 Poetry: July 20, 2005 Issue [#509] |
  Poetry
This week: 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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Said the West Wind
by Isabella Valancy Crawford
1 I love old earth! Why should I lift my wings,
2 My misty wings, so high above her breast
3 That flowers would shake no perfumes from their hearts,
4 And waters breathe no whispers to the shores?
5 I love deep places builded high with woods,
6 Deep, dusk, fern-closed, and starred with nodding blooms,
7 Close watched by hills, green, garlanded and tall.
8 On hazy wings, all shot with mellow gold,
9 I float, I float thro' shadows clear as glass;
10 With perfumed feet I wander o'er the seas,
11 And touch white sails with gentle finger-tips;
12 I blow the faithless butterfly against
13 The rose-red thorn, and thus avenge the rose;
14 I whisper low amid the solemn boughs,
15 And stir a leaf where not my loudest sigh
16 Could move the emerald branches from their calm,--
17 Leaves, leaves, I love ye much, for ye and I
18 Do make sweet music over all the earth!
19 I dream by glassy ponds, and, lingering, kiss
20 The gold crowns of their lilies one by one,
21 As mothers kiss their babes who be asleep
22 On the clear gilding of their infant heads,
23 Lest if they kissed the dimple on the chin,
24 The rose flecks on the cheek or dewy lips,
25 The calm of sleep might feel the touch of love,
26 And so be lost. I steal before the rain,
27 The longed-for guest of summer; as his fringe
28 Of mist drifts slowly from the mountain peaks,
29 The flowers dance to my fairy pipe and fling
30 Rich odours on my wings, and voices cry,
31 "The dear West Wind is damp, and rich with scent;
32 We shall have fruits and yellow sheaves for this."
33 At night I play amidst the silver mists,
34 And chase them on soft feet until they climb
35 And dance their gilded plumes against the stars;
36 At dawn the last round primrose star I hide
37 By wafting o'er her some small fleck of cloud,
38 And ere it passes comes the broad, bold Sun
39 And blots her from the azure of the sky,
40 As later, toward his noon, he blots a drop
41 Of pollen-gilded dew from violet cup
42 Set bluely in the mosses of the wood.
On Christmas day 1850 Isabella Valancy Crawford was born in Dublin, Ireland. She was the sixth child of Dr. Stephen Dennis Crawford and Sidney Scott Crawford. Dr. Crawford moved his family to Paisley, Ontario, in 1857. His alcoholism and embezzlement of the towns money forced him to move his family again and a again, finally moving to Peterborough in 1869. Good fortune did not follow the family through these years, they lost nine out of twelve children to disease. Her father died 1875 and left Isabella in charge of the earnings for her family.
Isabella Crawford published prose and poems in the American journals to earn a living for her and her mother over the next four years. Isabella moved her and her mother to Toronto and lived in a boarding house in 1879. In Toronto she published in the "Toronto Evening Telegram" and the "Toronto Globe. " She made just enough money for her and her mother to live on.
For many years Isabella tried to get her works published but literary journals rejected her leaving her no other choice but to continue to publish in the local newspapers. Crawford finally used her own money to publish her works in hopes to gain recognition. Her only book of poems "Old Spookses' Pass" received great reviews but didn't sell enough to get her fame or money. She died suddenly on February 12, 1887 from heart failure. In 1905 Mr. Stephen Crawford, Isabella's brother gave permission to an editor to publish Isabella's best poems in a volume over three hundred pages long.
The Rose
By Isabella Crawford
The Rose was given to man for this:
He, sudden seeing it in later years,
Should swift remember Love's first lingering kiss
And Grief's last lingering tears;
Or, being blind, should feel its yearning soul
Knit all its piercing perfume round his own,
Till he should see on memory's ample scroll
All roses he had known;
Or, being hard, perchance his finger-tips
Careless might touch the satin of its cup,
And he should feel a dead babe's budding lips
To his lips lifted up;
Or, being deaf and smitten with its star,
Should, on a sudden, almost hear a lark
Rush singing up–the nightingale afar
Sing through the dew-bright dark;
Or, sorrow-lost in paths that round and round
Circle old graves, its keen and vital breath
Should call to him within the yew's bleak bound
Of Life, and not of Death.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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