The Living Dead

~ Honouring our poetic ancestors ~

An April Day 

When the warm sun, that brings

Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,

'T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs

The first flower of the plain.

I love the season well,

When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,

Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell

The coming-on of storms.

From the earth's loosened mould

The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;

Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,

The drooping tree revives.

The softly-warbled song

Comes from the pleasant woods, and colored wings

Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along

The forest openings.

When the bright sunset fills

The silver woods with light, the green slope throws

Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,

And wide the upland glows.

And when the eve is born,

In the blue lake the sky, o'er-reaching far,

Is hollowed out and the moon dips her horn,

And twinkles many a star.

Inverted in the tide

Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw,

And the fair trees look over, side by side,

And see themselves below.

Sweet April! many a thought

Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;

Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,

Life's golden fruit is shed.

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)


Usually I come across a poem which makes me think, 'I MUST have that for Poets United!' for one of my Friday features, whether 'I Wish I'd Written This', 'The Living Dead' or 'Thought Provokers'. This time, instead, I thought first, 'I'd love to find an April poem to use' – what with it not only being April, but April being Poetry Month to many of us who are busy writing a poem a day, whether to prompts or from our own inspiration. So, not having a particular poem in mind this time, I had to look for one. I Googled April poems.

There were various good ones, but I couldn't go past lovely Longfellow. Not only was I brought up on his 'Hiawatha', also this poem stood out for me for its musicality, which made it more accessible than the other April poems using older versions of the language. I see from the Wikipeda entry on Longfellow that his poems were 'known for their musicality' and am reminded that the full title of the major work I just mentioned is 'The Song of Hiawatha'.

He was also known for liking to use 'stories of mythology and legend', and of course my beloved 'Hiawatha' fills that bill. I had not realised what a lovely nature poet he could be, too. Silly of me! 'Hiawatha' is full of a deep love and respect for nature, presented through Native American ideas and practices.

Nowadays we might wonder at the correctness of his appropriating indigenous stories; at the time, I think, white writers had no consciousness that this might be inappropriate (at the very least). Leaving aside the question of doing it at all, it seems to me that his writing was respectful of the subject matter – although it's rather  startling to read in Wikipedia that part of his inspiration for 'Hiawatha' came from Finnish legends! 

What can I say? I was a child, my Dad read 'Hiawatha' to me and my brother as a bedtime serial, and we loved it. I still love it.

The most popular poet of his day – and one of those who is still recognised immediately by surname only – Longfellow has been criticised since for being 'minor and derivative' and indeed for appealing to the masses. (Something which has also been seen, in some quarters, as a deficiency in Mary Oliver!) That last seems to me very skewed thinking. How I would love for my own poetry to have mass appeal! How I would love for poetry in general to be so widely appreciated!

Similarly, he has been belittled for the fact that his work is loved by children. As he was one of the influences who made this child love poetry and try to write it, I can hardly deplore that either.

His poetry is still readily available via Amazon, including some Kindle and Audible editions. (I have 'Hiawatha' of course – in a hardback I've had for decades, inherited from my father – but I find ebooks much easier now, so I've grabbed that version too.) 

Well, that was a long 'aside'! The poem I've shared with you today is nothing to do with 'Hiawatha' but it does have the lyricism which was the poet's trademark, and it's full of joy – even with the hint of mortality at the end. In my part of the world April is not the Spring renewal he describes, but for many of you it is – and the poem is so celebratory that I simply can't be pedantic on such a point. I hope you all enjoy it too.

Material shared in 'The Living Dead' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, where applicable (older poems may be out of copyright).

This photo of Longfellow was taken by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1868, and is in the Public Domain.

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Peace On Earth

 

“Make peace with yourself, and both heaven and earth will make peace with you.”— Isaac of Nineveh

SOURCE

“Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a

    bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second

    generation full of courage issue forth; let a people

    loving freedom come to growth.” — Margaret Walker 

Midweek Motif ~ Peace On Earth

Every one of us loves to cherish the faith that there is still an abundance of good in this world in spite of widespread violence almost everywhere every day.

We may not be “As Wrecked Men—deem they sight the Land—

At Centre of the Sea—”* but rather “come into the peace of wild things / who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief”**.

It’s now time to sing Peace on Earth…..

                                

Christmas Bells

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

    And wild and sweet

    The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

    Had rolled along

    The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

    A voice, a chime,

    A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

    And with the sound

    The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

    And made forlorn

    The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

“There is no peace on earth," I said;

    “For hate is strong,

    And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

    The Wrong shall fail,

    The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

The Rock Cries Out To Us Today

by Maya Angelou

 A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Mark the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.
Your mouths spelling words
Armed for slaughter.

Armed for slaughter.
The rock cries out today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Across the wall of the world,
A river sings a beautiful song,
Come rest here by my side.
Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more.
Come, clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I
And the tree and stone were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your brow
And when you yet knew you still knew nothing.
The river sings and sings on.
There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing river and the wise rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew,
The African and Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek,
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the teacher.
They hear. They all hear
The speaking of the tree.
Today, the first and last of every tree
Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the river.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the river.
Each of you, descendant of some passed on
Traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name,
You Pawnee, Apache and Seneca,
You Cherokee Nation, who rested with me,
Then forced on bloody feet,
Left me to the employment of other seekers- 
Desperate for gain, starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Scot...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru,
Bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am the tree planted by the river,
Which will not be moved.
I, the rock, I the river, I the tree
I am yours- your passages have been paid.
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced with courage,
Need not be lived again.
Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.
Give birth again

To the dream.
Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts.
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me,
The rock, the river, the tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes,
Into your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning. 

