Carl Sandburg - Joy

If you've ever thought about fog as coming in on "little cat feet," chances are, you've read Carl Sandburg's poetry. He won two Pulitzer prizes, and lived in Michigan for a short time with his wife and three children.

Joy

Let a joy keep you.
Reach out your hands
And take it when it runs by,
As the Apache dancer
Clutches his woman.
I have seen them
Live long and laugh loud,
Sent on singing, singing,
Smashed to the heart
Under the ribs
With a terrible love.
Joy always,
Joy everywhere—
Let joy kill you!
Keep away from the little deaths.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet CI

For the last day of National Poetry Month, we give you a sonnet by one of the world's most famous poets and playwrights, William Shakespeare.

Sonnet CI

O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
"Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermix'd"?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

Henry Lawson - The Things We Dare Not Tell

Henry Lawson is an Australian poet, writer, and balladist, often called Australia's best.

The Things We Dare Not Tell

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the sun's still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say we're doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell.

There's the old love wronged ere the new was won, there's the light of long ago;
There's the cruel lie that we suffer for, and the public must not know.
So we go through life with a ghastly mask, and we're doing fairly well,
While they break our hearts, oh, they kill our hearts! do the things we must not tell.

We see but pride in a selfish breast, while a heart is breaking there;
Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all men's hearts lay bare!
We live and share the living lie, we are doing very well,
While they eat our hearts as the years go by, do the things we dare not tell.

We bow us down to a dusty shrine, or a temple in the East,
Or we stand and drink to the world-old creed, with the coffins at the feast;
We fight it down, and we live it down, or we bear it bravely well,
But the best men die of a broken heart for the things they cannot tell.

George Santayana - O World, Thou Choosest Not

Whether you know it or not, you've probably heard of George Santayana - or at least, one of his often-misquoted aphorisms: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

He was a Spanish citizen and American man of letters, as well as a poet and essayist.

O World, thou choosest not

O world, thou choosest not the better part!

It is not wisdom to be only wise,

And on the inward vision close the eyes,

But it is wisdom to believe the heart.

Columbus found a world, and had no chart,

Save one that faith deciphered in the skies;

To trust the soul’s invincible surmise

Was all his science and his only art.

Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine

That lights the pathway but one step ahead

Across a void of mystery and dread.

Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine

By which alone the mortal heart is led

Unto the thinking of the thought divine.

Percy Bysshe Shelley - Love's Philosophy

A Romantic-era poet and playwright, Percy Bysshe Shelley took Mary Shelley (of Frankenstein fame) as his second wife, after leaving his first wife and child.

Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle—
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdain'd its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea—
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

Oscar Wilde - Italia

Author of plays and poems both sensational and devotional, Oscar Wilde is likely best-known for his novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray," about a vain young man and the lengths he goes to to enjoy the hedonist's life. Dorian Gray is the only published novel by Wilde.

Italia

Italia! thou art fallen, though with sheen

Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride

From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide!

Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen

Because rich gold in every town is seen,

And on thy sapphire lake in tossing pride

Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride

Beneath one flag of red and white and green.

O Fair and Strong! O Strong and Fair in vain!

Look southward where Rome’s desecrated town

Lies mourning for her God-anointed King!

Look heaven-ward! shall God allow this thing?

Nay! but some flame-girt Raphael shall come down,

And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain.

VENICE.

The Picture of Dorian Gray
Fic Wilde WCV

The works; including poems, novels, plays, essays, fairy tales and dialogues
820.8 W WAM

Poems and fairy tales of Oscar Wilde
820.8 W WDB

Happy Prince; the complete fairy stories of Oscar Wilde
JFic Wilde WMB

Christina Rossetti - Song

Yesterday we featured pre-Raphaelite artist and poet Dante Rossetti. Today, we're looking at a poem from his sister, Christina Rossetti, known for her love poems and often quoted (in episodes of Doctor Who, the Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and Dark Shadows).

