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Posted by MFish Profile 02/18/24 at 10:12PM Share Poetry See more by MFish

Just plain drinking, 6 years ago

Another Old One

Posted by MFish Profile 02/18/24 at 02:13AM Share Poetry See more by MFish

Written for My Beloved, 6 years ago.

An old friend of mine,
is back on the scene.

A stranger in a stranger land,
Too calm to weep, too sad to smile,
I take my harp of broken strings,
A weary moment to beguile;
And tho no hope its promise brings,
And present joy is not for me,
Still o’er that harp I love to bend,
And feel its broken melody

With all my shattered feelings blend.

I love to hear its funeral voice
Proclaim how sad my lot, how lone;
And when, my spirit wilder grows,
To list its deeper, darker tone.
And when my soul more madly glows
Above the wrecks that round it lie,
It fills me with a strange delight,
Past mortal bearing, proud and high,
To feel its music swell to might.

When beats my heart in doubt and awe,
And Reason pales upon her throne,
Ah, then, when no kind voice can cheer
    The lot too desolate, too lone,
Its tones come sweet upon my ear,
    As twilight o’er some landscape fair:
As light upon the wings of night
    (The meteor flashes in the air,
The rising stars) its tones are bright.

And now by Sacramento’s stream,
    What mem’ries sweet its music brings—
The vows of love, its smiles and tears,
    Hang o’er this harp of broken strings.
It speaks, and midst her blushing fears
    The beauteous one before me stands!
Pure spirit in her downcast eyes,
    And like twin doves her folded hands!

It breathes again—and at my side
    She kneels, with grace divinely rare—
Then showering kisses on my lips,
    She hides our busses with her hair;
Then trembling with delight, she flings
    Her beauteous self into my arms,
As if o’erpowered, she sought for wings
    To hide her from her conscious charms!

It breathes once more, and bowed in grief,
    The bloom has left her cheek forever,
While, like my broken harp-strings now,
    Behold her form with feeling quiver!
She turns her face o’errun with tears,
    To him that silent bends above her,
And, by the sweets of other years,
    Entreats him still, oh, still to love her!

He loves her still—but darkness falls
    Upon his ruined fortunes now,
And ’t is his exile doom to flee.
    The dews, like death, are on his brow,
And cold the pang about his heart
    Oh, cease—to die is agony:
’T is more than death when loved ones part!

Well may this harp of broken strings
    Seem sweet to me by this lonely shore.
When like a spirit it breaks forth,
    And speaks of beauty evermore!
When like a spirit it evokes
    The buried joys of early youth,
And clothes the shrines of early love,
    With all the radiant light of truth!


This poem is in the public domain

John Rollin Ridge (Cherokee name: Cheesquatalawny, or Yellow Bird,(1827 – 1867), a member of the Cherokee Nation, is considered the first Native American novelist. His father John Ridge had been assassinated in1839 in Indian Territory at the hands of supporters of Cherokee leader John Ross who condemned his having signed a treaty to cede communal land to the United States. Ridge. He later attended school in Massachusetts. After returning to Arkansas, he read the law, set up a practice and married. He went West in the California Gold Rush, where his wife and daughter later joined him. There he started writing – both poetry and essays.  After the American Civil War, he was among the Cherokee delegation that negotiated a new treaty for peace with the United States. More

No one told me it would be like this—
how growing older is another passage of discovery
and that aging is one grand transformation,
and if some things become torn apart
or even lost along the way,
many other means show up
to bring me closer
to the center of my heart.

No one ever told me
if whatever wonder waits ahead
is in another realm and outside of time.
But the amazement, I found,
is that the disconcerting things
within the here and now
that I stumble and trip my way through,
also lead me gracefully home.

And no one told me that I would ever see
an earth so strong and fragile,
or a world so sad and beautiful.
And I surely didn't know
I'd have all this life yet in me
or such fire inside my bones.


From Susan Frybort, (author of Open Passages) poetry collection "Look to the Clearing" 

O memory, hope, love of finished years,
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream,
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
   
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath,
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!
O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 –1894), was an English writer born in London. She authored many romantic, devotional and children's poems, including "Goblin Market" and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well known in Britain: "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "Love Came Down at Christmas",  She was a sister of the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Remember me when I am gone away,
 Gone far away into the silent land;
 When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
     You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
         Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
         And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
         For if the darkness and corruption leave
         A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
         Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 –1894), was an English writer born in London. She authored many romantic, devotional and children's poems, including "Goblin Market" and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well known in Britain: "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "Love Came Down at Christmas",  She was a sister of the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti II and features in several of his paintings.

Rosetti wrote "Remember" when she was 19 in 1849. It was first published in 1862 in her collection Goblin Market and Other Poems. This poem is in the public domain.

My mind is overcome with sadness. I am reposting
to see if I can jump start this old brain.

Once more, from the past

A Comment by Loy

Your avatar
Loy • 01/05/2024 at 09:21PM • Like 1 Profile

Beautiful poem.

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