Poem of the Day- 03-03-13

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.  

Robert Frost

To have great poets there must be great audiences too.  

Walt Whitman

I love poetry.  And I think it’s one of those things that you have to read a lot of, in all its many forms and styles, to really begin to appreciate and understand it.  I have lots of books of poetry and even an app on my phone that gives me thousands of poems to enjoy.  But for the purpose of these “Poem of the Day” blog posts, I’m going to begin by relying on two old but wonderful books of poetry.

The first is Favorite Poems Old and New selected by Helen Ferris.  The copyright of this book is 1957 and it is out of print.  I looked on Amazon.com and you can purchase a used copy of this book for anywhere from $4.00 to $85.00.  The cover of the book says that Miss Ferris was an editor of many books, and surveyed librarians, booksellers, parents, and children to get ideas of which poems to include in this edition.  Leonard Weisgard illustrated the book, which was published by Doubleday & Company.   

The second book I have is one called Poems Teachers Ask For, Book One.  This collection of poems is comprised of ones that readers of a magazine called “The Instructor” most frequently requested be included in that publication. The cover is gone on my copy, as are some of the final index pages.  But I was happy to discover that this book can be downloaded to my Kindle for free from Amazon.com.  There is also a book two, so I am looking forward to having both of those e-books to enjoy.  No publication date is indicated in the book, nor was I able to find one in my searches for information about it.   The publisher was the F. A. Owen Publishing Company out of Dansville, NY. 

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute.  We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.  And the human race is filled with passion.  And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.  But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.  

From Dead Poet’s Society

The first poem I want to feature is The Village Blacksmith, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, published in 1840.  The Blacksmith typifies the common man who works, has suffered great loss and hardship, and yet still sees beauty and joy in life.  One of the reasons I love this poem so much is that when I went with my grandfather to school in the summer, we would sit in his air conditioned office on those hot afternoons, drink little bottles of soda from the machine in the teacher’s lounge, and read poems and stories to one another.  This was one of our favorites and is from Poems Teachers Ask For, Book One.  

The Village Blacksmith

Under a spreading chestnut tree

  The village smithy stands;

The Smith, a mighty man is he,

  With large and sinewy hands;

And the muscles of his brawny arms

  Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,

  His face is like the tan;

His brow is wet with honest sweat,

He earns whate’er he can

And looks the whole world in the face

  For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,

  You can hear his bellows blow;

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,

  With measured beat and slow,

Like a sexton ringing the village bell,

  When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school

  Look in at the open door;

They love to see the flaming forge,

  And hear the bellows roar,

And catch the burning sparks that fly

Like chaff from a threshing floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church

and sits among his boys;

He hears the parson pray and preach.

He hears his daughter’s voice

singing in the village choir,

And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother’s voice,

Singing in Paradise!

He needs must think of her once more,

  How in the grave she lies;

And with his hard, rough hand he wipes

  A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling,--rejoicing,--sorrowing,

  Onward through life he goes;

Each morning sees some task begin,

  Each evening sees it close;

Something attempted, something done,

Has earned a night’s repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend

  For the lesson thou hast taught!

Thus at the flaming forge of life

  Our fortunes must be wrought;

Thus on its sounding anvil shaped

  Each burning deed and thought!

H. W. Longfellow

At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.  Plato

All the best,

Kelly