A Pause for Poetry

I've recently been enjoying again the poems of Lizette Woodworth Reese. The poems below include some that I haven't shared in my earlier posts about her.

              The Plowman

The delicate gray trees stand up

    There by the old fenced ways;

One or two are crimson-tipped,

    And soon will start to blaze.

The plowman follows, as of yore,

   Along the furrows cold,

Homeric shape against the boughs;

   Sharp is the air with mold.

The sweating horses heave and strain;

   The crows with thick, high note

Break black across the windless land,

   Fade off and are remote.

Oh, new days, yet long known and old!

   Lo, as we look about,

This immemorial act of faith,

   That takes the heart from doubt!

Kingdoms decay and creeds are not,

   Yet still the plowman goes

Down the spring fields, so he may make

   Ready for him that sows.

               In Winter

I dig amongst the roots of life,

And hear the rushing of the sap

That soon in silken white will wrap

The sagged pear bough. I hear the strife

Of change with change: of riot that goes

Rebellious; last, of law and pain;

Each battling to restore the lane

Its lost, hereditary rose.

The dwindled hearth, and the spent mould

A double flowering will yield;--

New loveliness for house, for field,

And with it the ghost of the old. 

                          Reparation

                         (In Autumn)

So sharp a tooth has gnawed their gold,

Eaten it in holes from foot to crown,

The wayside bough hangs a dulled brown,

And the stooped garden's looks are cold.

Is the old robbery not done?

Must they who live by what is fair,

Go hungry for it, and go bare

Down a pale, disillusioned sun?

As in a glass, we see and learn

Darkly. No tooth, in bough and mould

Can gnaw their secret, other gold;

Something escapes, that will return.

For what is fair is permanent,

And nought can rob us of our right.

Shall we not watch the road blow white,

And the blue hyacinth choke in scent?

                   Immortality

Battles nor songs can from oblivion save,

   But Fame upon a white deed loves to build;

From out that cup of water Sidney gave,

   Not one drop has been spilled.

                  Heroism

Whether we climb, whether we plod,

   Space for one task the scant years lend--

To choose some path that leads to God,

   And keep it to the end.

            Growth

I climb that was a clod;

   I run whose steps were slow;

I reap the very wheat of God

   That once had none to sow.

Is Joy a lamp outblown?

   Truth out of grasping set?

But nay, for Laughter is mine own;

   I knock and answer get.

Nor is the last word said;

   Nor is the battle done;

Somewhat of glory and of dread

   Remains for set of sun.

For I have scattered seed

   Shall ripen at the end;

Old Age holds more than I shall need,

   Death more than I can spend.

Today, as it happens, is Candlemas. So I will post a poem I posted before by Reese for Candlemas.

     A Song for Candlemas

There’s never a rose upon the bush,
And never a bud on any tree;
In wood and field nor hint nor sign
Of one green thing for you or me.
Come in, come in, sweet love of mine,
And let the bitter weather be!

Coated with ice the garden wall;
The river reeds are stark and still;
The wind goes plunging to the sea,
And last week’s flakes the hollows fill.
Come in, come in, sweet love, to me,
And let the year blow as it will!

When joy alights

When joy alights like a bird on a fence post
arrested in fragile flight
do not frighten her away.

When she comes in the clutch of the heart
at the scent of the evening air
instinct with life and memory,
in the grey-blue of the sky at twilight,
in the sweep of the pine tree to the sky,

Do not say,
There are depths to be plumbed,
There are knots to be worried at.
I have no time for this.

Nor listen to the more insidious voice that lectures,
Death and disease roam the streets.
Pitiless murder with bloody sword unsheathed stalks all the ways of the world,
and beauty and innocence fall before him.
What right have I to be happy?

Rather stand still,
And say,

It is a gift.

Safe in God's hands

The world is a discouraging place. Herewith, for encouragement, a quotation from Lizette Woodworth Reese:

Oh, unforgotten things,
Gone out of all the springs;
The quest, the dream, the creed!
Gone out of all the lands,
And yet safe in God's hands;--
For shall the dull herbs live again,
And not the sons of men?

