Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Poets.

Today in my teenage angst, I was better. I didn't scream or avoid, but rather buckled down and committed to my responsibilities. I did pretty well I'd say. It helped that a friend told me that her method of getting things done is to pretend that she's a government agent and that getting whatever assignment done is in everyone's best interest because millions of lives hang in the balance. She became an even greater hero to me today.

Also, last night I was having a much needed conversation with my friend, also named Hannah, who is a poet. She's really into Tennyson at the moment and was shared with me something she had written recently. And by recently I mean yesterday. So it's hot off the presses, to borrow the colloquialism. She's also nice enough to let me, in turn, share it with you.

Untitled

Tennyson asks what of the sky tonight.
I tell him that there is none behind the tight-
_Shut curtain. 
He misbelieves the worth of presence 
_Like the stars that flee 
_And tears for dazzling light make me more certain.

The Tenth put out down the red-lined mount,
Heraldry clapping, and the battalion shout 
_Fells Adiona.
To fault not one in facing charge and 
_End effacing me
_I stand a friend without and trembling go on.

The rush! the blaze!
_How beasts of triumph scorn
_The only limb that would so freely from itself be torn.
Avast! belay! 
_Though lovely not nor dear
_What pithy sighs are drawn for her who vanquished lies now here. 

Write I low, “If ye would speak of hope,
Be ye fain, or otherwise as sadly, oh! 
_Be true to truth.”
This mirrored land would take from my heart
_Water, sky, and tree.
_Would also dole not take all life from youth? 

Easily he lays to rest which fear
Would in disquietness find heart pale, my ear
_The slain one. 
For now as will be and the start was 
_She affects all free 
_Impurity none near. “Shut!” laughs Tennyson.

Oh give! oh give!
_No leech daughters are we
_Who find that in the keeping men are not really set free.
Soft still the glow!
_The wonder never breaks
_How a light so given thus can receive what never takes.

“Draw back the curtain, then!” 
_Does Tennyson.



She's very wise, you see. Oh and seventeen. I wish I'd been like her when I was seventeen.

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