Our Preferred Poets

[Querida]

The Darkling Thrush - Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

[Querida]

Yet another by Thomas Hardy

Hap
If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”

Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased, too, that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
--Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan….
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

[Querida]

I thought atleast there would a few more hubbers who would share their love of english/tamil poetry...I guess it must be my lack in knowledge about tamil poetry but where tamil keeps her charms elusive i have been atleast able to appreciate the offerings of english poets

here are some following links...the poems are long but if poetry was read for length and not for the love of it we would be missing many many good works:

The Lady of Shalott - Alfred Tennyson
http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/TENNLADY.HTML

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock - T.S. Eliot
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...5616/poem.html

[Querida]

This is one of my very favourite poems, maybe because Elizabeth writes this out of a thought that many of us encounter....we do not understand why someone loves us and finds something special about us that we cannot see ourselves...

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

[xlntbarani]

I thought atleast there would a few more hubbers who would share their love of english/tamil poetry...I guess it must be my lack in knowledge about tamil poetry

Stunned...

[pavalamani pragasam]

Ode to the West Wind

O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts froman enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes; O thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within the grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and colours plain and hill;
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, oh, hear!

Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion,
Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning; there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge
Like the bright hairuplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad,even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulcher,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst; oh, hear

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull’d by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Besides a pumice isle in Baiac’s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them!
For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves; oh, hear!

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed
Scarce seemed a vision, I would ne’er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as awave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is;
What if my leaves are falling like its own;
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished earth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can spring be far behind?
- P.B.Shelley.

[Badri]

John Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn' is my all time fav:

I have made "bold" some of my fav thoughts in the poem...

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

[Roshan]

This is one of my very favourite poems, maybe because Elizabeth writes this out of a thought that many of us encounter....we do not understand why someone loves us and finds something special about us that we cannot see ourselves...

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Querida,

Thanks for sharing this poem here. It's indeed a beautiful one. We in "ulagam enbathu" thread had discussions on this particular poem almost 2 years ago. Upon a request from Chenthamizhan, geno did a wonderful transcreation of this poem in Tamil. I would like to re produce it here for your reading pleasure.

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[Roshan]

This is one of my very favourite poems, maybe because Elizabeth writes this out of a thought that many of us encounter....we do not understand why someone loves us and finds something special about us that we cannot see ourselves...

Querida,

I'm also reproducing below Chenthamizhan's comments on "how do I love thee" .

Elizabeth Browning wrote this sonnet with intensity, simplicity and a tonal rhythm. This sonnet is at the end of a series of sonnets proclaiming her love for Robert Browning that was growing from love to passion almost like a diary. The sonnets pick up intensity from the first almost like a series of fireworks on the sky ending up with a finale which is simply breathtaking.

It is remarkable how Elizabeth weaves profound ideas with simple words in every fifth grade kid's vocabulary list. The simplicity like clear water in a crystal lake is not indicative of the depth of understanding and emotions that are being expressed.

[pavalamani pragasam]

From Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis”:
“Since thou art dead, lo, heree I prophesy
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:
It shall be awaited on with jealousy,
Find sweet beginning but unsavoury end,
Ne’er settled equally, but high or low,
That all love’s pleasure shall not match his woe.
It shall be fickle, false and full of fraud,
Bud and be blasted in a breathing while,
The bottom poison, and the top o’erstraw’d
With sweets that shall truest sight beguile;
The strongest body shall it make most weak,
Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak.
It shall be sparing, and too full of riot,
Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures,
The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,
Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;
It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,
Make the young old, the old become a child.
It shall suspect where is no cause of fear;
It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;
It shall be merciful, and too severe,
And most deceiving when it seems most just;
Perverse shall it be where it shows most toward,
Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.
It shall be cause of war and dire events,
And set dissension ‘twixt the son and sire
Subject and servile to all discontents,
As dry combustious matter is to fire.
Sith in his prime death doth my love destroy
They that love best their loves shall not enjoy.”