MADHU MALTI

To a Skylark : Percy Bysshe Shelley : : Bird Poems : :

**A Painting : Percy** **Bysshe Shelley ( 1792 – 1822 ) (Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo**) **: :**

To a Skylark
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O’er which clouds are bright’ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad day-light
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflow’d.

What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aëreal hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embower’d
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower’d,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken’d flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus Hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Match’d with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt,
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest: but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

“To A Skylark”A 105 lines (Song)Bird Poem in 21 Stanzas , each of 5 lines in ABABB Rhyme ; Completed in late June 1820 and published accompanying lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound by Charles and James Ollier in London, By Percy Bysshe Shelley is About The Nature and Spirit ; The skylark found in Nature, symbolizes 😊 Happiness Whereas , The human spirit truly , don’t attain Happiness yet , can go through the known happy situations getting emotions and sensations through the skylark. Birds in Nature enjoys a distinguished Freedom and bliss. : : Skylark is spreading spirit of Happiness as divine experience. it cannot be understood by ordinary, empirical methods. Shelly yearning to be a skylark, contemplates that it has never experienced the disappointments and disillusionments and passionlessness of human life. : : Wikipedia’s Article suggests that : : : : : : : : : [ it was inspired by an evening walk in the country near Livorno, Italy, with his wife Mary Shelley, and describes the appearance and song of a skylark they come upon. Mary Shelley described the event that inspired Shelley to write “To a Skylark”. : “In the Spring we spent a week or two near Leghorn (Livorno) … It was on a beautiful summer evening while wandering among the lanes whose myrtle hedges were the bowers of the fire-flies, that we heard the carolling of the skylark.”

Alexander Mackie argued in 1906 that the poem, along with John Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale”, “are two of the glories of English literature”: “The nightingale and the lark for long monopolised poetic idolatry—a privilege they enjoyed solely on account of their pre-eminence as songbirds. Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale and Shelley’s Ode to a Skylark are two of the glories of English literature, but both were written by men who had no claim to a special or exact knowledge of ornithology as such.”( Mackie, Alexander (1906), Nature Knowledge in Modern Poetry. New York: Longmans -Green & Company, OCLC 494286564. p. 29.)

The skylark’s song is a metaphor or symbol of Nature. As in “The Cloud”, Shelley seeks to understand nature, to find its meaning. This is his objective. The poem is infused with pathos because he knows that this is an illusive quest.

E. Wayne Marjarum argued that the theme was “an ideal being transcending common experience”( Skylark’.” Modern Language Association, Vol. 52, No. 3 : Sep., 1937 , pp. 911-913 ) . Irving T. Richards maintained that the poem represented “the ideal being’s full isolation from mundanity” in which “rhetorical questions concerning the source of his ideal’s inspiration” are addressed. : (Richards, Irving T. “A Note on Source Influences in Shelley’s Cloud and Skylark,” PMLA, Vol. 50, No. 2 : June, 1935 , pp. 562-567.) ]

“To A Skylark” is an “ode” ( as poetic form ) To the “blithe” essence of a singing skylark and how human beings are unable to ever reach that same bliss. : :

The Poet Speaker picks out “A skylark” flying above him. He can recognise the beautiful song which is unplanned and not intended beforehand. Being stunned and entranced by its flying manner of pavement through the clouds and going out of sight , he is still able to feel and hear its presence. Shelley thus attains the pristine and unrestrained Happiness.

Shelly sees the bird as a “high-born maiden” that sings and plays a song for her lover below her and spring, or “vernal,”( Spring brooming ) showers that rain on the flowers below. The skylark is like “rainbow clouds” and the perfect breed of all “Joyous” things. : : The skylark is expected to convey its inspiration in singing a glorious song. Shelley asks, “ Is it fields, or waves, or mountains ?.. . Could it be, shapes of sky or plain ?” Shelley has never seen a thing that could urge such sounds propelled in a Voice.

It is not necessary to know sorrow or “annoyance.”The bird must have the ability to see beyond life, understand death, and feel no concern about it. This is why humans can not attain the same Happiness of “A skylark”, although they have a feeling of deep longing for the “Sweetest Songs”that may be full of the “saddest thought[s].”

“To A Skylark”Poem ends with a prayer to the bird to “Teach [him] half the gladness / That thy brain must know.” Even a small measure would serve him to bring forth a “harmonious madness” that would motivate the world to listen to him as eagerly as he is listening to A Skylark Now. : : : :

The Phoenix and the Turtle : William Shakespeare : : Bird Poems : :

Circa 1600, English playwright and poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616). (Photo by Stock Montage/Getty Images ) Shakespeare wrote autobiographical Sonnets ( 1609 ) , To nondramatic poetry , besides his most significant contribution to English Literature for ever. William Shakespeare had probably been working as an actor and writer on the professional stage in London for four or five years when the London theaters were closed by order of the Privy Council on June 23, 1592 due to the concern for severe outbreak of the plague and alarmed at the possibility of civil unrest. : It was only in 1597 that Shakespeare’s name first appeared on the title page of his plays—Richard II and a revised edition of Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare’s first publication, Venus and Adonis (1593), was dedicated to the 18-year-old Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton. Like most Elizabethan treatments of love, Shakespeare’s work is characterized by paradox (“She’s love, she loves, and yet she is not lov’d”), by narrative and thematic diversity, and by attempts to render the inner workings of the mind, exploring the psychology of perception . : : “Oft the eye The 154 sonnets are conventionally divided between the “young man” sonnets (1-126) and the “dark lady” sonnets (127-152), mistakes, the brain being troubled”. : Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, on what may have been his 52nd birthday.

**Shakespeare’s poem The Phoenix and the Turtle was first published in Robert Chester’s Loves Martyr (1601)**

**The Phoenix portrait of Queen Elizabeth, in which she wears her personal badge of the phoenix.**

**Elizabeth’s Phoenix jewel from the Phoenix portrait.**

The Phoenix and the Turtle : : By William Shakespeare ( 1564 – 1616 )

Let the bird of loudest lay
On the sole Arabian tree
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul precurrer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever’s end,
To this troop come thou not near.

From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather’d king;
Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.

And thou treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak’st
With the breath thou giv’st and tak’st,
‘Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the Turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.

So they lov’d, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance and no space was seen
‘Twixt this Turtle and his queen:
But in them it were a wonder.

So between them love did shine
That the Turtle saw his right
Flaming in the Phoenix’ sight:
Either was the other’s mine.

Property was thus appalled
That the self was not the same;
Single nature’s double name
Neither two nor one was called.

Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together,
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded;

That it cried, “How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love has reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.”

