Scintillate, Scintillate – anonymous

(Photo credit: Acerview54 via Wikipedia)

Scintillate, scintillate, globule vivific,
Fain would I fathom thy nature specific.
Loftily poised in the ether capacious,
Strongly resembling a gem carbonaceous.

-translated-

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are,
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.

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I found this gem yesterday at sermonillustrations.com

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War Along The Front by Dennis Lange

(Photo credit: iansand)

War Along The Front

Today, there is an urgency to Wind
As if it is the trumpet call to war.
It stirs the clouds and to the battle sends
Them ‘cross the land to some quite distant shore.

Wild Wind is busy heading north today;
A general, he urges on his troops.
With whirring words, he whips them on their way;
They speed across the sky in full sail, sloops.

They neither pause nor take a sideways glance,
But, single-minded, jut their chins and march,
An army in the blue, as if in trance,
As crisp and stiff as white shirts full of starch.

They march to meet a colder northern foe
That’s rushing to invade the warmer climes;
Two forces will collide; a line will grow
Of turbulence and trouble, brutish times.

And as the armies clash, the battle sound
Will boom and rattle all along the front,
With flash of cannon on the battle ground
As one’s advance the other tries to blunt.

The warm and cold mix in explosive drafts;
Storms blossom high into the humid air;
The lightning streaks the sky with jagged shafts,
Spears thrown in battle – all below beware.

The hail may fall like shot hurled from a gun,
And pound, unmerciful, both man and beast.
A rope may drop from boiling skies and stun
The populace below, from great to least.

But though the war brings devastation, woe,
It may be last resort for some to gain
Their way against an unrelenting foe –
Like drought – and win the victory of rain.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2012.

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The Human Seasons by John Keats

(photo credits: Spring – BenHur, Summer – Nova, Autumn – Jongleur100 and Winter – SpaceJ via Wikipedia)

          The Human Seasons

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring’s honey’d cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close: contented so to look
On mists in idleness – to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.

He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

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The Cowboy Married Her by Dennis Lange

After I published the first limerick below earlier this week, Sandra commented, “Well, don’t leave us hanging. This definitely needs more verses.”  With that prompting, I’ve written a second limerick that you can read below the first one.  AND, there’s a third limerick in the series that I’ll post in a few days.

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The Cowboy Rescued Her

There was a young lass from Montana
Who slipped on a peel of banana.
She landed, a miss,
But got up as his –
She fell for the fellow’s bandana.

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The Cowboy Married Her

That sweet lass who slipped on banana
And fell for the cowboy’s bandana? –
She married the guy
With stars in her eye
Until they moved ‘way from Montana.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2012.

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Cereal Killers – haiku by Dennis Lange

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cereal Killers

CK 1:

Officer
Kills with bear hug squeeze:
Cap’n Crunch.

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CK 2:

As ghosts – scare;
Men faint; put in graves:
Boo-Bury.

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CK 3:

Cold, wacky;
A bit psychotic –
Frosted Flakes.

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CK 4:

Burn at stake,
Those heartless killers –
Post Toasties.

Victims known
As Crispy Critters –
Death by fire.

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*CK 2 – Boo-Berry

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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:

https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2012.

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Sonnet II – When Forty Winters by William Shakespeare

                         Sonnet II

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gaz’d on now,
Will be a tatter’d weed of small worth held.
Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes
Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use
If thou couldst answer, ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.

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The Cowboy Rescued Her by Dennis Lange

The Cowboy Rescued Her

There was a young lass from Montana
Who slipped on a peel of banana.
She landed, a miss,
But got up as his –
She fell for the fellow’s bandana.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2012.

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To A Young Lady by William Cowper

To A Young Lady

Sweet stream, that winds through yonder glade,
Apt emblem of a virtuous maid –
Silent and chaste she steals along,
Far from the world’s gay busy throng:
With gentle yet prevailing force,
Intent upon her destined course;
Graceful and useful all she does.
Blessing and blest where’er she goes;
Pure-bosom’d as that watery glass
And Heaven reflected in her face.

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What Humans Do by Dennis Lange

(Photo credit: Belinda Hankins Miller via Wikipedia)

What Humans Do

At square in fence, the goat reached through
For greener grass to graze.
He used the common human view
For his own salad days.

His head went through; his horns as well,
And turned, he then, to eat.
But at the ending dinner bell
He could not then retreat.

The horns that slid through easily
When started near the head,
Were like the spikes a car rolls o’er
And coming back, ruins tread.

And so the fence had got his goat
And would not turn it loose.
The rest moved ‘way to eat and drink –
Their friend ensnared in noose.

My road went by, that summer day,
Clouds fleeing like the flock
And sun beat down, unmerciful
On pris’ner in the stock.

So I pulled o’er and made my way
Through ditch and up to fence
Where goat endured my quick advance
Due to his impotence.

The scene surveyed, I saw the square –
Rectangle was instead.
I seized the beast by horns and turned
Him lengthwise, freed the head.

And then he quickly moved away
Without a bleat of thanks
I saw a major difference there,
Twixt man and goatish ranks.

Yet, if I pass another day,
I’ll free him that time, too.
In spite of his ingratitude.
Cause that’s what humans do.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2012.

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From A Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson

    From A Railway Carriage

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles, –
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone forever!

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