A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
ROBERT FROST
AMERICAN (1874-1963)
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
ROBERT FROST
AMERICAN (1874-1963)
January
The days are short,
The sun a spark
Hung thin between
The dark and dark.
Fat snowy footsteps
Track the floor,
And parkas pile up
Near the door.
The river is
A frozen place
Held still beneath
The trees’ black lace.
The sky is low.
The wind is gray.
The radiator
Purrs all day.
JOHN UPDIKE
AMERICAN (B. 1932)
The Round of the Year
WITHIN THE LARGER CYCLES OF NATURE ARE THOSE CYCLES OF HUMAN CONSTRUCTION, THE HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS THAT ELICIT, AMONG OTHER DECORATIONS, THE WORK of poets. The range of feeling is as wide as the intent of these various occasions, from the bittersweet reflections of the New Year through the intimate merriment of Valentine’s Day, to the uplifting exhortation suited to the Fourth of July, the dark imaginations of Halloween, the celebratory mode of Thanksgiving, and—in the tradition most widely rooted in Europe and America—the jubilant tones of the Christmas season. Somewhat apart from these are those poems that pay tribute to parents and grandparents—whether in the context of Mother’s and Father’s Days or any other family anniversary—as thoroughly unpredictable and varied in their nuances as the relationships they reflect.
NEW YEAR’S
Seeing the Year Out
Want to know what the passing year is like?
A snake slithering down a hole.
Half his long scales already hidden,
How to stop him from getting away?
Grab his tail and pull, you say?
Pull all you like—it does no good.
The children try hard not to doze,
Chatter back and forth to stay awake,
But I say let dawn cocks keep still!
I fear the noise of watch drums pounding.
We’ve sat so long the lamp’s burned out.
I get up and look at the slanting Dipper.
How could I hope next year won’t come?
My mind shrinks from the failures it may bring.
I work to hold on to the night
While I can still brag I’m young.
SU TUNG-P’O
CHINESE (1036-1101)
TRANSLATED BY BURTON WATSON
The Old Year
1
The Old Year’s gone away
To nothingness and night
We cannot find him all the day
Nor hear him in the night
He left no footstep mark or place
In either shade or sun
Tho’ last year he’d a neighbours face
In this he’s known by none
2
All nothing every where
Mists we on mornings see
They have more substance when they’re here
And more of form than he
He was a friend by every fire
In every cot and hall
A guest to every hearts desire
And now he’s nought at all
3
Old papers thrown away
Or garments cast aside
E’en the talk of yesterday
Are things identified
But time once torn away
No voices can recall
The eve of new years day
Left the old one lost to all
JOHN CLARE
ENGLISH (1793-1864)
Auld Lang Syne
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!
For auld lang syne my jo,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
And surely ye’ll be your pint stowp!
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld &c.
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fitt,
Sin auld lang syne.
For auld &c.
We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d,
Sin auld lang syne.
For auld &c.
And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere!
And gie’s a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll tak a right gude-willie-waught,
For auld lang syne.
For auld &c.
ROBERT BURNS
SCOTTISH (1759-1796)
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky
From In Memoriam
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
ENGLISH (1809-1892)
A Song for New Year’s Eve
Stay yet, my friends, a moment stay —
Stay till the good old year,
So long companion of our way,
Shakes hands, and leaves us here.
Oh stay, oh stay,
One little hour, and then away.
The year, whose hopes were high and strong,
Has now no hopes to wake;
Yet one hour more of jest and song
&n
bsp; For his familiar sake.
Oh stay, oh stay,
One mirthful hour, and then away.
The kindly year, his liberal hands
Have lavished all his store.
And shall we turn from where he stands,
Because he gives no more?
Oh stay, oh stay,
One grateful hour, and then away.
Days brightly came and calmly went,
While yet he was our guest;
How cheerfully the week was spent!
How sweet the seventh day’s rest!
Oh stay, oh stay,
One golden hour, and then away.
Dear friends were with us, some who sleep
Beneath the coffin-lid:
What pleasant memories we keep
Of all they said and did!
Oh stay, oh stay,
One tender hour, and then away.
Even while we sing, he smiles his last,
And leaves our sphere behind.
The good old year is with the past;
Oh be the new as kind!
Oh stay, oh stay,
One parting strain, and then away.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
AMERICAN (1794-1878)
VALENTINE’S DAY
Saint Valentine’s Day
Well dost thou, Love, thy solemn Feast to hold
In vestal February;
Not rather choosing out some rosy day
From the rich coronet of the coming May,
When all things meet to marry!
O, quick, prævernal Power
That signall’st punctual through the sleepy mould
The Snowdrop’s time to flower,
Fair as the rash oath of virginity
Which is first-love’s first cry;
O, Baby Spring,
That flutter’st sudden ’neath the breast of Earth
A month before the birth;
Whence is the peaceful poignancy,
The joy contrite,
Sadder than sorrow, sweeter than delight,
That burthens now the breath of everything,
Though each one sighs as if to each alone
The cherish’d pang were known?