 *Emily Dickinson

**Wendell Berry

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

      (Our next Midweek Motif will be Susan's ~ Starting Over ~

on the 9th of January ’19)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Ocean(s)

View of the Earth where all five oceans visible: World Ocean
Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Southern

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”   ― Mahatma Gandhi

“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.”   ― Werner Herzog

“It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.”   ― Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us

“The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities... If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.”  ― Rachel Carson

Clouds over the Atlantic Ocean

Midweek Motif ~ Ocean(s)

Mountain or ocean?  

When I live near one I long for the other.  

I don't think I could write poetry without them.

What about you?

🌴🌴🌴

Your Challenge:  Choose an ocean you know or want to know~and in a new poem~use it to reflect on what is important to you.

🌴🌴🌴

excerpt from Sea Sand

                      by Sara Teasdale

I. JUNE NIGHT O EARTH you are too dear to-night,
How can I sleep, while all around
Floats rainy fragrance and the far
Deep voice of the ocean that talks to the ground?
O Earth, you gave me all I have,
I love you, I love you, oh what have I
That I can give you in return—
Except my body after I die?
II. “I THOUGHT OF YOU” I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone,
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
As you and I once heard their monotone.
Around me were the echoing-dunes, beyond me
The cold and sparkling silver of the sea—
We two will pass through death and ages lengthen
Before you hear that sound again with me. . . . .  (Read the rest HERE.)

The ocean said to me once 
by Stephen Crane

The ocean said to me once,
"Look!
Yonder on the shore
Is a woman, weeping.
I have watched her.
Go you and tell her this --
Her lover I have laid
In cool green hall.
There is wealth of golden sand
And pillars, coral-red;
Two white fish stand guard at his bier.

"Tell her this
And more --
That the king of the seas
Weeps too, old, helpless man.
The bustling fates
Heap his hands with corpses
Until he stands like a child
With a surplus of toys."

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls

Related Poem Content Details

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

The tide rises, the tide falls, 

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls; 

Along the sea-sands damp and brown 

The traveller hastens toward the town, 

      And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

Darkness settles on roofs and walls, 

But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls; 

The little waves, with their soft, white hands, 

Efface the footprints in the sands, 

      And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls 

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls; 

The day returns, but nevermore 

Returns the traveller to the shore, 

      And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

Howth Head, Dublin, Ireland by YvonneM

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and 

visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ 
Seeking the Extraordinary in the Ordinary.)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Wind Power

Source

"Three characteristics of wind energy – variability, uncertainty and 
asynchronism – can cause problems for maintaining 
a reliable and secure power system."

— Windtech International, April/May 2014

National WInd Watch Quotes

"[In Adelie Land, Antarctica] a howling river of wind, 50 miles wide, blows off the plateau, month in and month out, at an average velocity of 50 m.p.h. 
As a source of power this compares favorably with 6,000 tons of water falling every second over Niagara Falls. I will not further anticipate some H. G. Wells of the future who will ring the antarctic with power-producing windmills; but the winds of the Antarctic have to be felt to be believed, and nothing is quite impossible to physicists and engineers. "

— Frank Debenham

 'Science: One Against Darwin', Time (23 Sep 1935).

Science Quotations on Wind Power

Source

Midweek Motif ~ Wind Power

According to Wikipedia, June 15th is Global Wind Day, a worldwide event: 

It is organised by EWEA (European Wind Energy Association) and GWEC (Global Wind Energy Council). It is a day when wind energy is celebrated, information is exchanged and adults and children find out about wind energy, its power and the possibilities it holds to change the world.

But wind energy is not celebrated by everyone.  It's development may be stalled like the electric car, because it would not profit people in power.   But is wind power bad? Solar power takes up as much space, but doesn't include noise pollution.  Take a look at the video below as one point of view. 

(Read more about Wind Power HERE.)

Your Challenge: In a new poem, 

use powerful images 

to portray Wind Power. 

Feel free to use a slogan from HERE. Or to use landscapes and sounds from the video, which is HERE. Be sure to link the original.

###

The Windmill            

BY LONGFELLOW                  

Behold! a giant am I!
  Aloft here in my tower,
  With my granite jaws I devour
The maize, and the wheat, and the rye,
  And grind them into flour.

I look down over the farms;
  In the fields of grain I see
  The harvest that is to be,
And I fling to the air my arms,
  For I know it is all for me.

I hear the sound of flails
  Far off, from the threshing-floors
  In barns, with their open doors,
And the wind, the wind in my sails,
  Louder and louder roars.

I stand here in my place,
  With my foot on the rock below,
  And whichever way it may blow,
I meet it face to face,
  As a brave man meets his foe.

And while we wrestle and strive,
  My master, the miller, stands
  And feeds me with his hands;
For he knows who makes him thrive,
  Who makes him lord of lands.

On Sundays I take my rest;
  Church-going bells begin
  Their low, melodious din;
I cross my arms on my breast,
  And all is peace within.

#

 A Summer Wind

Related Poem Content Details

BY MICHAEL FIELD

O wind, thou hast thy kingdom in the trees, 

        And all thy royalties 

        Sweep through the land to-day. 

              It is mid June, 

And thou, with all thy instruments in tune,

              Thine orchestra

Of heaving fields and heavy swinging fir, 

              Strikest a lay 

              That doth rehearse 

Her ancient freedom to the universe. 

        All other sound in awe 

              Repeats its law: 

        The bird is mute; the sea 

        Sucks up its waves; from rain 

        The burthened clouds refrain, 

To listen to thee in thy leafery, 

              Thou unconfined, 

Lavish, large, soothing, refluent summer wind. 

#

“Were I the wind, 

I'd blow no more on such 

a wicked, miserable world.” 

― Herman Melville, 

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

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

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