Whereupon it made this threne
To the Phoenix and the Dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene:

threnos

Beauty, truth, and rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos’d, in cinders lie.

Death is now the Phoenix’ nest,
And the Turtle’s loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity:
‘Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.

Truth may seem but cannot be;
Beauty brag but ’tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.

To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

“The Phoenix And The Turtle”Written in 1601,By William Shakespeare + 1464 – 1616 ) is About… It lead to increased knowledge of the chronology and circumstances of Shakespeare’s literary career, as well as affording some glimpses of his revisions of his texts. : : It is an allegorical poem first published in 1601 as a supplement to a longer work, Love’s Martyr, by Robert Chester. The poem, which has been called “the first great published metaphysical poem” ( James P. Bednarz in Cheney, Patrick Gerard The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Poetry, Cambridge University Press, 2007, p117 ) , has many conflicting interpretations. The title “The Phoenix and the Turtle” is a conventional label. As published, the poem was untitled. The title names two birds: the mythological phoenix being able to rise from the ashes of its own funeral pyre , and the turtle dove , associated with love. : :

The poem describes a funeral arranged for the deceased Phoenix and Turtledove, to which some birds are invited, but others excluded. The Phoenix and Turtledove are emblems of perfection and of devoted love, respectively. The Phoenix when it dies, it returns to life, rising from the ashes of its prior incarnation; the Turtledove, by contrast, is mortal. The poem states that the love of the birds created a perfect unity which surpassed all logic and material fact. It concludes with a prayer for the dead lovers.

**dying-and-reborn phoenix, depicted in the Aberdeen Bestiary.**

“The Phoenix and the Turtle” Poem is an allegory of an ideal marriage and it explains of the relationship between truth and beauty, or of fulfilled love, in the context of Renaissance ( European period from 14 Th Through the Middle of 17 Th Century ) rebirth of learning and culture ) and Neoplatonism ( predominant in pagan Europe untill 6 Th Century : composed of platonism + Aristotle’s Ism + Oriental Mysticism : Source of reality transcends being and thought and is naturally unknowable ) :

The concept of a symbolic perfect love between two very different beings, one immortal and one mortal, may be associated with the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as suggested in the lines “So they lov’d, as love in twain/ Had the essence but in one;/Two distincts, division none.” : : The poem also suggests the confluence of three other lines of medieval Catholic tradition: the literary traditions of mystical union, spiritual friendship, and spiritual marriage. : : Shakespeare introduces a number of other birds, drawing on earlier literature about the “parliament of birds”, to portray the death of the lovers as the loss of an ideal that can only be lamented.

Some scholars attempted to link the lovers of the poem to historical individuals. Others have argued that the poem should not be interpreted with “appliqué literalism” realistic portrayal ( sewn one n another for decoration ) : James P. Bednarz. : Exponents of the New Criticism such as I. A. Richards and William Empson emphasised the unresolvable nature of the text’s ambiguities. : Helen Hackett argues that the poem “incites deciphering, but at the same time firmly rebuffs it.”

The Above Write Up is based on a Wikipedia’s Article. : :

“The Phoenix and the Turtle” Allegorical Love Poem / Bird Poems , By William Shakespeare Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 9 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

Moon Poems : Various Poets : Moon Poems : :

* : : The New Moon” by Langston Hughes
There’s a new, young moon riding the hills tonight;
There’s a sprightly, young moon exploring the clouds;
There’s a half-shy, young moon veiling her face like a virgin,
Waiting for her lover.

** : : Evening Star” by Edgar Allan Poe
‘Twas noontide of summer,
And mid-time of night;
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, thro’ the light
Of the brighter, cold moon,
‘Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.
I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold–too cold for me–
There pass’d, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar,
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.

*** : : Silver” by Walter de la Mare
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in silver feathered sleep
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream

*V : : Dusk in Autumn” by Sara Teasdale
The moon is like a scimitar,
A little silver scimitar,
A-drifting down the sky.
And near beside it is a star,
A timid twinkling golden star,
That watches likes an eye.

And thro’ the nursery window-pane
The witches have a fire again,
Just like the ones we make,—
And now I know they’re having tea,
I wish they’d give a cup to me,
With witches’ currant cake.

V : : The Moon” by Robert Louis Stevenson
The moon has a face like the clock in the hall;
She shines on thieves on the garden wall,
On streets and fields and harbour quays,
And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees.

The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse,
The howling dog by the door of the house,
The bat that lies in bed at noon,
All love to be out by the light of the moon.

But all of the things that belong to the day
Cuddle to sleep to be out of her way;
And flowers and children close their eyes
Till up in the morning the sun shall arise.

V* : : The Early Morning” by Hilaire Belloc
The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other:
The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother.
The moon on my left and the dawn on my right.
My brother, good morning: my sister, good night.

V** : : Above the Dock” by T. E. Hulme
Above the quiet dock in mid night,
Tangled in the tall mast’s corded height,

Hangs the moon. What seemed so far away
Is but a child’s balloon, forgotten after play.

V*** : : Only to lose it when he pirouettes,
And seek it endlessly with purblind haste;
On the last swallow’s sweep; and on the rasp
In the abyss of odor and rustle at my back,
That, silenced by my advent, finds once more,
After an interval, his instrument,

And tries once—twice—and thrice if I be there;
And on the worn book of old-golden song
I brought not here to read, it seems, but hold
And freshen in this air of withering sweetness;
But on the memory of one absent most,
For whom these lines when they shall greet her eyes.

*X : : Amores” by E. E. Cummings
There is a moon sole
in the blue night

amorous of waters
tremulous,
blinded with silence the
undulous heaven yearns where

in tense starlessness
anoint with ardor
the yellow lover

stands in the dumb dark
svelte and urgent

(again love i slowly gather
of thy languorous mouth the
thrilling flower)

X : : The Difference” by Thomas Hardy
Sinking down by the gate I discern the thin moon,
And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine,
But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird’s tune,
For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine.

Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now,
The song would be joyous and cheerful the moon;
But she will see never this gate, path, or bough,
Nor I find a joy in the scene or the tune.

X * : : Moonlight” by Walter De La Mare
The far moon maketh lovers wise
In her pale beauty trembling down,
Lending curved cheeks, dark lips, dark eyes,
A strangeness not her own.
And, though they shut their lids to kiss,
In starless darkness peace to win,
Even on that secret world from this
Her twilight enters in.

X* * : : Solar Eclipse” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
In that great journey of the stars through space
About the mighty, all-directing Sun,
The pallid, faithful Moon, has been the one
Companion of the Earth. Her tender face,
Pale with the swift, keen purpose of that race,
Which at Time’s natal hour was first begun,
Shines ever on her lover as they run
And lights his orbit with her silvery smile.

