Ode on Melancholy

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Rowls
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Ode on Melancholy

Post by Rowls » Mon Mar 25, 2019 5:38 pm

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shalt taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

Rowls
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Rowls » Mon Mar 25, 2019 5:39 pm

Sadly I had to copy and paste this one but I'm resolved to spending tonight reading and re-reading it to re-commit it to memory until I can recite it properly.

That final stanza contains some of the finest English ever composed.

Bosscat
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Bosscat » Mon Mar 25, 2019 5:53 pm

The following are odes to Melon and Cauli (flower)

There was a melon fresh from the garden
So ripe the knife slurped
As it cut it into six slices.
The children were going back to school.
Their mother, passing out paper plates,
Would not live to see the leaves fall.

I remember a hornet, too, that flew in
Through the open window
Mad to taste the sweet fruit
While we ducked and screamed,
Covered our heads and faces,
And sat laughing after it was gone.


And a poem about Cauliflower

I’m the vegetable cauliflower,
Packed in leaves, resembling a big flower,
I grow from seeds, I am mostly white,
But purple, green or yellow too you may sight!

I have many flowerets in me,
Broccoli is my cousin you see.
Eat me raw in salads or cook me in rice,
Roasted, fried and stewed too,
I taste very nice!

I have plenty of fiber and vitamin C,
Other vitamins, minerals too abound in me.
I keep you fit by fighting many a disease,
Have lots of me, now will you please?
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dsr
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by dsr » Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:10 pm

You forgot to say who wrote it. Presumably one of the mournful three, Keats / Byron / Shelley?

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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by grapidianclaret » Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:19 pm

Keats and Yeats are on your side
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spadesclaret
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by spadesclaret » Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:19 pm

John Keats, only 25 when he died. His poetry astonishes me as well as delights me. How could someone so young have such a depth of knowledge of life alongside the ability to use and position words in such a way that their pure beauty brings tears to the eye?
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Bosscat
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Bosscat » Mon Mar 25, 2019 6:48 pm

John Keats was an opium addict while he wrote some of his most famous poems.

Percy Byshe Shelley, was infamous for his drug use.

Lewis Carroll's mind was a pretty amazing place. Many people believe he was a drug addict.

This ties in with the other thread http://www.uptheclarets.com/messageboar ... =2&t=37786" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Pstotto » Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:11 pm

I was so upset that I cried
All the way to the chip shop
Quoting Shakespeare in the
Shakespeare in Padiham.
Not forgetting Jane Austin

When I got there, there was Rowls
Standing at the bus-stop
Juile had her Chaucer notes
And Byron hopes
And nothing ki-icked o-off....
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ontario claret
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by ontario claret » Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:13 pm

My favourite poem. "Good food, good meat. Good Lord, let's eat."

Pstotto
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Pstotto » Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:14 pm

New Girls fresh, Ontario...

ontario claret
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by ontario claret » Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:16 pm

And my favourite poet was John Maynard Keynes, who wrote the poetry that is the basis of modern economic theory. (Keynes was also gay, which ties into another thread.)

Pstotto
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Pstotto » Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:19 pm

Sounds like Ontario is a protege of The School of Practical Philoshophy and perhaps the London School of Meditation, have you thought of joining one of Ram Dass's dying clubs, same nihilist values.

ontario claret
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by ontario claret » Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:27 pm

Me a nihilist? I'd die at the thought.
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Bosscat
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Bosscat » Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:38 pm

ontario claret wrote:And my favourite poet was John Maynard Keynes, who wrote the poetry that is the basis of modern economic theory. (Keynes was also gay, which ties into another thread.)
Met his nephew Milton....

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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by ontario claret » Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:44 pm

Shhhh. Milton Keynes doesn't really exist in the eyes of many, y'know.

Rowls
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Rowls » Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:49 pm

dsr wrote:You forgot to say who wrote it. Presumably one of the mournful three, Keats / Byron / Shelley?
Keats, as has already been noted.

I thought long and hard about it but if anyone read it and didn't know who wrote it I decided that I'd like them to google it for themselves.

If this has introduced so much as a single person to Keats I'd be delighted.

Rowls
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Rowls » Mon Mar 25, 2019 7:55 pm

Does anyone else find this poem to be specifically visual when reading it?

When I had it memorized I could see each and every line as an image. One of the great things is that all of these images are 'moving' in my head (like the rainbow on the salt sand-wave) which give the poem a real sense of progression.

Until the final line when we are suddenly hit with a tactile sensation. Nothing tastes as sweet as 'Joy's grape' and then as soon as we get it, Keats kills us off.

What images does it bring to mind for you?

Tricky Trevor
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Tricky Trevor » Mon Mar 25, 2019 8:20 pm

Very nice but I’ll trump your melancholy with love.

Love’s Philosophy
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

Nonayforever
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Nonayforever » Mon Mar 25, 2019 8:26 pm

My favourite poem ;-

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that goodnight.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that goodnight.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

dsr
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by dsr » Mon Mar 25, 2019 11:31 pm

Rowls wrote:Keats, as has already been noted.

I thought long and hard about it but if anyone read it and didn't know who wrote it I decided that I'd like them to google it for themselves.

If this has introduced so much as a single person to Keats I'd be delighted.
Not me. I like my poems' meanings to be obvious. Not quite Edward Lear level of obvious, but more like Kipling or perhaps Chesterton. "Ozymandias" by Shelley isn't so bad.

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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by tim_noone » Tue Mar 26, 2019 12:19 am

I'll tell you now I'll tell you firmly .....I never want to go to Burnley! John Cooper Clarke

Pstotto
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Pstotto » Tue Mar 26, 2019 9:18 am

I pointed at an aeroplane yesterday, but then I come from Burnley!

It was a Easyjet low in the sky and in the sun.

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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by NottsClaret » Tue Mar 26, 2019 9:28 am

I know next to nothing about poetry, not even sure if this is a poem, but it stuck in my head after I heard it a few years ago.

The two headed calf.

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.
But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.
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ontario claret
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by ontario claret » Tue Mar 26, 2019 11:08 pm

Economics is the "Dismal Science", in case you didn't know.

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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by Woodleyclaret » Wed Mar 27, 2019 6:56 am

Too all folks suffering end or seasonitus, we will survive and live to fight on next season.
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dougcollins
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by dougcollins » Wed Mar 27, 2019 9:19 pm

Line from one of Milligan's war memoirs:

Sergeant Major' - 'Shut your mouths you 'orrible lot, the Captain is gonna read you some Keats. And I bet none of you ignorant lot knows what a Keat is'.
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ontario claret
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Re: Ode on Melancholy

Post by ontario claret » Wed Mar 27, 2019 9:54 pm

Was that as they were being attacked by a banana?

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