Post by Imorta Thaw on Jan 10, 2009 22:43:45 GMT -8
So, the final in PS is to present a poem with feeling from the website poetryoutloud Here are the ones I am considering:
Sympathy
BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!
Thoughtless Cruelty
BY CHARLES LAMB
There, Robert, you have kill'd that fly — ,
And should you thousand ages try
The life you've taken to supply,
You could not do it.
You surely must have been devoid
Of thought and sense, to have destroy'd
A thing which no way you annoy'd —
You'll one day rue it.
Twas but a fly perhaps you'll say,
That's born in April, dies in May;
That does but just learn to display
His wings one minute,
And in the next is vanish'd quite.
A bird devours it in his flight —
Or come a cold blast in the night,
There's no breath in it.
The bird but seeks his proper food —
And Providence, whose power endu'd
That fly with life, when it thinks good,
May justly take it.
But you have no excuses for't —
A life by Nature made so short,
Less reason is that you for sport
Should shorter make it.
A fly a little thing you rate —
But, Robert do not estimate
A creature's pain by small or great;
The greatest being
Can have but fibres, nerves, and flesh,
And these the smallest ones possess,
Although their frame and structure less
Escape our seeing.
Playing Dead
BY ANDREW HUDGINS
Our father liked to play a game.
He played that he was dead.
He took his thick black glasses off
and stretched out on the bed.
He wouldn’t twitch and didn’t snore
or move in any way.
He didn’t even seem to breathe!
We asked, Are you okay?
We tickled fingers up and down
his huge, pink, stinky feet—
He didn’t move; he lay as still
as last year’s parakeet.
We pushed our fingers up his nose,
and wiggled them inside—
Next, we peeled his eyelids back.
Are you okay? we cried.
I really thought he might be dead
and not just playing possum,
because his eyeballs didn’t twitch
when I slid my tongue across ’em.
He’s dead, we sobbed—but to be sure,
I jabbed him in the jewels.
He rose, like Jesus, from the dead,
though I don’t think Jesus drools.
His right hand lashed both right and left.
His left hand clutched his scrotum.
And the words he yelled—I know damn well
I’m way too young to quote ’em.
O Captain! My Captain!
BY WALT WHITMAN
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
The arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Sympathy
BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!
Thoughtless Cruelty
BY CHARLES LAMB
There, Robert, you have kill'd that fly — ,
And should you thousand ages try
The life you've taken to supply,
You could not do it.
You surely must have been devoid
Of thought and sense, to have destroy'd
A thing which no way you annoy'd —
You'll one day rue it.
Twas but a fly perhaps you'll say,
That's born in April, dies in May;
That does but just learn to display
His wings one minute,
And in the next is vanish'd quite.
A bird devours it in his flight —
Or come a cold blast in the night,
There's no breath in it.
The bird but seeks his proper food —
And Providence, whose power endu'd
That fly with life, when it thinks good,
May justly take it.
But you have no excuses for't —
A life by Nature made so short,
Less reason is that you for sport
Should shorter make it.
A fly a little thing you rate —
But, Robert do not estimate
A creature's pain by small or great;
The greatest being
Can have but fibres, nerves, and flesh,
And these the smallest ones possess,
Although their frame and structure less
Escape our seeing.
Playing Dead
BY ANDREW HUDGINS
Our father liked to play a game.
He played that he was dead.
He took his thick black glasses off
and stretched out on the bed.
He wouldn’t twitch and didn’t snore
or move in any way.
He didn’t even seem to breathe!
We asked, Are you okay?
We tickled fingers up and down
his huge, pink, stinky feet—
He didn’t move; he lay as still
as last year’s parakeet.
We pushed our fingers up his nose,
and wiggled them inside—
Next, we peeled his eyelids back.
Are you okay? we cried.
I really thought he might be dead
and not just playing possum,
because his eyeballs didn’t twitch
when I slid my tongue across ’em.
He’s dead, we sobbed—but to be sure,
I jabbed him in the jewels.
He rose, like Jesus, from the dead,
though I don’t think Jesus drools.
His right hand lashed both right and left.
His left hand clutched his scrotum.
And the words he yelled—I know damn well
I’m way too young to quote ’em.
O Captain! My Captain!
BY WALT WHITMAN
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
The arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