Sometimes such passionate love doth in her rise,
Down from her beaten path she softly slips,
And with her mantle veils the Sun’s bold eyes,
Then in the gloaming finds her lover’s lips.
While far and near the men our world call wise
See only that the Sun is in eclipse.

X * * * : : The Crescent Moon” by Amy Lowell
Slipping softly through the sky
Little horned, happy moon,
Can you hear me up so high?
Will you come down soon?

On my nursery window-sill
Will you stay your steady flight?
And then float away with me
Through the summer night?

Brushing over tops of trees,
Playing hide and seek with stars,
Peeping up through shiny clouds
At Jupiter or Mars.

I shall fill my lap with roses
Gathered in the milky way,
All to carry home to mother.
Oh! what will she say!

Little rocking, sailing moon,
Do you hear me shout — Ahoy!
Just a little nearer, moon,
To please a little boy.

*XV : : The Moon” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I

And, like a dying lady lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapp’d in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The mood arose up in the murky east,
A white and shapeless mass.

II

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

XV : : Song of Myself, 35 : : Walt Whitman 1819 –1892 : ; : :
Would you hear of an old-time sea-fight?
Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars?
List to the yarn, as my grandmother’s father the sailor told it to me.

Our foe was no skulk in his ship I tell you, (said he,)
His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was, and never will be;
Along the lower’d eve he came horribly raking us.

We closed with him, the yards entangled, the cannon touch’d,
My captain lash’d fast with his own hands.

We had receiv’d some eighteen pound shots under the water,
On our lower-gun-deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead.

Fighting at sun-down, fighting at dark,
Ten o’clock at night, the full moon well up, our leaks on the gain, and five feet of water reported,
The master-at-arms loosing the prisoners confined in the after-hold to give them a chance for themselves.

The transit to and from the magazine is now stopt by the sentinels,
They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust.

Our frigate takes fire,
The other asks if we demand quarter?
If our colors are struck and the fighting done?

Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little captain,
We have not struck, he composedly cries, we have just begun our part of the fighting.

Only three guns are in use,
One is directed by the captain himself against the enemy’s mainmast,
Two well serv’d with grape and canister silence his musketry and clear his decks.

The tops alone second the fire of this little battery, especially the main-top,
They hold out bravely during the whole of the action.

Not a moment’s cease,
The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder-magazine.

One of the pumps has been shot away, it is generally thought we are sinking.

Serene stands the little captain,
He is not hurried, his voice is neither high nor low,
His eyes give more light to us than our battle-lanterns.

Toward twelve there in the beams of the moon they surrender to us.

XV* : : Impressions : : Oscar Wilde 1854 –1900
I. Les Silhouettes.

The sea is flecked with bars of grey
The dull dead wind is out of tune,
And like a withered leaf the moon
Is blown across the stormy bay.

Etched clear upon the pallid sand
The black boat lies: a sailor boy
Clambers aboard in careless joy
With laughing face and gleaming hand.

And overheard the curlews cry,
Where through the dusky upland grass
The young brown-throated reapers pass,
Like silhouettes against the sky.

II. La Fuite De La Lune.

To outer senses there is peace,
A dreamy peace on either hand,
Deep silence in the shadowy land,
Deep silence where the shadows cease.

Save for a cry that echoes shrill
From some lone bird disconsolate;
A corncrake calling to its mate;
The answer from the misty hill.

An suddenly the moon withdraws
Her sickle from the lightening skies,
And to her sombre cavern flies,
Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.

XV ** : : A Prophecy: To George Keats in America : : John Keats ( 1795 – 1821 ) : : : :
’Tis the witching time of night,
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the Stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen.
For what listen they?
For a song and for a charm,
See they glisten in alarm,
And the Moon is waxing warm
To hear what I shall say.
Moon! keep wide thy golden ears—
Hearken, Stars! and hearken, Spheres!—
Hearken, thou eternal Sky!
I sing an infant’s Lullaby,
O pretty lullaby!
Listen, listen, listen, listen,
Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,
And hear my Lullaby!
Though the Rushes, that will make
Its cradle, still are in the lake—
Though the linen that will be
Its swathe, is on the cotton tree—
Though the woollen that will keep
It warm, is on the silly sheep—
Listen, Starlight, listen, listen,
Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,
And hear my lullaby!
Child, I see thee! Child, I’ve found thee
Midst of the quiet all around thee!
Child, I see thee! Child, I spy thee
And thy mother sweet is nigh thee!
Child, I know thee! Child no more,
But a Poet evermore!
See, see the Lyre, the Lyre,
In a flame of fire,
Upon the little cradle’s top
Flaring, flaring, flaring,
Past the eyesight’s bearing.
Awake it from its sleep,
And see if it can keep
Its eyes upon the blaze—
Amaze, amaze!
It stares, it stares, it stares,
It dares what no one dares!
It lifts its little hand into the flame
Unharm’d, and on the strings
Paddles a little tune, and sings,
With dumb endeavor sweetly—
Bard art thou completely!
Little child
O’ th’ western wild,
Bard art thou completely!
Sweetly with dumb endeavor.
A poet now or never,
Little child
O’ th’ western wild,
A Poet now or never!

XV* * * : : Home-Coming : : Léonie Adams ( 1899 – 1988 ) : : : :

When I stepped homeward to my hill,
Dusk went before with quiet tread;
The bare laced branches of the trees
Were as a mist about its head.

Upon its leaf-brown breast the rocks
Like great grey sheep lay silentwise,
Between the birch trees’ gleaming arms,
The faint stars trembled in the skies.

The white brook met me half-way up,
And laughed as one that knew me well,
To whose more clear than crystal voice
The frost had joined a crystal spell.

The skies lay like pale-watered deep,
Dusk ran before me to its strand
And cloudily leaned forth to touch
The moon’s slow wonder with her hand.

*X X : : Watch the Film You Paid to See : : By Todd Colby : : : :
In my bedroom my weight is three times more
than what I’d weigh on Jupiter.
If your kitchen was on Mercury I’d be heavier by half
of you while sitting at your table.
On Uranus, a quarter of my weight is meat,
or an awareness of myself as flesh.
On Venus the light would produce a real volume around me
that would make me look happy in photographs.
This is how it is with quantity in any life. It’s a fact
that on certain planets I’d actually be able to mount
the stairs four at a time. Think of the most beautiful horse
in the world: a ridiculously beautiful golden horse,
with a shimmering coat; it would weigh no more
than an empty handbag on Mars. You need
to get real about these things.

