POEMS AND PROSE

In response to:WHEN IT'S GONE, IT'S GONE

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:07:17 +0100

I was so pleased to find that illustration.

In response to:WHEN IT'S GONE, IT'S GONE

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:01:07 +0100

How sad, almost beautifully sad. The picture and poem match each ther perfectly.

In response to:DOWN THROUGH DARKNESS

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:33:41 +0100

Yes, I think your interpretation is exactly right.

Sleep, like time, is a great healer.

In response to:WHEN THE SOUL LEAVES OFF TO DREAM AND YEARN

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:29:26 +0100

Perhaps we should just be happy as we are.

In response to:ONE DAY WE SHALL KNOW

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:26:34 +0100

I like the way he suggests that we shall only know when we are dead - but the dead never come back to tell us what it is like "on the other side":

"But no word comes from the dead;
Whether at all they be,
Or whether as bond or free,
Or whether they too were we,
Or by what spell they have sped."

In response to:LOVE, SLEEP AND DEATH GO TO THE SWEET SAME TUNE

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:20:25 +0100

Carpe diem !

In response to:WHEN THE SOUL LEAVES OFF TO DREAM AND YEARN

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:17:13 +0100

Yes, we become disillusioned as we grow old.

However, perhaps we should be optimistic that the new young generation may succeed where we apparently failed.

(By "we" I mean our generation - not,of course you or me personally!)

As you suggest, nothing will be achieved without a return to the 'old-fashioned' moral values, which are now out of fashion.

In response to:DOWN THROUGH DARKNESS

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:12:25 +0100

Sleep can be a wonderful relief when one is grieving.
The dreams are ordinary dreams and one is happy again.
However, one has to awaken and face it all over again.

This is how I interpreted the poem.
I am so glad you have never really known that terrible wrenching feeling. I hope you never have to. It is overwhelming.

Was this the correct interpretation of Swinburne's poem?

In response to:ROBERT BROWNING

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:06:40 +0100

Browning had a very positive and optimistic view of death:

"But never death for him was dark or dread;
"Look forth," he bade the soul, and fear not."

In response to:TRAVELS IN ITALY

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:01:10 +0100

I think it is a different girl in every city. Perhaps he is looking for his ideal, in a dream.

In response to:DOWN THROUGH DARKNESS

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:39:59 +0100

I have had nobody close to me die in recent years. My parents died in the 70s and 80s and, although I was very close to them, I got over the grief years ago.

However, a few people I have loved have moved out of my life and that in some ways is like a death - and I grieve.

In response to:WHEN THE SOUL LEAVES OFF TO DREAM AND YEARN

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:10:49 +0100

Nor did we ever finally live on the Moon, beneath great oxygenated spheres.
Nor can we take that space bus to view the moon, and the earth from the distance of space.
We had also been promised that we would be able to spend our
honeymoon in a hotel on the moon!
The promises never came to be...

In response to:ONE DAY WE SHALL KNOW

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:58:33 +0100

So excellent, dear Colin!

In response to:LOVE, SLEEP AND DEATH GO TO THE SWEET SAME TUNE

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:50:09 +0100

A wonderful poem dedicated to a passionate night together. Who cares about the morrow?
Let us live together on this night, surrounded by the beauty of Nature.
We shall never forget this everlasting moment, for it shall continue in our hearts, forever.

In response to:WHEN THE SOUL LEAVES OFF TO DREAM AND YEARN

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:40:17 +0100

Many of us, when young, always had the urge to change the way our world was, at our Time in history.
Throughout each generation, there has been hope that the world of humans would, finally, be fair and balanced. That new laws would introduce a Freedom for our future.
Alas, I too wished for this. However, I cannot rejoice in the way Freedom has changed our world.
In my dotage, I see now, there is too much Freedom. Without enough self-discipline to balance our changed world. We flounder. We drift away from each other, in our separate worlds of electronics. In our gloomy human stables. Freedom is too much for us now.

In response to:ROBERT BROWNING

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:29:23 +0100

Great poets shall always live for Eternity.

In response to:TRAVELS IN ITALY

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:25:35 +0100

I love the way he places his words. Poetry divine!

Does he see the same eyes in each city, with the same expression in them as before? Would it be because those people, then, did not stray from their roots, and therefore many faces were alike?
I know it is that way in Somerset. I have seen many a girl's face that resembled mine, when I was young. We are all from an original, long-lost tribe, and we may meet a doppelganger occasionally.

Or could he have been happily high on opiates?

In response to:DOWN THROUGH DARKNESS

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:52:17 +0100

Oh no! It is not my medical problems. I was recalling my grief when my late husband died. Also, my mother went through the same sort of grief when my step-father died. This includes friends, family members - one has to go through that stage.

You wake-up and have to relive it again, for months, until grief is washed-out at last.
I am sure you have been through it too.

"Bonjour Tristesse" was a film made in the 1950's, from the same book, about a young girl who was jealous that her father was spending too much time with a lady he intended to marry.
This lady died in a car wreck, and then the young girl realized how very much she really had loved her. She tells us that now, each morning, she is faced with sadness.

In response to:DOWN THROUGH DARKNESS

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:23:54 +0100

I am really sorry that your illness makes you feel like that.

I do hope that the medicos will be able sort you out and give you some relief.

I shall be thinking of you.

Colin

In response to:DOWN THROUGH DARKNESS

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:06:25 +0100

This is beautiful. Thank you, Colin.
It is true that sleep relieves us from the pain of sorrow, if only just for a few short hours.
On the other hand, one awakens, and knows something is wrong. One lies there and, suddenly, the wave comes again. The pain. You remember why you feel something is wrong.
Another 'Bonjour Tristess.' Another 'Good morning, Sadness.'

In response to:STORM AT SEA

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:03:15 +0100

Please send me a copy of your poem when you have written it.

In response to:ROBERT BROWNING

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:53:33 +0100

Wonderful tribute....:yes:

In response to:STORM AT SEA

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:59:01 +0100

Thank you for suggestion.

I picked a lovely line at my writers class, "softly the souls of time will whisper", one of our group had written it, she gave me permission to use it. I thought i would write her a poem as a thank you.

One lady had done an excellent poem of the Picture "The Scream".

We had a good class, got lots of inspiration from it.

In response to:STORM AT SEA

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:24:25 +0100

Also:

Bright with glad mad rapture, fierce with glee,
Laughs the moon, borne on past cloud's o'ertaking

In response to:STORM AT SEA

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:21:49 +0100

It's a a pleasure

In response to:STORM AT SEA

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:37:29 +0100

It is good, I love that "Mirth of moonlight"
... will do something with that one day!

In response to:STORM AT SEA

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:43:19 +0100

LOvely poem...very vivid...thanks for info!

In response to:STORM AT SEA

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:29:25 +0100

Blogs are so informative where we get lots of information on any topic. Nice job keep it up!!
________________________

Dissertation Help

In response to:ONE DAY WE SHALL KNOW

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:48:44 +0100

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

In response to:REGENT PALACE

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:29:36 +0100

Still available, the album itself is name "Banana Blush" on Charisma Records. The music's by Jim Parker and it is indeed Betjeman reciting.