Tuesday Poem: "Spring Offensive" by Wilfred Owen

Halted against the shade of a last hill,
They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease
And, finding comfortable chests and knees
Carelessly slept. 
                               But many there stood still
To face the stark, blank sky beyond the ridge,
Knowing their feet had come to the end of the world.
Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled
By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge,
For though the summer oozed into their veins
Like the injected drug for their bones’ pains,
Sharp on their souls hung the imminent line of grass,
Fearfully flashed the sky’s mysterious glass.
 
Hour after hour they ponder the warm field—
And the far valley behind, where the buttercups
Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up,
Where even the little brambles would not yield,
But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing hands;
They breathe like trees unstirred.
Till like a cold gust thrilled the little word
At which each body and its soul begird
And tighten them for battle. No alarms
Of bugles, no high flags, no clamorous haste—
Only a lift and flare of eyes that faced
The sun, like a friend with whom their love is done.
O larger shone that smile against the sun,—
Mightier than his whose bounty these have spurned.
 
So, soon they topped the hill, and raced together
Over an open stretch of herb and heather
Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned
With fury against them; and soft sudden cups
Opened in thousands for their blood; and the green slopes
Chasmed and steepened sheer to infinite space.
 
Of them who running on that last high place
Leapt to swift unseen bullets, or went up
On the hot blast and fury of hell’s upsurge,
Or plunged and fell away past this world’s verge,
Some say God caught them even before they fell.
But what say such as from existence’ brink
Ventured but drave too swift to sink.
The few who rushed in the body to enter hell,
And there out-fiending all its fiends and flames
With superhuman inhumanities,
Long-famous glories, immemorial shames—
And crawling slowly back, have by degrees
Regained cool peaceful air in wonder—
Why speak they not of comrades that went under?

by Wilfred Owen

For more information about the poet, Wilfred Owen, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wilfred-owen

Tuesday Poem: "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" by William Wordsworth

The child is father of the man; 
And I could wish my days to be 
Bound each to each by natural piety. 
(Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up") 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight, 
To me did seem 
Apparelled in celestial light, 
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
It is not now as it hath been of yore;— 
Turn wheresoe'er I may, 
By night or day. 
The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 

The Rainbow comes and goes, 
And lovely is the Rose, 
The Moon doth with delight 
Look round her when the heavens are bare, 
Waters on a starry night 
Are beautiful and fair; 
The sunshine is a glorious birth; 
But yet I know, where'er I go, 
That there hath past away a glory from the earth. 

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, 
And while the young lambs bound 
As to the tabor's sound, 
To me alone there came a thought of grief: 
A timely utterance gave that thought relief, 
And I again am strong: 
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; 
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong; 
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng, 
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep, 
And all the earth is gay; 
Land and sea 
Give themselves up to jollity, 
And with the heart of May 
Doth every Beast keep holiday;— 
Thou Child of Joy, 
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy. 

Ye blessèd creatures, I have heard the call 
Ye to each other make; I see 
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; 
My heart is at your festival, 
My head hath its coronal, 
The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all. 
Oh evil day! if I were sullen 
While Earth herself is adorning, 
This sweet May-morning, 
And the Children are culling 
On every side, 
In a thousand valleys far and wide, 
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, 
And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:— 
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! 
—But there's a Tree, of many, one, 
A single field which I have looked upon, 
Both of them speak of something that is gone; 
The Pansy at my feet 
Doth the same tale repeat: 
Whither is fled the visionary gleam? 
Where is it now, the glory and the dream? 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: 
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And cometh from afar: 
Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God, who is our home: 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
Upon the growing Boy, 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 
He sees it in his joy; 
The Youth, who daily farther from the east 
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, 
And by the vision splendid 
Is on his way attended; 
At length the Man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day. 

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; 
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, 
And, even with something of a Mother's mind, 
And no unworthy aim, 
The homely Nurse doth all she can 
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, 
Forget the glories he hath known, 
And that imperial palace whence he came. 

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, 
A six years' Darling of a pigmy size! 
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, 
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, 
With light upon him from his father's eyes! 
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, 
Some fragment from his dream of human life, 
Shaped by himself with newly-learn{e}d art 
A wedding or a festival, 
A mourning or a funeral; 
And this hath now his heart, 
And unto this he frames his song: 
Then will he fit his tongue 
To dialogues of business, love, or strife; 
But it will not be long 
Ere this be thrown aside, 
And with new joy and pride 
The little Actor cons another part; 
Filling from time to time his "humorous stage" 
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, 
That Life brings with her in her equipage; 
As if his whole vocation 
Were endless imitation. 