— Todd Colby. : From poets.org : For Educational Purposes only. Used with permission of the author.

# Todd Colby is the author of Splash State (The Song Cave, 2014). He lives in Brooklyn, New York. : : “This poem playfully explores the fact that we are bound to our perceptions of the world by the vessel and environment we exist in. That objects and bodies weigh something on one planet, while on another planet they are ridiculously heavy or light, is absurdly beautiful to me.”
—Todd Colby : : : :

X X : : Moon Seen Through Windshield
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Carl Adamshick
1969 –
If you are anything like I am
and I have faith that you are
then you have already stepped
out of your body
and been irrevocably wounded

I was born in 1969
Chances are you were born
during a different year
It doesn’t matter if you were born
three thousand years ago

or if you are born
three thousand years from now
we share what it means to live

Maybe you have gone
back into your body

and found words
the only guide
into the known dark

We are both the living and the dead
the stuff beyond theory

Sometimes it is too much
and other times not enough

We wake to a morning fog
We wake to morning sun
We sit in a cold evening
thinking of the death of a parent

A different evening
has us thinking of our eyes
and how they crawled
out of our minds

at some point
in the evolution of the self

It is the evening of the first day
of a new year
I ask myself What have you done
The list is remarkable

Carl Adamshick : From Birches ( 2019 ) by Carl Adamshick : Four Way Books. : : From poets.org For Educational Purposes only.

Blue Moon : Mimi Khalvati : : Moon Poems : :

Mimi Khalvati : : Mimi Khalvati was born in Tehran and grew up on the Isle of Wight where she went to boarding school. After training at Drama Centre London, she worked as an actor in the UK and as a director at the Theatre Workshop Tehran and on the fringe in London. She started writing poetry while bringing up children. Her pamphlet, Persian Miniatures ( Smith/Doorstop 1990 ) was a winner of the Poetry Business competition 1989. Her Carcanet collections include In White Ink (1991), Mirrorwork (1995), for which she received an Arts Council of England WriterShe is the founder of The Poetry School, where she teaches in London, and was the Coordinator from 1997 to 2004. He most recent collection, The Meanest Flower (Carcanet, 2007), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, a Financial Times Book of the Year and was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize. In 2006, she received a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Blue Moon : : By Mimi Khalvati : : : :

Sitting on a windowsill, swinging
her heels against the wall as the gymslips
circled round and Elvis sang Blue Moon,

she never thought one day to see her daughter,
barelegged, sitting crosslegged on saddlebags
that served as sofas, pulling on an ankle

as she nodded sagely, smiling, not denying –
you’ll never catch me dancing to the same old tunes;
while her brother, strewed along a futon,

grappled with his Sinclair, setting up
a programme we’d asked him to. Tomorrow
he would teach us how to use it but for now

he lay intent, pale, withdrawn, peripheral
in its cold white glare as we went up to our rooms:
rooms we once exchanged, like trust, or guilt,

each knowing hers would serve the other better
while the other’s, at least for now, would do.
The house is going on the market soon.

My son needs higher ceilings; and my daughter
sky for her own blue moon. You can’t blame her.
No woman wants to dance in her Mum’s old room.

— Mimi Khalvati : : From Child: New and Selected Poems 1991-2011 by Mimi Khalvati, published by Carcanet ( £12.95 ) : U. K. : : For Educational Purposes only.

Moon With A Supermarket Trolley : Beverley Bie Brahic : : Moon Poems : :

Moon with a Supermarket Trolley : : By Beverley Bie Brahic, Saskatoon, Canada : : : :

From my Juliet balcony
Overlooking a creek whose bed
Has been trash-filled for months,
Moon, I see you preening like a supermodel –

Nothing to do with me, or any
Of those other heavenly bodies
So difficult to discern
Through the excess of human light –

But what on earth is that supermarket trolley
Abandoned in the thatch
On your parched banks?
Listen! Even the crickets tsk-tsk.

“Moon With A Supermarket Trolley”A 12 lines ‘Surrealist’ Moon Poem in 3 Quatrains , By A Canadian Poet Beverley Bie Brahic is About Visual Narration of Playfulness of Supermarket Trolley. It is from her latest collection, The Hotel Eden. : : A Reader may tend to picture a lordly Lady , a prideful Trolley Stretcher , a housewife who holds on the metalic wheels the groceries , or other choicest goods , and schemed mixes available in Present day Supermarket having the modernist names of repute , internationally Or as from indigenous variants. This is in what A Title makes out a picture which also has suggested connect with ,”Moon”: : : :

Quatrain 1 : : “From my Juliet balcony 1
Overlooking a creek whose bed 2
Has been trash-filled for months, 3
Moon, I see you preening like a supermodel –” 4 : : lines 1 To 4 : : : :

About An Urban City Man’s Struggle for a fine decent modern living in his / her City which is actually struggling to provide a citywide spacious , lighted ambience of purity to instill a spirit of contemporaneity in to the metropolis. This aspiration is evoked ,” From (my) Juliet balcony ! , Overlooking a creek whose bed has been trash – filled for months.” ( lines 1 To 3 ) : The creek as seen from the balcony has not been disposed of, so a rubbish junk materials are run over a limit or brim of the waste-bin(s). The sight is trashy , shocking and should cause dyspeic corner of difficulty in breathing due to absence of pure fresh air. Naming the balcony with Shakespearean label ,”Juliet” is deceiving and a sad side of present day Romanticism. It is shockingly repellent , harshly ironic and has an uninviting /unpleasant views. The Monthwise changing phases of the Moon causing inconstancy is an idea found in Romeo and Juliet when Juliet says to her lover:
” O, swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.”This has no bearing on Brahic ‘s Poem , here. : : Now , here comes The “Moon“, “preening like a super model.”( line 4 ) of A Solar System. : .. . ‘congratulating‘ for a big show !! ?? : “supermodel” is a fashion model who has attained the celebrity status. There is a dislike for falling below standards in this status. No question of any admiration. The Poet Speaker simply sees a preening moon with a grim mood of addressing. : : : :

Quatrain 2 : : “Nothing to do with me, or any 5
Of those other heavenly bodies 6
So difficult to discern 7
Through the excess of human light – “ 8 : : lines 5 To 8 : : : :

About “difficult(y) to discern 7 / Through the excess of human light -” 8 : ( lines 7 & 8 ) that is, nothing to recognise , perceive or understand as said in the line , “Nothing to do with me, or any 5 / Of those other heavenly bodies” 6 As stated in ( lines 5 & 6 ) Which is humorously said in the sense that neither the Earthen body including its habitant’s power Nor “those other Heavenly bodies” could become a contestant in meeting certain requirement(s) in respective singular capacity. This has been exemplified through the “excess of human light” that can not qualify as an individual or their group’s efforts ( line 8 ) : If they come up by joining their lights together , the lights of humanity and one of from “those Heavenly bodies”so to say, The Earthen Efforts combined with other planetary bodies represented here by the Moon should be significantly meaningful. : : : :

