Birthday Sonnet

I tried to write some lines for you today
To celebrate another year of you,
And maybe in my grasping, fumbling way
Depict the highest ideal I pursue.

But one needs Shakespeare, Wordsworth or a Browning
To capture perfect beauty with just words.
I start the task, abandon it, with frowning
At my conceit (it's utterly absurd).

You voice puts me in such a pleasant spell
From heart to pen the words won't make a start.
I curse these meager lines of doggerel
And pray instead you'll hear what's in my heart.

    And so I'll not attempt a birthday rhyme.
    Your sonnet must await some other time.

I Could Give All To Time

I Could Give All To Time
by Robert Frost

To Time it never seems that he is brave
To set himself against the peaks of snow
To lay them level with the running wave,
Nor is he overjoyed when they lie low,
But only grave, contemplative and grave.

What now is inland shall be ocean isle,
Then eddies playing round a sunken reef
Like the curl at the corner of a smile;
And I could share Time's lack of joy or grief
At such a planetary change of style.

I could give all to Time except - except
What I myself have held. But why declare
The things forbidden that while the Customs slept
I have crossed to Safety with? For I am There,
And what I would not part with I have kept.

Happy Birthday

May the day bring promise for the days to come,
And revive sweet memories of those already done;
May it bring happy tidings from far and near,
And bring you close to all you hold dear.
May you remember it every day till the next one arrives,
In a rush of color and confectionery, cheers and smiles!

      - Ray Stagg

Have a great day.

If Once You Have Slept On An Island

If Once You Have Slept On An Island

by Rachel Lyman Field

If once you have slept on an island
You'll never be quite the same;
You may look as you looked the day before
And go by the same old name,

You may bustle about in street and shop
You may sit at home and sew,
But you'll see blue water and wheeling gulls
Wherever your feet may go.

You may chat with the neighbors of this and that
And close to your fire keep,
But you'll hear ship whistle and lighthouse bell
And tides beat through your sleep.

Oh! you won't know why and you can't say how
Such a change upon you came,
But once you have slept on an island,
You'll never be quite the same.

Night On The Great Beach

Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night.  Primitive folk, gathered at a cave mouth round a fire, do not fear night; they fear, rather, the energies and creatures to whom night gives power; we of the age of the machine, having delivered ourselves of nocturnal enemies, now have a dislike of night itself.  With lights and ever more lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it.  Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night?  Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars?  Having made themselves at home in a civilization obsessed with power, which explains its whole world in terms of energy, do they fear at night for their dull acquiescence and the pattern of their beliefs?  Be the answer what it will, to-day’s civilization is full of people who have not the slightest notion of the character or the poetry of night, who have never even seen night.  Yet to live thus, to know only artificial night, is as absurd and evil as to know only artificial day.

Night is very beautiful on this great beach [and in these Rocky Mountain forests].  It is the true other half of the day’s tremendous wheel; no lights without meaning stab or trouble it; it is beauty, it is fulfillment, it is rest.

Sonnet 21

Say Over Again (Sonnet 21)
by Elilzabeth Barrett Browning

Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated
Should seem a “cuckoo-song,” as thou dost treat it.
Remember, never to the hill or plain,
Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.
Belovèd, I, amid the darkness greeted
By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain
Cry, “Speak once more—thou lovest!” Who can fear
Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,
Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?
Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll
The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear,
To love me also in silence with thy soul.

Sonnet 43

How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

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I figured this website was long overdue for another poem!