We present this work in honor of Chhath Puja
.
My soul cries out,
Snared by the beauty
Of the formless one.
As I cry by myself,
Night and day,
Beauty amassed before my eyes
Surpasses numberless moons and suns.
If I look at the clouds in the sky,
I see his beauty afloat;
And I see him walk on the stars
Blazing my heart
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 155th birthday.
The man
I used to meet in the mirror
is no more.
Now I see a wasted face.
It dribbles tears.
We present this work in honor of the 90th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Fire in the heavens, and fire along the hills,
and fire made solid in the flinty stone,
thick-mass’d or scatter’d pebble, fire that fills
the breathless hour that lives in fire alone.
This valley, long ago the patient bed
of floods that carv’d its antient amplitude,
in stillness of the Egyptian crypt outspread,
endures to drown in noon-day’s tyrant mood.
Behind the veil of burning silence bound,
vast life’s innumerous busy littleness
is hush’d in vague-conjectured blur of sound
that dulls the brain with slumbrous weight, unless
some dazzling puncture let the stridence throng
in the cicada’s torture-point of song.
We present this work in honor of the 120th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
‘Twas about seven o’clock at night,
And the wind it blew with all its might,
And the rain came pouring down,
And the dark clouds seemed to frown,
And the Demon of the air seem’d to say—
“I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.”
When the train left Edinburgh
The passengers’ hearts were light and felt no sorrow,
But Boreas blew a terrific gale,
Which made their hearts for to quail,
And many of the passengers with fear did say—
“I hope God will send us safe across the Bridge of Tay.”
But when the train came near to Wormit Bay,
Boreas he did loud and angry bray,
And shook the central girders of the Bridge of Tay
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
So the train sped on with all its might,
And Bonnie Dundee soon hove in sight,
And the passengers’ hearts felt light,
Thinking they would enjoy themselves on the New Year,
With their friends at home they lov’d most dear,
And wish them all a happy New Year.
So the train mov’d slowly along the Bridge of Tay,
Until it was about midway,
Then the central girders with a crash gave way,
And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!
The Storm Fiend did loudly bray,
Because ninety lives had been taken away,
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
As soon as the catastrophe came to be known
The alarm from mouth to mouth was blown,
And the cry rang out all o’er the town,
Good heavens! the Tay Bridge is blown down,
And a passenger train from Edinburgh,
Which fill’d all the people’s hearts with sorrow,
And made them all for to turn pale,
Because none of the passengers were sav’d to tell the tale
How the disaster happen’d on the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
It must have been an awful sight,
To witness in the dusky moonlight,
While the Storm Fiend did laugh, and angry did bray,
Along the Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay.
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.
We present this work in honor of the 95th anniversary of the poet’s death.
I would like to be the ray of the dawn
that lights up your forehead in the morning;
to be a flower that you admired for its gallantry
and give you an intoxicating essence.
I would like to be the echo that disgraces her
distant music reaches you:
the fugitive and vain sweet shadow
that you caress in your dreamy soul.
But alas! that the sun the aurora fades,
the flower dies and is lost in the wind
the soft echo that vibrated in calm:
I don’t want to be an illusion that disappears…
It’s better to occupy your thoughts
and be, like today, the soul of your soul.
From plains that reel to southward, dim,
The road runs by me white and bare;
Up the steep hill it seems to swim
Beyond, and melt into the glare.
Upward half-way, or it may be
Nearer the summit, slowly steals
A hay-cart, moving dustily
With idly clacking wheels.
By his cart’s side the wagoner
Is slouching slowly at his ease,
Half-hidden in the windless blur
Of white dust puffiing to his knees.
This wagon on the height above,
From sky to sky on either hand,
Is the sole thing that seems to move
In all the heat-held land.
Beyond me in the fields the sun
Soaks in the grass and hath his will;
I count the marguerites one by one;
Even the buttercups are still.
On the brook yonder not a breath
Disturbs the spider or the midge.
The water-bugs draw close beneath
The cool gloom of the bridge.