Quatrain 3 : : ” But what on earth is that supermarket trolley 9
Abandoned in the thatch 10
On your parched banks? 11
Listen! Even the crickets tsk-tsk.” 12 : : lines 9 To 12 : : : :

About a poignant question asked by the Poet Speaker , in lines : ” ” But what on earth is that supermarket trolley 9
Abandoned in the thatch 10
On your parched banks? “11 : : lines 9 To 11 : : The Question asked is what on earth is it? : The supermarket Trolley as discussed earlier , envisaged now as “Abandoned in the thatch..”, that is, the leaf like architectural foliage or foiled cuttings / beaten thin cover of metals used for coatings over the surface(s) of the man made satellites /rockets / space stations sent in the space Orbiting Earth and or To planets / Moon / Sun , with a predestined missionary purposes of Scientific research , so that humanity should expand the Scopes and knowledge and boundaries for Advance Civilization in the Solar System. The Poet Speaker wants us to switch over to different trash called ‘Space Debris’ the left over separated yet unclaimed as from the man made Rockets with satellite and detachable modules of the Spaceship 🚀🚀. So , what remained in Space or on surface of Moon Or Mars , Etc. “Heavenly / Other bodies” , are all the metalic rubbish/ trashy materials forsaken and left by Humans in the lurch. : The “thatch” and “parched banks”as aforesaid have been sprawling in all directions , orbiting irregularly and inhabited sparsely. It is said that Sun parched the Earth billion years ago. Any “parched” exposure to heat produce parching sounds imagined here in the poem as to be picked up by the “crickets” ( line 12 ) which together utter , ” Tut’ or ‘tut-tut’ , or called here, “tsk – tsk” ( line 12 ) as ‘contempt’ or expressing in disapproval , Etc. Their Parching Sounds are what might be forsaken behind when the human race will be on verge of extinction fear of ‘died out’ and will have emigrated to other Heavenly bodies suitable for Humanity’s New Home or Settlements in Our Solar System or in planetary system far off in Other Star(s) World. What will remain On Our Lovely Age- Old Earth is then resonating sounds of chuntering complaints or noises under one breath of insects. : Who will be there out of numerous Sensuous Poets to “listen to” utter “Even the Crickets tsk- tsk” ( line 12 ) or emit rumbling sounds as a rude response ( grumbled down the Cliff ) On the Abandoned or Forsaken thatch. : : : :

“Moon With A Supermarket Trolley “, A Surrealist Moon Poem, By Beverley Bie Brahic Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 6 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

I Watched the Moon Around the House : Emily Dickinson : : Moon Poems : :

I watched the Moon around the House : : By Emily Dickinson ( 1830 – 1886 ) Massachusetts
629

I watched the Moon around the House
Until upon a Pane—
She stopped—a Traveller’s privilege—for Rest—
And there upon

I gazed—as at a stranger—
The Lady in the Town
Doth think no incivility
To lift her Glass—upon—

But never Stranger justified
The Curiosity
Like Mine—for not a Foot—nor Hand—
Nor Formula—had she—

But like a Head—a Guillotine
Slid carelessly away—
Did independent, Amber—
Sustain her in the sky—

Or like a Stemless Flower—
Upheld in rolling Air
By finer Gravitations—
Than bind Philosopher—

No Hunger—had she—nor an Inn—
Her Toilette—to suffice—
Nor Avocation—nor Concern
For little Mysteries

As harass us—like Life—and Death—
And Afterwards—or Nay—
But seemed engrossed to Absolute—
With shining—and the Sky—

The privilege to scrutinize
Was scarce upon my Eyes
When, with a Silver practise—
She vaulted out of Gaze—

And next—I met her on a Cloud—
Myself too far below
To follow her superior Road—
Or its advantage—Blue—
___ Emily Dickinson : : Source : Book: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson : : From hellowpoetry.com : For Educational Purposes only.

“I watched the Moon around the House” Written in Mid ,1860s , A Moon Poem By one of the greatest American poets, Emily Dickinson is About The Moon’s Nighttime Aerial Journey through the Night Sky while she watches the Heavenly Moon move slowly around her house and illuminating the darkness around her This journey around the house is A Metaphor for the journey of life compared to a “Tone of living Bronze,” which suggests that life can also be powerful and majestic. The moon’s sudden disappearance is a reminder that life is a short and fleeting nature of life 🧬 that is unpredictable and unexpected , thus involving the idea of transience ( brevity or impermanence of life ) : : There is still life and movement in the world, even after the moon has disappeared.Emily Dickinson has a compulsive concern for moon 🌙 🌝 : The Appearance around the house 🏡 as well as her disappearance during Orbiting is a mystical experience to Dickinson who playfully relates with all sorts of moods. One night, sleepless as ever, she The Night time encounter in her sleeplessness although familiar , take her inside 💠 her enlightened realisation of her own strangeness.

What Counsel Has The Hooded Moon : James Joyce : : Moon Poem : :

**James Joyce and Nora Barnacle. 1930. ( Photo by: Marka/UIG via Getty Images )** : : One of the most influential and innovative writers of the 20th century, James Joyce was the author of the short story collection Dubliners (1914) and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Ulysses (1922), and Finnegans Wake (1939). His collections of poetry include Chamber Music (1907) and Pomes Penyeach (1927). : : Upon graduation from University College , Dublin , Joyce moved to Paris and, after 1904, returned to Ireland only sporadically. He lived in Trieste with his partner and later wife, Nora Barnacle, and their children. : : Joyce’s novels, with their innovative language, use of dialogue, characteristic modernist forms, and social frankness, met with resistance when they first appeared in print. : “**Ulyssis** ” was serialized in the United States and England before Sylvia Beach, of the bookstore Shakespeare & Co. in Paris, published it as a complete book. It was banned in the United States from 1922 until 1933.: : Joyce’s first published book was Chamber Music, a collection of 36 love poems. His poetry was noticed by Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot and included in Pound’s influential Imagist Anthology of 1914. Pound wrote of Chamber Music: “the quality and distinction of the poems in the first half … is due in part to their author’s strict musical training … the wording is Elizabethan, the metres at times suggesting Herrick.” Known as a lyric poet, Joyce based some of his poems on songs. His poems have been set to music by composers including Geoffrey Moyneux Palmer, Ross Lee Finney, Samuel Barber, and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, as well as the group Sonic Youth. Despite his poetic success, Joyce is better known as a novelist, and by 1932 he had stopped writing poetry altogether. **( From poetryfoundation.org )**

The Capuchin on a tree. The Capuchin costs on a branch of a tree . The white-headed capuchin (Cebus capucinus), also known as the white-faced capuchin or white-throated capuchin. Central America. Costa Rica.

