  Poetry
This week: Francis Thompson Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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This is poetry from the minds and the hearts of poets on Writing.Com. The poems I am going to be exposing throughout this newsletter are ones that I have found to be, very visual, mood setting and uniquely done. Stormy Lady
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Dream tryst
by Francis Thompson
The breaths of kissing night and day
Were mingled in the eastern Heaven,
Throbbing with unheard melody,
Shook Lyra all its star-cloud seven.
When dusk shrank cold, and light trod shy,
And dawn's grey eyes were troubled grey;
And souls went palely up to the sky,
And mine to Lucidè,
There was no change in her sweet eyes
Since last I saw those sweet eyes shine;
There was no change in her deep heart
Since last that deep heart knocked at mine.
Her eyes were clear, her eyes were Hope's,
Wherein did ever come and go;
The sparkle of the fountain drops
From her sweet soul below.
The chambers in the house of dream
Are fed with so divine an air,
That Time's hoar wings grow young therein,
And they who walk there are most fair.
I joyed for me, I joyed for her,
Who with the Past meet girt about:
Where her last kiss still warms the air,
Nor can her eyes go out.
Francis Thompson was born December 18, 1859, to a devoted Catholic family. His family lived in Preston Lancashire. Thompson's father was a doctor and the family was considered middle class. Thompson's mother passed away when he was a child. Thompson's father sent him to Ushaw College, in the hope that he would enter into priesthood. Thompson had other plans and after a short time there he was sent home. Thompson's father then sent his son to Owens College to study medicine.
Thompson failed the medical exams three times. Thompson's hated the idea of becoming a doctor and eventually withdrew from college and from his father. He moved to London and started writing. Thompson also began a dangerous habit, he was taking opium regularly. By the time Thompson had submitted his first manuscript he was living on the streets. The publishers tried contacting him to inform him their intent to publish he works but were unable to find him. They eventually published one of his poems in a paper in hopes that Thompson would come forth.
Thompson did read the poem and went to the publisher's office. There, Wilfrid Meynell became a guardian figure to Thompson and sent him to a clinic to overcome his addiction. Following his release from there he went to the monastery to live for several months. It was during this at the monastery, while drug free, Thompson was able to focus on his writing and he wrote "Daisy" and "Ode to the Setting Sun". He often wrote to Meynell and told him he had become whole again and was able to write without fear and without drugs. He then returned to London.
Thompson wrote three volumes of poetry between 1889 and 1896, "Poems", "Sister Songs", and "New Poems". Although Thompson found himself writing and back in London with the Meynell family, he was unable to conquer his demons and became re-addicted to drugs. He began a slow downward spiral, which in the end left him unable to continue writing. He died in November 1907. His death was said to be from a combination of tuberculosis and laudanum poisoning.
Before Her Portrait In Youth
by Francis Thompson
As lovers, banished from their lady's face
And hopeless of her grace,
Fashion a ghostly sweetness in its place,
Fondly adore
Some stealth-won cast attire she wore,
A kerchief or a glove:
And at the lover's beck
Into the glove there fleets the hand,
Or at impetuous command
Up from the kerchief floats the virgin neck:
So I, in very lowlihead of love, -
Too shyly reverencing
To let one thought's light footfall smooth
Tread near the living, consecrated thing, -
Treasure me thy cast youth.
This outworn vesture, tenantless of thee,
Hath yet my knee,
For that, with show and semblance fair
Of the past Her
Who once the beautiful, discarded raiment bare,
It cheateth me.
As gale to gale drifts breath
Of blossoms' death,
So dropping down the years from hour to hour
This dead youth's scent is wafted me to-day:
I sit, and from the fragrance dream the flower.
So, then, she looked (I say);
And so her front sunk down
Heavy beneath the poet's iron crown:
On her mouth museful sweet -
(Even as the twin lips meet)
Did thought and sadness greet:
Sighs
In those mournful eyes
So put on visibilities;
As viewless ether turns, in deep on deep, to dyes.
Thus, long ago,
She kept her meditative paces slow
Through maiden meads, with waved shadow and gleam
Of locks half-lifted on the winds of dream,
Till love up-caught her to his chariot's glow.
Yet, voluntary, happier Proserpine!
This drooping flower of youth thou lettest fall
I, faring in the cockshut-light, astray,
Find on my 'lated way,
And stoop, and gather for memorial,
And lay it on my bosom, and make it mine.
To this, the all of love the stars allow me,
I dedicate and vow me.
I reach back through the days
A trothed hand to the dead the last trump shall not raise.
The water-wraith that cries
From those eternal sorrows of thy pictured eyes
Entwines and draws me down their soundless intricacies!
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winners of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] are:
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dampness
windows yawn in
a chain of humid days
and stick like sweaty
footsteps trying to nap
on the ground before
darkness falls or raises
wretched air seeps in
from the swamp's bad
breath like the in-law
sunk into the couch
smoking cigarettes and
crying whiskey from
every yellow pore
seeking for a hole to
inhale away from
the freshly soiled pants
nothing in the linger
was seen to be for
The Resurrection of Edward Gein
It came in a dream. A hypnotic voice
that tantalized and left him no choice
but to serve and obey.
The vision -- a crypt -- and written within
was a single name, that of Edward Gein,
amongst the decay.
Neither vision nor name held meaning at all
but like an addict, he heeded the call,
seeking release.
Others had heard it but none so clear.
Ordained by the voice, he was the seer
avoiding caprice.
Moonlight shredded the ashen smoke-like clouds
that veiled the night sky like funeral shrouds
blanketing remains.
A dark wind moaned eerily, its cloying grasp
clawing at windows, echoing the rasp
of ghostly chains.
The cadaverous light revealed, at last,
the decaying archives, remnants of the past,
in sharp relief.
Jumbled tombstones smiled like death's teeth,
protecting the dead who were lying beneath
in silent grief.
The darkness deepened, hushed sounds were blurred
as footsteps drew nearer, more felt than heard,
in vile trespass.
Their journey completed, the robed figures halt.
In silence, they supplicate before the vault
in a parodical Mass.
With flame and blood in humble offering,
they call upon their fallen angel King;
words from arcane scrolls.
In ignorance, their wretched minds are blind
as they recite the ancient words that bind
their immortal souls.
The smell of dampness saturates the air
as long rusted metal cries out in despair;
the doors swing free.
A satisfied smile creases the leader's face
as he rises and enters this profane place;
belief is his key.
The sickening smell of putrefied flesh,
overwhelming in this unholy crèche,
is death's incense.
Like his rapturous vision, he sees within,
the evil's most loved - Edward Gein;
a self pretense.
He kneels before the cold, stone crypt
deaf and dumb to the lid that's tipped
and the scratching sound.
A fleshless hand darts, grabbing his throat;
rising, the grinning skull begins to gloat
as he's pulled to the ground.
Heat blisters the walls as the others run
but what has begun can't be undone
nor what lies ahead.
The deceitful vision was the devil's curse;
the truth - a resurrection in reverse.
No peace for the dead.
The rising sun's first rays softly reveal
a placid scene; there's nothing to conceal.
The past stays unknown ...
except, hanging from the doorway's jamb
they will find the outlines of a pentagram
in bloody flesh and bone.
Honorable mention:
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Poetry: March 16, 2011 Issue [#4284]
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