In Madurai,
city of temples and poets,
who sang of cities and temples,
every summer
a river dries to a trickle
in the sand,
baring the sand ribs,
straw and women's hair
clogging the watergates
at the rusty bars
under the bridges with patches
of repair all over them
the wet stones glistening like sleepy
crocodiles, the dry ones
shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun
The poets only sang of the floods.
He was there for a day
when they had the floods.
People everywhere talked
of the inches rising,
of the precise number of cobbled steps
run over by the water, rising
on the bathing places,
and the way it carried off three village houses,
one pregnant woman
and a couple of cows
named Gopi and Brinda as usual.
The new poets still quoted
the old poets, but no one spoke
in verse
of the pregnant woman
drowned, with perhaps twins in her,
kicking at blank walls
even before birth.
He said:
the river has water enough
to be poetic
about only once a year
and then
it carries away
in the first half-hour
three village houses,
a couple of cows
named Gopi and Brinda
and one pregnant woman
expecting identical twins
with no moles on their bodies,
with different coloured diapers
to tell them apart.
@PensivePost A River by #AKRamanujan
city of temples and poets,
who sang of cities and temples,
every summer
a river dries to a trickle
in the sand,
baring the sand ribs,
straw and women's hair
clogging the watergates
at the rusty bars
under the bridges with patches
of repair all over them
the wet stones glistening like sleepy
crocodiles, the dry ones
shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun
The poets only sang of the floods.
He was there for a day
when they had the floods.
People everywhere talked
of the inches rising,
of the precise number of cobbled steps
run over by the water, rising
on the bathing places,
and the way it carried off three village houses,
one pregnant woman
and a couple of cows
named Gopi and Brinda as usual.
The new poets still quoted
the old poets, but no one spoke
in verse
of the pregnant woman
drowned, with perhaps twins in her,
kicking at blank walls
even before birth.
He said:
the river has water enough
to be poetic
about only once a year
and then
it carries away
in the first half-hour
three village houses,
a couple of cows
named Gopi and Brinda
and one pregnant woman
expecting identical twins
with no moles on their bodies,
with different coloured diapers
to tell them apart.
@PensivePost A River by #AKRamanujan
I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works
that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.
Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.
Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and
the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.
Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing
dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.
@PensivePost A Moments Indulgence by #RabindraNathTagore
that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.
Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.
Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and
the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.
Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing
dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.
@PensivePost A Moments Indulgence by #RabindraNathTagore
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;—
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
@PensivePost
The solitary Reaper
By #WilliamWordsworth
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;—
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
@PensivePost
The solitary Reaper
By #WilliamWordsworth
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorpes, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
@PensivePost
The brook
By #AlfredLordTennyson
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorpes, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
@PensivePost
The brook
By #AlfredLordTennyson
LIFE, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall ?
Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly !
What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away ?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway ?
Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair !
@PensivePost
By #CharlotteBronte
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall ?
Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly !
What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away ?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway ?
Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair !
@PensivePost
By #CharlotteBronte
Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee?
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live;
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd:
I strove against the stream and all in vain:
Let the great river take me to the main:
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield;
Ask me no more.
@PensivePost Ask Me No More by #AlfredLordTennyson
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;
But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee?
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die!
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live;
Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd:
I strove against the stream and all in vain:
Let the great river take me to the main:
No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield;
Ask me no more.
@PensivePost Ask Me No More by #AlfredLordTennyson
The Suicide's Soliloquy
Here, where the lonely hooting owl
Sends forth his midnight moans,
Fierce wolves shall o’er my carcase growl,
Or buzzards pick my bones.
No fellow-man shall learn my fate,
Or where my ashes lie;
Unless by beasts drawn round their bait,
Or by the ravens’ cry.
Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I’ll rush a dagger through,
Though I in hell should rue it!
Hell! What is hell to one like me
Who pleasures never know;
By friends consigned to misery,
By hope deserted too?
To ease me of this power to think,
That through my bosom raves,
I’ll headlong leap from hell’s high brink,
And wallow in its waves.
Though devils yell, and burning chains
May waken long regret;
Their frightful screams, and piercing pains,
Will help me to forget.
Yes! I’m prepared, through endless night,
To take that fiery berth!
Think not with tales of hell to fright
Me, who am damn’d on earth!
Sweet steel! come forth from your sheath,
And glist’ning, speak your powers;
Rip up the organs of my breath,
And draw my blood in showers!
I strike! It quivers in that heart
Which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the bloody dart,
My last—my only friend!
@PensivePost by #Abraham Lincoln
Here, where the lonely hooting owl
Sends forth his midnight moans,
Fierce wolves shall o’er my carcase growl,
Or buzzards pick my bones.
