* Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
BY ROBERT FROST
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
— Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem. 1923 : 1969 : : by Henry Holt and Company, Inc. : : Source: Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays (Library of America, 1995) : From poetryfoundation.org : For Educational Purposes only.
** Going : : By Philip Larkin : : : :
There is an evening coming in
Across the fields, one never seen before,
That lights no lamps.
Silken it seems at a distance, yet
When it is drawn up over the knees and breast
It brings no comfort.
Where has the tree gone, that locked
Earth to the sky? What is under my hands,
That I cannot feel?
What loads my hands down?
— Philip Larkin : From allpoetry.com : For Educational Purposes only.
*** A City Sunset : : By Thomas Earnest Hulme : : : :
Alluring, Earth seducing, with high conceits
is the sunset that reigns
at the end of westward streets. . .
A sudden flaring sky
troubling strangely the passer by
with visions, alien to long streets, of Cytherea
or the smooth flesh of lady Castlemaine. . .
A frolic of crimson
is the spreading glory of the sky,
heaven’s jocund maid
flaunting a trailed red robe
along the fretted city roofs
about the time of homeward going crowds
– a vain maid, lingering, loth to go. . .
— T E Hulme : From allpoetry.com : For educational purposes Only.
*V : : Winter Dusk : : By Sara Teasdale : : : :
I watch the great clear twilight
Veiling the ice-bowed trees;
Their branches tinkle faintly
With crystal melodies.
The larches bend their silver
Over the hush of snow;
One star is lighted in the west,
Two in the zenith glow.
For a moment I have forgotten
Wars and women who mourn,
I think of the mother who bore me
And thank her that I was born.
—Sara Teasdale From:tweetspeakpoetry.com : Educational Purposes only.
V : Under the Harvest Moon: Carl Sandburg :
Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.
Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
—Carl Sandburg From:tweetspeakpoetry.com : Educational Purposes only.
V* : : She sweeps with many-colored Brooms:
She sweeps with many-colored brooms …
And leaves the shreds behind …
Oh housewife in the evening west …
Come back, and dust the pond!
You dropped a purple ravelling in …
You dropped an amber thread …
And how you’ve littered all the east
With duds of emerald!
And still, she plies her spotted brooms,
And still the aprons fly,
Till brooms fade softly into stars …
And then I come away …
—Emily DickinsonFrom:tweetspeakpoetry.com : Educational Purposes only.
V** : : Sonnet 73: That time of year thou mayst in me behold : : By William Shakespeare : : : :
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
—William Shakespeare
V*** : : Central Park at Dusk : Sara Teasdale: :
Buildings above the leafless trees
Loom high as castles in a dream,
While one by one the lamps come out
To thread the twilight with a gleam.
There is no sign of leaf or bud,
A hush is over everything—
Silent as women wait for love,
The world is waiting for the spring.
—Sara Teasdale From:tweetspeakpoetry.com : Educational Purposes only.
*X : : Crossing The Bar : : By Alfred Lord Tennyson : : : :
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
X : : As I Walked Out One Evening : : By W H Auden ( 1907 – 1973 ) : : : :
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.
‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
‘I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
‘The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.’
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
‘Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.
‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.
‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
‘O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.’
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
— W H Auden : From Another Time published by Random House ( 1940 ) / Curtis Brown, Ltd. : : From poets.org : For Educational Purposes only.
X* : : Evening : : By Rainer Maria Rilke ( 1875 –1926 ) : : Translation By Jessie Lamont : : : :
The bleak fields are asleep,
My heart alone wakes;
The evening in the harbour
Down his red sails takes.
Night, guardian of dreams,
Now wanders through the land;
The moon, a lily white,
Blossoms within her hand.
— Rainer Maria Rilke : : This poem is in the public domain. From Poems ( Tobias A. Wright, 1918 )
X** : : Evening : : By Richard Addington ( Edward Godfree Addington : 8 July 1892 – 27 July 1962 ) : : English Poet :
The chimneys, rank on rank,
Cut the clear sky;
The moon,
With a rag of gauze about her loins
Poses among them, an awkward Venus —
And here am I looking wantonly at her
Over the kitchen sink.
