Follies by Carl Sandburg

Follies  

by

Carl Sandburg

Shaken,

The blossom of lilac,

And shattered,

The atoms of purple.

Green dip the leaves,

Darker the bark,

Longer the shadows.

Sheer lines of poplar

Shimmer with masses of silver

And down in a garden  old with years

And broken walls of ruin and story,

Roses rise with red rain - memories.

May!

In the open world

The sun comes and finds your face,

Remembering all.

The Fairies by William Allingham

  This is off the beaten path for this blog, but I found this poem in the book 'Irish Fairy & Folk Tales' by William Butler Yates called 'The Faeries' by Irish poet William Allingham. It is a beautifully sad  lyrical poem about the good wee people of Ireland ( must be nice or they can get a trifle nasty, according to what I have read so far). Anyway, I thought I would share it with you, I hope you enjoy it.

THE FAERIES

by

William Allingham 

 Up the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We daren't go a hunting

For fear of little men;

We folk, good folk

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap, 

And white owl's feather!

Down along the rocky shore,

Some make their home,

They live on crispy pancakes

Of yellow tide- foam;

Some in the reeds

Of the black mountain lake,

With frogs for their watch - dogs,

All night awake.

HIgh on the hill

The old King sits;

He is now so old and gray

He nigh lost his wits.

With a bridge ogf white mist

Columbkill he crosses,

On his stately journeys

From Slieveleague to Rosses;

Or going up with music

On cold starry nights,

To sup with the Queen

Of the gay Northern Lights

They stole little Bridget

For seven long years;

When she game down again

Her friends were gone.

They took her lightly back,

Between the night and morrow,

They thought she was fast asleep,

But she was dead with sorrow.

They have kept her ever since

Deep within the lake,

On a bed of flag leaves,

Watching till she wakes.

By the craggy hill-side,

Through the mosses bare,

They have planted thorn-trees

For pleasure here and there.

If any man so daring

As dig them up in spite,

He shall find there sharpest thorns

In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain,

Down the rushy glen,

We daren't go a hunting

For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk,

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl's feather!

Happy Thanksgiving

FIRST THANKSGIVING 

by

 Aileen Fisher

 Venison for stew and roasting,

 Oysters in the ashes toasting,

 Geese done to a turn,

Berries(dried) and wild grapes (seeded),

 Mixed with dough and gently kneaded.

 What a feast to earn! Indian corn in strange disguises,

 Ash cakes, hoe cakes (many sizes),

Kernels roasted brown...

After months of frugal living

What a welcome first Thanksgiving

 There in Plymouth town. 

_______________

THANKSGIVING DAY  

 by

 Emily Dickinson

 One day is there of the series

 Termed Thanksgiving Day,

 Celebrated part at table,

 Part in memory.

 Neither patriarch or pussy,

 I dissect the play;

Seem it, to my hooded thinking, 

 Reflex holidy.

 Had there been no sharp subtraction,

 From the early sum,

 Not an acre or a caption,

 Where was once a room.

 Not a mention, whose small pebble,

 Wrinkled any bay, --

 Unto such, were such assembly,

 'T were Thanksgiving day.

 

 

In Hardwood Groves

IN HARDWOOD GROVES
BY
 ROBERT FROST

 The same leaves over and over again!

 They fall from the giving shade above

 To make one texture of faded brown

 And fit the earth like a leather glove.

 Before the leaves can mount again

 To fill the trees with another shade,

 They must go down past things coming up

 They must go down into the dark decayed.

 They must be pierced by flowers and put

 Beneath the feet of dancing flowers.

However it is some other world

 I know that this way in ours