From "Herbs" by Lizette Woodworth Reese.

This one, also:

      Wild Geese

THE sun blown out;

The dusk about:

Fence, roof, tree — here or there,

Wedged fast in the drab air;

A pool vacant with sky,

That stares up like an eye.

Nothing can happen. All is done —

The quest to fare,

The race to run —

The house sodden with years,

And bare

Even of tears.

A cry!

From out the hostelries of sky,

And down the gray wind blown;

Rude, innocent, alone.

Now, in the west, long sere,

An orange thread, the length of spear;

It glows;

It grows;

The flagons of the air

Drip color everywhere:

The village — fence, roof, tree —

From the lapsed dusk pulls free,

And shows

A rich, still, unforgotten place;

Each window square,

Yellow for yellow renders back;

The pool puts off its foolish face;

The wagon track

Crooks past lank garden-plot,

To Rome, to Camelot.

A cry!

See also here. 

More from Lizette Woodworth Reese

I finally got my copy of Lizette Woodworth Reese's Selected Poems through interlibrary loan. [Digression concerning silly bureaucracy: I got no notification that my ILL book was in at the branch where I'd chosen to pick it up. Eventually I called the main library and asked. The extremely nice and helpful reference librarian informed me apologetically that it had been sitting and waiting for me at the branch for so long that it might have already been sent back to its home library. The reason that I had not been notified? I had set up notifications by telephone rather than e-mail. As it turns out, ILL notifications go out only by e-mail. So if you don't have e-mail notifications enabled, in effect you can't really use the interlibrary loan service, because your requested books will just be sent back without your knowing they ever arrived. The reference librarian quite agreed that this is a senseless procedure. When I went to pick up the book and was musing with the librarian at the branch, however, she cheerfully advanced the hypothesis that perhaps telephone notifications aren't sent on ILL books because they are sometimes unreliable. You know, sometimes people's numbers have been disconnected. Um, I see, so sending no notification at all is preferable to the unreliability of telephone? Makes sense to me. Anyway, I rescued it before it was sent back to its home library. End of digression.]

The book has many real gems, and I ought to write up a longer appreciation some time. Here is one:

                                                     Immortality

BATTLES nor songs can from oblivion save,
But Fame upon a white deed loves to build:
From out that cup of water Sidney gave,
Not one drop has been spilled.

Here is another:

                                     Wild Geese
The sun blown out;
The dusk about:
Fence, roof, tree--here or there,
Wedged fast in the drab air;
A pool vacant with sky,
That stares up like an eye.

Nothing can happen. All is done--
The quest to fare,
The race to run--
The house sodden with years,
And bare
Even of tears.

A cry!
From out the hostelries of sky,
And down the gray wind blown;
Rude, innocent, alone.

Now, in the west, long sere,
An orange thread, the length of spear;
It glows;
It grows;
The flagons of the air
Drip color everywhere:
The village--fence, roof, tree--
From the lapsed dusk pulls free,
And shows
A rich, still, unforgotten place;
Each window square,
Yellow for yellow renders back;
The pool puts off its foolish face;
The wagon track
Crooks past lank garden-plot,
To Rome, to Camelot.

A cry!

One of the best things in the book is a single stanza of a poem that is otherwise not as strong, the poem "Growth." Here is the stanza, which deserves to stand by itself:

Nor is the last word said;
Nor is the battle done;
Somewhat of glory and of dread
Remains for set of sun.

That one has appeared in my latest post at What's Wrong With the World. The post is on the subject of the glory of lost causes.

