Song on a May Morning Now the bright morning-star, Day’s harbinger, Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her The flowery May, who from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire Mirth, and youth, and warm desire! Woods and
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Those Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems LV: If You Forget Me
If You Forget Me I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log,
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems LVIV: The Curate Thinks You Have No Soul
Was thinking, by-the-by, about some dogs I have loved, and how I get along with (and like, if truth be known) dogs better than most people. So sentimentalism be damned: here’s a dog poem. St John Lucas was an early 20th century anthologist of poetry and friend and mentor to
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems LVIII: And You as Well Must Die, Belovèd Dust | Edna St. Vincent Millay
You sometimes forget about authors. They sort of fall out of your head. Expect more Millay in the future. And You as Well Must Die, Belovèd Dust And you as well must die, belovèd dust, And all your beauty stand you in no stead; This flawless, vital hand, this perfect
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The execution of Sir Walter Raleigh. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Raleigh wrote this poem as he awaited execution, the victim of the wrath of a monarch and of some treacherous diplomatic expediency between England and Spain. The Lie Go, Soul, the body’s guest, Upon a thankless errand: Fear not to touch the
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: A Poem for Easter
My own, with at least Easterish themes of death and rebirth. Originally published on 7/10/10. VSA You came to us, no vital signs, no breath Found dead, or nearly so, by the mall You last saw cars, careening carts, a child. Then falling, hard pavement, blood, a void empty Of
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Easter in Pittsburgh Even on Easter Sunday jungle of lilies and ferns fat Uncle Paul who loved his liquor so would pound away with both fists on the when the church was a stone pulpit shouting sin sin sin and the fiery fires of hell and I cried all after-
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems L
Yes, the fiftieth edition of Favourite Poems. You might wonder why a blog about nurses and nursing (and some other stuff, but mostly nursing) does poetry. The answer is simple: because nursing is far more than all the mundane tasks we need to do to care for our patients. Poetry
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XLIX
Eight haiku by Matsuo Bashō, translated by R. K. Blyth. Wikipedia tells us the Shinto priesthood deified Basho in 1793, a sort of minor god of poetry, and for a time critical evaluation of his work was literally considered blasphemous. 1 Moonlight slants through The vast bamboo grove: A cuckoo cries 2 Ah, summer
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In Winter in My Room In Winter in my Room I came upon a Worm – Pink, lank and warm – But as he was a worm And worms presume Not quite with him at home – Secured him by a string To something neighboring And went along. A Trifle
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XLVI
Winter Night It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. As during summer midges swarm To beat their wings against a flame Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed To beat against the
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An Old Man’s Winter Night All out of doors looked darkly in at him Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand. What kept
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To a Locomotive in Winter Thee for my recitative, Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day declining, Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d dual throbbing and thy beat convulsive, Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel, Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods,
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XLIII
Now Winter Nights Enlarge Now winter nights enlarge The number of their hours, And clouds their storms discharge Upon the airy towers. Let now the chimneys blaze, And cups o’erflow with wine; Let well-tuned words amaze With harmony divine. yellow waxen lights Shall wait on honey love, While youthful revels,
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XLII
Two poems on the theme of Autumn. Autumn Valentine In May my heart was breaking- Oh, wide the wound, and deep! And bitter it beat at waking, And sore it split in sleep. And when it came November, I sought my heart, and sighed, “Poor thing, do you remember?” “What heart was that?” it cried. […]
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She Walks in Beauty She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow’d to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impair’d […]
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XL
For the fortieth poem in the series, something a little different. Okay, not seasonal, but what the hell. (The Simpsons’ classic version can be found here.)
Filed under: Favourite Poems, Random Thoughts Tagged: Poe, poems, poetry
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XXXIX
The story of how Coleridge came to write this famous poem is probably too well known to bear repeating (but nonetheless is found here, for example.) I have sometimes wondered if one could write a poem considered (maybe) one of the ten or twenty greatest in the English language intoxicated with opium; I know there […]
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XXXVIII
Because everyone, even nurses, deserve poetry. Silent Noon Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,– The finger-points look through like rosy blooms: Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms ‘Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass. All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, Are golden kingcup-fields with silver […]
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: A Poem for Victoria Day
By a poet hostile to her reign. “Good, you were good, we say,” he writes. “You had no wit to be evil.” Probably worth remembering on the commemoration of her birthday Victoria herself was not immune from controversy, and that debate on the value of monarchy is very old indeed. (No nursy or any other blog posts […]
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