What Counsel Has the Hooded Moon : : By James Joyce ( 1882 – 1941 ) , Dublin Ireland : :
What counsel has the hooded moon
Put in thy heart, my shyly sweet,
Of Love in ancient plenilune,
Glory and stars beneath his feet — –
A sage that is but kith and kin
With the comedian Capuchin?

Believe me rather that am wise
In disregard of the divine,
A glory kindles in those eyes
Trembles to starlight. Mine, O Mine!
No more be tears in moon or mist
For thee, sweet sentimentalist.
— James Joyce : : From allpowtry.com : for educational purposes only.

“What Counsel Has The Hooded Moon”, A Moon Poem By an Irish Poet , James Joyce ( 1882 – 1941 ) is About what advice given to a person familiar with the Speaker by the Cloud Hermit who is an expressed opponent of love . . His own friend who is timid and desirable was also referred to. The sage has stopped for a rest in a journey. The comedian “Capuchin” has a reference to a monkey found in south and central America having thick hair on the head that resembles a monk’s cowls that is a loose hooded Robert as worn by monk. With an add up of the word “key” to the word “monk” gives a comic effect in a way how a monk hating love has been presented alongside monkey. He asks a sweet Girl to believe in him as he is right. He says that she could see a glory evoking in those eyes : that is, tears in Lady’s eyes. He drinks the tears from her cheeks and lips. He says that he is “wise In disregard of the divine”Meaning, he is not afraid of the Heavenly threats. He compares those eyes of the beauty to the trembling in starlight. A sweet girl is her own sentimental friend. : : The poet expresses an exciting sexuality or romantic love. and in his loving inclination he professes that he is wiser than the moon. He says in the end ,” No more be tears in moon or must.” . . . : :

“What Counsel Has the Hooded Moon” , A satirical Moon Poem By James Joyce Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 4 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

Strange Fits Of Passion Have I Known Poem : William Wordsworth : : Moon Poems : :

Strange Fits Of Passion Have I Known : : By William Wordsworth, Cumberland England :

Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.

When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening-moon.

Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reached the orchard-plot;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot
Came near, and nearer still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature’s gentlest boon!
And all the while my eye I kept
On the descending moon.

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Lover’s head!
‘O mercy!’ to myself I cried,
‘If Lucy hould be dead!’

— William Wordsworth

“Strange Fits Of Passion Have I Known” A 1798 ballad in “Lucy Poems” in ABAB rhyme by one of the most renowned and influential Romantic poets , And England’s Poet Laureate ( From 1843 until his death in 1850 ) William Wordsworth is About The First Love , Guiding Natural World, and an anxiety around it including a fear of death especially, connected with his relationship. Composed during a sojourn in Germany in 1798, the poem was first published in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800) : The poem describes the poet’s night time ride he started in the evening to reach his beloved Lucy’s cottage atop the hill , and his thoughts on the way. Lucy always looks as “fresh as a rose in June”. : The poet experienced “strange fits of passion” and would narrate them only to his beloved Lucy saying ,”in the Lover’s ear alone, / What once to me befell.”: : : : The narration recited is A following Story of love : : : : : : : : He followed his way directing ⬆️ ⬇️ his horse , “beneath an evening-moon“. He crossed a herbage of Pasteur land stated as “lea” , passed through an “orchard”, and began to climb a hill atop which was Lucy’s cottage. As he “came near, and nearer still” to “Lucy’s cot”, the sinking moon appeared to seek affection from Lucy . As he closely approaches the cottage, the moon drops down from sight behind the roof. A contrary “wayward” thought “slides” uninvitedly to his mind , “O mercy!” he thinks. “If Lucy should be dead!” : : : :

Stanza 1 : : “Strange fits of passion have I known: 1
And I will dare to tell, 2
But in the lover’s ear alone, 3
What once to me befell.” 4 : : lines 1 To 4 : : : :

About ” strange fits of passion”, that is, a display of uncontrollable passion and some times a bad temper. With Longing or yearning ( his unfulfilled desire ) for Lucy / to seek her affection , he passionately 💕 loves. He wished dare to tell this to her, but only as a whispering in her ear. To him it happened by chance ( ” “once .. . befell”( line 4 ) : : : :

Stanza 2 : : “When she I loved looked every day 5
Fresh as a rose in June, 6
I to her cottage bent my way, 7
Beneath an evening-moon.” 8 : : lines 5 To 8 ::

About A lover’s thinking while journeying to see his First love , Lucy , her beauty that looked everyday as “fresh as a rose in June”( lines 1 & 6 ) , that is a first rose of the spring , and he wanted to tell about his special ( bent”) way he would enter her cottage in the nighttime, remaining unerect beneath the moon ( line 7 ) Meaning , he would elude the observations of moon 🌝 being over the 🗣️ head. He continued with in his wishful thinking this way.: : : :

Stanza 3 : : ” Upon the moon I fixed my eye, 9
All over the wide lea; 10
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh 11
Those paths so dear to me.” 12 : : lines 10 To 12 : : : :

About The Pathway very dear to him which he wanted to finish quickly with directing his horse 🐎move faster. : he noted by saying ,” drew neigh” ( lines 11 & 12 ) , that is , with faster pace, horse drew a whinny sound. Because “he fixed (his) eye upon the moon”( line 9 ) with a view of matching the pace of his horse according to the passing of hours of his journey faster, across the nighttime — “All over the wide lea: ” ( line 10 ) Meaning, He crossed his ways all over a herbage of Pasteur land stated as “lea” : : : :

Stanza 4 : : “ And now we reached the orchard-plot; 13
And, as we climbed the hill, 14
The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot 15
Came near, and nearer still.” 16 : : lines 13 To 16 : : : :

About eagerly desirous lover’s yearning for affection of his beloved. He developed a feeling that the moments of meeting coming “near, and nearer . .” ( line 16 ) . He planned realising a need for still to go on before “The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot” ( line 15 ) : He passed through an “orchard”( line 13 ) of the ( Countryside settlement ), and they ( Horse with a rider / Speaker ) began to climb a hill ( line 14 ) atop which was Lucy’s cottage. The sinking moon appeared at this time. To him , the moon in sight with her Moonlight had already saught affection of Lucy with approaching “to Lucy’s cot” as when they climbed the hill. : : : :

