Poems Week 1

All I can say is you better watch out for the Hansens, who dominate today's poetry offerings. The first two are from Suzi, because she is awesome. Next you get Wade's, because I roped him into it. And finally mine, because cha, I want one of those books.

"It's Nice to Get Up in the Mornin'" a traditional Scottish song, courtesy of Suzi

Oh - it's nice to get up in the morning - when the sun begins to shine

At four or five or six o'clock in the good 'ol summertime.

But when the sun ain't shinin' - and its "meeerki" overhead

Oh - it's nice to get up in the morning

But it's nicer to lie in your bed.

Suzi remembers her grandpa Parsons singing this song, and I know Grandpa Dick still sings it. What old songs do you love? How do you do in the mornings?

"The Lesson," Carol Lynn Pearson 1998, courtesy of Suzi

Yes, my fretting,

Frowning child,

I could cross

The room to you

More easily.

But I've already

Learned to walk,

So I make you

Come to me.

Let go now -

There!

You see?

Oh, remember

This simple lesson,

Child,

And when

In later years

You cry out

With tight fists

And tears -

"Oh, help me,

God - please." -

Just listen

And you'll hear

A silent voice:

"I would, child,

I would.

But it's you,

Not I,

Who needs to try

Godhood."

Love this. Love Suz.

"Invictus," William Ernest Henley 1875, courtesy of Wade

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


Wade's thoughts:

1. This poem puts to rest any idea that poetry is only for shirly-temple-sipping pantywaists. This is a manly poem.

2. I enjoy poetry that motivates action, and this one meets that requirement. Now, this poem focuses on full-throated, deep-in-the-bowels motivation, but that isn't the only type of motivation that comes from good poetry. Some poems motivate kind actions, some motivate pensive reflection, but I believe any poem worth its salt motivates something.

"Pied Beauty" Gerard Manley Hopkins 1918, courtesy of me

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;	5
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise Him.	10

What are your favorite "dappled things"? Mine are roses with the blasted thorns and raising children.

(Why) Are things that are mixed beautiful/valuable?