(Poem #196)Ring Out, Wild Bells Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more, Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkenss of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. |
Ring Out, Wild Bells -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Sit -- Vikram Seth
(Poem #195)Sit Sit, drink your coffee here; your work can wait awhile. You're twenty-six, and still have some of life ahead. No need for wit; just talk vacuities, and I'll Reciprocate in kind, or laugh at you instead. The world is too opaque, distressing and profound. This twenty minutes' rendezvous will make my day: To sit here in the sun, with grackles all around, Staring with beady eyes, and you two feet away. |
Poem for Salt -- Leroy V. Quintana
(Poem #194)Poem for Salt The biggest snowstorm to hit Denver in twenty years.
What is the world to do, freed from the shackles
of the eight hours needed to earn its daily salary?
Only on a day such as this does salt overshadow gold.
Salt, with its lips of blue fire, common as gossip,
ordinary as sin. Like true love and gasoline,
missed only when they run out. Salt spilling
from a blue container a young girl is holding,
along with an umbrella, on the label of a blue
container of salt that the woman across the street,
under her umbrella is pouring behind her left rear wheel,
to no avail this discontented, unbuttoned December
morning.
|