h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After resisting the urge to clutter up another poetry thread with some of my persinal favourites; i thought i would start one of my own.

Any gems anyone wants to share are most welcome.
As i bravely go, where i have never gone before; i will start with a brave old favourite.



The Viking Terror

Bitter is the wind tonight,
It tosses the ocean's white hair:
Tonight i fear not the fierce warriors of Norway
Coursing on the Irish sea.

Anonymous (9th century Irish)

translated by kuno Meyer

Welcome, new thread!

As my first favourite, I'll choose the first verse of Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold. Listen to the night-time sea, the shingle, and the eternal note of sadness:

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

The rest is just as good. Go read it!

Jabs

Samuel Barber (American composer @ 1901 - 1981) set "Dover Beach" for baritone and string quartet when he as about 29. I'm told he loved to perform it; he was a baritone. I was listening to it on the radio just this morning -- gorgeous, really.

This one seems timely:

I HEARD A BIRD SING
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember.
"We are nearer to spring
Thank we were in September,"
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.
Oliver Herford

Oops, make that "THAN we were in September."

Good to hear from you again Hstwrd a lovely poem. Jabs thanks!I will read that poem in its entirety - i have it in an anthology.

Just read it, and i must say i have read that poem before, and liked it very much.





This comes to mind:

The Wind

Make out who this is:
formed before the flood,
Powerful creature,
Fleshless and boneless,
Nerveless and bloodless,
Headless and footless,
No older no younger.
Than when he began;
..................
......snip........
He's roaring he's hushed.
He has no manners,
He's savage, he's bold;
..................
.......snip.......
He hurls things about
He pays no damages,
He makes no amends,
And he is blameless.
..................

Anonymous

translated from the Welsh by Joseph P. Clancy

( i will type that i in full )

Hstwd your poem brings to mind one of my all time favoutites:

Christina Georgina Rossetti

A Birthday

MY heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these,
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a daïs of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

Your extracts from the Welsh poem The Wind were astounding, myk. As always, I liked your Christina Rossetti. My favourite Christina Rossetti is a lot darker, though, as many of her best poems are, (I'm a fan) - Jabs.


Because I Could Not Stop For Death

Because I could not stop for death
He kindly stopped for me
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality.

We slowly drove - he knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For his civility

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess - in the ring
We passed the fields of gazing grain
We passed the setting sun

Or rather - he passed us
The dews drew quivering and chill
For only gossamer, my Gown
My tippet - only tulle

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground
The roof was scarcely visible
The cornice - in the Ground

Since then - 'tis centuries - and yet
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity

Emily Dickinson

I'm a fan of irreverent poetry, a masterpiece of which, in my opinion, is the following which I think was by Quentin Blake. I found it in a children's poetry book when I was very young and haven't got the book anymore so I cant check...

Ode to a goldfish.

O
Wet
Pet


To me, poetry cannot get any cleaner, more descriptive or emotional than that. It's the shortest, most complete peom I've ever come across!

Hi RobynI love it
It sums up my relationship with my fish perfectly.

I inherited a pair of goldfish from a friend; he had split with his girlfriend and was threatening
to flush them down the toilet.
(he was joking i think )-anyway i gave them a good home for a couple of years
they swan happylly together everyday and all was well.
I started to notice the bigger slower one, was becoming increasingly lethargic,
falling asleep, not coming for his flakes-having to be encouraged all the time by the smaller more energetic ( younger ? ) fish.
One day i came to inspect their tank and found a dead goldfish floating on the surface.
I was quite saddened, and shocked--it was the small sprightly(kindly)
little bundle of fun and energy. I felt sad to see only one fish and pondered getting a replacement for my one lonely fish-until
A day came where i met an old man, who i was doing some work for. they were a
lovely old couple- both retired and spent alot of their time making thier garden like a an oasis, with the centerpiece a large , deep pond,
teeming with happy little goldfish. I say little, there must have been 30 or more of them following one giant koi carp: it was a lovely site- where-ever he
swam the little shoal eagerly followed in his wake.
I could think of no better home for my remaining goldfish, and i donated him to the
gentleman (he had recieved a few of his fish this way )and watched my little fishy swim off to play with his new friends ( who were a bit apprehensive
at first - but in 10 minutes or so they welcomed him into thier happy little shoal: he looked a happy fish indeed.

And now a happy haiku-i read it in a little book that came with a tiny Japanese zen
water garden i got years ago-found it on the net with copious translations -- it seems very well known. but here is the original from the little book
i just dug out-which i like better than the ones i just found on the net:


The old pond, ah!
_A frog jumps in:
The water's sound.

__Matsuo Bahso
__(1644-1695)

A French classic with a super translation (and a couple of bits from me). One of my favourite favourites:

El Desdichado

Je suis le ténébreux,- le Veuf, - l'inconsolé,
Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie:
Ma seule étoile est morte, et mon luth constellé
Porte le soleil noir de la Mélancolie*.

Dans la nuit du Tombeau, Toi qui m'as consolé,
Rends-moi le Pausilippe et la mer d'Italie,
La fleur qui plaisait tant à mon coeur désolé,
Et la treille où le Pampre à la rose s'allie.

