wordsfromanneli

Thoughts, ideas, photos, and stories.

Tag Archives: poem


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When You Are Old

I‘ve always liked this poem by William Butler Yeats, but until today, I knew very little about the author. Having now read a summary of his life, it changed the meaning of the poem for me (not my positive feelings about it), and I’ve decided not to offer my opinion here until I hear what you, my readers, think about this poem.

When You Are Old

by William Butler Yeats

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

 

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true;

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

 

And bending down beside the glowing bars

Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.


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Irony at its Best

I had a dream about my friend Percy who told me about a guy he met who had just come back from a trip to Egypt.  This traveller went on a desert tour with a group and saw some cool remnants of large monuments.  Rulers of the ancient lands liked to leave their mark with colossal statues of themselves to remind the people who is the boss, and to intimidate any would-be conquerors of his land.

One monument, in particular, left a big impression on him. It must have been spectacular in its day, but you can imagine how a couple of thousand years of weather and blowing sand would erode even the imposing 57 -foot statue of Ramses II who ruled Egypt from 1279 – 1213 BCE.

The tour guide pointed out how, even though only the legs were left standing, you could tell from the broken pieces of the king’s face that the sculptor had a real talent for showing emotion on the statue’s face. It showed the lips wrinkled up, sneering and dominating, as he frowned at any potential intruders.

Even though the whole, humongous monument was broken up (except for the legs left standing), there still remained an inscription on the pedestal that was laughable in view of the condition of the statue of this mighty king.

The whole scene told an ironic story, so Percy thought it would make a good poem.

Here is the poem Percy wrote:

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

*** Did you know that Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned in a sailing mishap in 1822 just before his 30th birthday? Apparently, the boat was not seaworthy and the three people aboard were inexperienced when it was caught in bad weather off the west coast of Italy.


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Run, Miss Muffet!

Seasonal changes are happening in full force now that summer has said goodbye, and autumn is settling in with the morning dew. The colour of the leaves changes, the fruit is ripe and dropping on the ground, the geese are moving from one location to another, trying to settle into new patterns to accommodate the need for shelter and food as the days and nights are cooler.

Have you noticed the fruit flies and yellow jackets? Who better to take advantage of this new availability of food than the spiders? It’s the time when the tiny spiders try to come into the house and hang unnoticed in a ceiling corner.

The giant house spider also senses that it’s time to find more warmth and tries to come inside. While these black monsters are horrifying to me, it’s the fat beige ones that make me shudder most.  They hang in the fruit trees and coat my hands with their sticky webs as I try to pick fruit. They build webs, across the corners of the door to my deck and between the hanging baskets and the wall – right in my face as I walk by.

But this one! This one gets the prize.  The Captain was about to get into his old beater truck to move it. He opened the driver’s side door to get in, and stopped just in time before he might have ended up wearing this spider on his nose. The spider had caught something, but it was so wrapped up that it was hard to tell what poor insect was the victim. Yes, it’s spider time!

 

Intricate and complicated,

That’s how spider webs are rated,

Works of wowing wonder.

 

Delicate yet super strong,

Well-placed webs do not belong

Where the bee is busy.

 

Here she comes, the busy bee,

Much too late, she doesn’t see,

That this trap is fatal.

 

Spider leaps as insect weeps,

This is no game, this is for keeps,

Life so short, now shorter.

 

Sucked quite dry, the bee can’t fly,

And one more victim had to die,

Spider just gets fatter.