obvs I lied about only two. This is so much it hurts. For real.
A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
AS virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say, "Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."
So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ; 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ; Men reckon what it did, and meant ; But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love —Whose soul is sense—cannot admit Of absence, 'cause it doth remove The thing which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined, That ourselves know not what it is, Inter-assurèd of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to aery thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two ; Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit, Yet, when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must, Like th' other foot, obliquely run ; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end where I begun.
jkasf;lkajf;ldjf;ldsjf I should read more Dylan Thomas. I feel like the only ones I've read of his are... stuff you've posted. But it's so good!
I also really like the Deborah Garrison ones, thanks, bb! But here I will say: I DON'T GET THE POINT OF JOHN DONNE. I would... really, really like to /o\ I studied him at A level and everything (not that that means anything, uh) but... isn't he just a casual dickbag with strange ugly metaphors??? SOMEBODY ENLIGHTEN ME.
Dylan Thomas and Deborah Garrison both speak to my heart!!! As does John Donne, actually, "The Flea" aside. Thomas can be hard for me to read much of in one sitting, because the poems are so amazing to me, so idk if you want to jump right on the Collected Poems, but if you don't mind a piecemeal introduction, may I suggest In my Craft or Sullen Art, And Death Shall Have No Dominion, and A Process in the Weather of the Heart? And if you want more Garrison, those are from the book A Working Girl Can't Win, which she wrote when she was in her early twenties trying to Make It in New York.
Sorry I can't help with the Donne! idk what you mean by the "point" of him. If you don't like him, you don't, and that's fine! I mean, I guess I can ~artistically appreciate~ the metaphor in "The Flea," but I still don't want to read it. And idk what you mean by "casual dickbag." He may well have been! I don't think so (my impression was he gave up his Catholicism - which was very important to him and his poetry - to become a Protestant minister so as to feed his sick wife - with whom he fell in love when they were young and whose father didn't approve so had him sent to jail and then sea, which I think shows faithfulness on Donne's part if nothing else), but I could very much be wrong. Most of what I know of his personal history I got from an all-nighter for a paper back in twelfth grade, so. Please take it with a large grain of salt. (And hoo boy it's not like Thomas wasn't a "casual dickbag" if by that you mean "a drunk who cheated on his wife." I still love and am moved by his poetry.)
But! If you are asking on a more personal level about the point of his poetry to me, I'll just say that "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" gets me in the bone because it describes a lot of what I feel, and I love the metaphor; that "The Sun Rising" is one of my favorite aubades ("she is all states, and all princes I"); and that I really like his religious writings, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. That's possibly even more of a personal choice than the poetry, and I certainly wouldn't want to seem (or worse, be) proselytizing, but this passage is to me very beautiful (from Meditation XVII, more famous for "no man is an island"):
all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
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timeasmymeasure
finally
Date: Saturday, 11 June 2011 00:41 (UTC)A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
- John Donne
Re: finally
Date: Saturday, 11 June 2011 08:19 (UTC)I also really like the Deborah Garrison ones, thanks, bb! But here I will say: I DON'T GET THE POINT OF JOHN DONNE. I would... really, really like to /o\ I studied him at A level and everything (not that that means anything, uh) but... isn't he just a casual dickbag with strange ugly metaphors??? SOMEBODY ENLIGHTEN ME.
Re: finally
Date: Saturday, 11 June 2011 18:34 (UTC)Sorry I can't help with the Donne! idk what you mean by the "point" of him. If you don't like him, you don't, and that's fine! I mean, I guess I can ~artistically appreciate~ the metaphor in "The Flea," but I still don't want to read it. And idk what you mean by "casual dickbag." He may well have been! I don't think so (my impression was he gave up his Catholicism - which was very important to him and his poetry - to become a Protestant minister so as to feed his sick wife - with whom he fell in love when they were young and whose father didn't approve so had him sent to jail and then sea, which I think shows faithfulness on Donne's part if nothing else), but I could very much be wrong. Most of what I know of his personal history I got from an all-nighter for a paper back in twelfth grade, so. Please take it with a large grain of salt. (And hoo boy it's not like Thomas wasn't a "casual dickbag" if by that you mean "a drunk who cheated on his wife." I still love and am moved by his poetry.)
But! If you are asking on a more personal level about the point of his poetry to me, I'll just say that "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" gets me in the bone because it describes a lot of what I feel, and I love the metaphor; that "The Sun Rising" is one of my favorite aubades ("she is all states, and all princes I"); and that I really like his religious writings, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. That's possibly even more of a personal choice than the poetry, and I certainly wouldn't want to seem (or worse, be) proselytizing, but this passage is to me very beautiful (from Meditation XVII, more famous for "no man is an island"):
all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.