Arcadia

Annibale Carracci. River Landscape, c1590.

FROM

The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, 1593

by Sir Philip Sidney

[O sweet woods]

O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness! Oh, how much I do like your solitariness! Where man's mind hath a freed consideration, Of goodness to receive lovely direction. Where senses do behold th' order of heav'nly host, And wise thoughts do behold what the creator is; Contemplation here holdeth his only seat, Bounded with no limits, born with a wing of hope, Climbs even unto the stars, nature is under it. Nought disturbs thy quiet, all to thy service yields, Each sight draws on a thought (thought, mother of science) Sweet birds kindly do grant harmony unto thee, Fair trees' shade is enough fortification, Nor danger to thyself if 't be not in thyself. O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness! Oh, how much I do like your solitariness! Here nor treason is hid, veilëd in innocence, Nor envy's snaky eye finds any harbor here, Nor flatterers' venomous insinuations, Nor coming humorists' puddled opinions, Nor courteous ruin of proffered usury, Nor time prattled away, cradle of ignorance, Nor causeless duty, nor cumber of arrogance, Nor trifling title of vanity dazzleth us, Nor golden manacles stand for a paradise, Here wrong's name is unheard, slander a monster is; Keep thy sprite from abuse, here no abuse doth haunt. What man grafts in a tree dissimulation? O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness! Oh, how well I do like your solitariness! Yet, dear soil, if a soul closed in a mansion As sweet as violets, fair as lily is, Straight as cedar, a voice stains the canary birds, Whose shade safety doth hold, danger avoideth her; Such wisdom that in her lives speculation; Such goodness that in her simplicity triumphs; Where envy's snaky eye winketh or else dieth; Slander wants a pretext, flattery gone beyond; Oh! if such a one have bent to a lonely life, Her steps glad we receive, glad we receive her eyes, And think not she doth hurt our solitariness, For such company decks such solitariness.

---

Source:
A Sixteenth Century Anthology. Arthur Symons, Ed.
London: Blackie & Son, Ltd., 1905. 121-122.

Etymology of poet

poet

c.1300, from O.Fr. poete (12c.), from L. poeta "poet, author," from Gk. poetes "maker, author, poet," from poiein "to make or compose," from PIE *kwoiwo-"making," from base *kwei- "to make" (cf. Skt. cinoti "heaping up, piling up," O.C.S. cinu "act, deed, order"). Replaced O.E. scop (which survives in scoff). Used in 14c., as in classical languages, for all sorts of writers or composers of works of literature. Poète maudit, “a poet insufficiently appreciated by his contemporaries,” lit. “cursed poet,” attested by 1930, from French (1884, Verlaine).

poem

1540s (replacing poesy), from M.Fr. poème (14c.), from L. poema "verse, poetry," from Gk. poema "thing made or created, fiction, poetical work," from poein"to make or compose"

poetry

late 14c., from O.Fr. poetrie (13c.), from M.L. poetria (c.650), from L. poeta (see poet). In classical Latin, poetria meant "poetess." English lacks a true verb form in this group of words, though poeticize (1804), poetize (1580s, from Fr. poétiser), and poetrize (c.1600) all have been tried.

from Douglas Harper Online Etymology Dictionary

Cornel West

"I cannot be an optimist but I am a prisoner of hope."
— Cornel West

"Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public"
— Cornel West

"Aesthetics have substantial political consequences. How one views oneself as beautiful or not beautiful or desirable or not desirable has deep consequences in terms of one’s feelings of self-worth and one’s capacity to be a political agent."
— Cornel West (Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life)

"To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for that which shows what it might become. America -- this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of 'no' into the 'yes' -- needs citizens who love it enough to re-imagine and re-make it."
— Cornel West

Were I a King, by Edward de Vere

Painting by Hans Holbein, the Younger.

Venus and Amor, 1524-25.

Were I a King

Were I a king I could command content ;

Were I obscure, unknown should be my cares;

And were I dead, no thoughts should me torment,

Nor words, nor wrongs, nor loves, nor hopes, nor fears.

A doubtful choice, of three things one to crave,

A kingdom, or a cottage, or a grave.

I Died For Beauty by Emily Dickinson

I died for beauty, but was scarce Adjusted in the tomb, When one who died for truth was lain In an adjoining room. He questioned softly why I failed? "For beauty," I replied. "And I for truth - the two are one; We brethren are," he said. And so, as kinsmen met a-night, We talked between the rooms, Until the moss had reached our lips, And covered up our names.

Illustration©2010Babetteandfriends

Caged Bird, Maya Angelou

freebirdillustration©2011Babetteandfriends

A free bird leaps

on the back of the wind

and floats downstream

till the current ends

and dips his wing

in the orange sun rays

and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage

can seldom see through

his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and

his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill

of things unknown

but longed for still

and his tune is heard

on the distant hill

for the caged bird

sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn

and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill

of things unknown

but longed for still

and his tune is heard

on the distant hill

for the caged bird

sings of freedom

On Order and Housekeeping

Rage for Order

BY DAVID LUNDE

I guess you could call it

a sort of sympathetic magic.

How else to explain

this obsessive reorganizing

of my home, my books, my papers,

my poems, this housekeeping

of my hard drive and floppies,

all the deleting and casting away

of redundancy and obsolescence,

dead files and moved-on addresses

and the scrubbing, the constant

scrubbing and dusting and the howl

of the protesting vacuum

that struggles to inhale

at least the 70% of house-dust

that is dead human skin

some of which might be hers.

Source: Poetry (March 1999)