Selected Favorite Poetry
from
Within Time and Space
(The Bard was a poet himself,
and can't help appreciating the
wonderful work of others of all
the ages.)
If you have a favorite of your
own, submit it on an email - we
just might be able to use it. Be
sure to give us the author's name, especially if it's yours.
Six Blind Men and the Elephant A Hindu Parable From John Godfrey Saxe (1816 - 1887)
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approached the elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the elephant
Is very like a wall!"
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho, what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me, tis mighty clear
This wonder of an elephant
Is very like a spear!"
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up he spake:
"I see", quoth he, "the elephant
Is very like a snake!"
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain", quoth he;
"Tis clear enough the elephant
Is very like a tree!"
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an elephant
Is very like a fan!"
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope.
"I see", quoth he, "the elephant
Is very like a rope!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
All were in the wrong!
Moral:
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an elephant
Not one of them has seen.
HIgh Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds ... and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of ... wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the windswept hights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor even eagle flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space ...
... put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Winged
by Jane Roberts
With winged brains
We swoop and swirl
Inside the blue bell
Of the outer world.
Birds of curved dimensions
Have their neighborhood
Limited by ceiling's
Weight of bone and blood.
But time and space are one to us. The infinite skull
Opens skies all curled within,
Miniature world on world.
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..."Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth by calling
imagination to the help of reason ... The essence of poetry is invention, such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights." ... Samuel Johnson
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from "Song of Myself"
by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
I think I could turn and live with animals,
they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep about their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania
of owning things.
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived
thousands of years ago.
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
MAN
by Merlyn
The forest looks inviting
I must walk in it.
What sense does it make
To know that the forest is there,
And not be a part of it?
If I never even venture in,
How will I know
What I have missed?
It looks so green.
No, it is countless greens,
From the faintest, whitest green
To black.
How deep is it?
How far does it go?
If I walk in it,
Will I get lost?
Look, Father, there are
Other colors there, too.
I see red, gold,
The palest violet,
The brightest blue, and lavender,
Pure white, and even silver.
Every color must be there.
Oh, I will see them all.
The trees are like a
protective roof over me,
Yet they are ever opening
And closing to let me see
Beyond them to you.
How far can I see?
Why, forever, Father.
What an odd question to think.
How could there be an end
To what I can see?
The trees will not stop me.
They are yours.
Look, something is moving in the trees.
It is just the leaves.
The wind is playing
With the leaves.
Oh, what a beautiful garden
You have made here.
Why have you not
Shown it to me before?
***
Something else is moving
In the trees,
I see it better now.
That is not a leaf,
It is a bird,
Moving from tree to tree,
As though he needed
To see every one of them.
I will, too.
I will see every one.
I will know every tree,
And I will name them all.
I will watch them through the seasons
While they live and die,
And live again.
All new leaves - what a marvelous idea.
Then I will follow the bird,
And I will know his name.
If there are others,
I will know them, too.
I will find all of them,
And watch, and know
So many birds - animals, too.
I cannot count them all.
I have found a river in the forest,
A mighty river,
More wonderful
Than any bird,
More magnificent
Than any animal.
I have followed the river
Beyond the forest.
I followed it down a mountainside,
And across a great plain
Into a sea - an endless sea.
Father, I have found a sea.
I looked across the sea.
I could not tell where the sea stopped,
And the sky began.
Father, are you still watching?
Watch me do this, Father.
I will cross the sea.
I will take a tree
And make a boat,
And sail across the top of the water.
I can imagine what is across the sea -
More forests, more mountains,
More birds, more rivers.
But I have not seen them,
And I have not sailed.
The birds can fly,
And I have not flown.
I will do it.
I will sail, and I will fly.
I will know all the mountains,
And call them by name.
What sense does it make
To know it is all there,
And not be a part of it?
Father? Where are you, Father?
***
MERLIN
O Merlin in your crystal cave.
Deep in the diamond of the day,
Will there ever be a singer
Whose music will smooth away
The furrow drawn by Adam's finger
Across a meadow and the wave?
Or a runner who'll outrun
Man's long shadow driving on,
Burst through the gates of history,
And hang the apple on the tree?
Will your sorcery ever show
The sleeping bride shut in her bower,
The day wreathed in its mound of snow,
And time locked in his tower?
... Edwin Muir
LAST LINES
by Emily Bronte
No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life - that in me hath rest,
As I, undying Life, have power in thee.
Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts, unalterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main.
To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast to thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of immortality.
With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.
