Say not the struggle naught availeth

A poem by Arthur Clough

Say not the struggle nought availeth, 

     The labour and the wounds are vain, 

The enemy faints not, nor faileth, 

     And as things have been they remain. 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; 

     It may be, in yon smoke concealed, 

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,

     And, but for you, possess the field. 

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking 

     Seem here no painful inch to gain, 

Far back through creeks and inlets making, 

     Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 

And not by eastern windows only, 

     When daylight comes, comes in the light, 

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, 

     But westward, look, the land is bright.

St Paul's Cathedral during the blitz

Postcard

Only to hold your hand in mine, 

makes me forget my tears

Hope on my pathway seems to shine. 

The sad world appears. 

When in your eyes love light I see, 

all the sad world is true-telling me

that you are to me

all that I am to you. 

NE 

Dunlop, Mo, Aug 25, 1911

We have always been here, we gay-shaded people.  There has always been love between men, often never consummated.  Love makes the sad world bearable.  We should celebrate it and be glad it exists.

Invictus

Invictus

BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

Out of the night that covers me, 

      Black as the pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 

      For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

      I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 

      My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

      Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 

      Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 

      How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate, 

      I am the captain of my soul. 

From Poetry Foundation

(Invictus is Latin for unconquered)

Staune dass du bist

staune                                                    be amazed
dass du bist                                            that you are
erlebe die welt                                       experience the world
als wunder                                              as wonder
jedes blatt hat sein geheimnis                every leaf has its secret
jeder grashalm bleibt                             every blade of grass remains
ein rätsel                                                 a puzzle

verlerne das staunen nicht                     don't forget that wonder
wenn man dir eintrichtert                      whenever someone stuffs your head with
wie normal und                                      how normal and
einfach alles ist                                      simple everything is

(Günter Ullmann)

(Poem and Image Source; English translation mine)

After Great Pain

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –

This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –

Emily Dickinson

After noon, is night

Love is a growing, or full constant light,

And his short minute, after noon, is night.

(John Donne)

Thou canst not, love

 Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
And I will comment upon that offence:
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,
Against thy reasons making no defence.
Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill,
To set a form upon desired change,
As I'll myself disgrace; knowing thy will,
I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange;
Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,
Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong,
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
For thee, against my self I'll vow debate,
For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.

Love seeketh not itself to please ..

... nor for itself hath any care

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil

Thou blind man's mark

Thou blind man's mark, thou fool's self-chosen snare, 
Fond fancy's scum, and dregs of scattered thought ; 
Band of all evils, cradle of causeless care ; 
Thou web of will, whose end is never wrought ; 
Desire, desire !  I have too dearly bought, 
With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware ; 
Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought, 
Who shouldst my mind to higher things prepare.
But yet in vain thou hast my ruin sought ; 
In vain thou madest me to vain things aspire ; 
In vain thou kindlest all thy smoky fire ; 
For virtue hath this better lesson taught,—
Within myself to seek my only hire, 
Desiring nought but how to kill desire.   

Sir Philip Sydney

The Silver Swan

The silver Swan, who, living, had no Note,
when Death approached, unlocked her silent throat.
Leaning her breast upon the reedy shore,
thus sang her first and last, and sang no more:
"Farewell, all joys! O Death, come close mine eyes!
 More Geese than Swans now live, more Fools than Wise."


[Read the Wikipedia stub about this very old madrigal here.  I myself first saw the poem on the London Underground]

Dark House

Tennyson wrote In Memoriam to his very dear friend Arthur Hallam who died suddenly.  Modern readers might see their deep friendship as 'gay',  but it seems clear enough that it was a 'romantic friendship'  Whatever.  It was love.  This poem below is just one from In Memoriam.


DARK house, by which once more I stand
    Here in the long unlovely street,
    Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasp’d no more—      
    Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
    And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here; but far away
    The noise of life begins again,      
    And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.

*        *        *        *        *

O days and hours, your work is this,
    To hold me from my proper place,
    A little while from his embrace,      
For fuller gain of after bliss:

That out of distance might ensue
    Desire of nearness doubly sweet;
    And unto meeting when we meet,
Delight a hundredfold accrue,      

For every grain of sand that runs,
    And every span of shade that steals,
    And every kiss of toothèd wheels,
And all the courses of the suns.

Soft incense

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 -
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets covered 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.

[Keats, from Ode to a Nightingale]

Now hollow fires

Now hollow fires burn out to black,
  And lights are guttering low:
Square your shoulders, lift your pack,
  And leave your friends and go.
 
Oh never fear, man, nought's to dread,
  Look not to left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
  There's nothing but the night.

A E Housman

Troubles

The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

 A E Housman, Last Poems (1922)

Meeting at Night

BY ROBERT BROWNING

I

The grey sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon large and low;

And the startled little waves that leap

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

II

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Vicarage

Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
 And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
 Deep meadows yet, for to forget
 The lies, and truths, and pain?… oh! yet
 Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
 And is there honey still for tea?

Rupert Brooke.  Bisexual.  Dead 3 years after he wrote this, killed by an infected mosquito bite.  For a time he was a member of the Bloomsbury group.

A 14-YEAR OLD CONVALESCENT CAT IN THE WINTER

By Gavin Ewart

I want him to have another living summer, 
to lie in the sun and enjoy the douceur de vivre – 
because the sun, like golden rum in a rummer, 
is what makes an idle cat un tout petit peu ivre – 

I want him to lie stretched out, contented, 
revelling in the heat, his fur all dry and warm, 
an Old Age Pensioner, retired, resented 
by no one, and happinesses in a beelike swarm 

to settle on him – postponed for another season 
that last fated hateful journey to the vet 
from which there is no return (and age the reason), 
which must soon come – as I cannot forget.

From  http://able2know.org/topic/21158-1

Haikus

Two haikus from members of my little group.

To love is my joy,

Mutely spake me the lily.

Our souls briefly touched.

(Errol)

and:

Soft smiled the iris

Gently in the cold of spring

My heart warmed with joy

(William)

Facilis descensus Averno

by Roberto Ferri

Facilis descensus Averno:
noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
sed revocare gradium superasque evadere ad auras.
hoc opus, hic labor est.

Easy the descent to Hell

night and day lies open the dark door of death

but to retrace your steps and escape to the upper airs

this is the task, this the labour.