious themes, were less appreciated, but the autobiographical trilogy The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston won him two major awards.

    Born into a wealthy Jewish family, sometimes called the "Rothschilds of the East" because the family fortune was made in India, Sassoon lived the leisurely life of a cultivated country gentleman before the First World War, pursuing his two major interests, poetry and fox hunting. His early work, which was privately printed in several slim volumes between 1906 and 1916, is considered minor and imitative, heavily influenced by John Masefield (of whose work The Daffodil Murderer is a parody).

    Following the outbreak of the First World War, Sassoon served with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, seeing action in France in late 1915. He received a Military Cross for bringing back a wounded soldier during heavy fire. After being wounded in action, Sassoon wrote an open letter of protest to the war department, refusing to fight any more. "I believe that this War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it," he wrote in the letter. At the urging of Bertrand Russell, the letter was read in the House of Commons. Sassoon expected to be court-martialed for his protest, but poet Robert Graves intervened on his behalf, arguing that Sassoon was suffering from shell-shock and needed medical treatment. In 1917, Sassoon was hospitalized.

    Counter-Attack and Other Poems collects some of Sassoon's best war poems, all of which are "harshly realistic laments or satires," according to Margaret B. McDowell in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. The later collection The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon included 64 poems of the war, most written while Sassoon was in hospital recovering from his injuries. Public reaction to Sassoon's poetry was fierce. Some readers complained that the poet displayed little patriotism, while others found his shockingly realistic depiction of war to be too extreme. Even pacifist friends complained about the violence and graphic detail in his work. But the British public bought the books because, in his best poems, Sassoon captured the feeling of trench warfare and the weariness of British soldiers for a war that seemed never to end. "The dynamic quality of his war poems," according to a critic for the Times Literary Supplement, "was due to the intensity of feeling which underlay their cynicism." "In the history of British poetry," McDowell wrote, "[Sassoon] will be remembered primarily for some one hundred poems ... in which he protested the continuation of World War I."

    After the war, Sassoon became involved in Labour Party politics, lectured on pacifism, and continued to write. His most successful works of this period were his trilogy of autobiographical novels, The Memoirs of George Sherston. In these, he gave a thinly-fictionalized account, with little changed except names, of his wartime experiences, contrasting them with his nostalgic memories of country life before the war and recounting the growth of his pacifist feelings. Some have maintained that Sassoon's best work is his prose, particularly the first two Sherston novels. Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man was described by a critic for the Springfield Republican as "a novel of wholly fresh and delightful content," and Robert Littrell of Bookman called it "a singular and a strangely beautiful book."

    That book's sequel was also well received. The New Statesman critic called Memoirs of an Infantry Officer "a document of intense and sensitive humanity." In a review for the Times Literary Supplement, after Sassoon's death, one critic wrote: "His one real masterpiece, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer ... is consistently fresh. His self scrutiny is candid, critical, and humourous.... If Sassoon had written as well as this consistently, he would have been a figure of real stature. As it is, English literature has one great work from him almost by accident."

    Sassoon's critical biography of Victorian novelist and poet George Meredith was also well received. In this volume, he recounted numerous anecdotes about Meredith, portraying him vividly as a person as well as an author: "The reader lays the book down with the feeling that a great author has become one of his close neighbors," wrote G. F. Whicher in the New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review. The critical portions of the book were also praised, though some found the writing careless. But the New Yorker critic noted Sassoon's "fresh and lively literary criticism," and the reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement declared that "Mr. Sassoon gives us a poet's estimate, considered with intensity of insight, skilfully shaped as biography, and written with certainty of style."

    In 1957 Sassoon became a convert to Catholicism, though for some time before his conversion, his spiritual concerns had been the predominant subject of his writing. These later religious poems are usually considered markedly inferior to those written between 1917 and 1920. Yet Sequences (published shortly before his conversion) has been praised by some critics. Derek Stanford, in Books and Bookmen, claimed that "the poems in Sequences constitute some of the most impressive religious poetry of this century."

    Speaking of Sassoon's war poetry in a 1981 issue of the Spectator, P. J. Kavanagh claimed that "today they ring as true as they ever did; it is difficult to see how they could be better." Looking back over Sassoon's long literary career, Peter Levi wrote in Poetry Review: "One can experience in his poetry the slow, restless ripening of a very great talent; its magnitude has not yet been recognised.... He is one of the few poets of his generation we are really unable to do without."
    *****************************************

    By any true standard, definitely one of the top five greatest war poets that has ever inked a verse, IMHO..-Tyr
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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    By Starlight-20 Titles From 20 Friends

    By Connie Marcum Wong.




    By Starlight

    How proud stands the willow
    in silhouette of twilight skies.
    The willow never weeps alone,
    tears of joy stream down cheeks
    at the footbridge where she
    touched the water, where
    Moonbeams dance
    In the land beneath falling stars,**
    In the land of purple thunder as
    Lightning strikes in an interlude to a
    Fleeting rainstorm revealing
    Hidden beauty in moon glow.

    O, how heavenly!

    A Rendezvous, echoing of ethereal eyes
    In a magical stairway to the stars...
    Whisper me a song, my love, a soul song.
    She dreams of sentient stars forged by fire
    In universal streams of light as she
    Gazes wistfully heaven bound.

    7-19-19

    *Names of the poets whose titles are
    incorporated into my poem:

    Proud Stands the Willow by CayCay Jennings
    Silhouette by Paul Callus
    The Willow Never Weeps Alone by Sandra Adams
    At the Footbridge by Jan Allison
    She Touched the Water by Richard Lamoureux
    Moon Beams Dance by Gershon Wolf
    In the Land Beneath Falling Stars by Robert Lindley
    The Land of Purple Thunder by Mike Gentile
    Lightning Strikes by Kim Rodrigues
    Fleeting Rainstorm by Vijay Pandit
    Hidden Beauty By John Fleming
    In Moon Glow by Andrea Dietrich
    O, how heavenly by Dear Heart
    A Rendezvous by Kurt Ravidas
    Echoing of Ethereal Eyes by Winged Warrior
    Stairway to the Stars by Carolyn Devonshire
    Whisper Me a Song, My Love by Victor Buhagiar
    Soul Song by Greg Barden
    Forged by Fire by Eve Roper
    Streams of Light by Caren Krutsinger


    20 titles from 20 friends Poetry Contest ~Second Place~
    Sponsored by: Richard Lamoureux


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

    This poem composed by my dear friend Connie won 2nd place in the contest..
    I wished I had entered my poem but the things we miss in life due to our decisions are legion..---Tyr
    18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

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