Poets United Midweek Motif ~ A Tribute Poem

   

“In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.” — Thurgood Marshall

SOURCE

“The czar was always sending us commands – you shall not do this and you shall not do that – till there was very little left that we might do, except pay tribute and die.” — Mary Antin

Midweek Motif ~ A Tribute Poem

For today’s Motif you are to write a Tribute Poem expressing praise for your subject.

The subject can be varied and is of your own choice. Select someone / something (an abstract concept will do too) worth celebrating and honor them in your lines.

A Farewell

by Lord Tennyson

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever. 

Rose Aylmer

by Walter Savage Landor

Ah, what avails the sceptred race!
Ah, what the form divine!
What every virtue, every grace!
Rose Aylmer, all were thine.

Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes
May weep, but never see,
A night of memories and sighs
I consecrate to thee. 

A Drinking Song

by William Butler Yeats

WINE comes in at the mouth

And love comes in at the eye;

That's all we shall know for truth

Before we grow old and die.

I lift the glass to my mouth,

I look at you, and I sigh. 

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Truth)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Predator and Prey

"We are kindred all of us, killer and victim, predator and prey, me and the sly coyote, the soaring buzzard, the elegant gopher snake,and trembling cottontail, the foul worms that feed on our entrails; all of them, all of us. Long live diversity, long live the earth!"---Edward Abbey

Source

Midweek Motif ~ Predator & Prey

Is not the cowardly, predatoryspirit of Stalin concealed within us,when we do not seek truth,and only fear the new?I rush at untruth like a devil,Will never give up the battle with the old,But how can we live here, when within us                                Stalin is not dead.

The lines are an excerpt from the Russian poet Boris Chichibabin’s poem By The banner Of Happiness I Swear.

Life exists with both the spirits of predators and preys. As in animal kingdom so in human society.
The most interesting point is that predators and preys evolve together. One, in order to eat and the other to avoid being eaten. 


Think on this theme of Predator and Prey and write your poem.

A few poems to inspire:

La Belle Dame sans Merci

by John Keats

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, 

       Alone and palely loitering? 
The sedge has withered from the lake, 
       And no birds sing. 
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, 
       So haggard and so woe-begone? 
The squirrel’s granary is full, 
       And the harvest’s done. 
I see a lily on thy brow, 
       With anguish moist and fever-dew, 
And on thy cheeks a fading rose 
       Fast withereth too. 
I met a lady in the meads, 
       Full beautiful—a faery’s child, 
Her hair was long, her foot was light, 
       And her eyes were wild. 
I made a garland for her head, 
       And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; 
She looked at me as she did love, 
       And made sweet moan
I set her on my pacing steed, 
       And nothing else saw all day long, 
For sidelong would she bend, and sing 
       A faery’s song. 
She found me roots of relish sweet, 
       And honey wild, and manna-dew, 
And sure in language strange she said— 
       ‘I love thee true’. 
She took me to her Elfin grot, 
       And there she wept and sighed full sore, 
And there I shut her wild wild eyes 
       With kisses four. 
And there she lullèd me asleep, 
       And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!— 
The latest dream I ever dreamt 
       On the cold hill side. 
                     

     (The rest is here)

                 The Eagle

                  by Alfred Tennyson

             He clasps the crag with crooked hands; 

         Close to the sun in lonely lands, 
         Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. 
         The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; 
         He watches from his mountain walls, 
         And like a thunderbolt he falls. 

Epitaph on A Tyrant

by W.H. Auden

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;

He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community

              (Next week Susan's Midweek Motif will be ~ Cats)

Poet'sUnited Midweek Motif ~ A Man's Day

“What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how 
infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express 
and admirable! in action how like an angel! 
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty 
of the world! the paragon of animals! ” 
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! 
Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment and death itself
 in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment . . . 
inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which 
is fraught with more misery than ages of that 
which he rose in rebellion to oppose.” 

― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important 
than any established style or system.” 
― Bruce Lee

Midweek Motif ~ A Man's Day

International Men's Day occurs on November 19th, but I didn't know that when I planned this prompt.  You can read about it HERE or on Wikipedia. I chose this motif because I want so much to read a loving phenomenal man poem.  And given so much news lately about men victimizing women, I thought we might foreground men who haven't committed crimes against women.  

Your Challenge: Let your poem show how a specific man is special.  Choose anyone you want--famous or not, living or dead.

source

Morte d'Arthur

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd

Among the mountains by the winter sea;

Until King Arthur's table, man by man,

Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord,

King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,

The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,

Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,

And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,

A broken chancel with a broken cross,

That stood on a dark strait of barren land.

On one side lay the ocean, and on one

Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation.)

The Raggedy Man

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

O the Raggedy Man! He works fer Pa;

An' he's the goodest man ever you saw!

He comes to our house every day,

An' waters the horses, an' feeds 'em hay;

An' he opens the shed—an' we all ist laugh

When he drives out our little old wobble-ly calf;

An' nen—ef our hired girl says he can—

He milks the cow fer 'Lizabuth Ann.—

    Ain't he a' awful good Raggedy Man?

         Raggedy! Raggedy! Raggedy Man!

. . . . 

(Read the rest HERE at the Poetry Foundation)

For those who are new to Poets United:  

• Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 
• Post your Man's Day  poem on your site, and then link it here.
• If you use a picture include its link.  
• Please leave a comment here and read and comment on our poems.

(Our next Midweek Motif is the Sun.  Yup! our Star.)

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