Poetry Revisited: Ostern – Easter by Marie Rudofsky

Ostern (aus Schulter an Schulter. Kriegsgedichte: 1915) Noch bläst es scharf vom Bergwaldkamm, Wenn abendlich die Sonne scheidet; Die tiefversteckte steile Klamm Liegt windverweht in Schnee gekleidet. Noch steht die weite Flur so kahl, Wie in des Winters dunklen Tagen, Und aus dem Bach im Wiesental Nur scheue Weidenkätzchen ragen. Und dennoch naht, du ahnst es kaum, Auf weichen, bunten Falterflügeln Der alte Auferstehungstraum Und läßt nicht hemmen sich, nicht zügeln. Er schwirrt mit Zaubermacht und Pracht Durch Feld und Au und Waldesengen, Und über Nacht ist froh erwacht: Ein Keimen, Sprudeln, Leben, Drängen. Leicht schmilzt des Winters letzter Rest, Die Erde taut aus harten Schollen; Sie rüstet sich zum Frühlingsfest— Ein neuer Segen ist erquollen. Und neues Hoffen sproßt und schwillt Im qualerstarrten Menschenherzen; Mit wehmutsvollem Trost gestillt, Ruh’n ausgesöhnt bezwung’ne Schmerzen. Der frohe Osterglockenklang Hell übertönt die dumpfen Klagen, Es will beim Allelujasang Ein lichtes, freies Werden tagen. Es will in jeder deutschen Brust Die Hoffnung tiefe Wurzeln schlagen, Und nach des Lenzes Blütenlust Auch reiche, volle Früchte tragen. Marie Rudofsky (1869-1946) böhmisch-österreichische Dichterin

Easter (from Side by Side. War Poems: 1915) Still it blows sharply from the mountain ridge, When the sun parts in the evening; The deeply hidden steep gorge lies blown over, clad in snow. Still the wide corridor is so bare Like in winter’s dark days And from the brook in the grassland valley Only shy catkins protrude. And yet, is approaching, you hardly suspect it, On soft, colourful butterfly wings The old dream of resurrection And cannot be delayed, nor restrained. It buzzes with magic power and splendour Through fields and meadows and forest narrows, And woke up happily overnight: A germination, bubbling, living, pushing. Easily melts the remaining winter’s rest, The earth thaws from hard clods; It is gearing up for the Spring Festival— A new blessing has gushed. And new hope sprouts and swells In the torment-frozen human heart; Satisfied with wistful comfort Rest reconciled overcome pains. The happy sound of Easter bells Drowns out brightly the dull complaints, With the song of Hallelujah will Be born a bright, free becoming. In every German breast wants To take deep roots Hope And after spring’s lust for flowers Also to bear rich, full fruit. Marie Rudofsky (1869-1946) Bohemean-Austrian poet

Poetry Revisited: Song by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Song

(from Kéramos and Other Poems: 1878)

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest,
For those that wander they know not where
Are full of trouble and full of care;
                    To stay at home is best.

Weary and homesick and distressed,
They wander east, they wander west,
And are baffled and beaten and blown about
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;
                    To stay at home is best.

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;
The bird is safest in its nest;
O’er all that flutter their wings and fly
A hawk is hovering in the sky;
                    To stay at home is best.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
American poet and educator

Poetry Revisited: Loneliness by Sophie M. Hensley

Loneliness

(from The Heart of a Woman: 1906)

Dear, I am lonely, for the bay is still
     As any hill-girt lake; the long brown beach
     Lies bare and wet. As far as eye can reach
  There is no motion. Even on the hill
     Where the breeze loves to wander I can see
     No stir of leaves, nor any waving tree.

There is a great red cliff that fronts my view
     A bare, unsightly thing; it angers me
     With its unswerving-grim monotony.
  The mackerel weir, with branching boughs askew
     Stands like a fire-swept forest, while the sea
     Laps it, with soothing sighs, continually.

There are no tempests in this sheltered bay,
     The stillness frets me, and I long to be
     Where winds sweep strong and blow tempestuously,
  To stand upon some hill-top far away
     And face a gathering gale, and let the stress
     Of Nature's mood subdue my restlessness.

An impulse seizes me, a mad desire
     To tear away that red-browed cliff, to sweep
     Its crest of trees and huts into the deep;
  To force a gap by axe, or storm, or fire,
     And let rush in with motion glad and free
     The rolling waves of the wild wondrous sea.

Sometimes I wonder if I am the child
     Of calm, law-loving parents, or a stray
     From some wild gypsy camp. I cannot stay
  Quiet among my fellows; when this wild
     Longing for freedom takes me I must fly
     To my dear woods and know my liberty.

