Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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Echoes
~Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

Lady Clara Vere de Vere
Was eight years old, she said:
Every ringlet, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden thread.
She took her little porringer:
Of me she shall not win renown:
For the baseness of its nature shall have strength to drag her down.

"Sisters and brothers, little Maid?
There stands the Inspector at thy door:
Like a dog, he hunts for boys who know not two and two are four."
"Kind words are more than coronets,"
She said, and wondering looked at me:
"It is the dead unhappy night, and I must hurry home to tea."

Posie & Mosey Mondays

On Mondays, I share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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Men Call you Fair
~Edmund Spenser (1552 - 1599)

Men call you fair, and you do credit it,
 For that your self ye daily such do see:
 But the true fair, that is the gentle wit,
 And vertuous mind, is much more prais'd of me.
 For all the rest, how ever fair it be,
 Shall turn to naught and lose that glorious hue:
 But only that is permanent and free
 From frail corruption, that doth flesh ensue.
 That is true beauty: that doth argue you
 To be divine, and born of heavenly seed:
 Deriv'd from that fair Spirit, from whom all true
 And perfect beauty did at first proceed.
 He only fair, and what he fair hath made,
 All other fair, like flowers untimely fade.

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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Roses Can Wound
~Lascelles Abercrombie (January 1881 – October 1938)

Roses can wound,
But not from having thorns they do most harm;
Often the night gives, starry-sheen or moon'd,
Deep in the soul alarm.
And it hath been deep within my heart like fear,
Girl, when you are near.
The mist of sense,
Wherein the soul goes shielded, can divide,
And she must cringe and be ashamed, and wince,
Not in appearance hide
Of rose or girl from the blazing mastery
Of bared Eternity.

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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LIFE IS BUT A DREAM~Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

A BOAT, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July--
 
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear--
 
Long has paled that sunny sky;
Echoes fade and memories die;
Autumn frosts have slain July.
 
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
 
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
 
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die;
 
Ever drifting down the stream--
Lingering in the golden gleam--
Life, what is it but a dream?

"Life is but a Dream" is reprinted from The Hunting of the Snark and Other Poems and Verses. Lewis Carroll. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1903.

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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POPPIES ON LUDLOW CASTLE
~Willa Cather (1873-1947)

THROUGH halls of vanished pleasure,
And hold of vanished power,
And crypt of faith forgotten,
A came to Ludlow tower.
 
A-top of arch and stairway,
Of crypt and donjan cell,
Of council hall, and chamber,
Of wall, and ditch, and well,
 
High over grated turrets
Where clinging ivies run,
A thousand scarlet poppies
Enticed the rising sun,
 
Upon the topmost turret,
With death and damp below,--
Three hundred years of spoilage,--
The crimson poppies grow.
 
This hall it was that bred him,
These hills that knew him brave,
The gentlest English singer
That fills an English grave.
 
How have they heart to blossom
So cruel and gay and red,
When beauty so hath perished
And valour so hath sped?
 
When knights so fair are rotten,
And captains true asleep,
And singing lips are dust-stopped
Six English earth-feet deep?
 
When ages old remind me
How much hath gone for naught,
What wretched ghost remaineth
Of all that flesh hath wrought;
 
Of love and song and warring,
Of adventure and play,
Of art and comely building,
Of faith and form and fray--
 
I'll mind the flowers of pleasure,
Of short-lived youth and sleep,
That drunk the sunny weather
A-top of Ludlow keep.

Reprinted from April Twilights. Willa Cather. Boston: The Gorham Press, 1903.

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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LAMENT
~Isabella Holt

HE is gone with his blue eyes,
Whom I love most,--
Gone among the cliffs and fog
On a far coast,--
 
He who scatters wit and pride
From his keen tongue,
He who finds himself so deep
And is so young;--
 
He whose joy is in sweet words
And kindliness,--
Whom old men love, and little boys
No whit the less. . . .
 
Rooms are silent that were glad
Seven days ago.
I can feel across my heart
The great tides flow.
 
