Category: William Shakespeare

You In Every Blessed Shape We Know

kobe_and_gigi_bryant

To An Athlete Dying Young

By A. E. Housman

usman

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

The nature of pop culture is our hero’s are champions.   Regardless if you’re an NBA fan, its hard to not admire Kobe Bryant.   He was exceptional in ways few athletes are exceptional.   He spoke 6 languages fluently, he was by all accounts an all in father, and he had lived his life passionately.   His critics, which during his playing career were many, criticized he was selfish, he was too driven, but you don’t win 5 NBA championships, while jumping directly from high school to the NBA, by not being incredibly focused on your craft.   Kobe played the game with a level of athleticism and competitiveness that is a rare skill.   Kobe’s self proclaimed nickname, “Black mamba”, said it all, he was a fearsome opponent and a winner when the game was on the line.

When Bryant won the Oscar for best short, I checked out the video.  I am not a big NBA fan, rarely watching games until the end of the playoffs.  I was surprised how much I enjoyed it.  It is a poem, a love song, to a sport that enabled him to be his best self.   With Kobe and Gigi’s tragic deaths, Dear Basketball is a touching epitaph.

Sonnet 53

By William Shakespeare

What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new.
Speak of the spring and foison of the year:
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear;
And you in every blessèd shape we know.
    In all external grace you have some part,
    But you like none, none you, for constant heart.

 

 

Look Upon This Verse

ea poe.jpg
Edgar Allen Poe

Sonnet 71

By William Shakespeare

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O! if, I say, you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

Was Edgar Allen Poe life as unconventional as his poetry and writing or has time allowed for Poe to be re-imagined in his own words?  Poe’s life certainly would not fit into the conventions of today.  He married his first cousin when she was 13 and he was 27.  I think we would call that a pedophile today, not an eligible bachelor.  She died eleven years later from tuberculosis.  Poe died only two years after following her death under somewhat murky circumstances.  In 1849, Poe went missing for five days and was found incoherent and delirious.  He was taken to a Baltimore hospital where he died soon after at the age of 40.   Typical of the time, No autopsy was performed and the cause of death was listed as a vague “congestion of the brain” and he was buried two days later.  This rather unusual description opened the door for crack pots and scholars, (or are those the same thing?) to propose everything from murder, to carbon monoxide poisoning as the reason for his death.  It doesn’t really matter, dead is dead.   Poe doesn’t get enough credit for the quality of his writing and the varied contributions he made to literature.  Poe grew up in desperate poverty and he wrote in true fashion as his vocation and made a living at it.   I think he deserves more credit than he sometimes receives as a poet and writer.

Death

by Edgar Allan Poe

It is not death, that some time in a sigh
This eloquent breath shall take its speechless flight;
That some time the live stars, which now reply
In sunlight to the sun, shall set in night;
That this warm conscious flesh shall perish quite,
And all life’s ruddy springs forget to flow; —
That verse shall cease, and the immortal spright
Be lapp’d in alien clay, and laid below: —
It is not death to know this, but to know
That pious thoughts, which visit at new graves,
In tender pilgrimage will cease to go
So duly and so oft, and when grass waves
Over the past-away, there may be then
No resurrections in the minds of men!

 

 

After A Thousand Victories

Minnesota Twins 2019 Central Division.jpg
Minnesota Twins 2019 Central Division Champions

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”

Babe Ruth

Sonnet 25
Let Those Who Are In Favour With Their Stars

by William Shakespeare

Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foil’d,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d:
Then happy I, that love and am beloved
Where I may not remove nor be removed.

If you are not a baseball fan, then you have missed a stellar year.  It’s not too late, the play-offs start next week and its going to be a post season with high caliber baseball.   Never can I remember so many good teams battling until the final game for both a play-off birth and for home field advantage.  There are several dominant teams who are expected to win, the Dodgers in the National League and the Houston Astros and Yankees in the American League.  But the hottest teams in baseball right now are potential wild card teams; the Milwaukee Brewers, gamely rallying after their superstar Christian Yelich went down for the season with a knee injury and Rays, A/s and Indians who all have played fantastic down the stretch, though only two of them will make the wildcard game.

However it is the Minnesota Twins who most surprised me this year.   They are on pace to win 100 games for only the second time in their club history.  They have won with a rag tag assortment of starting pitchers, cast offs by and large and rehab projects, along with a lineup that has hit a startling 301 home runs as of Thursday.   The faithful Twins fans hoped they would do better than last year, but I don’t think anyone thought that they would be as good and as entertaining as they have been.   Will this team win it all and bring home a world series championship to Minnesota?  My heart says I hope so, but my head says they don’t have enough starting pitching and are prone to too many errors fielding for this team to make a deep run in the playoffs.  They will likely play the Yankees in the first round of the playoffs and the Yankees have won a staggering 13 straight post season games against the Twins.  But streaks eventually end and sometimes the underdog rises up and does the impossible, win.

