Here's a bit of a poem and some belated links about the Scottish poet, whose birthday has been celebrated with annual dinners for over two hundred years.

From Tam o'Shanter

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You sieze the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white--then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.--
Nae man can tether time or tide...

Links:

The complete songs of Robert Burns
Robert Burns supper recipes
kids' activities
The Story of Robert Burns
Robert Burns movie in the works, with Gerard Butler as Burns.
A nice surreal version of Burns by Calum Colvin

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Friday, January 22, 2010

Poems by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) today. Amor Mundi reminds me of E.A. Poe, because it sends a shiver down my spine. Rossetti knows creepy.

Amor Mundi
By Christina Rossetti

“Oh where are you going with your love-locks flowing
  On the west wind blowing along this valley track?”
“The downhill path is easy, come with me an it please ye,
  We shall escape the uphill by never turning back.”

So they two went together in glowing August weather,
  The honey-breathing heather lay to their left and right;
And dear she was to dote on, her swift feet seemed to float on
  The air like soft twin pigeons too sportive to alight.

“Oh what is that in heaven where gray cloud-flakes are seven,
  Where blackest clouds hang riven just at the rainy skirt?”
“Oh that’s a meteor sent us, a message dumb, portentous,
  An undeciphered solemn signal of help or hurt.”

“Oh what is that glides quickly where velvet flowers grow thickly,
  Their scent comes rich and sickly?”­“A scaled and hooded worm.”
“Oh what’s that in the hollow, so pale I quake to follow?”
  “Oh that’s a thin dead body which waits the eternal term.”

“Turn again, O my sweetest,­turn again, false and fleetest:
  This beaten way thou beatest I fear is hell’s own track.”
“Nay, too steep for hill-mounting; nay, too late for cost-counting:
  This downhill path is easy, but there’s no turning back.”

Oh, what's that in the hollow...?
by Edward Robert Hughes, circa 1895

~~~~~~~~

I thought about Robert Frost when I read these poems, thinking that Frost liked taking the harder path (the one less traveled) and that Rossetti liked the harder one as well (the one up-hill). But then I reread The Road Not Taken and noticed that the road less traveled wasn't harder. We tend to think of it that way because that makes it meaningful for us. Huh.

Up-Hill
by Christina Rossetti

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
  Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
  From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
  A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
  You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
  Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when 'ust in sight?
  They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
  Of labor you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
  Yea, beds for all who come.

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Friday, January 15, 2010

A couple of children's books of poetry. They aren't new, but they were new to me. John Updike's A Child's Calendar has poems for every month. I love his descriptions of nature in particular. J. Patrick Lewis' book, below, has poems to go with famous monuments, such as the Great Wall of China and the Statue of Liberty. I liked how his poems "echoed" the buildings in some way.

From A Child's Calendar
Poems by John Updike
Illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman

January

The days are short,
  The sun a spark
Hung thin between
  The dark and dark.

...

The river is
  A frozen place
Held still beneath
  The trees' black lace.

~~~~~~~~

photo by Benh Lieu Song

From Monumental Verses
by J. Patrick Lewis

Arc de Triomphe
Date: Built 1806-1836

Triumphal Roman arcs
Were magic doors
For ancient soldiers who,
Surviving wars,
Resumed their lives
As ordinary men
By merely passing through
Them once again...

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Friday, January 8, 2010

Have you heard the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice? They were very much in love, but Eurydice stepped on a poisonous snake and came to a sad end. Orpheus, a magnificent musician, played songs about his loss that were so sweet, so poignant, that he was given a chance to bring Eurydice back from the Underworld.

by Auguste Rodin

Orpheus was forbidden to look back at Eurydice while he led her out of the Underworld -- if he turned to look, she would be lost to him forever. Would you have looked?
Orpheus couldn't help himself. He did not live much longer after losing Eurydice the second time, and Zeus laid his lyre among the stars.

Lyra, the constellation of the lyre. The brightest star is Vega, which is the second brightest star of the northern hemisphere.

Many poets and artists have been inspired by these tragic lovers. For instance, Rainier Maria Rilke wrote Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes. (translated from German by Stephen Cohn, 1997):

…[Orpheus] had to tell himself: They follow still.
He spoke the words aloud and heard them fade.
How soundlessly they moved! The silence gnawed
At him. Although he knew one backward glance
Must utterly destroy the whole design
So nearly now achieved, he ached, he longed
At last to halt, to turn and look behind
And in the distance see those other two
Who followed but who stayed so strangely mute:
The God of distant journeys, God of Messages,
Whose eyes were bright beneath the dusty hood,
His slender baton held in front of him
And at his feet the ever-beating wings;
Beside him, held at his left hand, walked she.

~~~~~~~~

I read about Sue Hubbard's Eurydice recently -- it was a poem written specifically to be read at the Waterloo underpass in England.

Apparently, Eurydice was well-loved by travellers and passers-by, but it was painted over. There is a campaign to bring it back.

It's a lovely poem. I hope this story has a happy ending.

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First Friday of 2010!

Friday, January 1, 2010

I discovered this poem on Liz Garton Scanlon's blog. It reminds me of this quote by Walt Whitman:

All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.

by TAY

Where Everything Is Music
by Jelaluddin Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne

Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world's harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can't see.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

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