The Near Reality by Dennis Allen Lange

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There once was a cat that was chased by a rat
And none without seeing would e’er have thought that!
The cat crossed the street and seemed to be bold,
But the rat turned around and terror took hold.
The moral? – The courage we have from afar
May melt like the snow the closer we are.

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

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A Simple Recipe by James Whitcomb Riley

To be a wholly worthy man,
…As you, my boy, would like to be, –
This is to show you how you can –
…This simple recipe: –

Be honest – both in word and act,
…Be strictly truthful through and through:
Fact can not fail, – You stick to fact,
…And fact will stick to you.

Be clean – outside and in, and sweep
…Both hearth and heart and hold them bright;
Wear snowy linen – aye, and keep
…Your conscience snowy-white.

Do right, your utmost – good must come
…To you who do your level-best –
Your very hopes will help you some,
…And work will do the rest.

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Drummerston Covered Bridge In Vermont – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

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It’s useful,
And New England’s charm –
Covered bridge.

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The photo is mine, taken on a fall foliage trip through New England.
Built in 1872, the bridge is the longest covered bridge entirely in Vermont.

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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 Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2018.

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Seven Ages Of Man by William Shakespeare

…………….(from “As You Like It”)

…………………………………All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

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Psalm 46 by Dennis Allen Lange

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*See note below the poem after reading it.

2 We shall not fear though earth should shake and shift,
…And though the mountains slide into the sea.
3 The waves may foam and stars, of sudden, drift,
5 But we shall dwell immoveable and free.

6 The kingdoms totter and the nations roar;
9 The bow and spear advance with chariots.
7 But we shall be secure forevermore,
…E’en if we had no walls and lived in huts.

4 The city of God’s dwelling place is fed
…By waters from His river flowing pure.
8 He rains just desolations on the head
…Of sinful men, but makes our safety sure.

1 God is our refuge, strength, to whom we plead;
…A very present help in time of need.

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I’ve written all of Psalms and Proverbs in poetry that rhymes and has rhythm.  The book will be available at Amazon before Christmas.  If you’re interested (and have not already said so),  let me know in the comments.

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

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On The Ranch – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

—
‘Neath a stone
A president lies –
LBJ.

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The photo is mine, taken at the LBJ Ranch near Johnson City, Texas.
LBJ’s tombstone is the large one center right; Lady Bird’s large one center left.

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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 Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2018.

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Sonnet 13 (XIII) by William Shakespeare

O that you were yourself! but, love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live,
Against this coming end you should prepare
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again after yourself’s decease
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold
Against the stormy gust of winter’s day
And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?
…O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know
…You had a father – let your son say so.

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To The Vietnam Vet by Dennis Allen Lange

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We that supported you were mute,
…Applauding with one hand,
While children who were so opposed
…Went to the streets to stand. 

You heard the louder chorus then,
…The raucous caw of crows,
And never did we recognize
…How much the country owes 

You veterans who served in Nam,
…(The living and the dead)
In thankless war our thankless land
…Was much too quick to shed. 

With one hand tied behind your back
…By cowards far away,
You heroes, there, enduring much,
…Had one more price to pay, 

And that from fellow countrymen
…Who scoffed as you returned
And spit upon the very ones
…Whose blood bought flags they burned. 

But you must know their numbers were,
…Like traitors, very few,
While we who held you in esteem
…Covered the land like dew.

And though it’s late, here’s my salute –
…From many others, too.
You gave so much and here’s a bit
…Of so much that is due.

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photo by Robert Linder at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/oJW4RWA/Flags

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

 

 

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Oregon’s Rogue Gorge – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

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The light reigns
Where river rushes –
Gorgeous gorge.

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The photo is mine of the Rogue Gorge on the Rogue River in Oregon.

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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 Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2018.

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Marco Bozzaris by Fitz-Greene Halleck

(Marco Bozzaris of Greece died after an attack on Albania troops on Aug.20, 1823.
His last words were: “To die for liberty is a pleasure, and not a pain.”)

At midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power;
In dreams, through camp and court he bore.
The trophies of a conqueror;
In dreams his song of triumph heard;
Then wore his monarch’s signet ring;
Then pressed that monarch’s throne-a king:
As wild his thoughts and gay of wing
As Eden’s garden bird.

At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.
There had the Persian’s thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood
On old Plataea’s day;
And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
With arm to strike, and soul to dare,
As quick, as far as they.

An hour passed on-the Turk awoke;
That bright dream was his last;
He woke-to hear his sentries shriek,
‘To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!’
He woke-to die midst flame and smoke,
And shout and groan and sabre-stroke,
And death-shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud;
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:
Strike-till the last armed foe expires!
Strike-for your altars and your fires!
Strike-for the green graves of your sires,
God, and your native land!’

They fought like brave men, long and well;
They piled that ground with Moslem slain;
They conquered-but Bozzaris fell,
Bleeding at every vein.
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their proud hurrah,
And the red field was won;
Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night’s repose,
Like flowers at set of sun.

Come to the bridal chamber, Death!
Come to the mother’s when she feels,
For the first time, her first-horn’s breath;
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke;
Come in consumption’s ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm;
Come when the heart beats high and warm
With banquet-song and dance and wine;
And thou art terrible-the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know or dream or fear
Of agony, are thine.

But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet’s word,
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.
Come when his task of fame is wrought,
Come with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought,
Come in her crowning hour, and then
Thy sunken eye’s unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight
Of sky and stars to prisoned men;
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
Of brother in a foreign land;
Thy summons welcome as the cry
That told the Indian isles were nigh
To the world-seeking Genoese,
When the land-wind, from woods of palm
And orange-groves and fields of balm,
Blew oer the Haytian seas.

Bozzaris, with the storied brave
Greece nurtured in her glory’s time,
Rest thee-there is no prouder gave.
Even in her own proud clime.
She wore no funeral-weeds for thee,
Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume,
Like torn branch from death’s leafless tree,
In sorrow’s pomp and pageantry,
The heartless luxury of the tomb.
But she remembers thee as one
Long loved and for a season gone;
For thee her poet’s lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music breathed;
For thee she rings the birthday bells;
Of thee her babes’ first lisping tells;
For throe her evening prayer is said
At palace-couch and cottage-bed;
Her soldier, closing with the foe,
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow;
His plighted maiden, when she fears
For him, the joy of her young years,
Thinks of thy fate and checks her tears;
And she, the mother of thy boys,
Though in her eye and faded cheek
Is read the grief she will not speak,
The memory of her buried joys,
And even she who gave thee birth,
Will, by their pilgrim-circled hearth,
Talk of thy doom without a sigh,
For thou art Freedom’s now and Fame’s,
One of the few, the immortal names,
That were not born to die. 

 

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