Desire by Matthew Arnold

Thou, who dost dwell alone; Thou, who dost know thine own; Thou, to whom all are known, From the cradle to the grave,-- Save, O, save! From the world's temptations; From tribulations; From that fierce anguish Wherein we languish; From that torpor deep Wherein we lie asleep, Heavy as death, cold as the grave,-- Save, …

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Squire Norton’s Song by Charles Dickens

The child and the old man sat alone In the quiet, peaceful shade Of the old green boughs, that had richly grown In the deep, thick forest glade. It was a soft and pleasant sound, That rustling of the oak; And the gentle breeze played lightly round As thus the fair boy spoke:- "Dear father, …

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door— Only this and …

Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope

In these deep solitudes and awful cells, Where heav'nly-pensive contemplation dwells, And ever-musing melancholy reigns; What means this tumult in a vestal's veins? Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat? Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat? Yet, yet I love!—From Abelard it came, And Eloisa yet must kiss the name. Dear fatal name! …

Ballad by John Clare

A faithless shepherd courted me, He stole away my liberty. When my poor heart was strange to men, He came and smiled and stole it then. When my apron would hang low, Me he sought through frost and snow. When it puckered up with shame, And I sought him, he never came. When summer brought …

On Shakespear by John Milton

What needs my Shakespear for his honoured bones, The labor of an age in pilèd stones, Or that his hallowed relics should be hid Under a star-ypointing pyramid? Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame, What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a …

Autumn River Song by Li Po

The moon shimmers in green water. White herons fly through the moonlight. The young man hears a girl gathering water-chestnuts: into the night, singing, they paddle home together. Poet: Li Po Chinese 701 – 762

The Standing Stone

The stone stands alone it seems against all weather and wane. No one to share the vicious rain. No shelter from wind or snow. Storms come and go, the stone remains, a little battered but tall and proud. The kiss of sunlight warms through, easing the cold dampness away. The love of the moon lights …

Sonnetina Uno

The first of the sonnetinas, the Sonnetina Uno is a ten-line form written in iambic tetrameter, pentameter or any other consistent meter. It is a blank verse. Example Unspeakable Need by Jez Farmer A whisper of lavender calls a dream, In gentle words that dare the heart to care As darker thoughts recall how love …

The Four Seasons – Autumn by Antonio Vivaldi

  https://youtu.be/Q8AN0jWNrJA Title: The Four Seasons - Autumn Date: 1723 Composer: Antonio Vivaldi Movement: Baroque Italian 1678 - 1741 Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was a composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher and cleric. He is recognised as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and within his lifetime his influence was widespread across Europe. He composed numerous concertos for …

Stepping Stones

I sat reflecting on the stepping stone Sometimes a girl must think it out alone I thought of love, of life, and prayed to god Unanswered questions cast in earthly sin Even then faith did seem overtly odd Amid this beauty how could love be wrong When love is the pulse of all living things …

A Wink from Hesper by William Ernest Henley

A wink from Hesper, falling Fast in the wintry sky, Comes through the even blue, Dear, like a word from you… Is it good-bye? Across the miles between us I send you sigh for sigh. Good-Night, sweet friend, good-night: Till life and all take flight, Never good-bye Poet: William Ernest Henley English 1849 – 1903

Release

A wingless flight across an open sky as she soars into the night alone for I cannot fly with her as like a tree I remain rooted to the ground she may return she may not but still, I let her fly she is mine and I gladly let her go until the day she …

Noooooooo!!!!

  Prompt: A song you cannot stand to listen too As my taste in music is very eclectic this is actually a very hard one to come up with. There are songs and pieces I hate but I can listen to them or have them on in the background and tune them out, but a …

I, Gigolo

Lionel Ritchie crooned across the dance floor. I held you in my arms, leading you into the romantic rhythm of the music as I sang the lyrics to you. After the dance I led you back to the table, attending to your needs as any gentleman should – including a red rose from the seller …

The Best of Jazz

He hit the downbeat, found the blues, Not to mention having no clues. The jazz man could improvise and drag, 'Bad Penny Blues' an infamous rag. Slurring between riffs with such ease, Trumpet proud he stood out from the sleaze. Vamp chords repeated for our delight, dissonance of students in bars each night. Jazz club …

Sex Pistols: God save the Queen

  https://youtu.be/RvMxqcgBhWQ   The Sex Pistols were a punk band from London. They initiated the punk movement in the UK, inspiring many punk rock bands and later alternative musicians. Despite a career of just two and half years resulting in four singles and the album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols they are …

