Robert Frost’s Grave In Bennington – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

—

In Vermont?
I thought it would be
New Hampshire.

——————–

The photo is mine.  It’s a birch tree by Frost’s grave,
and one of the poems he wrote.

——————–

* 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/

——————–

© Dennis Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2018.

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Dark Rosaleen by James Clarence Mangan

O my dark Rosaleen,

    Do not sigh, do not weep!

The priests are on the ocean green,

    They march along the deep.

There’s wine from the royal Pope,

    Upon the ocean green;

And Spanish ale shall give you hope,

    My Dark Rosaleen!

    My own Rosaleen!

Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope,

Shall give you health, and help, and hope,

    My Dark Rosaleen!

—

Over hills, and thro’ dales,

    Have I roam’d for your sake;

All yesterday I sail’d with sails

    On river and on lake.

The Erne, at its highest flood,

    I dash’d across unseen,

For there was lightning in my blood,

    My Dark Rosaleen!

    My own Rosaleen!

O, there was lightning in my blood,

Red lighten’d thro’ my blood.

    My Dark Rosaleen!

—

All day long, in unrest,

    To and fro, do I move.

The very soul within my breast

    Is wasted for you, love!

The heart in my bosom faints

    To think of you, my Queen,

My life of life, my saint of saints,

    My Dark Rosaleen!

    My own Rosaleen!

To hear your sweet and sad complaints,

My life, my love, my saint of saints,

    My Dark Rosaleen!
—

Woe and pain, pain and woe,

    Are my lot, night and noon,

To see your bright face clouded so,

    Like to the mournful moon.

But yet will I rear your throne

    Again in golden sheen;

‘Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone,

    My Dark Rosaleen!

    My own Rosaleen!

‘Tis you shall have the golden throne,

‘Tis you shall reign, and reign alone,

    My Dark Rosaleen!

—

Over dews, over sands,

    Will I fly, for your weal:

Your holy delicate white hands

    Shall girdle me with steel.

At home, in your emerald bowers,

    From morning’s dawn till e’en,

You’ll pray for me, my flower of flowers,

    My Dark Rosaleen!

    My fond Rosaleen!

You’ll think of me through daylight hours

My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,

    My Dark Rosaleen!

—

I could scale the blue air,

    I could plough the high hills,

Oh, I could kneel all night in prayer,

    To heal your many ills!

And one beamy smile from you

    Would float like light between

My toils and me, my own, my true,

    My Dark Rosaleen!

    My fond Rosaleen!

Would give me life and soul anew,

    My Dark Rosaleen!

—

O, the Erne shall run red,

    With redundance of blood,

The earth shall rock beneath our tread,

    And flames wrap hill and wood,

And gun-peal and slogan-cry

    Wake many a glen serene,

Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,

    My Dark Rosaleen!

    My own Rosaleen!

The Judgement Hour must first be nigh,

Ere you can fade, ere you can die,

    My Dark Rosaleen!

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Mrs. Smith by Dennis Allen Lange

—

Two Smiths they were, and Mrs. both:
…A matriarch was one;
The other was the welcomed lass
…Who wed the loving son. 

The latter made him happy and
…The two were closely knit.
The matriarch walked easily with
…The new shoe that still fit. 

The younger Mrs. Smith gave birth
…And bore a son, an heir
That now would carry on the name
…Both common and so rare. 

All – father, son, and newborn male
…Were each one of a kind,
Like lonely roads that lead one way
…Into an end that’s blind. 

The father’s father passed away;
…The matriarch alone
Was left to head the family,
…Be hostess, and its tone. 

And so, for all the holidays,
…And some days in between,
The little family met as one –
…A small tree that was green. 

The Third grew up and left the nest,
…But flew oft to return
Eventually with his own mate,
…A Mrs. Smith in turn. 

Then, inexplicably to all,
…The middle Mrs. Smith
Had an affair, exploding trust
…In all her kin and kith. 

But junior Mr. Smith, with love,
…Took back his wayward mate
Who sorrowed much o’er what she’d done
…To bring this fallen state. 

And taped together with resolve,
…Repentance, and regret,
The pair and married son and wife
…Were a close unit yet. 

But Christmases were not the same.
…Though bells were bright and bold.
And frozen rain ne’er ruined the roads –
…The matriarch was cold. 

No phone calls stitched the time between;
…No post cards in the mail,
No message relayed through the son
…To the abandoned jail. 

Next Christmas came, and she stayed home,
…Forgiven and yet not.
The Third, next Christmas, and his wife,
…Joined in her lonely lot. 

Soon Junior, too, would travel less
…Since he would be alone.
His link then to the matriarch –
…A single thread, a phone. 

And thus the family fell apart
…And could not ever mend,
The fragile fabric torn to shreds
…By Mrs. Smith who sinned.

————————————————

photo by Billy Frank Alexander at
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/2dRXURt/Torn+4

————————————————-

© Dennis Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2018.

 

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A Crocodile by Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Hard by the lilied Nile I saw
A duskish river-dragon stretched along,
The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled
With sanguine almandines and rainy pearl:
And on his back there lay a young one sleeping,
No bigger than a mouse; with eyes like beads,
And a small fragment of its speckled egg
Remaining on its harmless, pulpy snout;
A thing to laugh at, as it gaped to catch
The baulking merry flies. In the iron jaws
Of the great devil-beast, like a pale soul
Fluttering in rocky hell, lightsomely flew
A snowy trochilus, with roseate beak
Tearing the hairy leeches from his throat.

 

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Acadia National Park – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

—

The waves curl;
Then they hit the beach
And – thunder!

——————-

The picture is mine, of Sand Beach in Acadia National Park in Maine.

——————-

* 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/

——————–

© Dennis Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2018.

