Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Solitude

“The cure for loneliness is solitude”— Marianne Moore

SOURCE

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is a society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar;

I love not man the less, but Nature more”— Lord Byron

     Midweek Motif ~ Solitude

We all have an inner space within us to house our own thoughts, feelings. It’s wonderful to be lost there; to be alone; to find the ‘self’ and the ‘bliss of solitude’.

Solitude is an essential human need to replenish the soul. It does clear the weary mind of the clutter and gives élan to your existence.

No wonder poets and artists often choose to be solitary.

Our Motif today is Solitude:

Winter Solitude

by Matsuo Basho

Winter solitude--
in a world of one color
the sound of wind.

(Translated by Robert Hass) 

The Solitude of Night

by Li Po

It was at a wine party—

I lay in a drowse, knowing it not.

The blown flowers fell and filled my lap.

When I arose, still drunken,

The birds had all gone to their nests,

And there remained but few of my comrades.

I went along the river—alone in the moonlight.

   (Translated by Shigeyoshi Obata)

Solitude

by Harold Monro

WHEN you have tidied all things for the night,
And while your thoughts are fading to their sleep,
You'll pause a moment in the late firelight,
Too sorrowful to weep.

The large and gentle furniture has stood
In sympathetic silence all the day
With that old kindness of domestic wood;
Nevertheless the haunted room will say:
'Someone must be away.'

The little dog rolls over half awake,
Stretches his paws, yawns, looking up at you,
Wags his tail very slightly for your sake,
That you may feel he is unhappy too.

A distant engine whistles, or the floor
Creaks, or the wandering night-wind bangs a door

Silence is scattered like a broken glass.
The minutes prick their ears and run about,
Then one by one subside again and pass
Sedately in, monotonously out.

You bend your head and wipe away a tear.
Solitude walks one heavy step more near. 

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 ~ Writing Poetry)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Path

                               "Adversity is the first path to Truth"---Lord Byron

Source

"A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective."---André Gide

"End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path. One that we all must take."---J.R.R. Tolkien 

"Real music is not for wealth, not for honors or even the joys of the mind.....but as a path for realization and salvation."---Ali Akbar Khan

                                                  Midweek Motif ~ Path

A path is a way marked out for people to walk and a way of life too.  It may be long, short, straight, winding steeply upwards or without any destination. Only we have to be careful about choosing the right one for us.

To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson: Do not go where the path may lead go instead where there is no path and leave a trail…….

Sometimes we are happy to walk on familiar paths and on other times we prefer diversion. We believe in small steps as well as in giant leaps.

So....let's begin our walk:

                   The Road Not Taken

                     

                       by Robert Frost

         Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
        And sorry I could not travel both
        And be one traveler, long I stood
       And looked down one as far as I could
       To where it bent in the undergrowth; 

     Then took the other, as just as fair,
     And having perhaps the better claim
     Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
     Though as for that the passing there
     Had worn them really about the same,

    And both that morning equally lay
    In leaves no step had trodden black.
    Oh, I kept the first for another day! 
    Yet knowing how way leads on to way
    I doubted if I should ever come back.

   I shall be telling this with a sigh
   Somewhere ages and ages hence:
   Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
   I took the one less traveled by,
   And that has made all the difference.  

        The Path That Leads Nowhere

       by Corinne Roosevelt Robinson

   THERE'S a path that leads to Nowhere 
        In a meadow that I know, 
    Where an inland island rises 
        And the stream is still and slow; 
    There it wanders under willows, 
        And beneath the silver green 
    Of the birches' silent shadows 
        Where the early violets lean.

    Other pathways lead to Somewhere, 
        But the one I love so well 
    Has no end and no beginning— 
        Just the beauty of the dell, 
    Just the wind-flowers and the lilies 
        Yellow-striped as adder's tongue, 
    Seem to satisfy my pathway 
        As it winds their scents among.

    There I go to meet the Springtime, 
        When the meadow is aglow, 
    Marigolds amid the marshes,— 
        And the stream is still and slow. 
    There I find my fair oasis, 
        And with care-free feet I tread 
    For the pathway leads to Nowhere, 
        And the blue is overhead!

    All the ways that lead to Somewhere 
        Echo with the hurrying feet 
    Of the Struggling and the Striving, 
        But the way I find so sweet 
    Bids me dream and bids me linger, 
        Joy and Beauty are its goal,— 
    On the path that leads to Nowhere 
        I have sometimes found my soul!

