"Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Commentary: I couldn't let our poetry exhibition come to a close without sharing another poem from my favorite American poet, Robert Frost. It also seemed appropriate to save "Fire and Ice" for last given its theme. Hope you've enjoyed our celebration of poetry month!

"When, in disgrace..." by William Shakespeare

When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fat,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Commentary: I love sonnets, and Shakespeare is the king of sonnets. So I wanted to be sure to share one before national poetry month concluded.

"And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time" by William Blake

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England's mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God

On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here

Among these dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!

Bring me my arrows of desire!

Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!

Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land.

"Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

"Eagle of the Night (The Owl)" by Dwina Murphy-Gibb

Eagle of the night, friend of strangers in the dark,
Seer of the unseen, you who are of silent feathers,
Companion of Athena,
You, who bring light to those without sight,
Be my eyes in the blackest of deep places,
Be my breastplate of wisdom in the Court of Indra,
Be the bearer of keen insights in sooth-saying
And the revealer of Truth in all omens and faces.

Eagle of the night, guardian owl of all forest trees,
Keeper of the woodland, you who are witness to secrets,
Companion of Hecate,
You, who bring solace to walkers of the twilight,
Be my ears in the depths of noiseless places,
Be my potent quill in the writing of sacred Law,
Be the plumed cloak of refuge, talon and claw,
And the revealer of mysteries in all arts and graces.

"Teaching" by Richard Hague

What should be mostly silence

is too loud.

Everyone throws stones into the river.

Everyone wants to catch the birds.

Everyone shoots at the fish.

Meanwhile, behind them,

a sycamore swallows the sun.

One sparrow folds all darkness in its wings.

A worm turns as slowly as history

in the intricate gut of a hawk.

Commentary: Another poem from my friend Richard Hague. This one comes from his collection entitled "Public Hearings" published by Word Press in 2009. You can find more of his works on Amazon.com by clicking here. I hope you enjoy him as much as I do!

"Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Thou winning near the goal -- yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, thou thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands crest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with breed
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say's,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

"Fergus and the Druid" by William Butler Yeats

Fergus. This whole day have I followed in the rocks,

             And you have changed and flowed form shape to shape,

             First as a raven on whose ancient wings

             Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed

             A weasel moving on from stone to stone,

             And now at last you wear a human shape,

             A thin grey man half lost in gathering night.

Druid. What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?

Fergus. This would I say, most wise of living souls:

             Young subtle Conchubar sat close by me

             When I gave judgment, and his words were wise,

             And what to me was burden without end,

             To him seemed easy, so I laid the crown

             Upon his head to cast away my sorrow.

Druid. What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?

Fergus. A king and proud! and that is my despair.

             I feast amid my people on the hill,

             And pace the woods, and drive my chariot-wheels

             In the white border of the murmuring sea;

             And still I feel the crown upon my head.

Druid. What would you, Fergus?

Fergus.                                         Be no more a king

             But learn the dreaming wisdom that is yours.

Druid. Look on my thin grey hair and hollow cheeks

           And on these hands that may not lift the sword,

           This body trembling like a wind-blown reed.

           No woman's loved me, no man sought my help.

Fergus. A king is but a foolish laborer

             Who wastes his blood to be another's dream.

Druid. Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams;

            Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.

Fergus. I see my life go drifting like a river

             From change to change; I have been many things --

             A green drop in the surge, a gleam of light

             Upon a sword, a fir-tree on a hill,

             An old slave grinding at a heavy quern,

             A king sitting upon a chair of gold --

             And all these things were wonderful and great;

             But now I have grown nothing, knowing all.

             Ah! Druid, Druid, how great webs of sorrow

             Lay hidden in the small slate-coloured thing!

"Ulysses" by Lord Alfred Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known--cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle,
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me,
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
IT may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

"A Psalm of Life" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream ! -
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust htou art, to dust returnest,
Was nto spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us father than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'rehead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er lives solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.