Poem For Today
- Thread starter Mini
- Start date
bondgirl
Member
Thank you Mini love
Meg is very much like me in some ways....although she's tall blonde and skinny ha ha....so writing the poem for her meant a lot to her especially as she aint too keen on the one i wrote about her been born ha ha she really does kid herself she's a little angel ha ha
A Prayer for my Daughterby W.B.Yeats.
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.
Helen being chosen found life flat and dull
And later had much trouble from a fool,
While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,
Being fatherless could have her way
Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man.
It's certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.
In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful;
Yet many, that have played the fool
For beauty's very self, has charm made wise,
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.
May she become a flourishing hidden tree
That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
And have no business but dispensing round
Their magnanimities of sound,
Nor but in merriment begin a chase,
Nor but in merriment a quarrel.
O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.
My mind, because the minds that I have loved,
The sort of beauty that I have approved,
Prosper but little, has dried up of late,
Yet knows that to be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there's no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.
An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed.
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn,
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?
Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all's accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend.
Helen being chosen found life flat and dull
And later had much trouble from a fool,
While that great Queen, that rose out of the spray,
Being fatherless could have her way
Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man.
It's certain that fine women eat
A crazy salad with their meat
Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.
In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned;
Hearts are not had as a gift but hearts are earned
By those that are not entirely beautiful;
Yet many, that have played the fool
For beauty's very self, has charm made wise,
And many a poor man that has roved,
Loved and thought himself beloved,
From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.
May she become a flourishing hidden tree
That all her thoughts may like the linnet be,
And have no business but dispensing round
Their magnanimities of sound,
Nor but in merriment begin a chase,
Nor but in merriment a quarrel.
O may she live like some green laurel
Rooted in one dear perpetual place.
My mind, because the minds that I have loved,
The sort of beauty that I have approved,
Prosper but little, has dried up of late,
Yet knows that to be choked with hate
May well be of all evil chances chief.
If there's no hatred in a mind
Assault and battery of the wind
Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.
An intellectual hatred is the worst,
So let her think opinions are accursed.
Have I not seen the loveliest woman born
Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn,
Because of her opinionated mind
Barter that horn and every good
By quiet natures understood
For an old bellows full of angry wind?
Considering that, all hatred driven hence,
The soul recovers radical innocence
And learns at last that it is self-delighting,
Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,
And that its own sweet will is Heaven's will;
She can, though every face should scowl
And every windy quarter howl
Or every bellows burst, be happy still.
And may her bridegroom bring her to a house
Where all's accustomed, ceremonious;
For arrogance and hatred are the wares
Peddled in the thoroughfares.
How but in custom and in ceremony
Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremony's a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.
bondgirl
Member
Hi Andrene
I hope you don't mind I've posted the poem for you On Children
Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
rubyberrie
Working My Way to Thin!
When my Daughter was in year 9 at school, she had to write a poem about a Soldier in conflict for her World War 2 project and bless her, she could not get going with it, so I decided to give her a hand and together we came up with the following poem.
My Husband took a copy of it to our local British Legion and they proudly put it up on their notice board as they thought it was very good. I have just come across a copy of it gathering dust in my drawer and thought I would post here in case I ever lost my piece of paper with our little masterpiece ....
WILL PEACE EVER COME?
How did it all come to this?
my life in this war is a constant near miss
dodging gunshots, bombs and barbed wire that scrapes
will peace ever come where I hope to escape?
The roar of the tanks that pound through my head
helped not by my friend I have just found dead
my tears for him are stinging my cheeks
my comrade in war for so many weeks
To hell with this war, it is so so cruel
my hatred of conflict will add to my fuel
to fight off the enemy with honour and vigour
a tear in my eye when I pull the trigger
For the innocent men that needlessly die
I'll continue to fight with a tear in my eye
I will not forget you, we were brothers in war
enjoy the peace and suffer no more
My fight goes on with bandages frayed
from poisons and gases, all man made
I crawl on my belly alongside barbed wire
trying to avoid the machine gun fire
My gas mask is on but I am uncomfortably sure
that something is wrong and I may be no more
I sense peace is coming, but I do not know how
whether it will be later, or here right now ...
written by
Hayley & Sue
2004
My Husband took a copy of it to our local British Legion and they proudly put it up on their notice board as they thought it was very good. I have just come across a copy of it gathering dust in my drawer and thought I would post here in case I ever lost my piece of paper with our little masterpiece ....
WILL PEACE EVER COME?
How did it all come to this?
my life in this war is a constant near miss
dodging gunshots, bombs and barbed wire that scrapes
will peace ever come where I hope to escape?
The roar of the tanks that pound through my head
helped not by my friend I have just found dead
my tears for him are stinging my cheeks
my comrade in war for so many weeks
To hell with this war, it is so so cruel
my hatred of conflict will add to my fuel
to fight off the enemy with honour and vigour
a tear in my eye when I pull the trigger
For the innocent men that needlessly die
I'll continue to fight with a tear in my eye
I will not forget you, we were brothers in war
enjoy the peace and suffer no more
My fight goes on with bandages frayed
from poisons and gases, all man made
I crawl on my belly alongside barbed wire
trying to avoid the machine gun fire
My gas mask is on but I am uncomfortably sure
that something is wrong and I may be no more
I sense peace is coming, but I do not know how
whether it will be later, or here right now ...
written by
Hayley & Sue
2004
rubyberrie
Working My Way to Thin!
Thanks alot Janey
I just felt I wanted to write it down somewhere and I thought this was the ideal place - MiniMins think of everything - thanks Mini
I just felt I wanted to write it down somewhere and I thought this was the ideal place - MiniMins think of everything - thanks Mini
