Something Beautiful

Blushing unseen, wasting one's sweetness

I love these two lines:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

They come from the much-loved poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, written by Thomas Gray in 1750. The two lines state a simple truth, I think, not only about certain flowers but about many acts and deeds and even people. The point is made straightforwardly but oh, so poignantly.

The Craftsman (poem)

I just came across The Craftsman, a poem by Marcus B. Christian, a twentieth-century African-American poet. You'll soon see why I wanted to post a link to it here. :-)

Hail, and Farewell

I'd heard the expression "Hail, and farewell" a good many times before I ever sought out its origins. It's from an elegy that the Roman poet Catullus composed on the death of his brother. I was moved by the poem, and you might be too.

Lord Byron

Lord Byron, in all his libertinism, has never really been a favorite of mine.  And yet no one could deny that the man was gifted.   While looking for a quotation of his on the brevity of human life, I came across this quote from his Childe Harold: 

I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me

It seems to me that is true, and that the modern world ignores this piece of wisdom at its (very great) peril.

I found that quote, btw, in an article, The Wholesome Revival of Byron, originally published in 1898 in The Atlantic. The Atlantic has placed its archive online and there are some truly beautiful articles in it.

- - - -

Here, at last, is the quotation I was looking for:

When one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation), sleep, eating and swilling, buttoning and unbuttoning - how much remains of downright existence? The summer of a dormouse.

~ Lord Byron

Spider poems

You wouldn't think so, but it turns out that there are quite a few poems out there about spiders. Some are quite good.

Two are classics of American poetry.  First, there is a A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman. (Note that only the first half of this poem is actually about the spider.)

The second is Design, the marvelous sonnet by Robert Frost. (Just imagine -- a sonnet about a spider!) Its opening words are wonderful:

"I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth"

And its last line is perfection itself:
"If design govern in a thing so small."

P.S. It occurred to me that there probably really is something called a "dimpled spider." And sure enough . . . here's a photo of one. (And here's a white heal-all.)

Ave atque vale

One comes across the Latin phrase Ave atque vale ("Hail and farewell") quite often, but this morning was the first time I can recall seeing its source given. It's from an elegy by Catullus to his dead brother. A poem worthy of its long life.

Keith's favorite poems

I love to come across people's personal collections of favorite poems. Thus I was delighted to discover Keith's poetry archive. Keith has made a further, smaller selection of twelve, designated as his most favorite poems.

Poems about paintings

The idea of one art commenting on another is intriguing. A small number of poets have written short poems on one painting or another. Professor Harry Rusche has collected some of those poems, along with the paintings, at this site.

Life is hard, and so are things

Here's a wonderful short poem by Kay Ryan, on how the world of objects should commemorate our lost loved ones.

Recovering greenness

Love this line from The Flower, by English poet George Herbert:

Who would have thought my shrivell’d heart
Could have recover’d greenness?

I don't feel that way just yet. But I hope to. In time.