Congrats to this 2019 team and best of luck in the post season.  Regardless if they win or lose, its been a fun year being a fan and I can’t wait to see what this team with a little more pitching might accomplish in 2020.

 

And I Took Her Hand

erato-muse-of-poetry-1870-sir-edward-john-poynter
Erato Muse of Poetry

When I Met My Muse

by William Stafford

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off–they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. “I am your own
way of looking at things,” she said. “When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation.” And I took her hand.

Do you have a muse?  An unseen force that stirs your creativity, guides your voice, puts words on the page, or paint on a canvas with a clarity that goes beyond your conscious mind?   I have written about my muse before, it is a force that is real and can leave me awestruck at times.  Part of what makes it special is my muse visits infrequently.  Most of the time I am left to my own devices and writing is plain hard work.

What’s the most unusual thing your muse has ever told you?  What is the most unusual thing you have ever told your muse? Is your muse male, female, non-binary, non-human? How often does your muse visit?  What will you say next time it does?

Sonnet 38

by William Shakespeare

How can my muse want subject to invent,
While thou dost breathe, that pour’st into my verse
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thy self dost give invention light?
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
If my slight muse do please these curious days,
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.

A Sign to Tell Me When

Sketch_of_Robert_Hillyer
Sketch of Robert Hillyer

Watching

By Robert Hillyer (1895 – 1961)

So ghostly then the girl came in
I never saw the turnstile twist,
Down where the orchard trees begin
Lost in a revery of mist.

And in that windless hour between
The last of sunset and the night,
When fields give up their ebbing green
And two bats interweave their flight.

I saw the turnstile glimmer pale
Just where the orchard trees begin.
But watching was of no avail,
Invisibly the girl came in.

I took one deep breath of the air
And lifted up my heavy heart;
It was not I who trembled there,
But my immortal counterpart.

I knew that she had come again
Up through the orchard through the stile,
Without a sign to tell me when,
Though I was watching all the while.

I asked my friend, “what’s this I hear about you entering hospice?”  She answered, ‘What do you think about it?”   I said, “I think I trust you know what’s best.”   She replied, “It’s all just part of the process.”

 

Sonnet 66

by William Shakespeare

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

My Soul’s Forgotten Gleam

violets

Sonnet 99

by William Shakespeare

The forward violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells
In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair:
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair;
A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both
And to his robbery had annex’d thy breath;
But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
More flowers I noted, yet I none could see
But sweet or colour it had stol’n from thee.

I think Shakespeare is using violets as a metaphor and not in a literal sense, but violets are the scent thieves of the flowering kingdom.  The smell of violets comes from terpenes and a ketone chemical compound called ionone. Violets have a sweet scent but it’s not overpowering.  This is because of a curious chemical property that creates their ethereal quality. Violets smell binds to our scent receptors after stimulating them, temporarily rendering them numb. It’s why the smell of violets can only be smelled for a few moments. However, if you take a few breaths, the smell will return because the receptors register the stimulus again.

I planted violets in my garden over the weekend because they bring early spring cheery colors and are nearly impossible to freeze out in May. Given that there was a few snowflakes overnight it was a good call to not plant to many annuals yet and to wait another couple of weeks to get the geraniums in the ground.

 

Sonnet

by Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875 – 1935)

I had no thought of violets of late,
The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet
In wistful April days, when lovers mate
And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.
The thought of violets meant florists’ shops,
And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine;
And garish lights, and mincing little fops
And cabarets and songs, and deadening wine.
So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,
I had forgot wide fields, and clear brown streams;
The perfect loveliness that God has made,—
Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams.
And now—unwittingly, you’ve made me dream
Of violets, and my soul’s forgotten gleam.

 

When The World is Mud-luscious

muddy dog
April is a Muddy Dog

(in-Just)

by e. e. cummings

in Just-
spring          when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles          far          and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far          and             wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring
and
         the
                  goat-footed
balloonMan          whistles
far
and
wee

 

We had our first real taste of spring this weekend.  Minneapolis hit a high of 80 degrees on Saturday and everyone and everything stuck their head outside and smelled the warm air.  After a long cold winter, the gift of spring is an awareness of change; with the change in light one of the most compelling.  Spring light has a different intensity than just a few weeks ago, it has a different slant, a different tint, a different warmth. It is a gift to northerners who appreciate the sun maybe just a little bit more on these final days of April than our southern counterparts who are already cursing the 100 degree afternoons in Florida. No such cursing in Minneapolis, only gratitude that in the following week the swelling buds on trees will turn green and the only grumbles will be from the person who has to clean up the muddy footprints of children and dogs, who trail their playfulness from the muddy front and back yards of their houses into the kitchen to see what is for dinner, all of them wagging their tails.

Sonnet 98

William Shakespeare

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him,
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.