The Spring and the Fall

Each Friday we provide the link to the blogger who is hosting a celebration of poetry around the blogosphere. At that site you can find the links to the many other blogs that are posting poems (new and old), discussions of poems, and reviews of poetry books. It’s also a great way to explore the internet.

Enjoy the festivities!

The host this week is Laura Salas.

You can visit her here at Writing the World for Kids


(Sunlight and Shadow, Newbury Marshes, Massachusetts
by Martin Johnson Heade, 1819-1904, American artist)

“Love is a circle that doth restless move / In the same sweet eternity of love.” ~ Robert Herrick (1591-1674), the greatest of the English Cavalier poets

THE SPRING AND THE FALL

In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The trees were black where the bark was wet.
I see them yet, in the spring of the year.
He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach
That was out of the way and hard to reach.

In the fall of the year, in the fall of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The rooks went up with a raucous trill.
I hear them still, in the fall of the year.
He laughed at all I dared to praise,
And broke my heart, in little ways.

Year be springing or year be falling,
The bark will drip and the birds be calling.
There’s much that’s fine to see and hear
In the spring of a year, in the fall of a year.
’Tis not love’s going hurt my days,
But that it went in little ways.

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), American poet

Writing

(Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window
by Jan Vermeer, 1632-1675, Dutch painter)

An epigraph is a short quotation or poem at the head of a book or a chapter.

The verse below is an example of an epigram, which the poet Coleridge defined as “A dwarfish whole, / Its body brevity, its wit its soul.”

WRITING

When words we want, Love teaches to indite*;
And what we blush to speak, She bids us write.

~ Robert Herrick (1591-1674), the greatest of the English Cavalier poets

* indite – to put into words, compose

His Alms

(Shoes by Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890, Dutch
Post-Impressionist painter)

A gentleman came to our house and he told me, “There is a Hindu family with about eight children who have not eaten for a long time.” So I took some rice quickly and went to their family and I could see real hunger on the small faces of these children and yet the mother had the courage to divide the rice into two and she went out.

When she came back, I asked her, “Where did you go? What did you do?”

And she said, “They are hungry also.”

“Who are they?”

“The Muslim family next door with as many children.”

She knew that they were hungry. What struck me most was that she knew and because she knew she gave until it hurt. This is something so beautiful. This is living love. She gave until it hurt. I did not bring more rice that night because I wanted them to enjoy the joy of giving, of sharing. You should have seen the faces of those little ones. They just understood what their mother did. Their faces were brightened up with smiles. When I came in they looked hungry, they looked so miserable. But the act of their mother taught them what true love was. This is the greatness of our poor.

~ Mother Teresa (1910-1997), Albanian-born Indian Catholic nun, in Daily Readings with Mother Teresa, edited by Teresa de Bertodano

HIS ALMS

Here, here I live,
And somewhat give,
Of what I have,
To those, who crave.
Little or much,
My alms is such:
But if my deal
Of oil and meal
Shall fuller grow,
More I’ll bestow:
Meantime be it
E’en but a bit,
Or else a crumb,
The scrip* hath some.

~ Robert Herrick (1591-1674), English poet

* scrip - temporary certificate of money

Cherry Ripe

(The Fruit Seller by Vincenzo Campi, 1536-1591,
Italian painter)

In this verse, Thomas Campion’s beloved is not just a red, red rose. The poet sees a full garden in her face, and he creates even more images with the help of other metaphors, mixed though they be.

But this beauty is out of bounds, he tells us, until she herself gives permission. “Cherry ripe” is the cry heard in the London markets and recorded by another English poet of the time, Robert Herrick:

Cherry-ripe, ripe, ripe, I cry,
Full and fair ones; come and buy.

CHERRY RIPE

There is a garden in her face
Where roses and white lilies grow;
A heav’nly paradise is that place
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.
There cherries grow which none may buy,
Till “Cherry ripe” themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rose-buds fill’d with snow;
Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy,
Till “Cherry ripe” themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still,
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threat’ning with piercing frowns to kill
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred cherries to come nigh,
Till “Cherry ripe” themselves do cry.

~ Thomas Campion (1567-1620), English poet