Though earth and moon were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.
There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void;
Thou - Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.
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CONTENTS
Click on the name above to
go directly to your choice.
A word of explanation is in order for this next selection. Ogden Nash is not' your typical poet. He has been called our greatest combiner of common sense
and uncommon nonsense. His collection of clever non-metric verse and made-
up words to create almost rhymes has never quite been duplicated. As you
will see by this creation, his wit was aimed in some surprising directions. This
poem is a complaint about the over-use of metaphors and similes in poetry.
We hope it makes you s(i)mile.
... Merlyn
VERY LIKE A WHALE
by Ogden Nash
(1902-1971)
One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by authors of simile
and metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons, or Celts,
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to
go out of their way to say that it is something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of
Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and
thus hinder longevity,
We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were
gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a
wolf on the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy
there are a great many things,
But I don't imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple
and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was actu-
ally like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red
mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof, woof, woof?
Frankly I think it very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say, at
the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian
cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enought for Lord Byron, oh dear me, no, he
had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers
to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of wolves
dressed up in purple and gold ate them.
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets,
from Homer to Tennyson;
They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say thing like that the snow is a white blanket
after a winter storm.
Oh, it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of
snow and I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical
blanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm.
And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.
MORE THAN MEN
by Jane Roberts
More than men
Have walked these shores in twilight.
More Gods than ours have risen altars fair.
The earth is filled
With songs not of our singing.
There are worlds about us in which we have no share.
Between each ticking of the clock
Long centuries pass.
In universes hidden from our own.
And our time's eons are far less than breath,
Or the flight of a leaf by the wind blown.
A CAROL FOR CHILDREN
by Ogden Nash
God rest you, merry Innocents,
Let nothing you dismay.
Let nothing wound an eager heart
Upon this Christmas day.
Yours be the gentle holly wreaths,
The stockings and the tree;
An aged world to you bequeaths its own forgotten glee.
Soon, soon enough come crueler gifts,
The anger and the tears;
Between you now there sparsely drifts
A handful yet of years.
Oh, dimly, dimly glows the star
Through the electric throng;
The bidding in temple and bazaar
The ancient altars smoke afresh,
The ancient idols stir;
Faint in the reek of burning flesh
Sink frankincense and myrhh.
Gaspar, Balthazar, Melchior!
Where are your offerings now?
What greetings to the Prince of War,
His darkly banded brow?
Two ultimate laws alone we know,
The ledger and the sword -
So far away, so long ago,
We lost the infant Lord.
Only the children clasp His hand;
His voice speaks low to them,
And still for them the shining band
Wings over Bethlehem.
God rest you, merry Innocents,
While innocense endures.
A sweeter Christmas than we to ours
May you bequeath to yours.
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THE MAN IN THE GLASS
When you get what you want in your struggle for self.
And the world makes you king for a day.
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what the man has to say.
For it isn't your parents, your children or wife
Who judgement upon you must pass.
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.
Some people may think you're a straight-shooting chum,
And call you a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look him straight in the eye.
He's the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
For he's with you clear up to the end,
And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears,
If you've cheated the man in the glass.
... Anonymous
IMAGINE
by John Lennon
Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try,
No hell below us, above us only sky.
Imagine all the people living for today.
Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion, too.
Imagine all the people living life in peace.
You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will be one.
Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people sharing all the world.
You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one.
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
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POETRY CORNER
MERLIN'S SONG
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Of Merlin wise I learned a song,
Sing it low or sing it loud,
It is mightier than the strong,
And punished the proud.
I sing it to the surging crowd -
Good men will calm and cheer.
Bad men will chain and cage -
In the heart of the music
Peals a strain,
Which only angels hear.
Whether it waken or joy or rage,
Hushed myriads hark in vain.
Yet they who hear it shed their age,
And take their youth again.
Hear what British Merlin sung,
Of keenest eye and truest tongue.
Say not the chiefs who first arrive,
Usurp the seats for which all strive.
The forefathers, this land who found
Failed to plant the vantage ground;
Ever from one who comes tomorrow,
Men wait their good and truth to borrow.
But wilt though measure all thy road,
See thou lift the lightest load.
Who has little, to him who has less
can spare,
And thou, Cyndyllan's son beware
Ponderous gold and stuffs to bear.
To falter ere thy task fulfil, -
Only the light-armed climb the hill.
The richest of all lords is Use,
And ruddy health the loftiest Muse.
Live in the sunshine, swim the sea,
Drink the wild air's salubrity;
When the star Canope shines in May,
Shepherds are thankful, and nations gay.
