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In a Disused Graveyard
Its worth contrasting Auden’s cemetary with Frost’s graveyard: In a Disused Graveyard by Robert Frost The living come with grassy tread To read the gravestones on the hill; The graveyard draws the living still, But never anymore the dead. The verses in it say and say: “The ones who living come today To read the…
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Island Cemetery
I have mentioned a couple of Auden poems from Homage to Clio, the book from which came The More Loving One. Here is one of them that I like a lot. My only trouble with it is the “thank our lucky star” line. Was this less of a cliche when the poem was written or…
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Poet: 1935
Poet: 1935 by Dylan Thomas See, on gravel paths under the harpstrung trees He steps so near the water that a swan’s wing Might play upon his lank locks with its wind, The lake’s voice and the rolling of mock waves Make discord with the voice within his ribs That thunders as heart thunders, slows…
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Unfortunate
Unfortunate by Rupert Brooke Heart, you are as restless as a paper scrap That’s tossed down dusty pavements by the wind ; Saying, ‘She is most wise, patient and kind. Between the small hands folded in her lap Surely a shamed head may bow down at length, And find forgiveness where the shadows stir About…
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Poem 2
The Sun by Mary Oliver Have you ever seen anything in your life more wonderful than the way the sun, every evening, relaxed and easy, floats toward the horizon and into the clouds or the hills, or the rumpled sea, and is gone— and how it slides again out of the blackness, every morning, on…
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Where Mind of Winter Comes From
The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think…
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More Frosty Stars
Fireflies in The Garden by Robert Lee Frost Here come real stars to fill the upper skies, And here on earth come emulating flies, That though they never equal stars in size, (And they were never really stars at heart) Achieve at times a very star-like start. Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part.…
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A Last Word
A Last Word by Ernest Dowson Let us go hence: the night is now at hand ; The day is overworn, the birds all flown ; And we have reaped the crops the gods have sown ; Despair and death ; deep darkness o’er the land, Broods like an owl: we cannot understand Laughter or…
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Stars
Commentary? Stars by Robert Frost How countlessly they congregate O’er our tumultuous snow, Which flows in shapes as tall as trees When wintry winds do blow!— As if with keenness for our fate, Our faltering few steps on To white rest, and a place of rest Invisible at dawn,— And yet with neither love nor…
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A Leave-Taking
Counterpoint: A Leave-Taking by Algernon Charles Swinburne Let us go hence, my songs ; she will not hear. Let us go hence together without fear ; Keep silence now, for singing-time is over, And over all old things and all things dear. She loves not you nor me as all we love her. Yea, though…