.....Aw, z, ya big nut. You know I could never take you in a literary discussion. It would be like "watching a dog play the piano!"

I do have faves and opinions, but for now I'm happy just sitting in the peanut gallery. You guys are the stars there....

Pshaw, Dry M., I am no literary genius, I just love to read. I would be the first to admit that my reading has been woefuly inadequate in many areas. I am still trying to work my way through Shakespeare as there are many of his plays I haven't read or even fleetingly dipped into. I went in more for his sonnets in my youth and neglected his plays, so I am trying to make up for that in my middle age. Reading "The Tempest" again just reinforces that desire.

I just finished a wonderful little book of essays by Anne Fadiman entitled "Ex Libris: The Confessions of A Common Reader". Thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it, but was left filled with envy over all the books she has read, and I have not. Oh well, "had we but world enough and time" as the poet said. Which reminds me of more favorite lines from the same poem:

"But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near"

So what is your favorite sonnet, Z?

Did you watch Deadwood on HBO? Did you find it Shakespearean at all?

I never watched Deadwood, though I was told it was good. Did you enjoy it?

As to the sonnets, how to choose a favorite among so many.

My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;
I love not less, though less the show appear;
That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming
The owner's tongue doth publish everywhere.
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays;
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild music burdens every bough,
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
Therefore, like her, I sometimes hold my tongue,
Because I would not dull you with my song.

Anyone else care to post a favorite sonnet or poem? Spring is coming so how about:

Spring rides no horses down the hill,
But comes on foot, a goose-girl still.
And all the loveliest things there be
Come simply, so it seems to me.
If ever I said, in grief or pride,
I tired of honest things, I lied:
And should be cursed forevermore
With Love in laces, like a whore,
And neighbours cold, and friends unsteady,
And Spring on horseback, like a lady!

Or, there is Browning and his Home Thoughts, from Abroad:

O, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

(The first poem is by Edna St. Vincent Millay)

This has been the Poetry Hour, brought to you by Pepsodent Toothpaste:

You'll wonder where the yellow went,
when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!

Here is a poem by Millay for Midge, the happy bohemian and her lover:

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on the hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "'God bless you!" for the apples and the pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

I'm enjoying all this great poetry, z......

Mad Men want to know:

IF there were dreams to sell,
What would you buy?
Some cost a passing bell;
Some a light sigh,
That shakes from Life's fresh crown
Only a rose-leaf down.
If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell,
And the crier rang the bell,
What would you buy?

For Betty who sees Bobbie as "Old":

Let me grow lovely, growing old -
So many fine things do;
Laces and ivory and gold,
And silks need not be new;
And there is healing in old trees,
Old streets a glamour hold;
Why may not I, as well as these,
Grow lovely, growing old?

Karle Wilson Baker

I love that one, z!

Someone posted it here on the forum a while back and I wrote it out and kept it. What a beautiful thought.

I hope I can do what it says, don't you? (you seem like you're already "lovely", though...)

: - }

Because it's spring, here is one of the few poems I still know by heart, probably because I love it so:

DAFFODILS

I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth, is that not a perfect name for a poet? "that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude" - love that line.

.....z.....Thanks for the very nice posts.....

For Betty and all the other mad housewives of her day:

Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Give me back my book and take my kiss instead.
Was it my enemy or my friend I heard,
"What a big book for such a little head!"
Come, I will show you now my newest hat,
And you may watch me purse my mouth and prink!
Oh, I shall love you still, and all of that.
I never again shall tell you what I think.
I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly;
You will not catch me reading any more:
I shall be called a wife to pattern by;
And some day when you knock and push the door,
Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy,
I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me.

From a plaque I have on my wall (I ordered from Abbey Press ages and ages ago):

We never really grow up it seems
We keep in our hearts
Our fancies and dreams
And in a corner tucked away
Is the child we all were
Yesterday

.....What do you mean, yesterday?

{:)

Tee hee!

; - D