Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
TWO roads diverged in a
yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn't love a
wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
La Belle Dame Sans
Merci
by John Keats
'O WHAT can ail thee,
knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no
birds sing.
'O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard
and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest 's
done.
'I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth
too.'
'I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery's
child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
'I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
'I set her on my pacing steed
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A faery's song.
'She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said,
"I love thee true!"
'She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sigh'd fill sore;
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four.
'And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream'd—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold
hill's side.
'I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they
all;
They cried—"La belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!"
'I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.
'And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.'
Acquainted with the Night
by Robert Frost
I have been one acquainted with
the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
Because I Could Not Stop For Death
Emily Dickinson
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill;
For only gossamer, my own gown;
My tippet, only tulle.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
To an Athlete Dying Young
A.E. Housman
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields were glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
Is my team plowing?
A.E.
Housman
“Is my team plowing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the
harness jingle
When I was man alive?"
Ay, the horses
trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change
though you lie under
The land you used to plow.
"Is
football playing
Along the river shore,
With lads to
chase the leather,
Now I stand up no more?"
Ay, the ball is
flying,
The lads play heart and soul;
The goal
stands, Up, the keeper
Stands Up to keep the goal.
"Is my
girl happy,
That I thought hard to leave,
And has she
tired of weeping
As she lies down
at eve?"
Ay, she lies
down lightly,
She lies not down to weep:
Your girl is well contented.
Be still, my lad, and sleep.
"Is my
friend hearty,
Now I am thin and pine,
And has he
found to sleep in
A better bed than
mine?"
Yes, lad, I lie
easy,
I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead
man's sweetheart,
Never ask me whose.
Terence, this is stupid stuff
A.E. Housman
"Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad."
Why, if 'tis dancing you would be,
There's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was
Oh many a peer of
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:
The mischief is that 'twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.
Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the snack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.
There as a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
--I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.
Ulysses
Alfred,
Lord Tennyson
It little
profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with and aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle -
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me -
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads -you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Base Details
Siegfried Sassoon
(1886-1967)
If I were fierce, and bald . and short of breath,
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You'd see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honor. "Poor young chap,"
I'd say — "I used to know his father well;
Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap."
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I'd toddle safely home and die — in bed.
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen
(1893-1918)
Bent double, like old beggars under
sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind,
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Sonnet 18
William
Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s
day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor loose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Mr.
Benjamin
English IX
Poetry
Winter
2006
Contents
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Robert Frost
The
Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
Mending Wall
Robert Frost
Acquainted
with the Night
Robert Frost
La
Belle Dame Sans Merci
John Keats
To
an Athlete Dying Young
A.E. Housman
Is
my team plowing
A.E. Housman
Terrence,
this is stupid stuff
A.E. Housman
Because
I Could Not Stop For Death
Emily Dickinson
Ulysses
Lord Alfred Tennyson
Base
Details
Siegfried Sassoon
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen
Sonnet
18
William Shakespeare
Poetry Assignments
Friday, February 24th
Biography: Robert Frost_____Chase Barbe
Presentation: Mending Wall_____Michael Byrnes
Monday, February 27th
Presentation: Acquainted with
the Night_____Brad
Daiber
Wednesday March 1st
Biography: John Keats_____Milo Ceci
Presentation: La Belle Dame Sans Merci_____Sam
Haig
Thursday March 2nd
Biography: A.E. Housman_____Nick Hart
Presentation: To an Athlete Dying Young_____Harry Keeshan
Friday March 3rd
Presentation: Is my team plowing_____George
Nichols
Presentation: Terrence, this is stupid stuff_____Phil
Pierce
Tuesday March 7th
Biography: Emily Dickinson_____Owen Scannel
Presentation: Because I Could Not
Stop For Death_____Charlie
Weinberg
Wednesday March 8th
Presentation: Ulysses_____Jesse
Zannino
The Two Presentations
There are two types of presentations that will be given as we continue our study of Poetry.
Presentation Guidelines
Biography
Presentation
· Each Biography must be presented through the use of a Power Point.
· Each presentation must be between 10 and 15 minutes in length.
· The presentation should focus on typical biographical information as it relates to each poet.
· Creativity is always encouraged.
Poem Presentation
One More “thing”
Poetry Journal
Each member of the class is expected to keep a poetry journal as we move forward with the in-class presentations. These journal entries will be frequent and should be met with a diligent effort.
Journal Entry Guidelines