It is this cringing to a social law
     That I despise, these changing, senseless forms
     Of fashion! And until a thousand storms
  Of God's impatience shall reveal the flaw
     In man's pet system, he will weave the spell
     About his heart and dream that all is well.

Ah! Life is hard, Dear Heart, for I am left
     To battle with my old-time fears alone
     I must live calmly on, and make no moan
  Though of my hoped-for happiness bereft.
     Thou wilt not come, and still the red cliff lies
     Hiding my ocean from these longing eyes.

Sophie Margaretta Almon Hensley (1866-1946)
Canadian writer and educator

Poetry Revisited: Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Spring

(from Robert Bridges (ed.). Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: 1918)

Nothing is so beautiful as spring—
     When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
     Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
     The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
     The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

     What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
     In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
     Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
English poet and Jesuit priest

Poetry Revisited: The Idea by Agnes Mary F. Robinson

The Idea

(from Songs, Ballads and a Garden Play: 1888)

Beneath this worlcj of stars and flowers
     That rolls in visible deity,
I dream another world is ours
     And is the soul of all we see.

It hath no form, it hath no spirit;
     It is perchance the Eternal mind;
Beyond the sense that we inherit
     I feel it dim and undefined.

How far below the depth of being,
     How wide beyond the starry bound;
It rolls unconscious and unseeing,
     And is as Number or as Sound.

And through the vast fantastic visions
     Of all this actual universe,
It moves unswerved by our decisions
     And is the play that we rehearse.

Agnes Mary Frances Robinson (1857-1944)
English poet, novelist, essayist, literary critic, and translator

Poetry Revisited: The Sparrow by Albert Durrant Watson

The Sparrow

(from Heart of the Hills: 1917)

A little meal of frozen cake,
A little drink of snow,
And when the sun is setting,
A broad-eaved bungalow.

A little hopping in the sun
Throughout the wintry day,
A little chirping blithely
Till March drifts into May:

A little sparrow’s simple life,
And Love, that life to keep,
That careth for the sparrow
Even when it falls asleep.

Albert Durrant Watson (1859-1926)
Canadian poet and physician

Poetry Revisited: Spring by Lesbia Harford

Spring

(from The Poems of Lesbia Harford: 1941)

The hot winds wake to life in the sweet daytime
My weary limbs,
And tear through all the moonlit darkness shouting
Tremendous hymns.

My body keeps earth’s law and goes exulting.
Poor slavish thing!
The soul that knows you dead rejects in silence
This riotous spring.

Lesbia Harford (1891-1927)
Australian poet, novelist and political activist

Poetry Revisited: Bесна – Spring by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev

Bесна (из книги Стихи и политические статьи: 1886) Зима недаром злится, Прошла ее пора — Весна в окно стучится И гонит со двора. И все засуетилось, Все нудит Зиму вон — И жаворонки в небе Уж подняли трезвон. Зима еще хлопочет И на Весну ворчит. Та ей в глаза хохочет И пуще лишь шумит… Взбесилась ведьма злая И, снегу захватя, Пустила, убегая, В прекрасное дитя… Весне и горя мало: Умылася в снегу, И лишь румяней стала, Наперекор врагу. 1836 Фёдор Иванович Тютчев (1803–1873) Русский поэт, Диплома́т и государственный деятель

Spring (from Poems and Political Articles: 1886) The winter not without reason grows wroth: Her season is past, Spring knocks at the window And drives her out of doors. And everything has begun to stir, Everything drives the winter away And the larks in the sky Have already raised their chime. Winter still makes trouble, And grumbles at the spring, But she laughs in her face, And only clamours more. The angry witch grew furious And, snatching up the snow, Threw it, running away, At the pretty child. For spring it was but little concern: She washed herself in the snow, And became only rosier In spite of her foe. 1836 Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev (1803–1873) Russian poet, diplomat and statesman Translation as published in B. A. Rudzinsky, Stella Gardiner: Poems selected from Karamzin, Pushkin, Tyutchev, Lermontov, Count A. Tolstoy, Nikitin, Pleshcheyev, Nadson, and Sologub. H. S. Marshall, London; J. Menzies, Edinburgh and Glasgow 1917.

Poetry Revisited: Winter and Spring by Hannah Flagg Gould

Winter and Spring

(from The Youth's Coronal: 1851)

“Adieu!“ Father Winter sadly said
To the world, when about withdrawing,
With his old white wig half off his head,
And his icicle fingers thawing.

“Adieu! I am going to the rocks and caves,
And must leave all here behind me;
Or, perhaps I shall sink in the Northern waves,
So deep that none can find me.“

“Good luck! good luck, to your hoary locks!“
Said the gay young Spring, advancing;
“You may take your rest mid the caves and rocks,
While I o'er the earth am dancing.