The music that can deepest reach,
And cure all ill, is cordial speech:
Mask thy wisdom with delight,
Toy with the bow, yet hit the white.
Of all wit's, the main one
Is to live well with who has none.
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MERLYN'S WORLD
Imagine with us
MINIVER CHEEVY
Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.
Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.
Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.
Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.
Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.
Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the medieval grace
Of iron clothing.
Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.
Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.
... Edward Arlington Robinson
STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING
by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near,
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
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W. O. W.
It's hard
to be a Bard!
WILY OLD WIZARD
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THE EXAMPLE
Here's an example from A Butterfly;
That on a rough, hard rock, Happy can lie;
Friendless, and all alone
On this unsweetened stone.
Now let my bed be hard,
No care take I;
I'll make my joy like this
Small Butterfly,
Whose happy heart has power
To make a stone a flower.
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SUDDEN LIGHT
I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
You have been mine before, --
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall, -- I knew it all of yore.
Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our loves restore
In death's despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?
... Dante Gabriel Rossetti
W.O.W.
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A MONGREL HALF-BREED RACE
by Daniel Defoe
Thus from a mixture of all things began,
The he'trogeneous thing, an Englishman;
In eager rapes, and furious lust begot,
Between a painted Briton and a Scot;
Whose gend'ring offspring quickly learn'd to bow,
And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough;
From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came,
With neither name nor nation, speech nor fame.
In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran,
Infused betwixt a Saxon and a Dane.
While their rank daughters, to their parents just,
Received all nations with promiscuous lust.
This nauseous brood directly did contain
The well extracted blood of Englishmen.
Which medley cantoned in a heptarchy,
A rhapsody of nations to supply,
Among themselves maintained eternal wars,
And still the ladies loved the conquerors.
The western Angles all the rest subdued;
A bloody nation, barbarous and rude;
Who by the tenure of the sword possessed
One part of Britain, and subdued the rest.
And as great things dominate the small,
The conqu'ring part gave title to the whole.
The Scot, Pict, Briton, Roman, Dane submit,
And with the English-Saxon all unite;
And these the mixture have so close pursued,
The very name and memory's subdued;
No Roman now, no Briton does remain;
Wales strove to separate, but strove in vain;
The silent nations undistinguished fall,
And Englishman's the common name for all.
Fate jumbled them together, God knows how;
Whatever they were, they're true-born English now.
The wonder which remains is at our pride,
To value that which all wise men deride.
For Englishmen to boast of generation,
Cancels their knowledge, and lampoons the nation.
A true-born Englishman's a contradiction,
In speech an irony, in fact a fiction.
A banter made to be a test of fools,
Which those that use it justly ridicules.
A metaphor invented to express
A man akin to all the universe.
... from, "The True-born Englishman"
TO THE SOUL
by John Collop
Dull soul aspire:
Thou art not earth. Mount higher!
Heaven gave the spark; to it return the fire.
Let sin ne'er quench
Thy high-flamed spirit hence:
To earth the heat, to heaven the flame dispense!
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Turn, turn each part a voice;
While to the heart-strings' tune ye all rejoice.
The house is swept
Which sin no longer foul kept:
The penny's found for which the loser wept.
And, purged with tears,
God's image reappears.
The penny truly shows whose stamp it bears.
The sheep long lost,
Sin's wilderness oft crossed,
Is found, regained, returned. Spare, spare no cost.
'Tis heaven's own suit;
Hark how it woos you to't.
When angels need must speak, shall man be mute?
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What follows is a somewhat famous "Prose Poem" written circa 1927 by a writer/poet named Max Ehrmann, who lived from 1872 to 1945, and among other things, also wrote, published, and taught a book entitled "The Worth of a Girl". The title of this poem, "Desiderata", is a Latin word that basically means: "Things to be Desired". They certainly are. In his diary, the poet had written:
"I should like, if I could, to leave a humble gift - a bit of chaste prose that
had caught up some noble moods."
I think you may agree that he has.
**************************
DESIDERATA
Go placidly among the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
Even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
For always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
It is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is.
Many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
It is perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not stress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
You have a right to be here.
And whether or not it as clear to you,
No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life,
Keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
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WE WOULD REALLY LIKE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS ON SOME OF THE ISSUES WE DISCUSS. HERE IS OUR EMAIL ADDRESS:
imagine@merlynsworld.com
"Everyone who drinks is not a poet.
Some of us drink because we are not poets"
... Dudley Moore
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