/lit/ - Literature

Good evening friends. It's your grandfather here once again to read you a poem before bed.

'To England' - Francis Coutts

When the agony is done and you are free
To lay aside the sword, when all but those
Who died to save you from your ruthless foes
Come home, what will you be?

Will you be honest with yourself at last,
And look the world full in its ugly face,
Unboastful of your goodness and your grace,
When this ordeal is past?

Will you have judgement, with clear, pain-purged sense,
To weigh things in the balance? Some that seem
Of large significance will kick the beam,
Like coins of false pretense;

Others, in aspect dull, with no display
To tempt ambition, will draw down the scale,
However counterpoised; and not for sale
At any cost are they.

Why do you suffer anguish? Not for forms
Religious or political you care
Now; but for Freedom and your Homes you dare
To brave these storms.

Keep in sight what war has made you see;
Think no small thoughts again; not faint or far
Shines, like the star of Bethlehem, your star
Of glorious destiny.

Good evening /lit/. I'm happy to join you tonight for last night I saw a thread about e e cummings on this board and was reminded of how much I used to adore his poetry, and so I cracked open my anthology and found that my adoration has not waned one bit. I first discovered cummings’s work in high school. Like many at that period in life I did not care much for the art of language, and not at all did I care for poetry, but one day our e=English teacher read us “anyone lived in a pretty how town” and I was captivated. To this day it remains one of my favorites. Cummings is one of the most exciting American poets, so unpredictable, yet one thing can always be for certain, and that is that his poems will always be filled love, and filled with beauty.

the great advantage of being alive
(instead of undying)is not so much
that mind no more can disprove than prove
what heart may feel and soul may touch
--the great(my darling)happens to be
that love are in we,that love are in we

and here is a secret they never will share
for whom create is less than have
or one times one than when times where--
that we are in love,that we are in love:
with us they've nothing times nothing to do
(for love are in we am in i are in you)

this world(as timorous itsters all
to call their cowardice quite agree)
shall never discover our touch and feel
--for love are in we are in love are in we;
for you are and i am and we are(above
and under all possible worlds)in love

a billion brains may coax undeath
from fancied fact and spaceful time--
no heart can leap,no soul can breathe
but by the sizeless truth of a dream
whose sleep is the sky and the earth and the sea.
For love are in you am in i are in we

Good night friends, and sleep well.

Good evening /lit/. I have a special treat for you tonight. It's officially December, and we'll soon be receiving the brunt of winter. But as you go out on those snow-covered roads and see those ice-covered telephone lines, do not just view them as mere inconveniences, embrace the beautiful aftermath that the storms bring. Tonight, here is a poem Wallace Stevens

The Snow Man - Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been a cold long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

>>16923624
Hold on to that copy, it could be worth something someday, but its contents are priceless.
>The Talking Oak
You kidding? That's his best one!

Good evening /lit/, it's Pop-pop here once again. I've decided I'm going to stick with reading you poetry before bed, and tonight I have one of my favorites. Get nestled and enjoy.

Madeline - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I

Thou art not steep'd in golden languors,
No tranced summer calm is thine,
Ever varying Madeline.
Thro' light and shadow thou dost range.
Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites and darling angers,
And airy forms of flitting change.

II
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore.
Revealings deep and clear are thine
Of wealthy smiles : but who may know
Whether smile or frown be fleeter?
Whether smile or frown be sweeter,
Who may know?
Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow
Light-glooming over eyes divine,
Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine,
Ever varying Madeline.
Thy smile and frown are not aloof
From one another,
Each to each is dearest brother;
Hues of the silken sheeny woof
Momently shot into each other.
All the mystery is thine;
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore,
Ever varying Madeline.

III
A subtle, sudden flame,
By veering passion fann'd,
About thee breaks and dances;
When I would kiss thy hand,
The flush of anger'd shame
O'erflows thy calmer glances,
An o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown:
but when I turn away,
Thou, willing me to stay,
Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest;
But, looking fixedly the while,
All my bounding heart entanglest
In a golden-netted smile;
The in madness and in bliss,
If my lips should dare to kiss
Thy taper fingers amorously,
Again thou blushest angerly;
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown.

Good night, friends. Sleep tight.

>>16915541
If that's what you would like I will tomorrow.

>>16915269
Maybe if you learn to ask politely we can read some Felix Guattari after Christmas, but right now we are reading Dickens because that's what was requested.

>>16915261
Good night friends. Sleep tight!

Good evening /lit/! It's your grandfather here to read to you before bed. As requested, I will be reading you Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" for the holiday season. Each night I will read you a little bit of this classic tale, finishing on the night before Christmas. So get your hot chocolate and huddle up with your favorite blanket as I whisk you away into a new story!

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Stave One: Marley's Ghost

Jacob Marley was dead. Everybody knew that. There was no doubt about that. All the official papers were properly signed by witnesses to make them legal. The clergyman, the clerk and the undertaker all signed the papers. Even Ebenezer Scrooge signed them, and everyone knew that anything Scrooge signed had to be perfectly legal!
Yes, Marley was as dead as a doornail.
Did Scrooge know he was dead? Of course he did. How could he not? After all, Scrooge and Marley were business partners for many years. besides Scrooge was the sole executor, his soul administrator, assign and legatee, his sole mourner, his sole friend. Still Scrooge was not so saddened by the event, but was still an excellent businessman, and offered his customers great bargains on the very day of the funeral.
Yes, Marley was most certainly dead, yet Scrooge never painted out his name on the old sign outside their warehouse. Above the door it still read as always 'Scrooge and Marley.'
Oh, but Scrooge was a tight-fisted old man! He was a shriveled and shrewd old man and as skinny as a pencil. He was a squeezing, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, but no steel could gather any warmth from him. No warmth in the world could warm and no winter could chill him. Not a wind that blew was bitterer than him.
No one ever bothered him, not that a soul ever could. No passerby ever bade him "Hello!" or enquired of him "How do you do" and Lord forbid, no one, not ever, wished old Scrooge a "Merry Christmas." Not even the most mangy dog would give a second begging look towards Scrooge.
But did this bother Scrooge? Not at all, it was just as he preferred.

>>16907132
As you wish.

Good evening /lit/, it's your grandfather here to read you a poem before bed!

TWO BOXES

Two boxes met upon the road.
Said one unto the other,
"If you're a box,
And I'm a box,
Then you must be my brother.
Our sides are thin,
We're cavin' in,
And we must get no thinner."
And so two boxes, hand in hand,
Went home to have their dinner.

-Shel SIlverstein

Goodnight frens. Sleep tight.