  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 ~ Invisibility)

Poets United Mid week Motif ~ Boredom

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Midweek Motif ~ Boredom

"Sir, you have two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both."-- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

"But her life was as cold as an attic facing north; and boredom, like a silent spider, was weaving its web in the shadows, in every corner of her heart"-- Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary"

"Society is now one polished horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored"-- Lord Byron, Don Juan

"Boredom: the desire for the desires-- Leo Tolstoy"


Imagine sitting with a long face before the dreaded blank page and looking all around to lift the uninspired soul in vain. 

There is no one to give a push to kick start a writing session while all the poetry sites are urging to link up a poem of your own choice.

All on a sudden life seems to stand still turning everything utterly uninteresting. For wordsmiths this is a most unwelcome state.

What is the way out to make this phase sound exciting? 

I have chosen two poems of Charles Bukowski for today's topic Boredom.

These Things

by Charles Bukowski

these things that we support most well
have nothing to do with up,
and we do with them
out of boredom or fear or money
or cracked intelligence;
our circle and our candle of light
being small,
so small we cannot bear it,
we heave out with Idea
and lose the Center:
all wax without the wick,
and we see names that once meant
wisdom,
like signs into ghost towns,
and only the graves are real.

The American Writer

by Charles Bukowski

gone abroad
I sit under the tv lights
and am interviewed again
i am asked questions
I give answers
I make no attempt to be
brilliant.
to be truthful
I feel bored
and I almost never feel
bored.
"do you?..." they ask.
"oh, yeah, well I..."
"and what do you think of..."
"I don't think of it much. I
don't think too much..."
somehow it ends.

that evening somebody tells me
I'm on the news
we turn the set on.
there I am. I look pissed.
I wave people off.
I am bored.

how marvelous to be me without
trying.
it looks on tv
as if I knew exactly what I
was doing.

fooled them
again.

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

(Next week Rosemary Nissen Wade will be prompting with the topic "Let your song be delicate.")

The Living Dead

Honouring our poetic ancestors

So We'll Go No More A-Roving
By George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)

So we'll go no more a-roving 
So late into the night, 
Though the heart be still as loving, 
And the moon be still as bright. 

For the sword outwears its sheath, 
And the soul outwears the breast, 
And the heart must pause to breathe, 
And love itself have rest. 

Though the night was made for loving, 
And the day returns too soon, 
Yet we'll go no more a-roving 
By the light of the moon. 

I fell in love with this poem when I was a romantic schoolgirl, probably for its music and its muted melancholy. Of the Romantic poets, Byron wasn't my favourite. I think most people now consider Keats to have been the greatest of them, and I agree. I also have a very soft spot for Shelley's passionately freedom-loving voice. However, Byron could certainly make great verbal music. For example (from "The Destruction of Sennacherib"):

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

That stirs even a pacifist like me! It is actually the rhythm of it which so stirs the blood, but I most love the sonorous beauty of the language.

The music of "We'll Go No More A-Roving" is gentler, slower, but just as beautiful.

Now that I am no longer a romantic young girl, I don't think the poet was talking about strolling in the moonlight; and I'm amused to read online interpretations suggesting that the poem refers to scaling back his social life, refusing a few party invitations.

it seems to me that he is making excuses to his lover that he can no longer rise to the occasion, or at least not so often as he used to. Never has it been so prettily expressed!

Handsome Byron seemed the epitome of a romantic poet, and his affairs were scandalous in his day. (The Wikipedia link on his name, above, goes into detail.) He left England to live abroad because his free-living, free loving lifestyle was so disapproved of at home. I think it's rather sweet that even he had to confess to becoming less lustful in middle age, or at any rate less virile.

"It's not your fault, dear," he says. "Your attractions haven't faded. It's just that I'm not as young as I used to be."

Well, that's my interpretation anyway. 

Whether or not you agree, do please enjoy the musical words and lovely metaphors!


You can read more of his poetry at The Poetry Archive or purchase his works via Amazon.

Classic Poetry - "She Walks in Beauty" by Lord Byron (George Gordon)

She Walks in Beauty

by Lord Byron

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 mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

Lord Byron left a legacy of brilliant writing as well as a trail of debts, myriad affairs, an incestuous relationship with his half-sister, and a reputation as a war hero. Described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad and dangerous to know", he packed all that living into only 36 years, when he died from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi in Greece.

Wild man he was, George Gordon!

Classic Poetry (She Walks In Beauty - Lord Byron )

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 mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.