Memoria

Such love, so deep it now brings only pain As tears fall silently lost in the rain Each drop washing away the vibrant hue Of memories lost in intimate days Like the roses that were once me and you As you left me did you hear my soul cry As you left me with no …

Greenside Valley

The green valley stretched west of Glenridding, Across the view, our souls wished they’d hidden, Those last hours of love on a Lady’s Tarn We gazed into hills of yesterday’s mines, Discarded, wasted with nothing to mourn Remains that lie buried beneath the green Yet still history whispers over time But dare not speak of …

The Crossing – Brothers

Since our walk in the forest, Arina made sure we spent time each evening just talking. Sometimes Gai and Loban would join us. One evening Arina, Gai and I were in the garden planting out seedlings around Arina’s fountain. The conversation was light and easy. Suddenly Arina was silent, too silent. I rushed to her …

Gobbledygook

Old times appear within the here and now, I don’t know why and sure I know not how These memories are coming by return In dreams of the mountains, lakes and fells A now familiar fire started to burn Old memories stirred by notes in a book Unanswered questions turn to puzzle me My thinking …

Autumn’s Glow

The leaves made soft, rustling sounds As we walk through autumn’s glow. The equinox beckons in bounds, The harvest in its full flow. Haymaking as we made hay, A summer’s love going strong. A kiss leads to our pathway, To our world where we belong. Lover’s fall is now our tune, Before winter breaks with …

Pharaoh’s Handmaidens by John Collier

Title: Pharaoh’s Handmaidens Date: 1883 Movement: Pre-Raphaelite Artist: The Honourable John Maler Collier British 1850 – 1934   John Maler Collier was a leading artist and author. He was one of the m0st noted portrait painters of his time. From 1875 he studied at the Munich Academy. Both his marriages were to the daughters of …

Short Particular Measure

Short Particular Measure is a stanza form with each stanza consisting of six lines. Lines 1, 2, 4 and 5 are trimeter or six syllables and lines 3 and 6 are tetrameter or eight syllables in length. The rhyme scheme is aabaab Example: The Beautiful Mind by Jez Farmer You insist I am straight Sorry …

Blue Cheese

Prompt: a song someone has sung to you There is only a few I can think of and if the person concerned was anywhere near me right now I would hit him as I hate them and have got to listen to that shyte to make this post. https://youtu.be/v35fWf1CWFQ   https://youtu.be/Y4QGPWLY-EM   https://youtu.be/fw-QRyQcFH8 And that …

Variations on the Word Love by Margaret Atwood

This is a word we use to plug holes with. It's the right size for those warm blanks in speech, for those red heart- shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing like real hearts. Add lace and you can sell it. We insert it also in the one empty space on the printed form …

Within the Storm

Waking up from the wonder beyond dreams and I step out into the beautiful world the burn of sunshine on my shoulder and like the vagrant cloud crossing the blue sky I seek the gathering of the storm craving the touch of rain on my shoulder to cool the heat on my skin releasing the …

A Body of Knowledge

The buzz at Carstairs Defence was electric. Rumour and speculation had been rife for over 6 months that young Adam Rickard, the boy genius, had developed a new missile detector. Sure enough, the 17-year-old had kept himself behind the closed doors of his lab day and night. Now Sir Damian Carstairs had called a meeting …

A Matter of Choice

I can give you words of spiritual wise, I can tell you this is right, that is not. Faith must come from your own believing eyes, The answer you want is one I haven't got Inside your own heart seek what is true, Have trust in your own self to make your choice. This is …

I Like the Way You Move by Bodyrockers

  https://youtu.be/jO90ullM3FQ Bodyrockers I Like the Way You Move

Haiku

  a taut fine line between misery and death keep breathing   ©JG Farmer 2018

The Crossing – Spring Floods

Winter turned to spring and the snows thawed. The news was about floods back in the old country. I remembered those well. It all seemed so far away but as more estimates of people losing their lives to floods were reported my memories were all too clear. Here the land was soddened but not flooded …

My Dying Day

The ambulance arrived too late today, Nothing could save me from the reaper’s hand. The time to pass into the spirit’s way, A new beginning, a different land. The car didn’t stop, it went right through me, No pain, just a thud, then I saw you there. The fear is cold, but I know I …

Shelley’s Sonnet

Percy Bysshe Shelly seemed to have a fondness for interlocking stanzas, possibly a nod to French literature. In his sonnet, he follows the continental octave and sestet format, but he also links the first four lines into the second half of the octave, again the second half of the octave links into the first half …

