Dead Poets and Dark Caves

The Haunted Place
by Edgar Allan Poe



In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace-
Radiant palace- reared its head.
In the monarch
Thought's dominion-
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!



Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This- all this- was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.


Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
\(Ah, let us mourn!- for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh- but smile no more.


"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

THE MOON
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)


I.

And, like a dying lady lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky east
A white and shapeless mass.

II.

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a french poet--some argue one of the greatest french poets of the 19Th century-- who was given the surnom of 'the father of modern criticism,' shocked the Conservatives with his unveiled view of lust and decay. Baudelaire was the first to assimilate modern, artificial, and decadent--was on the side of artificiality, saying that vices are natural and essentially selfish where virtue are artificial because one put forth an conscious effort and restraint in order to be good. To Baudelaire the snobbishly controlled and the dandy were heroes and the ultimate proof of meaningless existence. He was a gentleman who never became vulgar and remained a cool collected smile.
His life was not an easy one, death, sadness and an estranged relationship with his mother after her third marriage, he was sent to boarding school and was expelled. His true passion since childhood was to live by his pen but still he enrolled in Law school, around this time he became addicted to Opium and later contracted lethal syphilis. His debts piled higher and higher around him and he left his studies and never returned.
From 1852 to 1865 he was occupied in translating Edgar Allan Poe's writings. In Poe, Baudelaire found a kindred spirit (Now you probably know why I like him. Anyone who loves Poe is aces in my book). When his Les Fleurs du Mal(The Flowers of Bad) came out all the people who had a hand in the work- author, printer, and publisher -were prosecuted and found guilty of obscenity and blasphemy. In this controversial book he transfers his guilt, sins and lies on the reader making them feel just as the poet felt. Waving the truth before their eyes and shedding the blinders with words, what powerful words, "If poison, arson, sex, narcotics, knives / have not yet ruined us and stitched their quick, / loud patterns on the canvas of our lives, / it is because our souls are still too sick."

With out further ado...the poem!

Lucifer in Starlight
George Meredith (1828–1909)

ON a starr’d night Prince Lucifer uprose.
Tir’d of his dark dominion swung the fiend
Above the rolling ball in cloud part screen’d,
Where sinners hugg’d their spectre of repose.
Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.
And now upon his Western wing he lean’d,
Now his huge bulk o’er Africa careen’d,
Now the black planet shadow’d Arctic snows.
Soaring through wider zones that prick’d his scars
With memory of the old revolt from Awe,
He reach’d a middle height, and at the stars,
Which are the brain of heaven, he look’d, and sank.
Around the ancient track march’d, rank on rank,
The army of unalterable law.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

The Sun Rising
by John Donne

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school-boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.
Thy beams so reverend, and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long.
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and to-morrow late tell me, Whether both th' Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left'st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw'st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, "All here in one bed lay."
She's all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is;
Princes do but play us ; compared to this,
All honour's mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, Sun, art half as happy as we, In that the world's contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that's done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls thy sphere.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

To A STRANGER
by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.



"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AND FAIR
by Lord Byron

AND thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove
That what I lov'd, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
'T is Nothing that I lov'd so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.
The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow:
And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last,
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught except its living years.


"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

The Triple Fool
by John Donne

I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry ;
But where's that wise man, that would not be I,
If she would not deny ?
Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes
Do purge sea water's fretful salt away,
I thought, if I could draw my pains
Through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay.
Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,
For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.

But when I have done so,
Some man, his art and voice to show,
Doth set and sing my pain ;
And, by delighting many, frees again
Grief, which verse did restrain.
To love and grief tribute of verse belongs,
But not of such as pleases when 'tis read.
Both are increasèd by such songs,
For both their triumphs so are published,
And I, which was two fools, do so grow three.
Who are a little wise, the best fools be.


"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

I have been feeling increasingly poetic as of late, as at any moment I'll begin to spout sonnets. So in order to spare my "Killing Moon" I'll settle for posting a bit of poetry. Enjoy the master of the arts, his expert words and his lovely visage to the left hand side.(What a stud!)

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

The Sleeper by Edgar Allen Poe

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!–and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies!

O, lady bright! can it be right-
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop-
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully–so fearfully-
Above the closed and fringed lid'
Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,
That, o'er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come O'er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress,
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps!
Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the pale sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps!
Oh, may her sleep
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold-
Some vault that oft has flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back
,Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals-
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone-
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

All morning in the strawberry field

They talked about the Russians.

Squatted down between the rows

We listened.

We heard the head woman say,

'Bomb them off the map.'

Horseflies buzzed,

paused and stung.

And the taste of strawberries

Turned thick and sour.

Mary said slowly,

'I've got a fella Old enough to go.

If anything should happen...'

The sky was high and blue.

Two children laughed at tagIn the tall grass,

Leaping awkward and long-legged

Across the rutted road.

The fields were full of bronzed young men

Hoeing lettuce, weeding celery.

'The draft is passed,' the woman said.

'We ought to have bombed them long ago.'

'Don't,' pleaded the little girl

With blond braids.

Her blue eyes swam with vague terror.

She added petishly, 'I can't see why

You're always talking this way...

''Oh, stop worrying, Nelda,

'Snapped the woman sharply.

She stood up, a thin commanding figure

In faded dungarees.

Businesslike she asked us,

'How many quarts?'

She recorded the total in her notebook,

And we all turned back to picking.

Kneeling over the rows,

We reached among the leaves

With quick practiced hands,

Cupping the berry protectively before

Snapping off the stem

Between thumb and forefinger.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare

So I have been neglecting this blog like a middle child, but I have a poem for you lovely people kind enough to follow. Enjoy!

You think you know; but not a soul does

Hiding in the shadows and under dust

Gliding past you unnoticed

Biding it's time , waiting in silence

Tormenting you with, night after night

To face the lurking beast; your heart's desire

Sliping from your bed at God's knows what hour

Banish the darkness with the filcker of light

but in that corner lies nothing more than the reflection of fire

Yield your search and curiosity retire

No good can come from seeing that not meant for your eyes

The sun is rising and with it goes your chance to catch

That beast, no man was ever meant to catch.

I
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimneypots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.



II
The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades
That times resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.



III
You tossed a blanket from the bed
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed's edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.



IV
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."- William Shakespeare