Tag: muse

Sunday Muse

Sheeps & Peeps3 Comments

A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them–ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,–seeking
the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d–till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

~ Walt Whitman from “Leaves of Grass”

Sunday Muse

Sheeps & Peeps5 Comments

Daisies
It is possible, I suppose, that sometime
     we will learn everything
there is to learn:  what the world is, for example,
     and what it means.  I think this as I am crossing
from one field to another, in summer, and the
     mockingbird is mocking me, as one who either
knows enough already or knows enough to be
     perfectly content not knowing.  Song being born
of quest he knows this:  he must turn silent
     were he suddenly assaulted with answers.  Instead
oh hear his wild, caustic, tender warbling ceaselessly
     unanswered.  At my feet the white-petaled daisies display
the small suns of their center-piece, their — if you don’t
     mind my saying so — their hearts.  Of course
I could be wrong, perhaps their hearts are pale and
     narrow and hidden in the roots.  What do I know.
But this: it is heaven itself to take what is given,
     to see what is plain; what the sun
lights up willingly; for example — I think this
     as I reach down, not to pick but merely to touch —
the suitability of the field for the daisies, and the
     daisies for the field.
~ Mary Oliver from “Why I Wake Early”
  

Sunday Muse

Sheeps & Peeps4 Comments

My bonnie flower, with truest joy
Thy welcome face I see,
The world grows brighter to my eyes,
And summer comes with thee.
My solitude now finds a friend,
And after each hard day,
I in my mountain garden walk,
To rest, or sing, or pray.
All down the rocky slope is spread
Thy veil of rosy snow,
And in the valley by the brook,
Thy deeper blossoms grow.
The barren wilderness grows fair,
Such beauty dost thou give;
And human eyes and Nature’s heart
Rejoice that thou dost live.
~excerpt ‘Mountain-Laurel’ from A Garland for Girls by Louisa May Alcott

Sunday Muse

Sheeps & Peeps4 Comments

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

The Daffodils ~ William Wordsworth