(5 Poems) 200 word response to each poem in the description

profiledenisearana

 

“If You Forget Me,” Pablo Neruda

 

I want you to know
one thing.

 

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

 

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

 

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

 

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

 

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

 

“The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

 

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

 

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

 

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Are Seven

 

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

 

 

 

 

 

A SIMPLE Child,

 

That lightly draws its breath,

 

And feels its life in every limb,

 

What should it know of death?

 

 

 

I met a little cottage Girl:

        5

She was eight years old, she said;

 

Her hair was thick with many a curl

 

That clustered round her head.

 

 

 

She had a rustic, woodland air,

 

And she was wildly clad:

        10

Her eyes were fair, and very fair;

 

—Her beauty made me glad.

 

 

 

‘Sisters and brothers, little Maid,

 

How many may you be?’

 

‘How many? Seven in all,’ she said,

        15

And wondering looked at me.

 

 

 

‘And where are they? I pray you tell.’

 

She answered, ‘Seven are we;

 

And two of us at Conway dwell,

 

And two are gone to sea.

        20

 

 

‘Two of us in the church-yard lie,

 

My sister and my brother;

 

And, in the church-yard cottage, I

 

Dwell near them with my mother.’

 

 

 

‘You say that two at Conway dwell,

        25

And two are gone to sea,

 

Yet ye are seven!—I pray you tell,

 

Sweet Maid, how this may be.’

 

 

 

Then did the little Maid reply,

 

‘Seven boys and girls are we;

        30

Two of us in the church-yard lie,

 

Beneath the church-yard tree.’

 

 

 

‘You run above, my little Maid,

 

Your limbs they are alive;

 

If two are in the church-yard laid,

        35

Then ye are only five.’

 

 

 

‘Their graves are green, they may be seen,’

 

The little Maid replied,

 

‘Twelve steps or more from my mother’s door,

 

And they are side by side.

        40

 

 

‘My stockings there I often knit,

 

My kerchief there I hem;

 

And there upon the ground I sit,

 

And sing a song to them.

 

 

 

‘And often after sun-set, Sir,

        45

When it is light and fair,

 

I take my little porringer,

 

And eat my supper there.

 

 

 

‘The first that died was sister Jane;

 

In bed she moaning lay,

        50

Till God released her of her pain;

 

And then she went away.

 

 

 

‘So in the church-yard she was laid;

 

And, when the grass was dry,

 

Together round her grave we played,

        55

My brother John and I

 

 

 

‘And when the ground was white with snow,

 

And I could run and slide,

 

My brother John was forced to go,

 

And he lies by her side.’

        60

 

 

‘How many are you, then,’ said I,

 

‘If they two are in heaven?’

 

Quick was the little Maid’s reply,

 

‘O Master! we are seven.’

 

 

 

‘But they are dead; those two are dead!

        65

Their spirits are in heaven!’

 

’Twas throwing words away; for still

 

The little Maid would have her will,

 

And said, ‘Nay, we are seven!’

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment

 

Anne Bradstreet

 

My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay, more,

 

My joy, my magazine of earthly store,   storehouse

 

If two be one, as surely thou and I,

 

How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lie?

 

So many steps, head from the heart to sever,

 

If but a neck, soon should we be together.

 

I like the Earth this season, mourn in black,

 

My Sun is gone so far in's zodiac,

 

Whom whilst I 'joyed, nor storms, nor frost I felt,

 

His warmth such frigid colds did cause to melt.

 

My chilled limbs now numbed lie forlorn;

 

Return; return, sweet Sol, from Capricorn;

 

In this dead time, alas, what can I more

 

Than view those fruits which through thy heat I bore?

 

Which sweet contentment yield me for a space,

 

True living pictures of their father's face.

 

O strange effect! now thou art southward gone,

 

I weary grow the tedious day so long;

 

But when thou northward to me shalt return,

 

I wish my Sun may never set, but burn

 

Within the Cancer of my glowing breast,

 

The welcome house of him my dearest guest.

 

Where ever, ever stay, and go not thence,

 

Till nature's sad decree shall call thee hence;

 

Flesh of thy flesh, bone of thy bone,

 

I here, thou there, yet but both one.

 

 

 

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

 

Pablo Neruda

 

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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