April | 2016 | The Bard on the Hill

Archive for April, 2016

Sorrow by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Posted in M-N, Poems of Other Poets, Uncategorized, tagged bard on the hill, ceaseless rain, Edna St. Vincent Millay, little matters, poems, poetry, sorrow, stop nor start, twist and scream, wax nor wane on April 30, 2016| 1 Comment »

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
…Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain, –
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
…Neither stop nor start.

People dress and go to town;
…I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
…Or what shoes I wear.

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Trailing Trucks – haiku by Dennis Lange

Posted in My Haiku, tagged bard on the hill, Dennis Lange, Haikus, hypnotized, mesmerizing, poems, poetry, tailights, trucks on April 29, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Red taillights
Are mesmerizing
On approach.

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Hypnotized.
Will I go around?
Or go through?

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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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Sonnet 4 (IV) by William Shakespeare

Posted in Poems of Other Poets, S, Uncategorized, tagged acceptable audit, bard on the hill, beauteous niggard, beauty's legacy, bounteous largess, executor, IV, nature's bequest, poems, poetry, profitless usurer, Sonnet 4, sum of sums, traffic, unthrifty loveliness, William Shakespeare on April 28, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thyself thy beauty’s legacy?
Nature’s bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And, being frank, she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
For, having traffic with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
Then, how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
…Thy unus’d beauty must be tomb’d with thee,
…Which, used, lives th’ executor to be.

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He Can’t Hit An Elephant by Dennis Lange

Posted in Civil War Poems, My Poems, Uncategorized, tagged at this range, bard on the hill, Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia, cheek, Civil War, dead, death, Dennis Lange, General John Sedgwick, He Can't Hit An Elephant, irony, poems, poetry, sniper, union on April 27, 2016| Leave a Comment »

John Sedgwick, to his frightened men,
…“Why dodge a single bee?
What will you do in battle, boys,
…When swarms come after thee?”

“At this range, e’en an elephant
…Would certainly be missed.
Why think ye then your rosy cheek
…Could possibly be kissed?”

And he sat tall upon his mount
…To prove what he had said,
Until the sniper shot at him
…And Sedgwick fell down, dead.

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The ironic death of Major General John Sedgwick
of the Union army came on May 9, 1864 at the
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in Virginia.

http://www.civilwarhome.com/sedgwickdeath.htm

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The supreme court’s Eraser by Dennis Lange

Posted in My Poems, Uncategorized, tagged all time, bard on the hill, Dennis Lange, every place, man and woman, marriage, nation, poems, poetry, race, the supreme court's Eraser on April 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »

For all time, and in every place,
In every nation, every race,
To wed was man and woman’s place.

Just where is marriage now defined? –
Except in whate’er comes to mind
From whate’er lusts that will men blind.

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Dante by William Cullen Bryant

Posted in A-B (by poet name), Poems of Other Poets, Uncategorized, tagged bard on the hill, broad field of modern speech, Dante, field, furrowed land, grains, grasses, great sower's fame, name, poems, poet's birth, poetry, reaper's hand, seeds of free and living thought, wheat, William Cullen Bryant on April 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Who, mid the grasses of the field
…That spring beneath our careless feet,
First found the shining stems that yield
…The grains of life-sustaining wheat:

Who first, upon the furrowed land,
…Strewed the bright grains to sprout, and grow,
And ripen for the reaper’s hand –
…We know not, and we cannot know.

But well we know the hand that brought
…And scattered, far as sight can reach,
The seeds of free and living thought
…On the broad field of modern speech.

Mid the white hills that round us lie,
…We cherish that Great Sower’s fame,
And, as we pile the sheaves on high,
…With awe we utter Dante’s name.

Six centuries, since the poet’s birth,
…Have come and flitted o’er our sphere:
The richest harvest reaped on earth
…Crowns the last century’s closing year.

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