Sherry Chandler » In memoriam

In memoriam

Reluctance

OUT through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

— Robert Frost

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3 Comments

  • 1. Georgia Green Stamper replies at 29th January 2008, 9:54 am :

    Thank you for this wise and beautiful poem this January morning. I was not familiar with it.

  • 2. Sam L. Martin replies at 31st January 2008, 2:40 pm :

    I had a bluebird visit today. Looks like another early spring and long, hot summer.

  • 3. sherry replies at 1st February 2008, 9:34 am :

    VIII. THE BLUEBIRD.

    Before you thought of spring,
    Except as a surmise,
    You see, God bless his suddenness,
    A fellow in the skies
    Of independent hues,
    A little weather-worn,
    Inspiriting habiliments
    Of indigo and brown.

    With specimens of song,
    As if for you to choose,
    Discretion in the interval,
    With gay delays he goes
    To some superior tree
    Without a single leaf,
    And shouts for joy to nobody
    But his seraphic self!

    — Emily Dickinson

    from Bluebird

    there’s a bluebird in my heart that
    wants to get out
    but I’m too tough for him,
    I say, stay in there, I’m not going
    to let anybody see
    you.

    there’s a bluebird in my heart that
    wants to get out
    but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
    cigarette smoke
    and the whores and the bartenders
    and the grocery clerks
    never know that
    he’s
    in there.

    — Charles Bukowski

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