Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Warning of Winter By Mary Ursula Bethell


Warning of Winter
By Mary Ursula Bethell

Give over, now, red roses;
Summer-long you told us,
Urgently unfolding, death-sweet, life-red,
Tidings of love. All’s said. Give over.

Summer-long you placarded
Leafy shades with heart-red
Symbols. Who knew not love at first knows now,
Who had forgot has now remembered.

Let be, let be, lance-lilies,
Alert, pard-spotted, tilting
Poised anthers, flaming; have done flaming fierce;
Hard hearts were pierced long since, and stricken.

Give to the blast your thorn-crowns
Roses; and now be torn down
All you ardent lilies, your high-holden crests,
Havocked and cast to rest on the clammy ground.

Alas, alas, to darkness
Descends the flowered pathway,
To solitary places, deserts, utter night;
To issue in what hidden dawn of light hereafter?

But one, in dead of winter,
Divine Agape, kindles
Morning suns, new moons, lights starry trophies;
Says to the waste: Rejoice, and bring forth roses;
To the ice-fields: Let here spring thick bright lilies.

INTERPRETAION:

In this poem, the author wants to say is that the rapture of people in cold war in late 1930’s.
A group of people will be left behind on earth after another group literally leaves "to meet the Lord in the air.”
Every blood that will shred in ground that is full of ice, and what will happen after this cold war ends,
only a group of family that lost a love ones. The lost of love of man to God, because of the greedy people who
wants to expand their territory and to slave other people in other country. All the dead in this cold war died In

vain in ground that full of blood. May the dead rest in peace in this coming bright spring.

Prayer of the Hunger by W. Rendra



Prayer of the Hunger by W. Rendra


HUNGER is a smooth black
crow.
Millions of crows
like a black cloud.
O God!
How terrifying crows are.
And hunger is a black crow.
Continually terrifying.
Hunger is rebellion.
Is the mysterious force
moving the murderer’s knife
in the hand of the poor.
Hunger is coral rocks
beneath the sleeping face of the sea.
Is tears of deceit.
Is the betrayal of honour.
a strong young man crying
To see his own hands
lay honour down
because of hunger.
Hunger is a devil
Hunger is a devil offering dictatorship.
 O God!
Hunger is black hands
putting handfuls of alum
into the stomach of the poor.
O God!
We kneel.
Our eyes are Your eyes.
This is Your mouth.
This is Your heart.
And this is Your stomach.
Your stomach hungers, O God.
Your stomach hews alum
 and broken glass.
O God!
How nice a plate of rice,
a bowl of soup and a cup of coffee would be.
O God!
Hunger is a crow.
millions of black crows
like a black cloud
blotting out my view
of Your heaven.

prayer for the hungry


INTERPRETATION:


The speaker pray to God to see these people that are starving. He says that a crow is the symbol of hunger, we all know that a crow is a kind of bird that eats anything, and he also says crow is evil, because crow will do anything for their food evn though it takes to kill. The crow symbolizes humans that are starving, that they would do anything for their self or their families just to find food even if it takes to kill someone.The main message of the poem is to show to the reader that there are people out there who needs our help. It explains that many people out there are starving and lack of hope.

Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats



Ode to a Nightingale


MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains  
  My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,  
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
  One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:   
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,               5
  But being too happy in thine happiness, 
    That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees,    
          In some melodious plot         
  Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,   
    Singest of summer in full-throated ease.           10

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
  Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,     
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,    
  Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!       
O for a beaker full of the warm South!         15
  Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 
    With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,     
          And purple-stainèd mouth;    
  That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
    And with thee fade away into the forest dim:    20

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget  
  What thou among the leaves hast never known,        
The weariness, the fever, and the fret         
  Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;         
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey hairs,       25
  Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; 
    Where but to think is to be full of sorrow       
          And leaden-eyed despairs;     
  Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,   
    Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.           30

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,      
  Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy, 
  Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:    
Already with thee! tender is the night,          35
  And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,  
    Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays   
          But here there is no light,       
  Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown      
    Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.         40

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,   
  Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,         
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet    
  Wherewith the seasonable month endows       
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;         45
  White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;     
    Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
          And mid-May's eldest child,   
  The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,        
    The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.          50

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time       
  I have been half in love with easeful Death,       
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,  
  To take into the air my quiet breath;        
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,     55
  To cease upon the midnight with no pain,        
    While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad 
          In such an ecstasy!        
  Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—        
    To thy high requiem become a sod.         60