Love, the blind importunate,
Craves touch and sight;
Briefly parting, feels and fears
Eternal night.
 
Fear is sweeping on the wind
Like acrid foam.
I have said farewell to peace
Till he comes home.

Posie & Mosey Mondays

On Mondays, I share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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A Song
~Leon Gellert (1892 - 1977)

The night has come, I feel the desert dew,
I lie in Africa's sands
And breath the night, for night like these are few
In other lands;
But where are you?

May sleep come soon. I see old shadows creep
Along the sleep stream,
The darkness 'mid the talking palms is deep.
I can but dream
Are you asleep?

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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LINES COMPOSED IN A WOOD ON A WINDY DAY
~Anne Bronte (1820-1849)


MY soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring
And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze;
For above and around me the wild wind is roaring,
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.


The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing,
The bare trees are tossing their branches on high;
The dead leaves beneath them are merrily dancing,
The white clouds are scudding across the blue sky.


I wish I could see how the ocean is lashing
The foam of its billows to whirlwinds of spray;
I wish I could see how its proud waves are dashing,
And hear the wild roar of their thunder to-day!

Reprinted from Poems By Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Charlotte, Anne, and Emily Bronte. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1848.

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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MUSIC, WHEN SOFT VOICES DIE
~Percy Bysshe Shelly (1792-1822)

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
 
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Posie & Mosey Monday

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MY DOVES
~Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

OPPOSITE my chamber window,
On the sunny roof, at play,
High above the city's tumult,
Flocks of doves sit day by day.
Shining necks and snowy bosoms,
Little rosy, tripping feet,
Twinkling eyes and fluttering wings,
Cooing voices, low and sweet,--
 
Graceful games and friendly meetings,
Do I daily watch and see.
For these happy little neighbors
Always seem at peace to be.
On my window-ledge, to lure them,
Crumbs of bread I often strew,
And, behind the curtain hiding,
Watch them flutter to and fro.
 
Soon they cease to fear the giver,
Quick are they to feel my love,
And my alms are freely taken
By the shyest little dove.
In soft flight, they circle downward,
Peep in through the window-pane;
Stretch their gleaming necks to greet me,
Peck and coo, and come again.
 
Faithful little friends and neighbors,
For no wintry wind or rain,
Household cares or airy pastimes,
Can my loving birds restrain.
Other friends forget, or linger,
But each day I surely know
That my doves will come and leave here
Little footprints in the snow.
 
So, they teach me the sweet lesson,
That the humblest may give
Help and hope, and in so doing,
Learn the truth by which we live;
For the heart that freely scatters
Simple charities and loves,
Lures home content, and joy, and peace,
Like a soft-winged flock of doves.

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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A Poet of One Mood 
~Alice Alice Meynell (1847 - 1922)
      
A poet of one mood in all my lays,
Ranging all life to sing one only love,
Like a west wind across the world I move,
Sweeping my harp of floods mine own wild ways.
The countries change, but not the west-wind days
Which are my songs. My soft skies shine above,
And on all seas the colours of a dove,
And on all fields a flash of silver greys.
I made the whole world answer to my art
And sweet monotonous meanings. In your ears
I change not ever, bearing, for my part,
One thought that is the treasure of my years-
A small cloud full of rain upon my heart
And in mine arms, clasped, like a child in tears.

Posie & Mosey Monday

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The Ghost~Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

Softly as brown-eyed Angels rove
I will return to thy alcove,
And glide upon the night to thee,
Treading the shadows silently.
 
And I will give to thee, my own,
Kisses as icy as the moon,
And the caresses of a snake
Cold gliding in the thorny brake.
 
And when returns the livid morn
Thou shalt find all my place forlorn
And chilly, till the falling night.
 
Others would rule by tenderness
Over thy life and youthfulness,
But I would conquer thee by fright!


'The Ghost' is reprinted from The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire. Ed. James Huneker. New York: Brentano's, 1919.

Posie & Mosey Monday + Winner of QT gift card!