Song

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain;
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

Dante Rossetti - The Sea-Limits

A painter, poet, and illustrator born in London, Dante Gabriel Rossetti is known for his portraits and his famous sister - poet Christina Rossetti.

The Sea-Limits

Consider the sea’s listless chime:
Time’s self it is, made audible,—
The murmur of the earth’s own shell.
Secret continuance sublime
Is the sea’s end: our sight may pass
No furlong farther. Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.

No quiet, which is death’s,—it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,
Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world’s heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
Grey and not known, along its path.

Listen alone beside the sea,
Listen alone among the woods;
Those voices of twin solitudes
Shall have one sound alike to thee:
Hark where the murmurs of thronged men
Surge and sink back and surge again,—
Still the one voice of wave and tree.

Gather a shell from the strown beach
And listen at its lips: they sigh
The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea’s speech
And all mankind is thus at heart
Not anything but what thou art:
And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each.

Rudyard Kipling - Mowgli's Brothers

Author of famous stories like The Jungle Book and Just So Stories. Here's a poem from the original Jungle Book, where you'll also find the classic story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

Mowgli's Brothers

Now Chil the Kite brings home the night
That Mang the Bat sets free,
The herds are shut in byre and hut,
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and tush and claw.
Oh, hear the call! Good hunting all
That keep the Jungle Law!


Kipling: A selection of his stories and poems 820.8 K WCV WMB WDB WAM

The Jungle Book JFic Kipling WMB WAM

Robert Browning - Meeting at Night

While we presented this poet's wife - Elizabeth Barrett Browning - earlier this month, we now offer one of Robert Browning's love poems. Known more for dramatic monologues than for poetry during his life, we now know him as being partially responsible for/the subject of his wife's sonnet number 43, included in the "Sonnets from the Portuguese" collection.

Meeting at Night

I

The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed in the slushy sand.

II

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Elizabeth Stoddard - A Summer Night

A poet, writer, and something of freedom fighter, Elizabeth Stoddard was certainly prolific. While her novels tended to mesh romance with the quest for equality between a woman's needs, desires, and social standing and taboos, her poetry was almost always lyrical.

A Summer Night

I FEEL the breath of the summer night,
Aromatic fire:
The trees, the vines, the flowers are astir
With tender desire.

The white moths flutter about the lamp,
Enamoured with light;
And a thousand creatures softly sing
A song to the night!

But I am alone, and how can I sing
Praises to thee?
Come, Night! unveil the beautiful soul
That waiteth for me.

Anne Brontë /Acton Bell - A Reminiscence

Finally, a poem by the youngest of least known of the Brontë sisters, Anne, who wrote poetry under the pen name "Acton Bell."

A Reminiscence

Yes, thou art gone ! and never more
Thy sunny smile shall gladden me ;
But I may pass the old church door,
And pace the floor that covers thee.

May stand upon the cold, damp stone,
And think that, frozen, lies below
The lightest heart that I have known,
The kindest I shall ever know.

Yet, though I cannot see thee more,
'Tis still a comfort to have seen ;
And though thy transient life is o'er,
'Tis sweet to think that thou hast been ;

To think a soul so near divine,
Within a form so angel fair,
United to a heart like thine,
Has gladdened once our humble sphere.

Charlotte Brontë - Speak of the North!

Continuing from Saturday's poem by Emily Brontë, here is a selection by her sister, Charlotte.

Speak of the North!

Speak of the North! A lonely moor
Silent and dark and tractless swells,
The waves of some wild streamlet pour
Hurriedly through its ferny dells.

Profoundly still the twilight air,
Lifeless the landscape; so we deem
Till like a phantom gliding near
A stag bends down to drink the stream.

And far away a mountain zone,
A cold, white waste of snow-drifts lies,
And one star, large and soft and lone,
Silently lights the unclouded skies.

Emily Brontë - 'Tis Moonlight

The Brontë sisters are best known for their now-classic novels, like Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. All three sisters wrote as poets first, but found little success writing under pseudonyms, and so, returned to prose.

