Spotlight Poetry – Dejection: An Ode (Extract) – A Poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

© Yvette Lyons, For the Love of Music, 2015

Dejection: An Ode by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

O pure of heart! thou need’st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power.
         Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne’er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and Life’s effluence, cloud at once and shower,
Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,
Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower
         A new Earth and new Heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud—
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud—
                We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
         All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.

Poem Attribution © Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dejection: An Ode, (An Extract verse V)

Source Attribution https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43973/dejection-an-ode

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Painting Attribution © Yvette Lyons, For the Love of Music, 2015

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/print/Painting-For-the-Love-of-Music/757565/2638504/view

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Spotlight Poetry – To Primroses Filled with Morning Dew – A Poem by Robert Herrick

© Ruth Harris, Primrose Posy, 2011

To Primroses Filled with Morning Dew by Robert Herrick

Why doe ye weep, sweet babes? Can Tears
Speak griefe in you,
Who were but borne
Just as the modest morne
Teem’d her refreshing dew?
Alas you have not known that shower,
That marres a flower;
Nor felt th’unkind
Breath of a blasting wind;
Nor are ye worne with yeares;
Or warpt, as we,
Who think it strange to see,
Such pretty flowers, (like to orphans young)
To speak by teares, before ye have a tongue.

Speak, whimp’ring younglings, and make known
The reason, why
Ye droop, and weep;
Is it for want of sleep?
Or childish lullabie?
Or that ye have not seen as yet
The violet?
Or brought a kisse
From that sweet-heart, to this?
No, no, this sorrow shown
By your teares shed,
Wo’d have this lecture read,
That things of greatest, so of meanest worth,
Conceiv’d with grief are, and with teares brought forth.

Poem Attribution © Robert Herrick, To Primroses Filled with Morning Dew

Source Attribution https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10027023

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Painting Attribution © Ruth Harris, Primrose Posy, 2011

Source Attribution https://fineartamerica.com/featured/primrose-posy-ruth-harris.html

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Spotlight Poetry – A Song of Joys – A Poem by Walt Whitman

© Lucianna Whittle, Let the Joy, 2019

A Song of Joys by Walt Whitman

O to make the most jubilant song!
Full of music-full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
Full of common employments-full of grain and trees.

O for the voices of animals-O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!
O for the dropping of raindrops in a song!
O for the sunshine and motion of waves in a song!

O the joy of my spirit-it is uncaged-it darts like lightning!
It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,
I will have thousands of globes and all time.

O the engineer’s joys! to go with a locomotive!
To hear the hiss of steam, the merry shriek, the steam-whistle, the
laughing locomotive!
To push with resistless way and speed off in the distance.

O the gleesome saunter over fields and hillsides!
The leaves and flowers of the commonest weeds, the moist fresh
stillness of the woods,
The exquisite smell of the earth at daybreak, and all through the
forenoon.

O the horseman’s and horsewoman’s joys!
The saddle, the gallop, the pressure upon the seat, the cool
gurgling by the ears and hair.

O the fireman’s joys!
I hear the alarm at dead of night,
I hear bells, shouts! I pass the crowd, I run!
The sight of the flames maddens me with pleasure.

O the joy of the strong-brawn’d fighter, towering in the arena in
perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his
opponent.

O the joy of that vast elemental sympathy which only the human
soul is capable of generating and emitting in steady and
limitless floods.

O the mother’s joys!
The watching, the endurance, the precious love, the anguish, the
patiently yielded life.

Poem Attribution © Walt Whitman, A Song of Joys

Source Attribution https://www.shortpoems.org/poem/a-song-of-joys/index.html

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Painting Attribution © Lucianna Whittle, Let the Joy, 2019

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Let-The-Joy/1005189/4968642/view

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Spotlight Poetry – Clouds – A Poem by Matsuo Bashō

© Randy Burns, Lovers and Moonlight, 2020

Clouds by Matsuo Bashõ

From time to time
The clouds give rest
To the moon-beholders

Poem Attribution © Matsuo Bashō, Clouds

Source Attribution https://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/from_time_to_time_23472

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Painting Attribution © Randy Burns, Lovers and Moonlight, 2020

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/print/Painting-Lovers-And-Moonlight/1041118/8115993/view

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Spotlight Poetry – Leisure – A Poem by W. H. Davies

© Gill Bustamante, Echo of an English Summer, 2021

Leisure by W. H. Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Poem Attribution © W. H. Davies, Leisure

Source Attribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leisure_(poem)

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Painting Attribution © Gill Bustamante, Echo of an English Summer, 2021

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Echo-of-an-English-Summer/3154/8711853/view

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Spotlight Poetry – Celandine – A Poem by Edward Thomas

© Goff James, Celandines, 2022

Celandine by Edward Thomas

Thinking of her had saddened me at first,
Until I saw the sun on the celandines lie
Redoubled, and she stood up like a flame,
A living thing, not what before I nursed,
The shadow I was growing to love almost,
The phantom, not the creature with bright eye
That I had thought never to see, once lost.

She found the celandines of February
Always before us all. Her nature and name
Were like those flowers, and now immediately
For a short swift eternity back she came,
Beautiful, happy, simply as when she wore
Her brightest bloom among the winter hues
Of all the world; and I was happy too,
Seeing the blossoms and the maiden who
Had seen them with me Februarys before,
Bending to them as in and out she trod
And laughed, with locks sweeping the mossy sod.