No fellow-man shall learn my fate,
Or where my ashes lie;
Unless by beasts drawn round their bait,
Or by the ravens’ cry.
Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I’ll rush a dagger through,
Though I in hell should rue it!
Hell! What is hell to one like me
Who pleasures never know;
By friends consigned to misery,
By hope deserted too?
To ease me of this power to think,
That through my bosom raves,
I’ll headlong leap from hell’s high brink,
And wallow in its waves.
Though devils yell, and burning chains
May waken long regret;
Their frightful screams, and piercing pains,
Will help me to forget.
Yes! I’m prepared, through endless night,
To take that fiery berth!
Think not with tales of hell to fright
Me, who am damn’d on earth!
Sweet steel! come forth from your sheath,
And glist’ning, speak your powers;
Rip up the organs of my breath,
And draw my blood in showers!
I strike! It quivers in that heart
Which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the bloody dart,
My last—my only friend!
@PensivePost by #Abraham Lincoln
Before he was elected the sixteenth president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln was a failed lawyer who would occasionally wrote poetry for his friends. Shortly after Lincoln’s assassination, his friend Joshua Speed mentioned to Lincoln’s biographer William Herndon that the President had once written a poem about suicide as he struggled through a period of deep depression. For over a century and a half, Lincoln scholars searched for the piece so long and so fruitlessly that many came to doubt that it even existed. In 2004, however, the Abraham Lincoln Association’s Spring Newsletter announced that freelance author Richard Lawrence Miller may have found the piece published in the April 25, 1838 edition of the Springfield newspaper The Sangamo Journal. The poem is anonymously authored (the Journal introduces the piece as having been found “near the bones of a man supposed to have committed suicide, in a deep forest”) but some Lincoln scholars have declared that the poem shares elements of meter, syntax, diction, and tone with other published Lincoln poems. Miller found the theme of the interplay between rationality and madness to be “especially Lincolnian in spirit.” Interestingly, the use of the word dagger might be another clue to the author’s identity: the term was not much in use in the 1830s but would be familiar to those who, like the future President, were intimate with the works of William Shakespeare. Abraham Lincoln was especially fascinated by the play Macbeth, which famously includes a scene in which the titular ruler is haunted by a spectral dagger.
Abraham Lincoln suffered from severe depression throughout his life, and in 1835 he suffered from suicidal urges following the death of a friend from typhoid. This poem, assuming it is in fact Lincoln’s work, perhaps reflects his later reminiscences about this period in his life. The author clearly has first-hand understanding of what today would be termed “clinical depression”: the references to the narrator never knowing pleasure and seeking escape from his own thoughts through self-destruction correspond strongly with modern psychologists’ understanding of the symptoms of depression.
The poem is similar to other mortality poems of the period, though even more melodramatic than most (the last stanza, in which the speaker continues to narrate his feelings after he has stabbed himself through the heart, is particularly painful). Aside from the historical curiosity of its authorship, the piece—with its glamourizing of suicide and its overwrought morbidity—does little to distinguish itself from other amateur poetry in the school of Poe. Sadly, this soliloquy does not manifest the same economy and inventiveness of language that makes the mature Lincoln’s speeches canonical masterpieces. The rhyming words are mostly monosyllabic and Lincoln seems unable to keep his own details straight: how can there be “ashes” if there is a “carcase” for the animals to scavenge? To a fault, the poem is self-reflective: not only is the speaker so self-absorbed that he does not even stop to consider the effects of his actions on his friends and loved ones, but the piece also does not meaningfully engage with the readers or force them to examine their own lives in any important way. Though certainly not a monumental achievement on any artistic level, this piece is nonetheless significant for what it reveals about the psyche and the very human frailty of this oft-mythologized president.
@PensivePost
Abraham Lincoln suffered from severe depression throughout his life, and in 1835 he suffered from suicidal urges following the death of a friend from typhoid. This poem, assuming it is in fact Lincoln’s work, perhaps reflects his later reminiscences about this period in his life. The author clearly has first-hand understanding of what today would be termed “clinical depression”: the references to the narrator never knowing pleasure and seeking escape from his own thoughts through self-destruction correspond strongly with modern psychologists’ understanding of the symptoms of depression.