Everyday Poem About admiring The Moon in the clear Sky of an Evening , and comparing to the Roman Goddess Of LOVE while doing the everyday routine chores of the cleaning ( dishes , etc. ) in a Standing position at the Kitchen Sink. : “With a rag” ( small piece of cloth ) “of gauze” ( meant for bandages and dressing ) “about her loins”( pubic region ) “Poses among them , an awkward Venus – ” ( The Speaker says, ” I looking wantonly ( in general manner ) “at her” ( The Roman Goddess ) “Over the kitchen sink.” : : : : : : : : *Addington married with the poet Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) in 1911 : He wrote a Novel ( Death Of A Hero : 1938 ) and also a Biographies of D H Lawrence , R L Stevenson and T E Lawrence ( Lawrence Of Arabia ) He took part in World War I : : The inscription on A Slate stone in his commemoration at Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner reads a quotation from Wilfred Owen. “My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”
X*** : Written Near a Port on a Dark Evening
: : Sonnet : By Charlotte Smith ( 1749-1806 ) :
Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore,
Night on the ocean settles dark and mute, 2
Save where is heard the repercussive roar 3
Of drowsy billows on the rugged foot 4
Of rocks remote; or still more distant tone 5
Of seamen in the anchored bark that tell 6
The watch relieved; or one deep voice alone
Singing the hour, and bidding ‘Strike the bell!’ 8
All is black shadow but the lucid line 9
Marked by the light surf on the level sand,10
Or where afar the ship-lights faintly shine 11
Like wandering fairy fires, that oft on land
Misled the pilgrim – such the dubious ray 13
That wavering reason lends in life’s long darkling way. 14
About Evening Hours near A Sea-Port or harbour) : : The uneven and rugged “clifted ( Sea ) Shore”/ cleaved or Cracked is described in roughness whereupon ( “above” ) “Huge vapours ” grow ( “brood”) when the “ocean”(ward) Night settles down with the “mute” and “dark” features . : : Those ‘billows’ – the surging / bubbling ‘sea – waves’ smash through the rocks violently and create a “repercussive roar” / make thunder sounds on the ” remote rocks”. : : The sailors in the “anchored bark”or sailing ship ⚓ with 3 / more masts , shout to each other whereto the shore they have anchored the ship. One seaman takes over from another seaman relieving on watch duty. : : The right time to signal the Hour of “bidding” / summoning “to strike the bell” in “one deep voice.. . alone singing the hour” has to be attained. : ( lines 1 To 8 ) : 1 St & 2 Nd Quatrains : : :: : : :: : : :: : : :: : : :: : : :: : : : : :::: All is black shadow but the lucid line Marked by the light surf on the level sand,
Or where afar the ship-lights faintly shine
Like wandering fairy fires, that oft on land
Misled the pilgrim – such the dubious ray
That wavering reason lends in life’s long darkling way. Everything is plunged in the ‘black shadow’ of “Dark” , that is ‘late’ “evening” becoming night. The shadows suggest the transitional stage of The late evening between land and sea , at its ‘threshold’ of becoming a “Night”: : A clearly visible or “lucid line marked by the surf on the level sand” where the ‘surf’ or foamy sea- waves hit the sand. The lights from the distant / “ships afar ” break up the shadowy darkness, ” like wandering fairy fires”/ fabulous 🤩 yet illusionary, unreal or invented mislead – which is seen as ( supernatural, or legendary friar’s lantern , ) a pale – soft view to marshy land / ( ” that oft on land mislead the pilgrim” ) of a coastline with ‘hope giving lights’ that the exhausted and tired sailors / “pilgrims” could see at night. : ( lines 9 To 12 ) : 3 Rd Quatrain : : : :
“Misled the pilgrim – such the dubious ray 13
That wavering reason lends in life’s long darkling way.” 14 . : : ( Couplet : lines 13 & 14 ) : : About the sonnet’s philosophical central message by the ” fairy fire” : actually a soft pale light of marshy coastline – explained in conclusion are “dubious ” that is , not convincing as it is questionable and doubtful: Enthralling like the “fairy fires” that mislead pilgrims, which is unstable and unreliable guides as we make our way through the “darkness” of “life. A subjective ‘illusion’ over objective ‘Truth’. The poetic significance left is experiencing the Natural World in proto-Romantic poets like Charlotte Smith of the second half of the 18 Th Century. Because Nature in this Sonnet is feared with a storming power on the threshold of A long darkling way to hatching and growing up the real way to philosophical Truth, but with fear , while trying to depict the materials of Romanticism involving the rough and tough imperfections appearing among Natural Features. : : : :
MADHU MALTI 