On Mondays, I like to share word posies with my readers. Comments are usually disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's. But today I have a WINNER to announce.

E. Arroyo, Mr. Random.org has chosen you as the recipient of Patrick's generous premium membership gift card which will last you a full year (a $25 value)! Please email me at anita(at)aghoward(dot)come and I'll send the linkage your way via your email address.

Thanks to everyone else who participated. Patrick and I really appreciated all of the comments. :) Have a great week!

Now onto today's poem...

Alone ~Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I like to share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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The Kind Ghosts 
~Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
   
She sleeps on soft, last breaths; but no ghost looms
Out of the stillness of her palace wall,
Her wall of boys on boys and dooms on dooms.

She dreams of golden gardens and sweet glooms,
Not marvelling why her roses never fall
Nor what red mouths were torn to make their blooms.

The shades keep down which well might roam her hall.
Quiet their blood lies in her crimson rooms
And she is not afraid of their footfall.

They move not from her tapestries, their pall,
Nor pace her terraces, their hecatombs,
Lest aught she be disturbed, or grieved at all. 

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I like to share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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Thanksgiving
~ Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)

Gettin' together to smile an' rejoice,
An' eatin' an' laughin' with folks of your choice;
An' kissin' the girls an' declarin' that they
Are growin' more beautiful day after day;
Chattin' an' braggin' a bit with the men,
Buildin' the old family circle again;
Livin' the wholesome an' old-fashioned cheer,
Just for awhile at the end of the year.
Greetings fly fast as we crowd through the door
And under the old roof we gather once more
Just as we did when the youngsters were small;
Mother's a little bit grayer, that's all.
Father's a little bit older, but still
Ready to romp an' to laugh with a will.
Here we are back at the table again
Tellin' our stories as women an' men.

Bowed are our heads for a moment in prayer;
Oh, but we're grateful an' glad to be there.
Home from the east land an' home from the west,
Home with the folks that are dearest an' best.
Out of the sham of the cities afar
We've come for a time to be just what we are.
Here we can talk of ourselves an' be frank,
Forgettin' position an' station an' rank.

Give me the end of the year an' its fun
When most of the plannin' an' toilin' is done;
Bring all the wanderers home to the nest,
Let me sit down with the ones I love best,
Hear the old voices still ringin' with song,
See the old faces unblemished by wrong,
See the old table with all of its chairs
An' I'll put soul in my Thanksgivin' prayers.

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I like to share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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DREAM LAND
~Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

HERE sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.
 
She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.
 
Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.
 
Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.

"Dream Land" is reprinted from Poems. Christina Rossetti. London: Macmillan, 1891.

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I like to share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

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The Little Grey Road
~Patience Worth 1883–1937

A little grey road that lies mid the shadows,
And trails from the Then to Now;
Where the briar-rose swings and th eve-lark sings,
And the dew clings 'bout the meadow way;
Where the sun lingers lothful, and the moon
Tarries too, so late to leave and soon to come.
Ah, the little grey roadway so far, far away,
Where I left my youth, treading with gladness,
And smiling, with bright hours to follow;
With no remembrance packed, like the scent
Of pale leaf that dropped at the withering touch
Of tears and sobs and sorrows.

All carefree I went, all happy a treading
On the little grey roadway so far.
Oh, that my feet might stray back
Through the fields and vales, and find
The same roadway a-roaming the shadows,
With memory's ghosts haunting the turns.
When the New Day doth come, and I leave
Thee and thee---shall I find it still waiting---
The little grey roadway wrapped in its shadows,
And my youth a-laughing me there?

Posie & Mosey Monday and Contest Winners

On Mondays, I like to share word posies with my readers. Comments are usually disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's. BUT, today is different because I have some WINNERS to announce.

Thank you everyone who played my Friday Fright-Fest Contest last week.