At dusk of dawn, on his dark spray apart,
With it the Blackbird breaks the young Day’s heart;
In evening’s hush
About it talks the heavenly-minded Thrush;
The hill with like remorse
Smiles to the Sun’s smile in his westering course;
The fisher’s drooping skiff
In yonder sheltering bay;
The choughs that call about the shining cliff;
The children, noisy in the setting ray;
Own the sweet season, each thing as it may;
Thoughts of strange kindness and forgotten peace
In me increase;
And tears arise
Within my happy, happy Mistress’ eyes,
And, lo, her lips, averted from my kiss,
Ask from Love’s bounty, ah, much more than bliss!
Is’t the sequester’d and exceeding sweet
Of dear Desire electing his defeat?
Is’t the waked Earth now to yon purpling cope
Uttering first-love’s first cry,
Vainly renouncing, with a Seraph’s sigh,
Love’s natural hope?
Fair-meaning Earth, foredoom’d to perjury!
Behold, all amorous May,
With roses heap’d upon her laughing brows,
Avoids thee of thy vows!
Were it for thee, with her warm bosom near,
To abide the sharpness of the Seraph’s sphere?
Forget thy foolish words;
Go to her summons gay,
Thy heart with dead, wing’d Innocencies fill’d,
Ev’n as a nest with birds
After the old ones by the hawk are kill’d.
Well dost thou, Love, to celebrate
The noon of thy soft ecstasy,
Or e’er it be too late,
Or e’er the Snowdrop die!
COVENTRY PATMORE
ENGLISH (1846-1865)
St. Valentine’s Day
To-day, all day, I rode upon the Down,
With hounds and horsemen, a brave company.
On this side in its glory lay the sea,
On that the Sussex Weald, a sea of brown.
The wind was light, and brightly the sun shone,
And still we galloped on from gorse to gorse.
And once, when checked, a thrush sang, and my horse
Pricked his quick ears as to a sound unknown.
I knew the Spring was come. I knew it even
Better than all by this, that through my chase
In bush and stone and hill and sea and heaven
I seemed to see and follow still your face.
Your face my quarry was. For it I rode,
My horse a thing of wings, myself a god.
WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT
ENGLISH (1840-1922)
A Very Valentine
Very fine is my valentine.
Very fine and very mine.
Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine.
Very fine is my valentine and mine, very fine very mine and mine is my valentine.
GERTRUDE STEIN
AMERICAN (1874-1946)
Happiest February
Many more happy Valentines.
How many?
As the last
makes no sense.
As many as many.
As more rolls out the vines
Which shade green in the snow
Of a cold fourteenth
Of their happiest February.
LOUIS ZUKOFSKY
AMERICAN (1904-1978)
CELEBRATING FAMILY
With my father
With my father
I would watch dawn
over green fields.
KOBAYASHI ISSA
JAPANESE (1763-1827)
TRANSLATED BY ROBERT HASS
To Her Father with Some Verses
Most truly honoured, and as truly dear,
If worth in me or ought I do appear,
Who can of right better demand the same
Than may your worthy self from whom it came?
The principal might yield a greater sum,
Yet handled ill, amounts but to this crumb;
My stock’s so small I know not how to pay,
My bond remains in force unto this day;
Yet for part payment take this simple mite,
Where nothing’s to be had, kings loose their right.
Such is my debt I may not say forgive,
But as I can, I’ll pay it while I live;
Such is my bond, none can discharge but I,
Yet paying is not paid until I die.
ANNE BRADSTREET
AMERICAN (1612-1672)
A Birthday
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
ENGLISH (1830-1894)
To My Mother
To-day’s your natal day;
Sweet flowers I bring:
Mother, accept I pray
My offering.
And may you happy live,
And long us bless;
Receiving as you give
Great happiness.
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
ENGLISH (1830-1894)
To My Mother
You too, my mother, read my rhymes
For love of unforgotten times,
And you may chance to hear once more
The little feet along the floor.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
SCOTTISH (1850-1894)
My grandfather, dead long before I was born
My grandfather, dead long before I was born,
died among strangers; and all the verse he wrote
was lost—
except for what
still speaks through me
as mine.
CHARLES REZNIKOFF
AMERICAN (1894-1976)
Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
ROBERT HAYDEN
AMERICAN (1913-1980)
Lineage
My grandmothers were strong.
They followed plows and bent to toil.
They moved through fields sowing seed.
They touched earth and grain grew.
They were full of sturdiness and singing.
My grandmothers were strong.
My grandmothers are full of memories
Smelling of soap and onions and wet clay
With veins rolling roughly over quick hands
They have many clean words to say.
My grandmothers were strong.
Why am I not as they?
MARGARET WALKER
AMERICAN (1915-1998)
Mother to Son
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor —
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
Bartlett's Poems for Occasions Page 5
