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Earth
What is poetry? If someone were to ask me that question, I would tell them that I am not qualified to answer. Instead, I would ask them to read this poem:A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no...
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"Where All The People's Brains Are Turned The Wrong Way"
I don't know exactly what it is, but there is something beguiling and lovely about the following poem. Some may find it too sentimental. Others may think that there is not much to it. But I am very...
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Three Variations On A Theme, And An Echo
Robert Louis Stevenson suffered from ill-health for much of his short life. Nevertheless, he usually remained in good spirits. But he knew what he was up against. Thus, it is not surprising that, on...
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"Untroubling, And Untroubled Where I Lie, The Grass Below -- Above The...
The following poem is perhaps John Clare's best-known poem. This is ironic, because it is not really typical of his poetry. Yet there is no gainsaying its emotional impact.I am -- yet what I am, none...
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Prisoners
I readily admit that I cannot come up with a unifying theme that brilliantly ties together all of the following poems. I have encountered them by chance over the years, and now they have come to be...
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The Window
"Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is." This statement has appeared here before, but it is one that is worth revisiting on a regular basis. Our "modern" world is entirely at odds with...
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Trees And Epitaphs
This afternoon I walked down a green tunnel of trees. Is there anything lovelier than to stand beneath a tree in summer looking up through the interlaced leaves into a blue sky? Especially if the...
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How To Live, Part Twenty-One: "He Never Expected Much"
My previous post contained five epitaphs written by Thomas Hardy. I suggested that two of them -- "A Placid Man's Epitaph" and "Epitaph" (which begins: "I never cared for Life: Life cared for me") --...
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"That Yew-Tree's Shade"
I haven't done the research, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone has written a book (or at least a long essay) about yew trees in churchyards in English literature. The association between yews and...
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"All Poetry Is In A Sense Love-Poetry"
John Clare and Edward Thomas were both inveterate ramblers of the countryside. Hence, it is not surprising that their poetic paths sometimes cross. Stone PitThe passing...
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Enchanted Or Disenchanted?
Do we live in a disenchanted World, a World without enchantment? When I consider the current predominance of scientific "explanations"of human nature and of utopian political agendas, I tend to think...
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"Absence Ending"
Yesterday the rain returned after a 35-day absence. We keep track of such things in this part of the world. Yet, as much as we complain about our dampness, the complaining is good-natured. As I have...
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Filling In The Blanks
Over the past month or so, I have been running into poetic epitaphs by happenstance. In a recent post, I quoted Edward Thomas: "all poetry is in a sense love-poetry." I agree. But I also think that...
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How To Win Friends And Influence People. Or Not.
This post is not misanthropic. Really. Rather, it is about sociability and conviviality.Let me be clear: sociability and conviviality are wonderful qualities. Who wouldn't wish to be sociable and...
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A Proper Place, Part Four: "The Whole Of You Has Been Transformed Into Feeling"
I am easily pleased. For instance, I am always delighted when, having read something that gave me pause, I thereafter stumble upon something else in the same vein. A couple of weeks ago, I read this:...
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Enchanted Or Disenchanted, Part Two: "Humanly Alive"
In a recent post, I used C. P. Cavafy's poem "Ionic" to raise the question whether we live in a disenchanted world. I am not suggesting that, like Yeats, we go searching for fairies in the gloaming....
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Perspective, Part Ten: "O Little Waking Hour Of Life Out Of Sleep!"
Cosmic facts and theories leave me cold. My interest is not piqued when I hear a scientist proclaim in wonder that some heavenly body in the universe is x billion light years away from Earth or that...
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Perspective, Part Eleven: "His Heart Is Tranquil, From It Springs A Dreamy...
Perhaps I am deluding myself -- or whistling past the graveyard -- but I believe that, apart from aching joints, growing old has its compensations. For instance, humanity's fixations and follies (my...
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"In Dispraise Of The Moon"
One usually expects poets to praise the moon, to compose paeans to its mystery and its magic, and to use it to evoke gods and goddesses and spirits. Thus, the following poems may come as a surprise....
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"The Trees Around Are For You, The Whole Of The Wideness Of Night Is For You"
Mary Coleridge's "In Dispraise of the Moon," which appeared in my previous post, describes the moon as follows:She wakes her dim, uncoloured, voiceless hosts,Ghost of the Sun, herself the sun of...
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