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!     
  No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard     
  In ancient days by emperor and clown:   
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path      65
  Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 
    She stood in tears amid the alien corn;  
          The same that ofttimes hath  
  Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam      
    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.    70

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell  
  To toll me back from thee to my sole self!        
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well        
  As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.       
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades      75
  Past the near meadows, over the still stream,   
    Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep       
          In the next valley-glades:        
  Was it a vision, or a waking dream?        
    Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?
Ode to a nightingale





INTERPRETATION:
To start let's first introduce our poet, John Keats was a key member of the Romantic movement in English literature. Essentially, Romantic poetry explores how the natural world and the inner, emotional world of the poet come together.

As you'll see, Keats' 'Ode to a Nightingale' is an excellent example of this kind of poetry. Written in 1819. Only two years before Keats died of tuberculosis. The poem explores the ideas of mortality, ecstasy, and impermanence. Because the poem is an ode, it directly addresses its subject, always keeping the nightingale as the focus of the poem's action.

Right from the beginning of the poem you can already tell the mood will be sad. The speakers begins as if he feels angry and sad by the song of the nightingale while listening to it, as the nightingale drunk something really strong.

The speakers wants to be a nightingale, he wants to escape all of his worries in life. And he also wants to drink what the nightingale is drinking. He compares it to the river lethe, which in greek methology is a poisonous river. He uses the nightingale because even though the forest is dark and dangerous, and he can’t even see the flowers or plants around him, he can smell it. To the speaker it wouldn’t be so bad if he die in that dark forest.
The speakers says the nightingale can’t die and he must live forever, because many people heard its song from generation to generation.

All his imaginations and visions are gone because the nightingale fly away, and leaves the speaker alone. He felt abandoned and disappointed, he realize that there are a big difference between reality and dreams.




The Ballad of Dead Ladies Francois Villon (1431–1463)



The Ballad of Dead Ladies
Francois Villon (1431–1463)

TELL me now in what hidden way is 
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where ’s Hipparchia, and where is Thais,   
Neither of them the fairer woman?  
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,            5
Only heard on river and mere,—      
She whose beauty was more than human?
But where are the snows of yester-year?   

Where ’s Heloise, the learned nun,   
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,             10
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?    
 (From love he won such dule and teen!)   
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer        
Sewed in a sack’s mouth down the Seine? 15
But where are the snows of yester-year?   

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,         
With a voice like any mermaiden,— 
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,     
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine,—               20
And that good Joan whom Englishmen    
At Rouen doomed and burned her there,—       
Mother of God, where are they then?        
But where are the snows of yester-year?   

Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,            25
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,     
Except with this for an overword,— 
But where are the snows of yester-year?


INTERPRETAION:


The ballad is in a tone of lamentation that tells about even though how fame and glory you get, even royalties and even the most fairest woman is vulnerable to death and when the time has come it will claim your soul like a heat of spring melting the snow of winter

THE PROPHET (EXCERPT) BY KHALILI GIBRAN




THE PROPHET (EXCERPT)

BY KHALILI GIBRAN

Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.
And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.


For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.


Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.


All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.


When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

 Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
 But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
 To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
 To know the pain of too much tenderness.
 To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
 And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
 To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
 To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;



INTERPRETATION :


A man known Almustafa, the “chosen and beloved,” the City of Orphalese is about to end for him, he lived here almost 12 years. Over those 12 years he witnessed all the tragedies and the people’s daily life. One day when he climbs up outside the wall of the city, he saw a ship that can lead him to his homeland, he remembers all his memories here, and sadness for leaving this City.
The people of Orphalese, know all what’s happening to Almustafa,
And they will not let ALmustafa leave without saying what he learned in the City during his stay.
The temple’s seer named Almitra, believes that Almustafa had a mission, and say “Speak to us of love”
Almustafa wise thinking, he delivered a speech about what he experienced in this City, with passion and inspiration, and he say that the people may ask him a question that may bother them. There are many questions from them and Almustafa responses. He speaks clearly with understanding and explains it to them with passion to lessen their weaknesses and foolishness and let the love will guide them.
After granting his final counsel on death, Almustafa can hardly bring himself to board the sailing ship that now awaits him in the harbor. He says, “…Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” And then, as if to reassure the people that his departure is only temporary, he repeats a line he’d spoken earlier, telling them that “…a little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.”