Where the far elm-tree shadows flood
Dark patches in the burning grass,
The cows, each with her peaceful cud,
Lie waiting for the heat to pass.
From somewhere on the slope near by
Into the pale depth of the noon
A wandering thrush slides leisurely
His thin revolving tune.
In intervals of dreams I hear
The cricket from the droughty ground;
The grasshoppers spin into mine ear
A small innumerable sound.
I lift mine eyes sometimes to gaze:
The burning sky-line blinds my sight:
The woods far off are blue with haze:
The hills are drenched in light.
And yet to me not this or that
Is always sharp or always sweet;
In the sloped shadow of my hat
I lean at rest, and drain the heat;
Nay more, I think some blessèd power
Hath brought me wandering idly here:
In the full furnace of this hour
My thoughts grow keen and clear.
We present this work in honor of Labor Day.
Work, work, my boy, be not afraid;
Look labor boldly in the face;
Take up the hammer or the spade,
And blush not for your humble place.
There’s glory in the shuttle’s song;
There’s triumph in the anvil’s stroke;
There’s merit in the brave and strong
Who dig the mine or fell the oak.
The wind disturbs the sleeping lake,
And bids it ripple pure and fresh;
It moves the green boughs till they make
Grand music in their leafy mesh.
And so the active breath of life
Should stir our dull and sluggard wills;
For are we not created rife
With health, that stagnant torpor kills?
I doubt if he who lolls his head
Where idleness and plenty meet,
Enjoys his pillow or his bread
As those who earn the meals they eat.
And man is never half so blest
As when the busy day is spent
So as to make his evening rest
A holiday of glad content.
We present this work in honor of the 120th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Say, what wondrous dreams are these
Embracing all my senses,
That they have not, like bubbles,
Vanished to a barren void?
Dreams, that with every hour
Bloom more lovely every day,
And with their heavenly tidings
Float blissfully through the mind!
Dreams, that with glorious rays
Penetrate the soul,
There to paint an eternal picture:
Forgetting all, remembering one!
Dreams, as when the Spring sun
Kisses blossoms from the snow,
So the new day might welcome them
In unimagined bliss,
So that they grow and flower,
Bestow their scent as in a dream,
Fade softly away on your breast
And sink into their grave.
We present this work in honor of Women’s Equality Day.
Swept into limbo is the host
Of heavenly angels, row on row;
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Pale and defeated, rise and go.
The great Jehovah is laid low,
Vanished his burning bush and rod—
Say, are we doomed to deeper woe?
Shall marriage go the way of God?
Monogamous, still at our post,
Reluctantly we undergo
Domestic round of boiled and roast,
Yet deem the whole proceeding slow.
Daily the secret murmurs grow;
We are no more content to plod
Along the beaten paths—and so
Marriage must go the way of God.
Soon, before all men, each shall toast
The seven strings unto his bow,
Like beacon fires along the coast,
The flame of love shall glance and glow.
Nor let nor hindrance man shall know,
From natal bath to funeral sod;
Perennial shall his pleasures flow
When marriage goes the way of God.
Grant, in a million years at most,
Folk shall be neither pairs nor odd—
Alas! we sha’n’t be there to boast
“Marriage has gone the way of God!”
There have plenty songs been written,
Of the moonlight on the hill,
Of the starlight on the ocean,
And the sun-flecks on the rill,
But one glorious song has never
Fallen yet upon my ear,
‘Tis a royal song of gladness,
Of the gaslight on the beer.
I have watched an amber sunset,
Creep across a black-faced bay;
I have seen the blood-flushed sunrise,
Paint the snow one winter day,
But the gleam I will remember
Best, in lingering days to come,
Was s shaft of autumn radiance,
Lying on a pint of rum.
I have seen the love stars shining,
Through bronze hair across my face,
I have seen white bosoms heaving,
‘Neath a wisp of open lace,
But resplendent yet in memory –
And it seemeth brighter far –
Was a guttered candle’s flicker,
On a tankard in a bar…
Poets Corner 