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To A Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O’er which clouds are bright’ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad day-light
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflow’d.

What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aereal hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embower’d
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower’d,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken’d flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus Hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Match’d with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt,
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest: but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

 

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Sonnet 56 – Cruel And Unusual by Dennis Allen Lange

—
It’s said that punishment should fit the crime:
On bloody hand, slide on a glove to match.
The worse the act, the longer is the time;
The lesser only needs a little patch. 

At crimes that shock our sensibilities,
We shy as if the shadow is too dark.
We would not bash a head or break both knees;
The monster gets a minnow, not a shark. 

And thus, they pay a paler punishment,
Escaping sharper knife for one’s that’s dull.
They suffer less than savaged innocent,
Since we won’t mete what’s cruel, unusual. 

Some criminals should die by slow degree,
Unless a monster’s made of you and me.

—————————————————-

© Dennis Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2018.

 

 

 

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L’Allegro by John Milton

Hence loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus, and blackest Midnight born,

In Stygian cave forlorn,

…‘Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy;

Find out some uncouth cell,

…Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,

And the night-raven sings;

…There under ebon shades, and low-brow’d rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

…In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come thou goddess fair and free,

In heav’n yclep’d Euphrosyne,

And by men, heart-easing Mirth,

Whom lovely Venus at a birth

With two sister Graces more

To Ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;

Or whether (as some sager sing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,

Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-Maying,

There on beds of violets blue,

And fresh-blown roses wash’d in dew,

Fill’d her with thee, a daughter fair,

So buxom, blithe, and debonair.

Haste thee nymph, and bring with thee

Jest and youthful Jollity,

Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,

Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,

Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,

And love to live in dimple sleek;

Sport that wrinkled Care derides,

And Laughter holding both his sides.

Come, and trip it as ye go

On the light fantastic toe,

And in thy right hand lead with thee,

The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;

And if I give thee honour due,

Mirth, admit me of thy crew

To live with her, and live with thee,

In unreproved pleasures free;

To hear the lark begin his flight,

And singing startle the dull night,

From his watch-tower in the skies,

Till the dappled dawn doth rise;

Then to come in spite of sorrow,

And at my window bid good-morrow,

Through the sweet-briar, or the vine,

Or the twisted eglantine;

While the cock with lively din,

Scatters the rear of darkness thin,

And to the stack, or the barn door,

Stoutly struts his dames before;

Oft list’ning how the hounds and horn

Cheerly rouse the slumb’ring morn,

From the side of some hoar hill,

Through the high wood echoing shrill.

Sometime walking, not unseen,

By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,

Right against the eastern gate,

Where the great Sun begins his state,

Rob’d in flames, and amber light,

The clouds in thousand liveries dight.

While the ploughman near at hand,

Whistles o’er the furrow’d land,

And the milkmaid singeth blithe,

And the mower whets his scythe,

And every shepherd tells his tale

Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures

Whilst the landskip round it measures,

Russet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;

Mountains on whose barren breast

The labouring clouds do often rest;

Meadows trim with daisies pied,

Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.

Towers, and battlements it sees

Bosom’d high in tufted trees,

Where perhaps some beauty lies,

The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.

Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes,

From betwixt two aged oaks,

Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,

Are at their savoury dinner set

Of herbs, and other country messes,

Which the neat-handed Phyllis dresses;

And then in haste her bow’r she leaves,

With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;

Or if the earlier season lead

To the tann’d haycock in the mead.

Sometimes with secure delight

The upland hamlets will invite,

When the merry bells ring round,

And the jocund rebecks sound

To many a youth, and many a maid,

Dancing in the chequer’d shade;

And young and old come forth to play

On a sunshine holiday,

Till the live-long daylight fail;

Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,

With stories told of many a feat,

How Faery Mab the junkets eat,

She was pinch’d and pull’d she said,

And he by friar’s lanthorn led,

Tells how the drudging goblin sweat,

To earn his cream-bowl duly set,

When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,

His shadowy flail hath thresh’d the corn

That ten day-labourers could not end;

Then lies him down, the lubber fiend,

And stretch’d out all the chimney’s length,

Basks at the fire his hairy strength;

And crop-full out of doors he flings,

Ere the first cock his matin rings.

Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,

By whispering winds soon lull’d asleep.

Tower’d cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold,

In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,

With store of ladies, whose bright eyes

Rain influence, and judge the prize

Of wit, or arms, while both contend

To win her grace, whom all commend.

There let Hymen oft appear

In saffron robe, with taper clear,

And pomp, and feast, and revelry,

With mask, and antique pageantry;

Such sights as youthful poets dream

On summer eves by haunted stream.

Then to the well-trod stage anon,

If Jonson’s learned sock be on,

Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child,

Warble his native wood-notes wild.

And ever against eating cares,

Lap me in soft Lydian airs,

Married to immortal verse,

Such as the meeting soul may pierce

In notes with many a winding bout

Of linked sweetness long drawn out,

With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,

The melting voice through mazes running,

Untwisting all the chains that tie

The hidden soul of harmony;

That Orpheus’ self may heave his head

From golden slumber on a bed

Of heap’d Elysian flow’rs, and hear

Such strains as would have won the ear

Of Pluto, to have quite set free

His half-regain’d Eurydice.

These delights if thou canst give,

Mirth, with thee I mean to live.

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Awosting Falls – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

—

The fall leaves,
An emerald pool,
Silver thread.

——————–

The photo is mine, of Awosting Falls in Minnewaska State Park in New York.

——————–

* 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/

—————————-

© Dennis Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2018.

 

 

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Renouncement by Alice Meynell

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight—
…The thought of thee—and in the blue heaven’s height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.
Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
…This breast, the thought of thee waits hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
…When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away,—
…With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

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