Tag: poetry

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Poetical Excursion

I’m thinking of resurrecting this old series of mine, wherein I once in a while posted a poem that’s particularly meaningful to me. Here is Robert Burns’s “My Luve is Like a Red, Red Rose”:

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June.
O my Luve’s like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun!
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve!
And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile!

“Till a’ the seas gang dry”. It should always feel like that.

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Sigh….

I’ve started experimenting lately with the writing of poetry. I’m not willing — yet — to post any of those efforts here, for two reasons: first, I’m not sure what I’m doing, and thus am not at all sure that I’m not producing total crap; and second, the subjects I am committing poetry about are more personal than I usually get in this space. I’m just noting a bit of conflict in my head about my desire to commit poetry. Part of me is thinking, “Cool, another way to write!”, while another part is thinking, “Isn’t there another way to deal with this stuff? Something involving a bottle made of brown glass, or perhaps a frontal lobotomy?”

On a parallel note, thank God for Youtube. I figured that by now, someone would have uploaded the greatest single scene in the entire run of The West Wing, and sure enough, someone finally did.

Wow, I miss Toby Ziegler.

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Oy.

Observation: If you need some help in figuring out just why Shakespeare was a SGF*, just try writing a sonnet sometime — and then reflect that he wrote over 140 of ’em, and they’re all perfect, whereas yours is…not.

* SGF = “Super Genius Freak”.

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Green grow the rashes, O!

Simon recently did something I really really really need to do one of these years: he attended a Burns Supper, and he relates his experiences here and here. Burns Suppers are events that celebrate Scottish heritage and song, mainly through the verse of the Scottish National Poet, Robert Burns. Now, I have no Scottish blood in me whatsoever, but Burns’s poetry and song are central to the larger world of Celtic music, and I love his work on that basis. High on my list of books to get is a collection of Burns’s poems; he is represented in a number of anthologies I already own, but none are devoted just to him.

Here’s my favorite of his verses, “Green Grow the Rashes”, which has an equally beautiful tune. Dougie Maclean sings this wonderfully on his album Live from the Ends of the Earth.

Chorus:

Green grow the rashes, O;
Green grow the rashes, O;
The sweetest hours that e’er I spend,
Are spent among the lasses, O.

There’s nought but care on ev’ry han’,
In every hour that passes, O:
What signifies the life o’ man,
An’ ’twere na for the lasses, O.

Chorus

The war’ly race may riches chase,
An’ riches still may fly them, O;
An’ tho’ at last they catch them fast,
Their hearts can ne’er enjoy them, O.

Chorus

But gie me a cannie hour at e’en,
My arms about my dearie, O,
An’ war’ly cares an’ war’ly men
May a’ gae tapsalteerie, O!

Chorus

For you sae douce, ye sneer at this;
Ye’re nought but senseless asses, O;
The wisest man the warl’ e’er saw,
He dearly lov’d the lasses, O.

Chorus

Auld Nature swears, the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes, O:
Her prentice han’ she try’d on man,
An’ then she made the lasses, O.

Chorus

Bring on the haggis!

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