Suis-je Amour ou Phoebus ?.... Lusignan ou Biron** ?
Mon front est rouge encor du baiser de la Reine ;
J'ai rêvé dans la grotte où nage la Sirène...

Et j'ai deux fois vainqueur traversé l'Achéron* :
Modulant tour à tour sur la lyre d'Orphée
Les soupirs de la Sainte et les cris de la Fée.


The Disinherited

I am the dark one, the widower, the inconsolable,
The prince of Aquitaine whose tower is destroyed:
My sole star is dead, and my constellated lute
Bears the black sun of Melancholy.**

In the night of the Tomb, You who consoled me,
Give me back Mount Posilipo and the Italian sea,
The flower my desolate heart liked so much,
And the trellis where the grapevine unites with the rose.

Am I Amor or Phoebus?.... Lusignan or Biron***?
My forehead is still red from the kiss of the queen;
I have dreamed in the grotto where the Mermaid swims...

And twice victorious I have crossed the Acheron*:
Modulating turn by turn on the lyre of Orpheus
The moans of the Saint and the screams of the Fairy.



*River of the dead
** The engraving by Durer - q.v.
*** A pure ideal Lover or a selfish one?

Historical note: Post Baudelaire. Opium, Absinthe and all that.

Ah, absinthe! Where would art be without it?
Really, a wonderful poem, if morose and sepulchral.

I see Robyn and myk are fans of children's poetry anthologies; always a good place to find the short and sweet masterpieces! I first read the Herford above in "Poems Children will sit Still for", a collection I highly recommend to "children" of all ages. Here's another tiny masterpiece from the same.

POEM
I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There's nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began -
I loved my friend.

Langston Hughes

I love the "short and sweet"

First i must apologize to; Matsuo Bashō
-for my terrible spelling.

And this is one of my favourite short and sweet;
which is also on my PS

_It is not growing like a tree
___In bulk, doth make men better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
______A lily of a day,
______Is fairer far in May,
___Although it fall and die that night;
___It was the plant, and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures, life may perfect be.

________Ben Johnson_________

Jabs I just read that Emily Dickinson poem again -
tis as you say "astounding" - it didnt sink in on the first
(or second) reading I like

Why thankyou, myk. Wish I'd written it though.

A seemingly simple poem, yet it's SO much better than I could possibly do, taking each line, taking each verse, and taking the poem as a whole.

Jabs

Yin and yang

The Meeting Of The Waters
by Thomas Moore

There is not in the wide world a valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet
Oh the last rays of feeling and life must depart
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart

Yet it was not that nature had shed o'er the scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green
'Twas not her soft magic of streamlet or hill
Oh No 'twas something more exquisite still
Oh No 'twas something more exquisite still

'Twas that friends, the belov'd of my bosom were near
Who made every scene of enchantment more dear
And who felt how the best charms of nature improve
When we see them reflected from looks that we love
When we see them reflected from looks that we love

Sweet vale of Avoca! How calm could I rest
In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best
Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease
And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace
And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace

Btw The Ben Johnson poem is only an extract (i gave the impression otherwise)

And one last try:: Matsuo Bashō

OK no more cut and paste lol

Matsuo Basho

Interesting use of repetition in the Moore. Looking out at 4 to 8 inches of white stuff, this repetitious poem comes to mind.

"Outdoor Hum"

The more it
SNOWS- tiddely-pom,
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
On
Snowing.

And noboby
KNOWS-tiddely-pom,
How cold my
TOES-tddely-pom
How cold my
TOES-tddely-pom
Are
Growing.

A.A. Milne

(We can't be profound all of the time.)

Now off to see if I can find where he threw the newspaper, Brrr!

myk's poem gives me a strong image of a stuffed-shirt Victorian/Edwardian Irish tenor singing out loud and sentimental by the piano at an exclusive dinner-party, after the meal, as in The Dead, a James Joyce short story which was, ironically, John Huston's last film (a masterpiece).

John Clare wrote this during his stay in the northampton county asylum, where he lived from 1841 to his death in 1864. He first went mad after the smart set in London had taken him up as a curiosity and then dropped him.


I AM

I am. Yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost.

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

Your poem Jabs gives me a strong image on an empty room,
and it evokes what i have read of Samual Beckett.
Here is one like very much.


Samuel Beckett
-------------------------
What Is The Word
----------------------------
folly -
folly for to -
for to -
what is the word -
folly from this -
all this -
folly from all this -
given -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this -
this -
what is the word -
this this -
this this here -
all this this here -
folly given all this -
seeing -
folly seeing all this this here -
for to -
what is the word -
see -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse -
what -
what is the word -
and where -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse what where -
where -
what is the word -
there -
over there -
away over there -
afar -
afar away over there -
afaint -
afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -
seeing all this -
all this this -
all this this here -
folly for to see what -
glimpse -
seem to glimpse -
need to seem to glimpse -
afaint afar away over there what -
folly for to need to seem to glimpse afaint afar away over there what -
what -
what is the word -

what is the word