National Poetry Month Blog Tour

Click here for all the stops!  And a big thank you to Serena from Savvy Verse and Wit for arranging this wonderful tour.

Today I'd like to share a very very favorite book of mine.  It is a poetry anthology.  I am one of those people that loves poetry. But most of the time I need help "getting it." When I do get it, I simply melt, or whatever appropriate emotion should happen, will happen.

The book that I love so much is called Wordsworth, The Eternal Romantic.    My favorite poem of all time is:  I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.    You have to check it out.  And I do know it by heart.

What I like about this type of lovely compact book, is that I get what I want to know about Wordsworth  in the introduction.  It is nice and short and filled with the details of his life, there is a very nice time line, and a note from the author.   The book is full of gorgeous illustrations such as There is Sorrow on the Seas.  The works of Wordworth are loaded with life, love, nature and God.   He is one of the greatest poets of the Romantic Period.  This book is a sampling of that beauty.

I have carried this book around for over ten years.  It is my "go to" book of beautiful things to read and behold.

Here is another favorite from the book.

 The Solitary Reaper

Behold her, single in the field,
    Yon solitary Highland Lass!
    Reaping and singing by herself;
    Stop here, or gently pass!
    Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
    And sings a melancholy strain;
    O listen! for the Vale profound
    Is overflowing with the sound.

    No Nightingale did ever chaunt
    More welcome notes to weary bands
    Of travellers in some shady haunt,
    Among Arabian sands:
    A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
    In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
    Breaking the silence of the seas
    Among the farthest Hebrides.

    Will no one tell me what she sings?—
    Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
    For old, unhappy, far-off things,
    And battles long ago:
    Or is it some more humble lay,
    Familiar matter of to-day?
    Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
    That has been, and may be again?

    Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
    As if her song could have no ending;
    I saw her singing at her work,
    And o'er the sickle bending;—
    I listened, motionless and still;
    And, as I mounted up the hill,
    The music in my heart I bore,
    Long after it was heard no more. 

 

What you do you think?   I love that last line. It is how I often feel about music and every once in while a poem.   That last line of the poem sums up how I feel about the actual poem.  Does that make sense?

The book is written by K.E. Sullivan

Gamercy Books, New York

Copyright 1996 Brockhamptom Press