With the help of Mr. Random.org, here are our five winners and the books randomly chosen for them:

1. Bethany Crandell--Bad Girls Don't Die
2. Sarah Pearson--Incantation
3. Bess Van--The Trembling Hills
4. Keriann Martin--Killing Britney
5. Cherie--Fade

Lucky ladies, if you will please email me your addresses, I will send the books your way. Those of you who didn't win this time, I promise to have another contest soon.

 

Have a happy and safe Halloween, everyone, and enjoy the following creepy poem. Hope to see you on Thursday for another book trailer that has caught my eye.

Fragment Of A Ghost Story
  ~Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
      
A shovel of his ashes took
From the hearth's obscurest nook,
Muttering mysteries as she went.
Helen and Henry knew that Granny
Was as much afraid of Ghosts as any,
And so they followed hard-
But Helen clung to her brother's arm,
And her own spasm made her shake.

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I like to share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*

*Hungry for more in-depth Monday posts? Visit any or all of the entertaining and insightful blogs on my sidebar, or hop over to TeenShiver and see what's new with the Texas gals. ;)

 

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Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum 
~Stephen Vincent Benet (1898 - 1943)
  
Here, where men's eyes were empty and as bright
As the blank windows set in glaring brick,
When the wind strengthens from the sea -- and night
Drops like a fog and makes the breath come thick;

By the deserted paths, the vacant halls,
One may see figures, twisted shades and lean,
Like the mad shapes that crawl an Indian screen,
Or paunchy smears you find on prison walls.

Turn the knob gently! There's the Thumbless Man,
Still weaving glass and silk into a dream,
Although the wall shows through him -- and the Khan
Journeys Cathay beside a paper stream.

A Rabbit Woman chitters by the door --
-- Chilly the grave-smell comes from the turned sod --
Come -- lift the curtain -- and be cold before
The silence of the eight men who were God!

Posie & Mosey Monday

On Mondays, I like to share word posies with my readers. Comments are disabled so you can enjoy this gift of poetry then mosey on along to your list of daily do's.*


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Killing the Trust
~ Tina Gray

I will laugh with your ghosts-
these sheeted reminders of your wicked past;
I will take their coats and hats as any good hostess,
and rub their bald heads in tandem recklessness-
flirting with the host in a feverish glee.

I will set a table for afternoon tea
and invite your wraiths of sordid history.
We'll have crumpets and scones and bilberry pies,
watercress wedges and finger delights.
I will don my best apron of matronly prim,
and entertain late into evening’s dim light.

I will pepper each spook with kindness and praise
and thank them for an evening of pleasurable grace.
Then I'll send them away with refined blasé…
and you’ll cringe at the sight, in unspeakable fright-
as I befriend your haunted past.

I will dance with these bones that reside in your room,
that sneak to your closets and bang heavy doors…
I will capture the hands of this calcified goon
and we’ll waltz upon professing floors.
We will swoon with the grace of rattling bones
and jiggle the locks to your unopened drawers,
while his fingers make play as skeleton keys-
exposing forgotten troves…

Then I'll bathe in the rush of this mellowed perfume
that flows as sweet syrup from old letters exhumed…
I will bask in the dewiness of True Jasmine’s breath,
lathering with the musk of a Sunflower’s Crest
and rinse with a shower of Rose Petal Mist-
until I reek of the soup of mingling fumes.

I will paint with the palette of lips left behind-
these that sealed tender notes with a hollowed out kiss;
my artwork will burst with red rums and plums…
coffee spiced sands and pink bubblegums…
it will resonate with apricots and raspberry wines,
(and I’ll trump my own shade, if I so incline)…

Adrift on the sea of intimate words,
I'll float with ease upon contented waves
until the writings bore holes in my vessel’s kind face-
clipped by the berg of your icy charades
and I’ll sink, just as your promises to heartsick girls.

On my knees I will dredge the depths of façade
and surface on the banks of a fallen saint.
I’ll be castaway here on this shore, in disgust…
drying fresh tears by a blazing bonfire
that brims with the ash of your past artifacts.

And the flares will reflect in my now-opened eyes
as unquenchable flames of awakened mistrust.