a poem i d like to share with you all :-)

[lucyarliwu]

hi all

i still donot know much knowledge of English poetry, nor what s the criteria to judge a poem, but i still wanna share some wonderful poems which can really strike your heart by their wonderful and magic sensation inside when reading, now here is a poem shared by me in a foreigner's eyes. hope you like it

the following poem was written by a female British poet called Christina Rossetti, with the name of " A Birthday"


My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me in a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it with doves and pomegranates
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

 

[RonBee]

That's a beautiful poem.

May I ask you a question or two? What do you think the poem is about? Did you have some difficulty with the vocabulary?

That you for your submission. That poem is worth reading twice (at least).



8)

 

[lucyarliwu]

hi Ron

thanks for your good questions! its so kind of you! ^_^

what you asked me really reminded me something, i usually read most
articles once, then if its interesting i ll find out new words inside
and look them up one by one from dictionary as a routine, after which
i thought i ve finished the study for this article.

but today the questions raised by you enable me rethink of and restudy
this poem again from macro-views. then some questions are raised by
me as follows after reading several times:

i think it s a sort of love poem from my intuition, but why it s given
the name " A birthday"? , so the love must be comprehensive here, to
appreciate the life, to love life? but how s it directly related to
birthday? does it mean to retrieve new life? i feel a bit confused...

ya i do have some difficulty with the vacabulary, even the familar
words like "shoot" i still have to newly look it up to know another
meaning: new ,young growth on a plant or bush. but whats "watered shoot"
stand for? to describe its branch is just new ?

i can feel strongly the auther's happy feeling by "singing bird",
"the thickset apples" and paddling "raimbow shell" in the first
paragraph.

what is "vair"? its a shame i canot find it out from dictionary.

why it said " a dais of silk"? i noticed that "dais" means: platform
for a table,lectern ect. its my first time to see the silk depicted
in Dais!? also what is "fleurs-de-lys" ?

why anthor used the whole second paragraph to describe the silk?
and only one line to show "love is come to me" ?

lucy

 

[Tdol]

vair ( P ) Pronunciation Key (vâr)
n.
A fur, probably squirrel, much used in medieval times to line and trim robes.
Heraldry. A representation of fur.
from dictionary.com :lol:

 

[RonBee]

Thanks, TDOL! Now, what about fleurs-de-lys? :wink:

8)

 

[RonBee]

i think it s a sort of love poem from my intuition, but why it s given
the name " A birthday"? , so the love must be comprehensive here, to
appreciate the life, to love life? but how s it directly related to
birthday? does it mean to retrieve new life? i feel a bit confused...

It's definitely a love poem. The meaning of the title I cannot tell from the poem itself. Perhaps it is her birthday when it happens.

ya i do have some difficulty with the vacabulary, even the familar
words like "shoot" i still have to newly look it up to know another
meaning: new ,young growth on a plant or bush. but whats "watered shoot" stand for? to describe its branch is just new ?

I'm not sure what she means by "watered shoot" there, but I think the idea of newness is relevant here.

i can feel strongly the auther's happy feeling by "singing bird",
"the thickset apples" and paddling "raimbow shell" in the first
paragraph.

Yes, I think that works well.

what is "vair"? its a shame i canot find it out from dictionary.

As TDOL mentioned, that is a fur used for trim.

why it said " a dais of silk"? i noticed that "dais" means: platform
for a table,lectern ect. its my first time to see the silk depicted
in Dais!? also what is "fleurs-de-lys" ?

The phrase dais of silk is unfamiliar to me too. Maybe she is talking about being put on a pedestal. :wink:

Here's a picture of a fleurs-de-lys: http://iquebec.ifrance.com/hemerocalles/tra.jpg

Several images of fleurs-de-lys:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q="fleurs-de-lys"+"image"&sa=N&tab=wi

why anthor used the whole second paragraph to describe the silk?
and only one line to show "love is come to me" ?

That's a mystery to me too.

 

[RonBee]

A fleur-de-lys: http://images.google.com/imgres?img...%22&start=20&svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&sa=N

 

[lucyarliwu]

Thanks TDOL and thanks Ron for your two instructions on this beautiful poem to me!



How wonderful is the team-work!


Happy Lucy from China

 

[caxtontype]

Thanks TDOL and thanks Ron for your two instructions on this beautiful poem to me!



How wonderful is the team-work!


Happy Lucy from China

A dais can be a platform on which a throne is placed. It would appropriate to cover it with silk cloth. A fleur-de-lys is a lily.

 

[lucyarliwu]

Thanks Caxtontype for your explanations for the "dais" of "fleur-de-lys"
in such simple and clear way!




<BTW, may I ask you a private question that are you really 82 ? >


Lucy in curiosity

 

[RonBee]

Hi! Welcome to the forum.

I hope you are enjoying the poems. Most of them--so far--are mine, but anybody is free to post something.



