A Winters Day ...Pessimistic Poetry

[qjakal]

A Winters Day ...feeling pessimistic

Tears, Idle Tears
Lord Alfred Tennyson


Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

 

[sole seeker]

Hang in there bro.

As my Irish Grandmother used to say... "Tis a long road that has no turning!"

And as I often tell myself... "No point in taking life to seriously - you're not gonna make it out alive anyway!"

 

[venray]

I thought I was gonna hit bottom a couple of months ago, but things are on a total upswing right now. Spring will be here before you know it my old friend....along with the renewal of life that accompanies it....

Hug the little one ....

Kiss your wife.....

Keep the faith.....


Ray

 

[qjakal]

Ageless...timeless..beyond the sunset

Just feeling my age today Sir Venray. I'll be back in fighting trim shortly. When you see the Charge Of The Light Brigade quotes you'll know the tide has turned. In the meanwhile I engulf myself in Lord Alfreds musings....this one speaks to kindred souls, such as we should be here at TMF, and the perceived limitations of age.
---------------------------------------------------

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....

------------------------

Maybe we shall indeed...but I'd rather strive with the Gods and get some satisfaction.

Q (feeling more the warrior than the poet right now)

 

[venray]

Re: Ageless...timeless..beyond the sunset

.this one speaks to kindred souls, such as we should be here at TMF, and the perceived limitations of age.
---------------------------------------------------

Amen to that.......

 

[KrazyBoi]

when life gives you lemons, all you gotta do is make lemonaide.

 

[qjakal]

Life........

A Wish
by Matthew Arnold

I ask not that my bed of death
From bands of greedy heirs be free;
For these besiege the latest breath
Of fortune's favoured sons, not me.

I ask not each kind soul to keep
Tearless, when of my death he hears;
Let those who will, if any, weep!
There are worse plagues on earth than tears.

I ask but that my death may find
The freedom to my life denied;
Ask but the folly of mankind,
Then, at last, to quit my side.

Spare me the whispering, crowded room,
The friends who come, and gape, and go;
The ceremonious air of gloom -
All which makes death a hideous show!

Nor bring, to see me cease to live,
Some doctor full of phrase and fame,
To shake his sapient head and give
The ill he cannot cure a name.

Nor fetch, to take the accustomed toll
Of the poor sinner bound for death,
His brother doctor of the soul,
To canvass with official breath

The future and its viewless things -
That undiscovered mystery
Which one who feels death's winnowing wings
Must need read clearer, sure, than he!

Bring none of these; but let me be,
While all around in silence lies,
Moved to the window near, and see
Once more before my dying eyes

Bathed in the sacred dew of morn
The wide aerial landscape spread -
The world which was ere I was born,
The world which lasts when I am dead.

Which never was the friend of one,
Nor promised love it could not give,
But lit for all its generous sun,
And lived itself, and made us live.

There let me gaze, till I become
In soul with what I gaze on wed!
To feel the universe my home;
To have before my mind -instead

Of the sick-room, the mortal strife,
The turmoil for a little breath -
The pure eternal course of life,
Not human combatings with death.

Thus feeling, gazing, let me grow
Composed, refreshed, ennobled, clear;
Then willing let my spirit go
To work or wait elsewhere or here!