“But there is not a spot where your foot has trod,
You hard, and clumsy old fellow,
Not a hill, nor a field, nor a single sod,
But I must make haste to mellow.

“And then I shall carpet them o'er with grass,
Which will look so bright and cheering,
That none will regret that they let you pass
Far out of sight and of hearing.

“The fountains that you locked up so tight,
When I shall give them a sunning,
Will sparkle and play with my warmth and light,
And the streams will set to running.

“I'll speak in the earth to the palsied root,
That under your reign was sleeping;
I'll teach it the way in the dark to shoot,
And draw out the vine to creeping.

“The boughs that you cased so close in ice
It was chilling e'en to behold them,
I'll deck all over with buds so nice,
My breath can alone unfold them.

“And when all the trees are with blossoms dressed,
The bird with her song so merry
Will come to the branches to build her nest,
With a view to the future cherry.

“The earth will show by her loveliness,
The wonders I am doing,
While the skies look down, with a smile, to bless
The way that I'm pursuing!“

Said Winter, “Then I would have you learn
By me, my gay new-comer,
To push off too, when it comes your turn
And yield your place to Summer!“

Hannah Flagg Gould (1789-1865)
American poet

Poetry Revisited: Winter Heavens by George Meredith

Winter Heavens

(from A Reading of Earth: 1888)

Sharp is the night, but stars with frost alive
Leap off the rim of earth across the dome.
It is a night to make the heavens our home
More than the nest whereto apace we strive.
Lengths down our road each fir-tree seems a hive,
In swarms outrushing from the golden comb.
They waken waves of thoughts that burst to foam:
The living throb in me, the dead revive.
Yon mantle clothes us: there, past mortal breath,
Life glistens on the river of the death.
It folds us, flesh and dust; and have we knelt,
Or never knelt, or eyed as kine the springs
Of radiance, the radiance enrings:
And this is the soul's haven to have felt.

George Meredith (1828-1909)
English novelist and poet

Poetry Revisited: There’s A Certain Slant of Light by Emily Dickinson

There’s A Certain Slant of Light

(from Poems by Emily Dickinson. Series 1: 1890)

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
'T is the seal, despair,—
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
American poet

Poetry Revisited: Midwinter Thaw by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

Midwinter Thaw

(from Songs of the Common Day and AVE!: 1893)

How shrink the snows upon this upland field,
          Under the dove-grey dome of brooding noon!
          They shrink with soft reluctant shocks, and soon
In sad brown ranks the furrows lie revealed.
From radiant cisterns of the frost unsealed
          Now wakes through all the air a watery rune—
          The babble of a million brooks atune,
In fairy conduits of blue ice concealed.

Noisy with crows, the wind-break on the hill
          Counts o'er its buds for summer. In the air
Some shy foreteller prophesies with skill—
          Some voyaging ghost of bird, some effluence rare;
And the stall-wearied cattle dream their fill
          Of deep June pastures where the pools are fair.

Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts (1860-1943)
Canadian poet and writer

Poetry Revisited: Winter by Frances Anne Kemble

Winter

(from Poems: 1859)

I saw him on his throne, far in the North,
Him ye call Winter, picturing him ever
An aged man, whose frame with palsied shiver
Bends o’er the fiery element, his foe.
But him I saw was a young god whose brow
Was crown’d with jagged icicles, and forth
From his keen spirit-like eyes there shone a light
Broad, glaring, and intensely cold and bright.
His breath, like sharp-edged arrows, pierced the air ;
The naked earth crouched shuddering at his feet ;
His finger on all murmuring waters sweet
Lay icily, motion nor sound was there;
Nature seem’d frozen dead; and still and slow
A winding sheet fell o’er her features fair,
Flaky and white from his white wings of snow.

Frances Anne Kemble (1809-1893)
British actress and writer

Poetry Revisited: Dirge for the Year by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Dirge for the Year

(from Posthumous Poems: 1824)

Orphan hours, the year is dead;
          Come and sigh, come and weep;
Merry hours smile instead,
          For the year is but asleep:
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
          In its coffin in the clay,
So white Winter, that rough nurse,
          Rocks the dead-cold year to-day.
Solemn hours ! wail aloud
For your mother in her shroud.

As the wild air stirs and sways
          The tree-swung cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days
          Rocks the year: be calm and mild,
Trembling hours; she will arise
With new love within her eyes.

January grey is here,
          Like a sexton by her grave;
February bears the bier,
          March with grief doth howl and rave;
And April weeps but, O ye hours!
Follow with May's fairest flowers.

