Women poems
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A Song Of Failure.
© Arthur Henry Adams
HERE is my hand to you, brother,
You of the ruck who have failed
I, too, am only another
Fighter who faltered and quailed.
Wingless Victory
© Robert Laurence Binyon
Worms feed upon the bodies of the brave
Who bled for us: but we bewildered see
Viler worms gnaw the things they died to save.
Old clouds of doubt and weariness oppress.
Happy the dead, we cry, not now to be
In the day of this dissolving littleness!
Masnawi
© Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
In the prologue to the Masnavi Rumi hailed Love and its sweet madness that heals all infirmities, and he exhorted the reader to burst the bonds to silver and gold to be free. The Beloved is all in all and is only veiled by the lover. Rumi identified the first cause of all things as God and considered all second causes subordinate to that. Human minds recognize the second causes, but only prophets perceive the action of the first cause. One story tells of a clever rabbit who warned the lion about another lion and showed the lion his own image in a well, causing him to attack it and drown. After delivering his companions from the tyrannical lion, the rabbit urges them to engage in the more difficult warfare against their own inward lusts. In a debate between trusting God and human exertion, Rumi quoted the prophet Muhammad as saying, "Trust in God, yet tie the camel's leg."8 He also mentioned the adage that the worker is the friend of God; so in trusting in providence one need not neglect to use means. Exerting oneself can be giving thanks for God's blessings; but he asked if fatalism shows gratitude.
God is hidden and has no opposite, not seen by us yet seeing us. Form is born of the formless but ultimately returns to the formless. An arrow shot by God cannot remain in the air but must return to God. Rumi reconciled God's agency with human free will and found the divine voice in the inward voice. Those in close communion with God are free, but the one who does not love is fettered by compulsion. God is the agency and first cause of our actions, but human will as the second cause finds recompense in hell or with the Friend. God is like the soul, and the world is like the body. The good and evil of bodies comes from souls. When the sanctuary of true prayer is revealed to one, it is shameful to turn back to mere formal religion. Rumi confirmed Muhammad's view that women hold dominion over the wise and men of heart; but violent fools, lacking tenderness, gentleness, and friendship, try to hold the upper hand over women, because they are swayed by their animal nature. The human qualities of love and tenderness can control the animal passions. Rumi concluded that woman is a ray of God and the Creator's self.
A Lancashire Doxology
© Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
"PRAISE God from whom all blessings flow."
Praise Him who sendeth joy and woe.
Apology
© William Carlos Williams
The beauty of
the terrible faces
of our nonentites
stirs me to it:
The Old Mans Dream After He Died
© Robinson Jeffers
from CAWDOR
Gently with delicate mindless fingers
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: A Satire
© George Gordon Byron
These are the themes that claim our plaudits now;
These are the bards to whom the muse must bow;
While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot,
Resign their hallow'd bays to Walter Scott.
Anzac Eve
© Margaret Curran
No light had I-But mother heart
Needs no poor earthly light as guide:
My soul rebelled against the part
Fate portioned me
'My son that died
Has died in vain, and he and they
Forgotten
save when women pray."
Goodnight Little Houseplant
© Sheldon Allan Silverstein
Goodnight little houseplant asleep on the sill
I'll pull the shades so you don't catch a chill
And tomorrow in the morning don't be breaskfast for two
We'll have ham and eggs for me and nitrogen for you
Troop Train
© Karl Shapiro
It stops the town we come through. Workers raise
Their oily arms in good salute and grin.
Understanding
© Edgar Albert Guest
When I was young and frivolous and never stopped to think,
When I was always doing wrong, or just upon the brink;
When I was just a lad of seven and eight and nine and ten,
It seemed to me that every day I got in trouble then,
And strangers used to shake their heads and say I was no good,
But father always stuck to me it seems he understood.
The Gray Magician
© Margaret Widdemer
I was living very merrily on Middle Earth
As merry as a maid may be
Something Nasty In The Bookshop
© Kingsley Amis
Between the Gardening and the Cookery
Comes the brief Poetry shelf;
By the Nonesuch Donne, a thin anthology
Offers itself.
To The Germans
© Tadeusz Borowski
Don't walk in the street,don't eat, don't live,
backbreaking work is all you're allowed,
and beware the sign that bares its teeth:
"Only for Germans, others keep out."
Women In Love
© Donald Justice
It always comes, and when it comes they know.
To will it is enough to bring them there.
The knack is this, to fasten and not let go.
from Book I, Paterson
© William Carlos Williams
-Say it, no ideas but in things-
nothing but the blank faces of the houses
and cylindrical trees
bent, forked by preconception and accident-
split, furrowed, creased, mottled, stained-
secret-into the body of the light!
The Bakchesarian Fountain
© Alexander Pushkin
Has treason scaled the harem's wall,
Whose height might treason's self appal,
And slavery's daughter fled his power,
To yield her to the daring Giaour?