Stanza 5 : : “In one of those sweet dreams I slept, 17
Kind Nature’s gentlest boon! 18
And all the while my eye I kept 19
On the descending moon.” 20 : : lines 17 To 20 : : : :

About “All the while” he kept his eyes On the descending moon.”( lines 19 & 20 ) : He felt “Kind Nature’s gentlest boon !” ( line 18 ) Having a desirable mild , guiding and helpful Moon in Natural World with her “gentlest boon !”that is, with this soft / compassionate ( not harsh , stern or severe ) blessing he had an easy ‘pass over‘ and while moving through all the transits he felt everything ‘dreamlike‘: So he remembered in saying , “In one of those sweet dreams I slept,” ( line 17 ) This shows the pleasant state of his mind and feeling that he would soon succeed in coming together with his beloved 😍 😍 : : : :

Stanza 6 : : “My horse moved on; hoof after hoof 21
He raised, and never stopped: 22
When down behind the cottage roof, 23
At once, the bright moon dropped.” 24 : : lines 21 To 24 : : : :

About highlighting his journey so far : His “horse moved on ; hoof after hoof” ( line 21) He raised, and never stopped : ” ( line 22 ) Meaning , recalling happily recounting performance of loyal dutiful horse 🐴 who moved above the elevated upraised standard of performance 🐎 ‘foot after foot‘ as stated in the expression, “hoof after hoof” ( line 21 ) blew hard and loudly as he “never stopped”( line 22 ) and made a way up / atop the hill. At this point of time , he closely approached the cottage “At once” When “the bright 🌞 moon dropped down” ( line 23 ) from sight “behind the roof.” ( line 24 ) : : : :

Stanza 7 : : “What fond and wayward thoughts will slide 25
Into a Lover’s head! 26
‘O mercy!’ to myself I cried, 27
‘If Lucy should be dead! ” 28 : : lines 25 To 28 : : : :

About upsetting dream as stated in the word , ” fond” and A “wayward”( line 25 ) , that is , the contrary thoughts from faroff place would “slide” , uninvitedly in to his mind / “lover’s head” ( line 26 ) which made him “cried” to his self /(him)self, “O mercy!” ( line 27 ) As he thinks. “If Lucy should be dead!”( line 28 ) : This was the terrible 😔 impact of the sight of disappearing Moon on a lover’s mind 🫠🫥 He just faced a situation that resembled a terrifying dream. All his Sweet dreaming vanished suddenly. His “strange fits of passion” seized him at once but now to the fear of death. While watching the moon that guided him so far along his nighttime journey, had dropped down and with this, he was filled with uncontrollable emotions 😨 of 🫦 fear of losing his beloved Lucy. He thought 💬 ,”If Lucy should be dead !”( line 28 ) 💭: : During the time way back When Wordsworth lived , it was believed fearsomely that A devil 👿 could catch hold of a man 👞 ♂️ who had intended to make love 💕 with a sleeping 😴 ♀️👠Woman . : : Wordsworth always had a feeling of fear 🫦 that Person(s) very dear to him would die and that he could lose them anytime. The Poem presented here is an artful Ballad depicting a similar love story that Wordsworth would have envisaged.

A Wikipedia’s Article suggests more specifically, in the following information : : “[ It is uncertain whether the Lucy of the poem was based on a historical person or was a creation of Wordsworth’s fertile imagination. If she is real, her surname and identity are unknown, though they have been the subject of much “diligent speculation” in literary circles. “The one certainty is that she is not the girl of Wordsworth’s Lucy Gray.” ( M.H. Abrams, ed. (2000), The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume 2A, The Romantic Period (7th ed.), New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.]” : : : :

An earlier version of this poem ended with an extra verse:

I told her this: her laughter light
Is ringing in my ears:
And when I think upon that night
My eyes are dim with tears : : ( As recorded by Hayden, John O. (1994) William Wordsworth: Selected Poems Penguin Classics ) : : : :

“Strange fits of passion have I known”, A Ballad / Narrative Poem/ Love Song And A Moon Poem By William Wordsworth Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 3 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

The Moon and the Yew Tree : Sylvia Plath : : Moon Poems : :

**Sylvia Plath Although Sylvia Plath was succeeding poetically, she was still deeply unhappy.**

**She tried to kill herself a number of times throughout the early 60s and in February of 1963, she succeeded.**

Door of a Norman chapel set in a yew tree, Chapelle Saint-Anne, Church of Notre-Dame, La Haye-de-Routot, France. The yew is traditionally and regularly found in churchyards in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Northern France (particularly Normandy) : It is said up to 40 people could stand inside one of the La-Haye-de-Routot yew trees, and the Le Ménil-Ciboult yew is probably the largest, with a girth of 13 m.[52] Yews may grow to become exceptionally large (over 5 m diameter) and may live to be over 2,000 years old. : Some ancient yew trees are located at St. Mary the Virgin Church, Overton-on-Dee in Wales. : In Asturian tradition and culture, the yew tree was considered to be linked with the land, people, ancestors, and ancient religion. It was tradition on All Saints’ Day to bring a branch of a yew tree to the tombs of those who had died recently so they would be guided in their return to the Land of Shadows. The yew tree has been found near chapels, churches, and cemeteries since ancient times as a symbol of the transcendence of death. their long life was suggestive of eternity, or because, being toxic when ingested, they were seen as trees of death. : yews were planted to discourage farmers and drovers from letting animals wander onto the burial grounds, the poisonous foliage. : Due to the ability of their branches to root and sprout anew after touching the ground, yews became symbols of death, rebirth, and therefore immortality. Ancient Celts / Gaelic Speaking People of Pre – Christian era also believed in the transmigration of the soul – the eternal soul that survives death to be reborn in a new form..

**Foliage of Irish yew, Taxus baccata ‘Fastigiata’; note the leaves spreading all round the erect shoots . Due to its very slow growth, it is not popular but is valued for hedging and topiary.**

**Taxus baccata (European yew) shoot with mature and immature cones.**

The Moon and the Yew Tree : : By Sylvia Plath ( )
This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky —
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness –
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness – blackness and silence.

