We present this work in honor of the 155th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Adah Isaacs Menken American 1835 – 1868
Where is the promise of my years; Once written on my brow? Ere errors, agonies and fears Brought with them all that speaks in tears, Ere I had sunk beneath my peers; Where sleeps that promise now?
Naught lingers to redeem those hours, Still, still to memory sweet! The flowers that bloomed in sunny bowers Are withered all; and Evil towers Supreme above her sister powers Of Sorrow and Deceit.
I look along the columned years, And see Life’s riven fane, Just where it fell, amid the jeers Of scornful lips, whose mocking sneers, For ever hiss within mine ears To break the sleep of pain.
I can but own my life is vain A desert void of peace; I missed the goal I sought to gain, I missed the measure of the strain That lulls Fame’s fever in the brain, And bids Earth’s tumult cease.
Myself! alas for theme so poor A theme but rich in Fear; I stand a wreck on Error’s shore, A spectre not within the door, A houseless shadow evermore, An exile lingering here.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 95th birthday.
Edip Cansever Turkish 1928 – 1986
That too the hard-heavy nothingness of existing There as daytime stirred The white organ of scattering: heaps of salt Like daytime Lifting nature’s thick shells
Down comes the opposite of a fisherman Dirty August! Things that drag me from here to there A few hotels stick in my mind Or they don’t stick in my mind But not that the hotel itself The brown coloured organ of loneliness: a heap of dreams Made out of brown coloured flames
Nothing else needed, to see nothingness Dirty August! In the end I set my eyelids on fire too
We present this work in honor of the Canadian holiday, Civic Day.
Susanna Moodie Canadian 1803 – 1885
The Northern Lights are flashing On the rapids’ restless flow, But o’er the wild waves dashing Swift darts the light canoe: The merry hunters come,— “What cheer? What cheer?” We ’ve slain the deer!” “Hurrah! you ’re welcome home!”
The blithesome horn is sounding, And the woodman’s loud halloo; And joyous steps are bounding To meet the birch canoe. “Hurrah! the hunters come!” And the woods ring out To their noisy shout, As they drag the dun deer home!
The hearth is brightly burning, The rustic board is spread; To greet their sire returning The children leave their bed. With laugh and shout they come, That merry band, To grasp his hand And bid him welcome home!
We present this work in honor of the 35th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Francis Ponge French 1899 – 1988
The body of a tall living hero alone Walks first In a wood made of more than a thousand columns, Then stretches out on a shield —Partly shining and partly of still warm shadow— Formed with pine needles.
He rests Under the musical guard of a quadrille of flies Held at a respectful distance By the circularly extended quiverings Of living flesh.
Some long trees With the plumes on their summits, Ward off in the sky All dangerous flakes.
Prisoners by their roots Strong But sinuous on their heels, They move off around the precious Olympian figure, Opening up the skies For him to see.
He, With clean body, Neither hot nor cold, Without urgent need, His vision richly fed On a thousand blue sparks, Makes move down in his throat deep under the veil of his eyes Ears and nostrils, The secret screen, The curtain Of Memory and Forgetting.
Everything trembles then And refuses no command. Each thing in particular Would be sacrificed willingly.
But he is as just as he is strong And his modesty enhances his power. He gives to everyone at each moment Full authorization According to their own desires Having excused everything, Enriched by his intelligence, He, already dead for them, Lies down as they go off.
We present this work in honor of the 445th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Francisco de Aldana Spanish 1537 – 1578
A thousand times I say, in Galatea’s arms, that she’s more lovely than the sun; then she, with a sweet look, disdainfully, tells me, “My Tyrsis, do not tell me that.”
I try to swear it, and she, suddenly, her face now blazing with a rosy hue restrains me with a kiss and hastily my words with her own lips seeks to combat.
I struggle with her mildly to break free, and she holds me more tightly and then says, “Don’t swear, my love, I know it’s not a lie.”
With this she so completely shackles me that Love, a witness to our gentle play, causes with deeds my hope to satisfy.
So feasted they through Troy, and in their midst Loud pealed the flutes and pipes: on every hand Were song and dance, laughter and cries confused Of banqueters beside the meats and wine. They, lifting in their hands the beakers brimmed, Recklessly drank, till heavy of brain they grew, Till rolled their fluctuant eyes. Now and again Some mouth would babble the drunkard’s broken words. The household gear, the very roof and walls Seemed as they rocked: all things they looked on seemed Whirled in wild dance. About their eyes a veil Of mist dropped, for the drunkard’s sight is dimmed, And the wit dulled, when rise the fumes to the brain: And thus a heavy-headed feaster cried: “For naught the Danaans mustered that great host Hither! Fools, they have wrought not their intent, But with hopes unaccomplished from our town Like silly boys or women have they fled.”