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie 
Thy Soul's immensity; 
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep 
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind, 
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, 
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,— 
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest! 
On whom those truths do rest, 
Which we are toiling all our lives to find, 
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; 
Thou, over whom thy Immortality 
Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, 
A Presence which is not to be put by; 
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might 
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, 
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 
The years to bring the inevitable yoke, 
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, 
And custom lie upon thee with a weight, 
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! 

O joy! that in our embers 
Is something that doth live, 
That Nature yet remembers 
What was so fugitive! 
The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
Perpetual benediction: not indeed 
For that which is most worthy to be blest; 
Delight and liberty, the simple creed 
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, 
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:— 
Not for these I raise 
The song of thanks and praise 
But for those obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things, 
Fallings from us, vanishings; 
Blank misgivings of a Creature 
Moving about in worlds not realised, 
High instincts before which our mortal Nature 
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: 
But for those first affections, 
Those shadowy recollections, 
Which, be they what they may 
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, 
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; 
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, 
To perish never; 
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, 
Nor Man nor Boy, 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
Can utterly abolish or destroy! 
Hence in a season of calm weather 
Though inland far we be, 
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither, 
Can in a moment travel thither, 
And see the Children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! 
And let the young Lambs bound 
As to the tabor's sound! 
We in thought will join your throng, 
Ye that pipe and ye that play, 
Ye that through your hearts to-day 
Feel the gladness of the May! 
What though the radiance which was once so bright 
Be now for ever taken from my sight, 
Though nothing can bring back the hour 
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; 
We will grieve not, rather find 
Strength in what remains behind; 
In the primal sympathy 
Which having been must ever be; 
In the soothing thoughts that spring 
Out of human suffering; 
In the faith that looks through death, 
In years that bring the philosophic mind. 
And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, 
Forebode not any severing of our loves! 
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; 
I only have relinquished one delight 
To live beneath your more habitual sway. 
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, 
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; 
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day 
Is lovely yet; 
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun 
Do take a sober colouring from an eye 
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; 
Another race hath been, and other palms are won. 
Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, 
To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

by William Wordsworth

For more information about the poet, William Wordsworth, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-wordsworth

Tuesday Poem: "My Therapist Wants to Know about My Relationship to Work" by Tiana Clark

I hustle
            upstream.
I grasp.
            I grind.
I control & panic. Poke
balloons in my chest,
always popping there,
always my thoughts thump,
thump. I snooze — wake & go
boom. All day, like this I short
my breath. I scroll & scroll.
I see what you wrote — I like.
I heart. My thumb, so tired.
My head bent down, but not
in prayer, heavy from the looking.
I see your face, your phone-lit
faces. I tap your food, two times
for more hearts. I retweet.
I email: yes & yes & yes.
Then I cry & need to say: no-no-no.
Why does it take so long to reply?
I FOMO & shout. I read. I never
enough. New book. New post.
New ping. A new tab, then another.
Papers on the floor, scattered & stacked.
So many journals, unbroken white spines,
waiting. Did you hear that new new?
I start to text back. Ellipsis, then I forget.
I balk. I lazy the bed. I wallow when I write.
I truth when I lie. I throw a book
when a poem undoes me. I underline
Clifton: today we are possible. I start
from image. I begin with Phillis Wheatley.
I begin with Phillis Wheatley. I begin
with Phillis Wheatley reaching for coal.
I start with a napkin, receipt, or my hand.
I muscle memory. I stutter the page. I fail.
Hit delete — scratch out one more line. I sonnet,
then break form. I make tea, use two bags.
Rooibos again. I bathe now. Epsom salt.
No books or phone. Just water & the sound
of water filling, glory — be my buoyant body,
bowl of me. Yes, lavender, more bubbles
& bath bomb, of course some candles too.
All alone with Coltrane. My favorite, “Naima,”
for his wife, now for me, inside my own womb.
Again, I child back. I float. I sing. I simple
& humble. Eyes close. I low my voice,
was it a psalm? Don’t know. But I stopped.

by Tiana Clark

For more information about poet, Tiana Clark, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/tiana-clark

Tuesday Poem: "Home is So Sad" by Philip Larkin

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was: 
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

by Philip Larkin

For more information about the poet, Philip Larkin, see:

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/philip-larkin