Betrayal by Hester H. Cholmondeley

            Betrayal

Still as of old
Men by themselves are priced –
For thirty pieces Judas sold
Himself, not Christ.

Before I Woke by Dennis Lange

 

Before I woke,
The fog rose from its river bed,
   And stepped across the strand
With muted feet, and careful tread,
   Crossed trees and roofs and land. 

Before I worked,
The wisps, like ghostly armies, fought,
   And won a war like night
Wins nightly ‘cause it softly wrought
   Surrender of the sight. 

Before I rose,
The silent soldiers as a mass
   Caused sky and land to meet.
When each for other both could pass,
   Their labor was complete. 

And then, I woke
With beams and warmed – my daily reign,
   My place as king of day –
And worked.  My toil was not in vain.
   I melted fog away.

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photo by Lynne Lancaster at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mrnQcoW/Misty+Morning

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.

 

The Yankee Man-of-War – Anonymous

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Yankee Man-Of-War

‘Tis of a gallant Yankee ship that flew the stripes and stars,
And the whistling wind from the west-nor’-west blew through the pitch-     pine spars;
With her starboard tacks aboard, my boys, she hung upon the gale;
On an autumn night we raised the light on the old Head of Kinsale. 

It was a clear and cloudless night, and the wind blew steady and strong,
As gaily over the sparkling deep our good ship bowled along;
With the foaming seas beneath her bow the fiery waves she spread,
And bending low her bosom of snow, she buried her lee cat-head. 

There was no talk of short’ning sail by him who walked the poop,
And under the press of her pond’ring jib, the boom bent like a hoop!
And the groaning water-ways told the strain that held her stout main-tack,
But he only laughed as he glanced aloft at a white and silvery track. 

The mid-tide meets in the Channel waves that flow from shore to shore,
And the mist hung heavy upon the land from Featherstone to Dunmore,
And that sterling light in Tusker Rock where the old bell tolls each hour,
And the beacon light that shone so bright was quenched on Waterford Tower. 

What looms upon our starboard bow?  What hangs upon the breeze?
‘Tis time our good ship hauled her wind abreast the old Saltees,
For by her ponderous press of sail and by her consorts four
We saw our morning visitor was a British man-of-war. 

Up spake our noble Captain then, as a shot ahead us past –
“Haul snug your flowing courses! lay your topsail to the mast!”
Those Englishmen gave three loud hurrahs from the deck of their covered ark,
And we answered back by a solid broadside from the decks of our patriot bark. 

“Out booms! out booms!” our skipper cried, “out booms and give her sheet,”
And the swiftest keel that was ever launched shot ahead of the British fleet,
And amidst a thundering shower of shot, with stun’-sails hoisting away,
Down the North Channel Paul Jones did steer just at the break of day.

Three Miscellaneous Haiku by Dennis Lange

A White Lie

To say that
I came by limo
Stretches truth.

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Pantheists

They are those
Who worship nature -
Tree huggers.

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Kitty Gossip

Oh, that porch!
It’s not a place for
Long-tailed cats.

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Lie – photo by Michal Zacharzewski at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mhisF3A/Limousine

Pantheism – photo by Bill Davenport at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mg1RD54/Hug+a+Tree%21

Gossip – photo by Robert Linder at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mg1RD54/Hug+a+Tree%21

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: http://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.

Sweet Peril by George MacDonald

                   Sweet Peril

Alas, how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again. 

Alas, how hardly things go right!
‘Tis hard to watch in a summer night,
For the sigh will come, and the kiss will stay,
And the summer night is a wintry day. 

And yet how easily things go right,
If the sigh and a kiss of a summer’s night
Come deep from the soul in the stronger ray
That is born in the light of the winter’s day.

And things can never go badly wrong
If the heart is true and the love be strong,
For the mist, if it comes, and the weeping rain
Will be changed by the love into sunshine again.

Sonnet 29 – Loving Without First Being Loved by Dennis Lange

Sonnet 29 – Loving Without First Being Loved

Men speak of some as accidents or frill,
An undesired collision on the road,
As if the baby was a break or spill,
A cancer, or a tumor, or a node.

Though some, once told, are wrapped in arms of love,
Too many hear the words with their intent –
To pour an acid scorn down from above,
To make the lad or lass lower than lint.

What emptiness there is when one’s not planned;
What loneliness exists among cold stars,
When there’s no space allotted, heart or hand,
When sun and moon are pitted, hard with scars.

The challenge is when love has not one nursed:
To find an outer source and be the first.

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photo by A-K Rehse at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mfms0gI/lonely+tree

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.

Portrait Of Young Love by Stephen Vincent Benet

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

              Portrait Of Young Love

If you were with me – as you’re not, of course,
I’d taste the elegant tortures of Despair
With a slow, languid, long-refining tongue;
Puzzle for days on one particular stare,
Or if you knew a word’s peculiar force,
Or what you looked like when you were quite young. 

You’d lift me heaven-high – till a word, grated.
Dash me hell-deep – oh that luxurious Pit,
Fatly and well encushioned with self-pity,
Where Love’s an epicure not quickly sated!
What mournful musics wander over it,
Faint-blown from some long-lost celestial city!

Such bitter joyousness I’d have, and action,
Were you here – be no more the fool who broods
On true Adventure till he wakes her scorning –
But we’re too petty for such noble warning.
And I find just as perfect satisfaction
In analyzing these, and other moods!

Three Bird Haiku by Dennis Lange

Double Date

Scoot over.
When does movie start?
Popcorn? Coke?

——————-

 

No Bronze

The medals
In rooftop perching
Gold, silver.

——————–

 

Incoming

Put flaps down;
Cut all the engines -
Smooth landing.

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Double Date – photo by Gabriel at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/meScq2q/birds

No Bronze – photo by Kevin Tuck at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mw2XZkO/Winner+and+runner-up

Incoming – photo by Vivekchugh at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/meXVzPm/Incoming+1

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: http://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.

The Throstle by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

The Throstle

“Summer is coming, summer is coming.
   I know it, I know it, I know it.
Light again, leaf again, life again, love again,”
   Yes, my wild little Poet. 

Sing the new year in under the blue.
   Last year you sang it as gladly.
“New, new, new, new!”  Is it then so new
   That you should carol so madly? 

“Love again, song again, nest again, young again.
   Never a prophet so crazy!
And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend,
   See, there is hardly a daisy. 

“Here again, here, here, here, happy year!”
   O warble unchidden, unbidden!
Summer is coming, is coming my dear,
   And all the winters are hidden.

Jacob’s Ladder by Dennis Lange

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

            Jacob’s Ladder

On that sad day one happed to die,
A puppy chased a butterfly,
As if a grounded creature can
Run and leap to bridge the span
Between the land and God’s blue sky
Where floating flowers flutter by. 

Though I in mourning all the while,
The youthful dog brought forth a smile.
The naïve pup produced this case:
A contrast twixt skilled flitting grace
And gangly, gawky awkward leaps
Of one who on earth’s pallet sleeps. 

Of pups, who knows?  Of man, it’s true
To bridge the span to heaven’s blue,
On Babel’s tower man must climb –
Yet, God destroys ev’ry time.
And thus on Him we must rely
And climb His Ladder to the sky.

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Jacob’s dream – Gen.28:10-17
The ladder, the way to heaven is Jesus: John 1:51

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.