8)

 

[jnsummer]

lovely poem - a love poem for sure!

remember.... the meaning is what u make of it. different people will see the same poem in many different ways

 

[lucyarliwu]

:lol: thanks Jamie!

It sounds reasonable, the meaning of the poem is just what you make of it , and I 'd love to see more things inside of the poem from its surface lines with my heart . But anyway, it's a happy thing to try to catch up with what the poet thought in his course of composing.



Lucy

 

[Tdol]

Here's one I love, by Emily Dickinson:
The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth, -

The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.
http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/458/

 

[lucyarliwu]

Here's one I love, by Emily Dickinson:
The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth, -

The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.
http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/458/

Hi Tdol!

I have read your favorate poem over and over....but it's a shame that I still cannot catch the emotion of the writer when she composed it then and what she was intended to express!? Especially the last line:' We shall not want to use again until eternity', I 'm mixed up towards what "we shall not want to use "? and what 's the begone love gonna do with " until eternity"?

So can you share some of your point of views on this poem and what attracts you a lot to love it??

Lucy in China

 

[RonBee]

Here's one I love, by Emily Dickinson:
The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth, -

The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.
http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/458/

Hi Tdol!

I have read your favorate poem over and over....but it's a shame that I still cannot catch the emotion of the writer when she composed it then and what she was intended to express!? Especially the last line:' We shall not want to use again until eternity', I 'm mixed up towards what "we shall not want to use "? and what 's the begone love gonna do with " until eternity"?

So can you share some of your point of views on this poem and what attracts you a lot to love it??

Lucy in China

Tdol isn't here. I'll try to answer your questions.

The phrase "until eternity" does, I thin, mean "until death". Much of the poem is metaphorical.

8)

 

[Tdol]

Here's one I love, by Emily Dickinson:
The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth, -

The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.
http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/458/

Hi Tdol!

I have read your favorate poem over and over....but it's a shame that I still cannot catch the emotion of the writer when she composed it then and what she was intended to express!? Especially the last line:' We shall not want to use again until eternity', I 'm mixed up towards what "we shall not want to use "? and what 's the begone love gonna do with " until eternity"?

So can you share some of your point of views on this poem and what attracts you a lot to love it??

Lucy in China

Just like the personal possessions being packed away, the love for a dead person won't be used again until they are reunited in heaven. At least, that's how I understand it. :shock:

 

[lucyarliwu]

I have read the biogoraghy of Emily Dickinson,the author of " the bustle of the house' cited by Tdol!

It's amazing Emily has composed so huge numbers of outstanding poems in her life, but she and her poems were only accepted by the public after her death, I feel pity for her, it seems that almost all the artists led a miserable life before their being famous, including Dickinson, she lived alone," restricted her contacts outside Amherst to exchange of letters,dressed only in white and saw few of the visitors who came to meet her. .....,most of her time she spent in her room..."
I couldn't help signning when I was reading here.

 

[RonBee]

I have read the biogoraghy of Emily Dickinson,the author of " the bustle of the house' cited by Tdol!

I have posted some more of her poems here. Go to: https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=795

It's amazing Emily has composed so huge numbers of outstanding poems in her life, but she and her poems were only accepted by the public after her death,

Try: It's amazing that Emily composed such a huge number of poems and that her poems were only accepted by the public after her death.

I feel pity for her, it seems that almost all the artists led a miserable life before their being famous, including Dickinson, she lived alone," restricted her contacts outside Amherst to exchange of letters,dressed only in white and saw few of the visitors who came to meet her. .....,most of her time she spent in her room..."

Try: I feel pity for her. It seems that almost all artists led miserable lives before becoming famous, including Dickinson. She lived alone," restricted her contacts outside Amherst to exchange of letters, dressed only in white and saw few of the visitors who came to meet her. .....,most of her time she spent in her room..."

I couldn't help signning when I was reading here.

Try: I couldn't help sighing when reading her biography. (Is sighing right?)

8)

 

[Tdol]

She missed out on the glory and fame, but she must have known how good her writing was. I read that poem shortly after I'd had to clear up a flat where one of my best friends had died, and little has ever had such an impact.

Here's another for you:

Ambulances (Philip Larkin(
Closed like confessionals, they thread
Loud noons of cities, giving back
None of the glances they absorb.
Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque,
They come to rest at any kerb:
All streets in time are visited. -

Then children strewn on steps or road,
Or women coming from the shops
Past smells of different dinners, see
A wild white face that overtops
Red stretcher-blankets momently
As it is carried in and stowed,

And sense the solving emptiness
That lies just under all we do,
And for a second get it whole,
So permanent and blank and true.
The fastened doors recede. Poor soul,
They whisper at their own distress;

For borne away in deadened air
May go the sudden shut of loss
Round something nearly at an end,
And what cohered in it across
The years, the unique random blend
Of families and fashions, there

At last begin to loosen. Far
From the exchange of love to lie
Unreachable inside a room
The traffic parts to let go by
Brings closer what is left to come,
And dulls to distance all we are.