English Poetry

DYING.

The sun kept setting, setting still;
No hue of afternoon
Upon the village I perceived, --
From house to house 't was noon.

The dusk kept dropping, dropping still;
No dew upon the grass,
But only on my forehead stopped,
And wandered in my face.

My feet kept drowsing, drowsing still,
My fingers were awake;
Yet why so little sound myself
Unto my seeming make?

How well I knew the light before!
I could not see it now.
'T is dying, I am doing; but
I'm not afraid to know.

- Emily Dickinson



I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, -- the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
- Emily Dickinson





Tell All The Truth


Tell all the truth but tell it slant,
Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth's superb surprise;

As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.

Emily Dickinson

Nice collection, Sh ( hope it is ok if I address you this way)

Hold You In My Smile

Sweet moment, stay with me,
and pray do not flee so soon,
Let me enjoy the bliss of that
first kiss beneath the moon.
I wish to cradle this feeling,
that has only just been found,
A feeling that has unexpectedly
turned my world around.
Do not depart, Oh please remain
within my heart awhile,
So that I can savour you once more,
and hold you in my smile.

Ernestine Northover

Death Sets A Thing Of Significant

The eye had hurried by,
Except a perished creature
Entreat us tenderly

To ponder little workmanships
In crayon or in wool,
With "This was last her fingers did,"
Industrious until

The thimble weighed too heavy,
The stitches stopped themselves,
And then 't was put among the dust
Upon the closet shelves.

A book I have, a friend gave,
Whose pencil, here and there,
Had notched the place that pleased him,--
At rest his fingers are.

Now, when I read, I read not,
For interrupting tears
Obliterate the etchings
Too costly for repairs.
-Emily D



A long, long sleep, a famous sleep
That makes no show for dawn
By strech of limb or stir of lid, --
An independent one.

Was ever idleness like this?
Within a hut of stone
To bask the centuries away
Nor once look up for noon?
- Emily D


I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable, and then
There interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
I could not see to see.

-Emily D

love this one....
I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.

And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb

And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead, again.
Then space began to toll

As all the heavens were a bell,
And being, but an ear,
And I and Silence some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here.
-Emily D



Thx. Emily D is good.. and anything is fine.

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth


The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

To make One's Toilette—after Death

To make One's Toilette—after Death
Has made the Toilette cool
Of only Taste we cared to please
Is difficult, and still—

That's easier—than Braid the Hair—
And make the Bodice gay—
When eyes that fondled it are wrenched
By Decalogues—away—

Emily Dickinson

( I think am obsessed about ED's work )

She was a great poet. Seems you are obsessed, but it is quite understandable. Sometimes we do tend to have a fixation. Could I ask you why? Any parallels?

But you do sign off with a Frost verse.

"Between Us Now"

Between us now and here -
Two thrown together
Who are not wont to wear
Life's flushest feather -
Who see the scenes slide past,
The daytimes dimming fast,
Let there be truth at last,
Even if despair.

So thoroughly and long
Have you now known me,
So real in faith and strong
Have I now shown me,
That nothing needs disguise
Further in any wise,
Or asks or justifies
A guarded tongue.

Face unto face, then, say,
Eyes mine own meeting,
Is your heart far away,
Or with mine beating?
When false things are brought low,
And swift things have grown slow,
Feigning like froth shall go,
Faith be for aye.

Thomas Hardy

"Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet." Plato

Great work Catch and Shiv..
I am a rare visitor as perhaps Mandrake (Suhas) knows
I love POETRY ..

I too LOVE ED poems...what a way to share them here

One of my fav...

In Vain.

I CANNOT live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf

The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup

Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.

I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down, --
You could not.

And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus',
That new grace

Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.

They'd judge us -- how?
For you served Heaven, you know,
Or sought to;
I could not,

Because you saturated sight,
And I had no more eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise.

And were you lost, I would be,
Though my name
Rang loudest
On the heavenly fame.

And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.

So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!




(May be only some one who has Loved and lost would understand this better...)

One more



Heart, we will forget him!

Heart, we will forget him!
You an I, tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.

When you have done, pray tell me
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you're lagging.
I may remember him!

Before I got my eye put out

Before I got my eye put out
I liked as well to see --
As other Creatures, that have Eyes
And know no other way --

But were it told to me -- Today --
That I might have the sky
For mine -- I tell you that my Heart
Would split, for size of me --

The Meadows -- mine --
The Mountains -- mine --
All Forests -- Stintless Stars --
As much of Noon as I could take
Between my finite eyes --

The Motions of the Dipping Birds --
The Morning's Amber Road --
For mine -- to look at when I liked --
The News would strike me dead --

So safer -- guess -- with just my soul
Upon the Window pane --
Where other Creatures put their eyes --
Incautious -- of the Sun --

Welcome Dimps,
Nice poems. For most of us, the love of poetry is embedded somewhere within the depths of our thoughts. When we give essence to our thoughts, they become words. One of the hardest things in life is having words in our hearts that one can't utter. At the least, we can reflect & recycle what the great poets have left behind for us.
Catch

Though I could say that i fully understand the physical trauma & mental stress that you are undergoing, in fact nobody can. I can't say a prayer for you, being what I am. But from one human being to another, I wish you good health & sincerely hope & wish that you recover the full power of your vision. This is from the bottom of my heart. I can only say 'Your mind is your source of imagination . . .The eyes envy the mind."

I do not wish to die -
There is such contingent beauty in life:
The open window on summer mornings
Looking out on gardens and green things growing,
The shadowy cups of rose flowering to themselves-
Images of time and eternity-
Silence in the garden and felt along the walls.
The room is suddenly filled with sun,
Like a sacrament one can never be
Sufficiently thankful for. Door ajar,
The eye reaches across from one
Open window to another, eye to eye,
And then the healing spaces of the sky ......
- Alfred Leslie Rowse, 1903-