So cried a Trojan wit-befogged with wine, Fool, nor discerned destruction at the doors.
When sleep had locked his fetters everywhere Through Troy on folk fulfilled of wine and meat, Then Sinon lifted high a blazing torch To show the Argive men the splendour of fire. But fearfully the while his heart beat, lest The men of Troy might see it, and the plot Be suddenly revealed. But on their beds Sleeping their last sleep lay they, heavy with wine. The host saw, and from Tenedos set sail.
Then nigh the Horse drew Sinon: softly he called, Full softly, that no man of Troy might hear, But only Achaea’s chiefs, far from whose eyes Sleep hovered, so athirst were they for fight. They heard, and to Odysseus all inclined Their ears: he bade them urgently go forth Softly and fearlessly; and they obeyed That battle-summons, pressing in hot haste To leap to earth: but in his subtlety He stayed them from all thrusting eagerly forth. But first himself with swift unfaltering hands, Helped of Epeius, here and there unbarred The ribs of the Horse of beams: above the planks A little he raised his head, and gazed around On all sides, if he haply might descry One Trojan waking yet. As when a wolf, With hunger stung to the heart, comes from the hills, And ravenous for flesh draws nigh the flock Penned in the wide fold, slinking past the men And dogs that watch, all keen to ward the sheep, Then o’er the fold-wall leaps with soundless feet; So stole Odysseus down from the Horse: with him Followed the war-fain lords of Hellas’ League, Orderly stepping down the ladders, which Epeius framed for paths of mighty men, For entering and for passing forth the Horse, Who down them now on this side, that side, streamed As fearless wasps startled by stroke of axe In angry mood pour all together forth From the tree-bole, at sound of woodman’s blow; So battle-kindled forth the Horse they poured Into the midst of that strong city of Troy With hearts that leapt expectant. [With swift hands Snatched they the brands from dying hearths, and fired Temple and palace. Onward then to the gates Sped they,] and swiftly slew the slumbering guards, [Then held the gate-towers till their friends should come.] Fast rowed the host the while; on swept the ships Over the great flood: Thetis made their paths Straight, and behind them sent a driving wind Speeding them, and the hearts Achaean glowed. Swiftly to Hellespont’s shore they came, and there Beached they the keels again, and deftly dealt With whatso tackling appertains to ships. Then leapt they aland, and hasted on to Troy Silent as sheep that hurry to the fold From woodland pasture on an autumn eve; So without sound of voices marched they on Unto the Trojans’ fortress, eager all To help those mighty chiefs with foes begirt. Now these—as famished wolves fierce-glaring round Fall on a fold mid the long forest-hills, While sleeps the toil-worn watchman, and they rend The sheep on every hand within the wall In darkness, and all round [are heaped the slain; So these within the city smote and slew, As swarmed the awakened foe around them; yet, Fast as they slew, aye faster closed on them Those thousands, mad to thrust them from the gates.] Slipping in blood and stumbling o’er the dead [Their line reeled,] and destruction loomed o’er them, Though Danaan thousands near and nearer drew.
We present this work in honor of the 60th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Theodore Roethke American 1908 – 1963
1
In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking Sleeps the baby mouse I found in the meadow, Where he trembled and shook beneath a stick Till I caught him up by the tail and brought him in, Cradled in my hand, A little quaker, the whole body of him trembling, His absurd whiskers sticking out like a cartoon-mouse, His feet like small leaves, Little lizard-feet, Whitish and spread wide when he tried to struggle away, Wriggling like a minuscule puppy.
Now he’s eaten his three kinds of cheese and drunk from his bottle-cap watering-trough— So much he just lies in one corner, His tail curled under him, his belly big As his head; his bat-like ears Twitching, tilting toward the least sound.
Do I imagine he no longer trembles When I come close to him? He seems no longer to tremble.
2
But this morning the shoe-box house on the back porch is empty. Where has he gone, my meadow mouse, My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm? — To run under the hawk’s wing, Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree, To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat.
I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass, The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway, The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising,— All things innocent, hapless, forsaken.
The child is not dead The child lifts his fists against his mother Who shouts Afrika ! shouts the breath Of freedom and the veld In the locations of the cordoned heart
The child lifts his fists against his father in the march of the generations who shouts Afrika ! shout the breath of righteousness and blood in the streets of his embattled pride
The child is not dead not at Langa nor at Nyanga not at Orlando nor at Sharpeville nor at the police station at Philippi where he lies with a bullet through his brain
The child is the dark shadow of the soldiers on guard with rifles Saracens and batons the child is present at all assemblies and law-givings the child peers through the windows of houses and into the hearts of mothers this child who just wanted to play in the sun at Nyanga is everywhere the child grown to a man treks through all Africa the child grown into a giant journeys through the whole world
Poets Corner 