Dedication by Lewis Carroll

Inscribed to a Dear Child: In Memory of Golden Summer Hours And Whispers of a Summer Sea Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task, Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask The tale he loves to tell. Rude spirits of the seething outer strife, …

Dance of the Furies by Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck

  https://youtu.be/vvVl15XXrOg Title: Dance of the Furies Date: 1776 Composer: Christoph Wilibald Ritter von Gluck Movement: Classical German 1714 - 1767 Christoph Wilibald Ritter von Gluck was a composer of Italian and French opera during the early classical era. With a series of radical works, including Orfeo ed Euridice, he broke into the stranglehold of …

These Are a Few of my Favourite Songs

Prompt: Your Favourite Song I challenge anyone to nominate just one song. So, instead, I have decided to go with a few of my faves from different areas of music. As the title suggests I like musicals a bit. No, not Julie Andrews. No. not the Sound of Music. I am torn between Chicago and …

Squirrels on the Common

I often sat on the common at night, alone with my thoughts. After a hectic day, it was a perfect way to comfort body, mind and soul. Today had been hectic, the computers had crashed just after lunch launching the entire office into chaos and panic. So here I was sat on the common just …

A Single White Rose

A single white rose lies dipped in my blood, Another tragic love story closes. All tears shed form pools of sympathies flood, White the handkerchiefs that blow the noses. Words spoken in the tides wave of their grief, Solemn procession to the vaults of rest. A life cut too short by the reaper's thief, Immortal …

The Crossing – The Tolling of a Bell

In that first January Arina’s sister died. Loban and Gai had been at work when the phone rang. School was still on vacation and Arina and I had been sat in the kitchen drinking tea. I had her speaking then her voice changed. I watched as her face changed, and instinct told me to move …

Rhopalic Verse

The Rhopalic verse is not as easy as it looks at first glance. The rules of the form are simple enough as for each line the first word is one syllable, the second is two, the third is three and so on. There are no other limits in line length or the number of stanzas. …

Iron Maiden: Number of the Beast

https://youtu.be/7-iRf9AWoyE Formed in Leyton, North London, Iron Maiden is a heavy metal band. Formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris the band’s discography has grown to thirty-eight albums. Iron Maiden are pioneers of the new wave of British heavy metal from the 1980’s onwards.   Number of the Beast, originally released in …

Octave

Octaves are widely known in their strict forms of variant metered rhyme schemas. However, they can also be eight-line stanzas that use one or more alternative poetic devices such as: syllable count, internal rhyme, a couplet in each stanza, meter and so on. For my example I have worked in Iambic Diameter, any rhymes are …

To the Otherside

I long to drink the moisture from your hair I crave your kiss upon this midnight air Within silence, I hunger for your love As darkness shrouds my heart again tonight I hunt for you among the stars above For in the depths of the night I feel you So close I can just about …

Isolated Depravity

I found out your reasons for the phone calls, The smiles and tender words that say you care. It hurts, and my trust destroyed as love falls, Oblivion of anger leaves me bare. My scars will remain bleeding inside me, Another wall that will disguise the true self. Closing doors so none will ever again …

Mural of Human Rights Emblem UN by Vela Zanetti

Title: Mural of Human Rights, Emblem UN Date: 1953 Movement: Muralism Artist: Vela Zanetti Spanish 1913 – 1999 Jose Vela Zanetti was a painter and muralist. He worked predominantly in Spain, the Dominican Republic and the USA. His first solo exhibition was held in Leon in 1931. His father was executed for his socialist beliefs …

Grooving with the Vampires

Prompt: The last song alphabetically on your playlist On my current playlist that would be Vlad by Inkubus Sukkubus. As this is one of my favourite bands this post is their music, starting, or course, with Vlad from the album Belladonna and Aconite https://youtu.be/vbjnaQzJqfU Next up is Hedonistic Gene from the Beast with Two Backs …

Triad to Spring

As life returns I think of these things Three in number and my heart sings At the first bloom of a golden daffodil Now the seasons turn at the universe’s will And the balance of dark and light ‘Tis equinox; there be magic tonight © JG Farmer 2018 Form: Triad

Ridges in the Mist

I would never have believed I would be totally dependent on her, yet in the last few hours, she had kept me alive. It had been a beautiful cloudless day when we had started up the mountain path. It was on the second ridge that we came across the young family. The kids, being kids, …

Electric Light Orchestra: Don’t Bring Me Down

https://youtu.be/KYh7PwDo3Iw Electric Light Orchestra Don’t Bring Me Down