But this was a dream; the flowers were not true,
Until I stooped to pluck from the grass there
One of five petals and I smelt the juice
Which made me sigh, remembering she was no more,
Gone like a never perfectly recalled air.

Poem Attribution © Edward Thomas, Celandine

Source Attribution https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/celandine/

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Photo Attribution © Goff James, Celandines, 2022

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Spotlight Poetry – The Merry Month of May – A Poem by Thomas Dekker

© Simonida Djordjevic, Impressions of May, 2021

The Merry Month of May by Thomas Dekker

O the month of May, the merry month of May,
    So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
O, and then did I unto my true love say:
    “Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my summer’s queen!

    Now the nightingale, the pretty nightingale,
    The sweetest singer in all the forest’s choir,
Entreats thee, sweet Peggy, to hear thy true love’s tale;
    Lo, yonder she sitteth, her breast against a brier.

    But O, I spy the cuckoo, the cuckoo, the cuckoo;
    See where she sitteth: come away, my joy;
Come away, I prithee: I do not like the cuckoo
    Should sing where my Peggy and I kiss and toy.”

O the month of May, the merry month of May,
    So frolic, so gay, and so green, so green, so green!
And then did I unto my true love say:
    “Sweet Peg, thou shalt be my summer’s queen!”

Poem Attribution © Thomas Dekker, The Merry Month of May, (From The Shoemaker’s Holiday, Act 3 Scene V., 1599)

Source Attribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merry_Month_of_May_(poem)

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Painting Attribution © Simonida Djordjevic, Impressions of May, 2021

Source Attribution https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Impression-of-May/699959/8481407/view

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Spotlight Poetry – The Hippopotamus’ Birthday – A Poem by Emile Victor Rieu

The Hippopotamus’ Birthday by Emile Victor Rieu

He has opened all his parcels
but the largest and the last;
His hopes are at their highest
and his heart is beating fast.
O happy Hippopotamus,
what lovely gift is here?
He cuts the string. The world stands still.
A pair of boots appear!

O little Hippopotamus,
the sorrows of the small!
He dropped two tears to mingle
with the flowing Senegal;
And the “Thank you” that he uttered
was the saddest ever heard
In the Senegambian jungle
from the mouth of beast or bird.

Poem Attribution © Emile Victor Rieu, The Hippopotamus’s Birthday

Source Attribution A Poem For Every Spring Day, Ed. Allie Esiri, Macmillan

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Illustration Attribution © Liusa on dreamstime, Little Hippopotamus

Source Attribution Pinterest / https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-illustration-little-hippopotamus-cartoon-blue-celebratory-pie-image49837445

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Spotlight Poetry – I Had a Dove – A Poem by John Keats

© Greg Farrugia, Lonesome Dove, 2020

I Had a Dove by John Keats

I had a dove and the sweet dove died;
And I have thought it died of grieving.
O, what could it grieve for? Its feet were tied,
With a silken thread of my own hand’s weaving;
Sweet little red feet! why should you die –
Why should you leave me, sweet bird! why?
You lived alone in the forest-tree,
Why, pretty thing, could you not live with me?
I kissed you oft and gave you white peas;
Why not live sweetly, as in the green trees?

Poem Attribution © John Keats, I Had a Dove

Source Attribution https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/i-had-a-dove/

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Painting Attribution © Greg Farrugia, Lonesome Dove, 2020

Source Attribution https://fineartamerica.com/featured/lonesome-dove-greg-farrugia.html

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Spotlight Poetry – Violet – A Poem by Alice Oswald

© Marina Wirtz, Violets, 2018

Violet by Alice Oswald

Recently fallen, still with wings out,
she spoke her name to summon us to her darkness.

Not wanting to be seen, but not uncurious,
She spoke her name and let her purple deep-eye
be peered into.

‘Violet,’ she said
and showed her heart under its leaf.

Then she leant a little frightened forwards
and picked a hand to pick her.

And her horrified mouseface, sniffed and lifted close,
let its gloom be taken and all the sugar licked off its
strangeness

while we all stood there saying, ‘Violet! Violet!’
fingering, her blue bruised skin.

Finally she mentioned
the name of her name

which was something so pin-sharp
in such a last gasp of a previously unknown language,

it could only be spoken as a scent,
it could only be heard as our amazement.

Poem Attribution © Alice Oswald, Violet

Source Attribution https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mYE7AAAAQBAJ&pg=PT22&lpg=PT22&dq=%22recently+fallen,still+with+wings+out,+she+spoke+her+name+to+summon+us+to+her+darkness.%22&source=bl&ots=CFd9-chr_-&sig=ACfU3U3UcZX3j9JJS-0kkx8LUr-6tF9LgQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjw2eyyyeH2AhXZPsAKHT6xDIAQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=%22recently%20fallen%2Cstill%20with%20wings%20out%2C%20she%20spoke%20her%20name%20to%20summon%20us%20to%20her%20darkness.%22&f=false

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Painting Attribution © Marina Wirtz, Violets, 2018

Source Attribution https://fineartamerica.com/featured/violets-marina-wirtz.html

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