"Tears" by Lizette Woodworth Reese

WHEN I consider Life and its few years—
A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun;
A call to battle, and the battle done
Ere the last echo dies within our ears;
A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears;	5
The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat;
The burst of music down an unlistening street,—
I wonder at the idleness of tears.
Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight,
Chieftains, and bards, and keepers of the sheep,	10
By every cup of sorrow that you had,
Loose me from tears, and make me see aright
How each hath back what once he stayed to weep:
Homer his sight, David his little lad! I've just come upon this poet and am much impressed. I intend to look for and read more of her work. Here is another, which I don't fully understand: In Time of Grief Dark, thinned, beside the wall of stone, The box dripped in the air; Its odor through my house was blown Into the chamber there. Remote and yet distinct the scent, The sole thing of the kind, As though one spoke a word half meant That left a sting behind. I knew not Grief would go from me, And naught of it be plain, Except how keen the box can be After a fall of rain. Readers, I admit my ignorance: Why does the box have a strong scent? How is the box related to the speaker's grief? And yet it's a beautiful poem. A Song for Candlemas There’s never a rose upon the bush, And never a bud on any tree; In wood and field nor hint nor sign Of one green thing for you or me. Come in, come in, sweet love of mine, And let the bitter weather be! Coated with ice the garden wall; The river reeds are stark and still; The wind goes plunging to the sea, And last week’s flakes the hollows fill. Come in, come in, sweet love, to me, And let the year blow as it will!

Fragments of encouragement

Things don't really look so good for the United States of America. Need I go into great detail about why? Well, I'm not going to. Too depressing. Nor are readers likely to be in any doubt as to why I happen to be feeling a bit gloomy about our nation just now.

Here are a couple of literary bits that I find encouraging myself and pass on for any encouragement they may provide to readers:

         [The Warden of Shrewsbury College] "I sometimes wonder whether we gain anything by gaining time."
         [Lord Peter Wimsey] "Well--if one leaves letters unanswered long enough, some of them answer themselves. Nobody can prevent the Fall of Troy, but a dull, careful person may manage to smuggle out the Lares and Penates--even at the risk of having the epithet pius tacked to his name."
         "The Universities are always being urged to march in the van of progress."
         "But epic actions are all fought by the rearguard--at Rancevaux and Thermopylae."
          "Very well," said the Warden, laughing, "let us die in our tracks, having accomplished nothing but an epic."

From Gaudy Night, by Dorothy Sayers.

*************************************************

Mind must be the firmer,  heart the more fierce,
Courage the greater, as our strength lessens.
From "The Battle of Maldon," Anglo-Saxon poem

**************************************************

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

’Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest. 

From "The Church's One Foundation" by Samuel J. Stone

 

I tune my instrument at the door

Just thought of this poem today and wanted to post it. (This does not mean that I am ill. The line "I tune my instrument at the door" was just in my mind.)

John Donne, "Hymn to God, my God, in My Sickness"

SINCE I am coming to that Holy room,
Where, with Thy choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made Thy music ; as I come
I tune the instrument here at the door,
And what I must do then, think here before ;

Whilst my physicians by their love are grown
Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie
Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown
That this is my south-west discovery,
Per fretum febris, by these straits to die ;

I joy, that in these straits I see my west ;
For, though those currents yield return to none,
What shall my west hurt me ? As west and east
In all flat maps—and I am one—are one,
So death doth touch the resurrection.

Is the Pacific sea my home ? Or are
The eastern riches ? Is Jerusalem ?
Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar ?
All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them
Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem.

We think that Paradise and Calvary,
Christ's cross and Adam's tree, stood in one place ;
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me ;
As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,
May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace.

So, in His purple wrapp'd, receive me, Lord ;
By these His thorns, give me His other crown ;
And as to others' souls I preach'd Thy word,
Be this my text, my sermon to mine own,
“Therefore that He may raise, the Lord throws down.”

Poem recitation: "Go Down, Death"

Thanks to Eldest Daughter, here is an excellent recitation of a poem I hadn't encountered before--James Weldon Johnson's "Go Down, Death." Recited by Wintley Phipps. (The person who posted it chose to subtitle it in Portuguese. Just ignore that.)