'Tis Moonlight

'Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
All soft and still and fair;
The solemn hour of midnight
Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,

But most where trees are sending
Their breezy boughs on high,
Or stooping low are lending
A shelter from the sky.

And there in those wild bowers
A lovely form is laid;
Green grass and dew-steeped flowers
Wave gently round her head.

Amy Lowell - Solitaire

Amy Lowell was an Imagist poet of the late 19th century, and the early 1900s. A socialite who was not permitted to attend college, she read, wrote, and collected books to make up for her lack of formal education.

Solitaire

WHEN night drifts along the streets of the city,
And sifts down between the uneven roofs,
My mind begins to peek and peer.
It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,
And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples,
Amid the broken flutings of white pillars.
It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,
And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.
How light and laughing my mind is,
When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles,
And the city is still!

Ambrose Bierce - The Bride

Ambrose Bierce is best known for his short stories, nearly all of which took place during the American Civil War.
He was also given the nickname "Bitter Bierce" due to his biting, critical wit and satirical sense of humor that led to the publication of "The Devil's Dictionary," featuring definitions like: "ADDER, n. A species of snake. So called from its habit of adding funeral outlays to the other expenses of living."

The Bride

“YOU know, my friends, with what a brave carouse
I made a second marriage in my house,—
Divorced old barren Reason from my bed
And took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse.”

So sang the Lord of Poets. In a gleam
Of light that made her like an angel seem,
The Daughter of the Vine said: “I myself
Am Reason, and the Other was a Dream.”

William Carlos Williams - The Shadow

An American poet who was also a pediatrician, William Carlos Williams was well known for his poems in the Imagism and modernism styles.

The Shadow

SOFT as the bed in the earth
Where a stone has lain—
So soft, so smooth and so cool,
Spring closes me in
With her arms and her hands.

Rich as the smell
Of new earth on a stone,
That has lain, breathing
The damp through its pores—
Spring closes me in
With her blossomy hair;
Brings dark to my eyes.

William Cullen Bryant - I Broke the Spell That Held Me Long

While William Cullen Bryant is not immediately known by name, he was an American Romantic poet and the longtime editor of the New York Evening Post.

I Broke the Spell That Held Me Long

I broke the spell that held me long,
The dear, dear witchery of song.
I said, the poet's idle lore
Shall waste my prime of years no more,
For Poetry, though heavenly born,
Consorts with poverty and scorn.

I broke the spell, nor deemed its power
Could fetter me another hour.
Ah, thoughtless! how could I forget
Its causes were around me yet?
For wheresoe'er I looked, the while,
Was nature's everlasting smile.

Still came and lingered on my sight
Of flowers and streams the bloom and light,
And glory of the stars and sun;
And these and poetry are one.
They, ere the world had held me long,
Recalled me to the love of song.

Happy Easter!

Robert Herrick was a London poet, best known for the opening stanza of "To the Virgins, to Make Much of the Time:"

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

Today, we present his poem "Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve," in honor of the holiday.

Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve - Robert Herrick

Down with the rosemary and bays,
Down with the misletoe;
Instead of holly, now up-raise
The greener box, for show.

The holly hitherto did sway;
Let box now domineer,
Until the dancing Easter-day,
Or Easter's eve appear.

Then youthful box, which now hath grace
Your houses to renew,
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped yew.

When yew is out, then birch comes in,
And many flowers beside,
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin,
To honour Whitsuntide.

Green rushes then, and sweetest bents,
With cooler oaken boughs,
Come in for comely ornaments,
To re-adorn the house.
Thus times do shift; each thing his turn does hold;
New things succeed, as former things grow old.

William Blake - To the Evening Star

William Blake was a British poet and artist of the Romantic Age. While he was mostly unknown during his lifetime (and only traveled outside of London once), he's now become one of the best-known poets of the time period.

To the Evening Star

Thou fair-haired angel of the evening,
Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves, and while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wing sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares through the dun forest.
The fleeces of our flocks are covered with
Thy sacred dew; protect with them with thine influence.