January 1, 1821

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
English Romantic poet

Poetry Revisited: En la festividad de los Santos Reyes – On the Feast of the Holy Kings by St. Teresa of Avila

En la festividad de los Santos Reyes (de Obras de Sta Teresa de Jesús, Tomo VI: 1919) Pues la estrella es ya llegada, vaya con los Reyes la mi manada. Vamos todas juntas a ver el Mesías, pues vemos cumplidas ya las profecías. Pues en nuestros días, es ya llegada, vaya con los Reyes la mi manada. Llevémosle dones de grande valor, pues vienen los Reyes, con tan gran hervor. Alégrese hoy nuestra gran Zagala, vaya con los Reyes la mi manada. No cures, Llorente, de buscar razón, para ver que es Dios aqueste garzón. Dale el corazón, y yo esté empeñada: vaya con los Reyes la mi manada. Santa Teresa de Jesús (1515-1582), nombre secular Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada monja, mística y esritora española

On the Feast of the Holy Kings (from Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Volume VI: 1919) Now that the star Has aready arrived, Go With the Kings My flock. Let’s go all together To see the Messiah, Now that we see fulfilled Already the prophecies. Now that in our days It has already arrived, Go With the Kings My flock. Let’s bring him presents Of great Worth, Now that the Kings are coming With such great surge. Today she rejoices Our great young girl, Go With the Kings My flock. Don’t bother, Llorente, To search a reason, To see that it’s God This young boy. Give him the heart And I be indebted: Go With the Kings My flock. St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), secular name Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda Dávila y Ahumada Spanish nun, mystic and writer Literal translation: © Edith Lagrazaiana 2020

Poetry Revisited: Not Yet by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

Not Yet

(from Poems: 1908)

Time brought me many another friend
               That loved me longer.
New love was kind, but in the end
               Old love was stronger.

Years come and go. No New Year yet
               Hath slain December.
And all that should have cried — “Forget!“
               Cries but — “Remember!“

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907)
British novelist and poet

Poetry Revisited: Christmas by P. H. Lovecraft

Christmas

(from The Tryout, 6, No. 11: November 1920)

The cottage hearth beams warm and bright,
               The candles gaily glow;
The stars emit a kinder light
               Above the drifted snow.

Down from the sky a magic steals
               To glad the passing year,
And belfries sing with joyous peals,
               For Christmastide is here!

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937)
American writer

Poetry Revisited: Winter Night by E. C. Kinney

Winter Night

(from Poems: 1867)

How calm, how solemn, how sublime the scene!
The moon in full-orbed glory sails above,
And stars in myriads around her move,
Each looking down with watchful eye serene
On earth, which, in a snowy shroud arrayed,
And still, as if in death’s embrace ‘twere laid.
Saddens the spirit with its corpse-like mien:
Yet doth it charm the eye — its gaze still hold;
Just as the face of one we loved, when cold
And pale and lovely e’en in death ‘tis seen,
Will fix the mourner’s eye, tho’ trembling fears
Fill all his heart, and thickly fall his tears:
O, I could watch till morn should change the sight,
This cold, this beautiful, this mournful Winter night.

Elizabeth Clementine Kinney (1810-1889)
American writer

Poetry Revisited: December by Joel Benton

December

(from John Burroughs: Songs of Nature: 1901)

When the feud of hot and cold
Leaves the autumn woodlands bare;
When the year is getting old.
And flowers are dead, and keen the air;

When the crow has new concern.
And early sounds his raucous note;
And—where the late witch-hazels burn—
The squirrel from a chuckling throat

Tells that one larder's space is filled,
And tilts upon a towering tree;
And, valiant, quick, and keenly thrilled.
Upstarts the tiny chickadee;

When the sun's still shortening arc
Too soon night's shadows dun and gray
Brings on, and fields are drear and dark,
And summer birds have flown away,—

I feel the year's slow-beating heart.
The sky's chill prophecy I know;
And welcome the consummate art
Which weaves this spotless shroud of snow!

Joel Benton (1832-1911)
American writer, poet and lecturer

Poetry Revisited: Winter in the Library by Enid Derham

Winter in the Library

(from The Mountain Road and Other Verses: 1912)

All the Iivelong day
I feed on ancient sweets,
Nor heed how the wind blows
Nor how the wild rain beats,
For at my will I wander through
Green lanes and busy streets.

I look from Parnassus
Over Delphi to the sea,
Or singing I loiter In heavenly Sicily,
And Theocritus comes down to share
His honeycomb with me.

Now's the time for poets,
In the wintry weather!
From deeds of arms to love I fly
Inconstant as a feather,
To grey beards leave philosophy,—
We shall be young together!

Yet if one I know should call me
With a look from the door.
O poets mine, I would not stay
By any lane or shore,
For all your lyrics toy our loves,
And the light oaths you swore.

Enid Derham (1882-1941)
Australian poet and academic