Reading poetry is one of many things I’ve enjoyed during this period of isolation. So on Week 7 of this series, I would like to share with you some poems/excerpts from poems that remind me of the places I’ve visited over the years.
Please check the links to find the full verse for some of the poems I’ve included here.
Kamakura
On Meditation by Milarepa
Rest in a natural way like a small child
Rest like an ocean without waves
Rest within clarity like a candle flame
Rest without self concerns like a human corpse
Rest unmoving like a mountain.
House of Federico Garcia Lorca in Granada, Spain
Sonnet of Sweet Complaint by Federico Garcia Lorca
Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my breath at night.
I am afraid of being on this shore
A branchless trunk, and what I most regret
Is having no flower, pulp, or clay
For the worm of my despair……
The Day is Done by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The day is done
And the darkness
Falls from the wings of night
As a feather is wafted downward
By an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of a village
Gleam through the rain and mist
And a feeling of sadness creeps o’er me
That my soul cannot resist……
When you are Old by William Butler Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Mon Rêve Familier by Paul Verlaine
Je fais souvent ce rêve étrange et pénétrant
D’une femme inconnue et que j’aime et qui m’aime
Et qui n’est, chaque fois, ni tout à fait la même
Ni tout à fait une autre, et m’aime et me comprend.
Car elle me comprend et mon coeur, transparent
Pour elle seule, hélas! cesse d’être un problème
Pour elle seule, et les moiteurs de mon front blême
Elle seule les sais rafraîchir, en pleurant.
Est-elle brune, blonde ou rousse? Je l’ignore
Son nom? Je me souviens qu’il est doux et sonore
Comme ceux des aimés que la vie exila.
Son regard est pareil au regard des statues
Et, pour sa voix, lointaine, et calme, et grave, elle a
L’inflexion des voix chères qui se sont tues.
The Storm is Rising by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The lake’s dark breast
Is all unrest
It heaves with a sob and a sigh
Like a tremulous bird
From its slumber stirred,
The moon is a-tilt in the sky.
From the silent deep
The waters sweep
But faint on cold white stones
And the wavelets fly
With a plaintive cry
O’er the old earth’s bare, bleak bones……
https://www.poemhunter.com/the-rising-of-the-storm/
Invictus by William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed……
*****
Images by TravelswithCharie