Noble House Blog

From: “Impressions” (The formatting has been altered slightly.)

Yiddish Speaking Socialists of the Lower East Side (The format has been altered by the blog.)

by Edward Sanders

.

…They came to Antwerp and then to London

and then to Ludlow Street

.

to make a New World

inside the New World

at century’s turn—

The Yiddish-speaking socialists

of the Lower East Side

.

Some remembered

with pangs and tears

the beautiful rural life

wrested away…

Irving Berlin’s Lower East Side. Photograph. munnlodge.org/cms/sites/default/files/BerlinsLES-Songbook.jpg. Web.

Theme in Yellow
by Carl Sandburg

I SPOT the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o’-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

Carl Sandburg. Photograph. www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Carl_Sandburg.aspx. Web.

How Poetry Comes to Me
Gary Snyder

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light

Gary Snyder. Photograph. english.illinois.edu/…/snyder/snyder.htm. Web.

Settling
by Denise Levertov

I was welcomed here—clear gold
of late summer, of opening autumn,
the dawn eagle sunning himself on the highest tree,
the mountain revealing herself unclouded, her snow
tinted apricot as she looked west,
Tolerant, in her steadfastness, of the restless sun
forever rising and setting.
Now I am given
a taste of the grey foretold by all and sundry,
a grey both heavy and chill. I’ve boasted I would not care,
I’m London-born. And I won’t. I’ll dig in,
into my days, having come here to live, not to visit.
Grey is the price
of neighboring with eagles, of knowing
a mountain’s vast presence, seen or unseen.

Denise Levertov. Photograph. www.earthportal.org. Web.

And the days are not full enough

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass

–Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound. Photograph. lit.kobe-u.ac.jp. Web.

Dream Variations
by Langston Hughes

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me–
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance!  Whirl!  Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

(Note: The blog has altered the formatting slightly.  The last 2 lines of the first stanza and last line of the second stanza should be indented.)

Langston Hughes. Photograph. asms.k12.ar.us. Web.

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Welcome to The Noble House Blog!  I am looking forward to meeting all of you!  Each week I will post “the poem of the week” and you have the option of memorizing it.  How many poems do you think you can memorize this year?  I challenge you to memorize all of them!

maggie and milly and molly and may
by E. E. Cummings

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

E. e. cummings. Photograph. Artsjournal.com. Web.

Blessing the Boats
Lucille Clifton

(at St. Mary’s)

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back     may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence sail

through this to that