Poetry Night

Last night for Family Home Evening we had a very enjoyable and insightful poetry reading. Each person chose a poem and then had to stand on a chair as he or she read it. For all of you that weren't able to make it, I thought I would post the various poems chosen and read by those in attendance. It was a wonderful evening, complete with snapping at the end of each poem.

Landon: Sound and Sense

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar;
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise

Bryce:

Bryce read a Russian poem... in russian. It went a little something like this:

Ей давно не спалось в дому деревянном.
Подходила старуха, как тень, к фортепьянам,
Напевала романс о мгновенье чудном
Голоском еле слышным, дыханьем трудным.
А по чести сказать, о мгновенье чудном
Не осталось грусти в быту ее скудном,
Потому что барыня в глухой деревеньке
Проживала как нищенка, на медные деньги.

Да и, господи боже, когда это было!
Да и вправду ли было, старуха забыла,
Как по лунной дорожке, в сверканье снега
Приезжала к нему - вся томленье и нега.
Как в объятиях жарких, в молчанье ночи
Он ее заклинал, целовал ей очи,
Как уснул на груди и дышал неровно,
Позабыла голубушка Анна Петровна.
А потом пришел ее час последний.
И всесветная слава и светские сплетни
Отступили, потупясь, пред мирной кончиной.
Возгласил с волнением сам благочинный:
"Во блаженном успении вечный покой ей!"
Что в сравненье с этим счастье мирское!
Ничего не слыша, спала, бездыханна,
Раскрасавица Керн, боярыня Анна.

(Bryce: I have absolutely NO idea what this says, I just found something in Russian and pasted it in. If it's inappropriate I apologize.)

Carli: (Sarah's sister who is here visiting)

To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time

Robert Herrick.

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a flying:
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a getting;
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best, which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

Sarah:

Curiosity- Alastaire Reid

may have killed the cat; more likely
the cat was just unlucky, or else curious
to see what death was like, having no cause
to go on licking paws, or fathering
litter on litter of kittens, predictably.

Nevertheless, to be curious
is dangerous enough. To distrust
what is always said, what seems
to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,
leave home, smell rats, have hunches
do not endear cats to those doggy circles
where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches
are the order of things, and where prevails
much wagging of incurious heads and tails.

Face it. Curiosity
will not cause us to die--
only lack of it will.
Never to want to see
the other side of the hill
or that improbable country
where living is an idyll
(although a probable hell)
would kill us all.

Only the curious have, if they live, a tale
worth telling at all.

Dogs say cats love too much, are irresponsible,
are changeable, marry too many wives,
desert their children, chill all dinner tables
with tales of their nine lives.
Well, they are lucky. Let them be
nine-lived and contradictory,
curious enough to change, prepared to pay
the cat price, which is to die
and die again and again,
each time with no less pain.
A cat minority of one
is all that can be counted on
to tell the truth. And what cats have to tell
on each return from hell
is this: that dying is what the living do,
that dying is what the loving do,
and that dead dogs are those who do not know
that dying is what, to live, each has to do.

Roger:

Is There for Honest Poverty

By Robert Burns

Is there for honest poverty

That hings his head, an a' that?

The coward slave, we pass him by -

We dare be poor for a that!

For a' that, an a' that!

Our toils obscure, an a' that,

The rank is but the guinea's stamp,

The man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,

Wear hodden grey, an a' that?

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine -

A man's a man for a' that.

For a' that, an a' that,

Their tinsel show, an a' that,

The honest man, tho e'er sae poor,

Is king o men for a' that.

Sue:

Know This That Every Soul is Free

Know this, that ev'ry soul is free
To choose his life and what he'll be;
For this eternal truth is giv'n:
That God will force no man to heav'n.

He'll call, persuade, direct aright,
And bless with wisdom, love, and light,
In nameless ways be good and kind,
But never force the human mind.

Freedom and reason make us men;
Take these away, what are we then?
Mere animals, and just as well
The beasts may think of heav'n or hell.

May we no more our pow'rs abuse,
But ways of truth and goodness choose;
Our God is pleased when we improve
His grace and seek his perfect love.

The Others (who refused to participate)

One last picture. Landon loves the new camera.