“The Moon and the Yew Tree”A 28 lines in 4 Stanzas , each of 7 lines : An Autobiographical “Moon Poem” By Sylvia Plath is About A trait or condition of a non – adaptive family failing to serve an adjustive purpose that smites or affects suddenly with negative feelings. The Yew tree, associated in Pre- Christian Gaelic Mythology with death, represents her father, ( Otto Plath ) and the Moon her mother, ( Aurelia ) — Plath impersonates the impaired family relationships ; wherein there is a lack of understanding between Mother and daughter. Her attempts at getting by the inadequacy with connecting to the Natural World and with formal Religion fails. Plath is lost without help , her mind grim and filled with melancholy, and having fear of unsafe make her thinking of insignificance and hopelessness in her life. Because, her absence for sure , will not be missed in the world around her. Plath’s Poem, ” The Moon And Yew Tree” is seen as an exercise given to her by Ted Hughes to write about “the full moon setting onto a large yew that grows in the churchyard”. Ted said of the resulting poem : “a statement from the powers in control of our life.”: : : :

There is no rhyme scheme. The two prime metaphors; the moon and the the yew tree. Colours — blue, white and black — , light and dark, and religious imageries are braided in the poem.

Stanza 1 : : ” This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary 1
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue. 2
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God 3
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility 4
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place. 5
Separated from my house by a row of headstones. 6
I simply cannot see where there is to get to. 7 lines 1 To 7 : : : :

About The problematic and unsatisfactory family relationship that smites or affects her feelings. She says, “the light of the mind , cold 🥶 ( No Warmth ) and planetary ( Coming Not distant or Heavenly , But the light of mind is Earthy- Natural World Near or – Real around ( Not Godly )” ( line 1 ) she ” simply cannot see where there is to get to.”( line 7 ) : “The trees of the mind are 🖤 black”( line 2 : No 🧬 life , No vibrancy ) The Sensing Darkness is anticipatory of unfavorable omen or evil thing to happen. : “The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God” ( line 3 ) Meaning, her clarification that she is not God who can take all the “griefs” : the sorrows in heartaches caused by ‘death‘ of her father and intensely paining Unhappiness. Yet she has to deal with all such prickly griefs transferred from the grasses/ symbolically the life itself, to her location, the “feet”: The pointed ends of the grasses gives her prickly , stinging pain , and their throbbing murmurs have gently and humbly, come across her way ( “ankles” in line 4 ) : : She now starts to see about her place of living as full of ‘fumes’ ( “fumy”) and the “spiritous mists”which have populated areas as dwelling. ( line 5 ) : Spirit or Alcohol has hazardous in the sense that it alters the behavioral capacity and makes person’s mind concerning 😟 , worrisome and unmanageable. Hence, this remark. : : There is a “row of headstones” that separates the poet from her home as stated ( in line 6 ) Home is wrapped in death and darkness sameway the deathly darkness has engrossed her completely in her mind. She gets to fretting as she has stayed away from her home too long . So , she can’t make progress to reach there, or anywhere. As She says ,” simply cannot see where there is to get to.” ( line 7 ) : : : :

Further notes for Stanzas 2 To 4 Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India September 2 , 2023 : : : : : : : :

Sad Steps : Philip Larkin : : Moon Poems : :

Philip Larkin ( 1922 – 1985 ) : : Poet Philip Larkin talking about his new anthology ‘The Oxford Book of 20th Century English Verse’ prior to its inclusion on the BBC television series ‘Poetry Prom’, July 1973. ( Photo by Barry Wilkinson/Radio Times via Getty Images )

**British Painter, Abraham Pether ( 1756 – 1812 )Chichester , Southampton, – Evening scene with full moon and persons ( 1801 oil on canvas mounted on cardboard ) : Photographer**
**Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, At 18:06 P M 13 May 2013, lot 149 : In Public Domain in U S**

Sad Steps : : BY PHILIP LARKIN ( )
Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness.

Four o’clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There’s something laughable about this,

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

High and preposterous and separate—
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory ! Immensements ! No,

One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can’t come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.
— Philip Larkin, “Sad Steps” from Collected Poems : Estate of Philip Larkin : ( Reprint ) Faber and Faber, Ltd.
Source: Collected Poems ( Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2001 ) : From poetryfoundation.org : For Educational Purposes only.

“Sad Steps”Written in April 1968 published in his final volume of poetry, High Windows (1974) , A “Moon Poem” By Philip Larkin ( 1922 , Coventry, England – 1985 , ) is About Viewing Moon, reminding him in his mid 40s / reminding a Reader with similar awareness of loss of “strength” and “of pain” of being young, as well as , lack of intense emotionality with “far reaching singleness” of The Moon’s “hardness and brightness“at which The Poet 🥶 shivers. ❄️❄️ Thus her “wide stare” shakes him to think that he is getting old with loss of Youth, and is getting his passions cooled off. : : : : : : Larkin being awe-struck by the moon in the night sky, something that poets have been drawn to as a poetic topic for centuries. Yet , Here, he reflects very differently. : : The title of Larkin’s poem can be allusively referred to another English poem by Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), A sonnet 31 from Sidney’s sixteenth-century sequence, Astrophil and Stella. : : with the opening line, ‘With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb’st the skies’: : For Larkin, Sydney’s ‘sad steps’ seem to be more earthy and realistic ; practicle and sensible feel up , that is , the steps he takes “back to bed ‘after a piss” , Opening line of The Poem. : :

Stanza 1 : : “Groping back to bed after a piss 1
I part thick curtains, and am startled by 2
The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness.” 3 : lines 1 To 3 : : : :

About The Poet Speaker who is “Groping ” / ‘fumbling’ / walking blindly / with shut eyes in darkness of the ( bathroom , walkway and ) the bedroom back “to bed after a piss”, shifts the sections of thick curtains aside in opposite ends as he says, “parts thick curtains”( line 2 ) and moves suddenly from the sky view now revealed before him , as if “startled “/ in surprise 🫢 by “The rapid clouds , the moon’s cleanliness.” ( line 3 ) / Meaning, he is taken aback or gets stirred up emotionally , seeing the clouds moving with high speed and The moon’s ” cleanliness ” , that is , An impressive appearance in ‘neatness’ / free from clumsiness. : : : :

Stanza 2 : : ” Four o’clock : wedge-shadowed gardens lie 4
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky. 5
There’s something laughable about this,“6 : ::

About The moony gardens lighted by moonlight 🌝 and “something laughable”( lines 5 & 6 ) of the landscape. The Poet sees outside At : 4 : 00 A. M. : “wedge – shadowed gardens lie Under a cavernous, a wind- picked sky.” ( lines 4 & 5 ) Meaning , he sees below the narrowly triangular gardens ( V – Shaped shadowing “wedge” ) lying under an expansive chamber ( “cavernous” hollow ) as if carved out of limestone /white stones depository . There is also a wind taking from the ground to a sky , an elevation high up. : : : :

Notes for Remaining Stanzas 3 To 6 Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India September 1 , 2023 : : : : : : : :