Delight In Disorder by Robert Herrick

    Delight In Disorder

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher:
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly:
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

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To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time by Robert Herrick

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may:
   Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
   To-morrow will be dying. 

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
   The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
   And nearer he’s to setting. 

That age is best, which is the first,
   When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse and worst
   Times will succeed the former. 

Then be not coy, but use your time,
   And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
   You may for ever tarry.

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Gold by Thomas Hood

Mojave Nugget, a gold nugget weighing 156 ounces. From the Stringer district, Kern County, California. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gold

Gold! gold! gold! gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold,
Molten, graven, hammered, and rolled,
Heavy to get, and light to hold;
Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold,
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled;
Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mold;
Price of many a crime untold.

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Faithless Nelly Gray by Thomas Hood

       Faithless Nelly Gray 

Ben Battle was a soldier bold,
   And used to war’s alarms;
But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
   So he laid down his arms.

Now as they bore him off the field,
   Said he, “Let others shoot;
For here I leave my second leg,
   And the Forty-second Foot.”

The army-surgeons made him limbs:
   Said he, “They’re only pegs;
But there’s as wooden members quite
   As represent my legs.”

Now Ben he loved a pretty maid, -
   Her name was Nelly Gray;
So he went to pay her his devours,
   When he devoured his pay. 

But when he called on Nelly Gray,
   She made him quite a scoff;
And when she saw his wooden legs,
   Began to take them off. 

“O Nelly Gray! O Nelly Gray!
   Is this your love so warm?
The love that loves a scarlet coat
   Should be more uniform.” 

Said she, “I loved a soldier once,
   For he was blithe and brave;
But I will never have a man
   With both legs in the grave. 

“Before you had those timber toes
   Your love I did allow;
But then, you know, you stand upon
   Another footing now.” 

“O Nelly Gray! O Nelly Gray!
    For all your jeering speeches,
At duty’s call I left my legs
   In Badajo’s breaches.” 

“Why, then,” said she, “you’ve lost the feet
   Of legs in war’s alarms.
And now you cannot wear your shoes
   Upon your fears of arms!” 

“O false and fickle Nelly Gray!
   I know why you refuse:
Though I’ve no feet, some other man
   Is standing in my shoes. 

“I wish I ne’er had seen your face;
   But, now, a long farewell!
For you will be my death; – alas!
   You will not be my Nell!” 

Now when he went from Nelly Gray
   His heart so heavy got,
And life was such a burden grown,
   It made him take a knot. 

So round his melancholy neck
   A rope he did intwine,
And, for his second time in life,
   Enlisted in the Line. 

One end he tied around a beam,
   And then removed his pegs;
And, as his legs were off, – of course
   He soon was off his legs. 

And there he hung till he was dead
   As any nail in town;
For, though distress had cut him up,
   It could not cut him down. 

A dozen men sat on his corpse,
   To find out why he died; -
And they buried Ben in four cross-roads
   With a stake in his inside.

 

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Rispetti: On The Death Of A Child by Paul Heyse

Rispetti: On The Death Of A Child

 
(By Heyse; translated by E.H. Mueller)

I thought I heard a knock on the door,
And I jumped up as if you were here again,
Speaking to me, as you so often did,
In a coaxing tone: “Daddy, may I come in?”

When at eventide I walked along the steep seashore
I felt your small hand quite warm in mine.
And where the tide had rolled up stones,
I said aloud: “Look out that you don’t fall!”

—————————————————–

(I ran across this poem tonight – 12/18/12,
a few short days after 20 small children and
six adults were killed by a cowardly murder-
er at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown,
Connecticut.  The poem expresses the
continued emptiness and grief of losing a
child.  Words fail me as sorrow and horror
wash over me every time I read a new
report of this unspeakable tragedy.)

 

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The Sea Gypsy by Richard Hovey

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

       The Sea Gypsy

I am fevered with the sunset,
I am fretful with the bay,
For the wander-thirst is on me
And my soul is in Cathay.

There’s a schooner in the offing,
With her top-sails shot with fire,
And my heart has gone aboard her
For the islands of Desire.

I must forth again tomorrow!
With the sunset I must be,
Hull down on the trail of rapture
In the wonder of the Sea.

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Home by Edgar Guest

(Photo credit: obi via Wikipedia)

                                     Home

It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home,
A heap o’ sun an’ shadder, an’ ye sometimes have t’ roam
Afore ye really ‘preciate the things ye lef’ behind,
An’ hunger fer ‘em somehow, with ‘em allus on yer mind.
It don’t make any differunce how rich ye get t’ be,
How much yer chairs an’ tables cost, how great yer luxury;
It ain’t home t’ ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o’ wrapped round everything.

Home ain’t a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;
Afore it’s home there’s got t’ be a heap o’ livin’ in it;
Within the walls there’s go t’ be some babies born, and then
Right there ye’ve got t’ bring ‘em up t’ women good, an’ men;
And gradjerly, as time goes on, ye find ye wouldn’t part
With anything they ever used – they’ve grown into yer heart;
The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore
Ye hoard; an’ if ye could ye’d keep the thumb-marks on the door.

Ye’ve got t’ weep t’ make it home, ye’ve got t’ sit an’ sigh
An’ watch beside a loved one’s bed, an’ know that Death is nigh;
An’ in the stillness o’ the night t’ see Death’s angel come,
An’ close the eyes o’ her that smiled, an’ leave her sweet voice dumb.
For these are scenes that grip the heart, an’ when yer tears are dried,
Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an’ sanctified;
An’ tuggin’ at ye always are the pleasant memories
O’ her that was an’ is no more – ye can’t escape from these.

Ye’ve got to sing an’ dance fer years, ye’ve got t’ romp an’ play,
An’ learn t’ love the things ye have by usin’ ‘em each day;
Even the roses round the porch must blossom year by year
Afore they ‘come a part o’ ye, suggestin’ someone dear
Who used t’ love ‘em long ago, and trained ‘em just t’ run
The way they do, so’s they would get the early mornin’ sun;
Ye’ve got to love each brick an’ stone from cellar up t’ dome;
It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house t’ make it home.

 

 

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Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Shot Heard ‘Round the World (Photo credit: The National Guard)

Concord Hymn

(sung at the completion of the battle
monument, July 4, 1837)

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

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Spring And Fall by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Spring And Fall

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart head of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

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The Self Unseeing by Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Self Unseeing

Here is the ancient floor,
Footworn and hollowed and thin,
Here was the former door
Where the dead feet walked in.

She sat here in her chair,
Smiling into the fire;
He who played stood there,
Bowing it higher and higher.

Childlike, I danced in a dream;
Blessings emblazoned that day;
Everything glowed with a gleam;
Yet we were looking away!

 

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