The Retreat by Henry Vaughan

Happy those early days! when I
Shined in my angel infancy.
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my first love,
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of His bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour.
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to every sense
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
…O, how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain
Where first I left my glorious train.

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Letting The Air Out Of Reality – haiku by Dennis Lange

 

Stories told
Second hand may have
Distortions.

— 

It’s a game
That we call Gossip.
And, it’s life.

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photo by Dez Pain at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/2dyWW8y/Balloons+7

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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, 2015.

 

 

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The Super Moon Eclipse by Dennis Lange

The moon and the sun are providing
This minute a sky that’s exciting.
…I’d like to say “howdy”,
…But here it’s too cloudy.
So I’m at my desk these lines writing.

I wish, since I can’t see the wonder,
Because the thick clouds will not sunder,
…That it would just rain –
…Pitter patter my pane.
I’d like to see lightning; hear thunder.

I’ll guess I’ll just wait till the next one.
In two ought three three, there’ll be more fun.
…Egads! I’ll be old!
……Oh.
…I shouldn’t have told.
……Sigh.
Eclipsed super moon brought admission.
—
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I did get to see the eclipse. After I had
written the second stanza, I checked the
sky again and the clouds had parted and
there was the red moon in the heavens.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

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To An Isle In The Water by William Butler Yeats

Shy one, shy one,
Shy one of my heart,
She moves in the firelight
Pensively apart. 

She carries in the dishes,
And lays them in a row.
To an isle in the water
With her I would go. 

She carries in the candles,
And lights the curtained room,
Shy in the doorway
And shy in the gloom; 

And shy as a rabbit,
Helpful and shy.
To an isle in the water
With her would I fly.

 

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Sonnet 20 – The Testing Ground by Dennis Lange

Through ages, men have puzzled over life
As to its purpose, meaning, and the end;
The issue, more than love and all the strife:
From whence we came? and which way do we wend?

We see the flow, like waters of a lake,
A constant stream that’s entering this earth,
As others, flowing forth, death’s journey take –
Between, the brief sojourn that starts at birth.

Just as a team runs players through the drills,
To fill its roster, find the qualified,
The special few with heart, desire, and skills,
This life is testing ground where men are tried.

On earth, we’re planted so that God may find
Which ones are suited for the heav’nly kind.
—
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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

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The Bustle In A House by Emily Dickinson

The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon Earth – 

The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity.

 

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Three Miscellaneous Haiku by Dennis Lange

Mirrored

Who knew that
The blue sky reflects
Like water?

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Spun In An Instant

Spider web.
Perhaps it will catch
A glass fly.

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Three

Sun, sailboat
Are slipping away –
Life, as well.

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Mirrored – photo by sulaco229 (Robert) at  http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mx2KZOG/Acrobatic+propeller+airplanes

Spun – photo by David Ritter at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mhhLqly/Broken+Glass

Three – photo by Patrycja Cieszkowska-Krystosik at  http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/moWT5hc/Sail+away

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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, 2015.

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Now Close The Windows by Robert Frost

Now close the windows and hush all the fields:
…If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
…Be it my loss. 

It will be long ere the marshes resume,
…It will be long ere the earliest bird;
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
…But see all wind-stirred.

 

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From Carried To Cranium by Dennis Lange

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The goal of a school is transferring,
With teachers and good books concurring,
…The knowledge of ages
…That’s writ on the pages
To students whose minds need the stirring.
—-
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photo by Sanja Gienero at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/mu4Ihiw/overloaded

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2015.

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Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – an ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime –
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori. *

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*It is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country.

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