The poem is similar to other mortality poems of the period, though even more melodramatic than most (the last stanza, in which the speaker continues to narrate his feelings after he has stabbed himself through the heart, is particularly painful). Aside from the historical curiosity of its authorship, the piece—with its glamourizing of suicide and its overwrought morbidity—does little to distinguish itself from other amateur poetry in the school of Poe. Sadly, this soliloquy does not manifest the same economy and inventiveness of language that makes the mature Lincoln’s speeches canonical masterpieces. The rhyming words are mostly monosyllabic and Lincoln seems unable to keep his own details straight: how can there be “ashes” if there is a “carcase” for the animals to scavenge? To a fault, the poem is self-reflective: not only is the speaker so self-absorbed that he does not even stop to consider the effects of his actions on his friends and loved ones, but the piece also does not meaningfully engage with the readers or force them to examine their own lives in any important way. Though certainly not a monumental achievement on any artistic level, this piece is nonetheless significant for what it reveals about the psyche and the very human frailty of this oft-mythologized president.
@PensivePost
SINGLE LIFE
by: Oluwafemi Abraham
I just want to write,
On this paper really white
I just need a hug from solitude,
Without a romantic altitude
I'm in no mood
For a jealous food
A prayer parade my soul
Like darkness in a deep hole
Heart full of worries,
No need of saying sorry
Am just a gentle dove,
All I need is just love
A heart that needs a healing,
I keep staring at my ceiling
Just in search for a good friend,
A friendship that won't end
I wish sorrow has no place to stay
And not accommodated by the day
I wish my tears was destitute,
Helpless like a poor prostitute....
@PensivePost
by: Oluwafemi Abraham
I just want to write,
On this paper really white
I just need a hug from solitude,
Without a romantic altitude
I'm in no mood
For a jealous food
A prayer parade my soul
Like darkness in a deep hole
Heart full of worries,
No need of saying sorry
Am just a gentle dove,
All I need is just love
A heart that needs a healing,
I keep staring at my ceiling
Just in search for a good friend,
A friendship that won't end
I wish sorrow has no place to stay
And not accommodated by the day
I wish my tears was destitute,
Helpless like a poor prostitute....
@PensivePost
Poetry Definition of Limerick
A limerick is a five-line, often humorous and ribald poem with a strict meter. Lines 1, 2, and 5 of have seven to ten syllables (three metrical feet) and rhyme with one another. Lines 3 and 4 have five to seven (two metrical feet) syllables and also rhyme with each other. The rhyme scheme is usually "A-A-B-B-A".
Limerick Rhythm
Limericks have a distinct rhythm. The rhythm is as follows:
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM 7-10 syllables A
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM 7-10 syllables A
da DUM da da DUM 5-7 syllables B
da DUM da da DUM 5-7 syllables B
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM 7-10 syllables A
Example:
There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
@PensivePost
A limerick is a five-line, often humorous and ribald poem with a strict meter. Lines 1, 2, and 5 of have seven to ten syllables (three metrical feet) and rhyme with one another. Lines 3 and 4 have five to seven (two metrical feet) syllables and also rhyme with each other. The rhyme scheme is usually "A-A-B-B-A".
Limerick Rhythm
Limericks have a distinct rhythm. The rhythm is as follows:
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM 7-10 syllables A
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM 7-10 syllables A
da DUM da da DUM 5-7 syllables B
da DUM da da DUM 5-7 syllables B
da DUM da da DUM da da DUM 7-10 syllables A
Example:
There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.
@PensivePost
WHEN I STOP AND PRAY
A lyrical poem by William Robinson
When the storm clouds boil around me,
And the lightning splits the sky--.
When the howling wind assails me,
And life's sea is rolling high--
When my heart is filled with terror,
And my fears, I can't allay--
Then I find sweet peace and comfort,
When I simply stop and pray.
When the things of life confound me,
And my faith is ebbing low--
When my trusted friends betray me,
And my heart is aching so--
When the night seems black and endless,
And I long for light of day--
Then I find a silver dawning,
When I simply stop and pray.
There are things beyond the heavens
I can't begin to understand,
But I know that God is living,
And I know He holds my hand.
Yes, I know He watches o'er me
All the night and all the day--
And He's always there to hear me
When I simply stop and pray.
@PensivePost
A lyrical poem by William Robinson
When the storm clouds boil around me,
And the lightning splits the sky--.
When the howling wind assails me,
And life's sea is rolling high--
When my heart is filled with terror,
And my fears, I can't allay--
Then I find sweet peace and comfort,
When I simply stop and pray.
When the things of life confound me,
And my faith is ebbing low--
When my trusted friends betray me,
And my heart is aching so--
When the night seems black and endless,
And I long for light of day--
Then I find a silver dawning,
When I simply stop and pray.
There are things beyond the heavens
I can't begin to understand,
But I know that God is living,
And I know He holds my hand.
Yes, I know He watches o'er me
All the night and all the day--
And He's always there to hear me
When I simply stop and pray.
@PensivePost
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@PensivePost Famous Writer's Sleep Habits and their literary productivity.