Finished: Poetry by Thomas Moore, Jonathan Swift, John Donne, W.H. Auden, John Keats, Lord Byron, William Blake, John Berryman, William Wordsworth, Charles Baudelaire, and T.S. Eliot. I'm am thoroughly saturated with poetry after today! I've read so much, I don't know where to begin. I think I got all the poets on my list done. :-) Not that I won't go back and read more of their poems, but I think I'm done for now. Of course, I can't drag out my poetry books without reading Yeats' Brown Penny for the umpteenth time; or Frost's The Road Not Taken and Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening; or one of my all time favorites, Byron's She Walks in Beauty. The only samples of poems I'm going to put on the blog are both from Byron. She Walks in Beauty, as I said, one of my favorites and another new favorite from Byron I discovered today...Solitude. I really love everything about it. It completely grasps how I feel about being alone amidst a busy world, more so than when you're by yourself with nature. Anyway....both are below. After them, I'll talk about all the other poets whose poems I read today. :-)

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

Solitude

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.

But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

So...might as well start with Lord Byron. I truly enjoy his poetry. I read the above two, plus When We Two Parted, Darkness, A Spirit Passed Before Me, On This Day I Complete My 36th Year (that's as old as he would get, too), Stanzas for Music and So We'll Go No More A Roving. Invariably when reading the poems, I end up reading some or all of their biographies too. I can't say I was overly impressed with the man himself, but who am I to judge? I still really enjoy his poetry. :-)

Charles Baudelaire: He wasn't really on my list, but his name did pop up a few times, so I read one of his poems called Damned Women. At first I thought he was saying, those damned women, but I'm pretty sure it was about two women, Delphine and Hippolyta, who were damned to hell. It was interesting!

William Blake...William Blake...William Blake: I'm not really getting why he's #31 on the list, but I read his two most comprehensive works, Songs of Innocence (a 19 poem compilation) and Songs of Experience (a 26 poem compilation). I think I liked his illustrations more than his poems. Maybe I just don't "get" him? I just don't think he should be so high above Yeats, Byron or Dickinson.

John Keats: I enjoyed his poems, though some of them could be confusing. His epistle to his brother George, who passed away, was really long and confusing, but I had moments of clarity where I could see what he was saying and it became a moving tribute. I read Epistle to My Brother George, On Fame, A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever, To Fanny, On the Sea, His Last Sonnet (he died at only 26 of TB.), If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chained, and Lines on the Mermaid Tavern. I liked this one just for the fact that I have quite a mermaid collection, and the poem was nice too. :-)

W.H. Auden: I really enjoyed his poems too! I read Song of the Master and the Boatswain, Lullaby, In Memory of W. B. Yeats (I loved this), Stop All the Clocks and Cut Off the Telephone, and reportedly his most famous one, September 1, 1939, about the first days of World War II. He's one of those poets that I might like to go and read more works from. Definitely, he belongs above William Blake on the list too!

John Berryman: Well, he did these two poetry books called Dream Songs. My notes had told me to be sure and read Dream Song 34, so I looked and looked until I finally found it online. I was underwhelmed. I liked the others that I read better....Dream Songs 14, 52, 132, 191 and 327. In all though....I don't think I'll be seeking out more Dream Songs. I think I can give or take Berryman.

William Wordsworth: I enjoyed his poems OK. He was the 2nd to the last one I read, so I may have been getting tired. I read A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal, By the Sea, Anecdote for Fathers, I Traveled Among Unknown Men, We Are Seven and She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways. I think I'd much rather read more Tennyson. I can't believe Tennyson isn't even on the list!

Thomas Moore: He's not on my list, but I couldn't read through my Mentor Book of Irish Poetry without reading some Thomas Moore. :-) I read At the Mid Hour of Night, The Time I've Lost in Wooing (love this one!), How Oft Has the Banshee Cried, Oft in the Stilly Night, and I Saw From the Beach. OK, I can't resist putting in just a snippet. I love it!

The time I've lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing
     The light that lies
     In woman's eyes,
Has been my heart's undoing.

Jonathan Swift: I wonder if I can cross Swift off the list because I've read some of his poetry? I have absolutely NO desire to read Gulliver's Travels. I've even read the first chapter and I just can't get into it. However....his poems were delightful. I read Phillis, or, The Progress of Love and A Gentle Echo on Women. Both were very cute and I recommend reading them. :-)

John Donne: Back when I was reading and writing "romantic" poetry, I really loved John Donne's The Good Morrow, which I read again today. After reading some of his other poems, I wasn't as enthralled over 10 years later. I read The Ecstasy, The Sun Rising, The Good Morrow, The Anniversary (I liked this one!), The Indifferent Song, The Funeral, and then his epic, An Anatomy of the World. I think it was that one that did me in. I really didn't understand it all that much, except that it was a bit depressing. Anyway....I can say I've read enough John Donne.

T. S. Eliot: Last, but not least, I read Eliot's big claim to fame, The Waste Land. It was over 400 lines, most of which I didn't understand. I'm going to have to read up on it more I think and see if it sinks in. There were lines within stanzas that I understood and thought were pretty writing. I just didn't get the poem as a whole entity.

Whew! I'm poetry'd out. :-)