Snowing Songs


Bouquet by Langston Hughes is a tiny jewel of a poem.

Its language is simple and its metaphors are vivid.

It reminds us of the urgency and transience of life.

And of the wealth of short-lived joys that fill it.


Alberico Collina


Bouquet

Gather quickly
Out of darkness
All the songs you know
And throw them at the sun
Before they melt
Like snow

Langston Hughes

We Happy Few


Saint Crispin's Day Speech from Shakespeare's Henry V is one of the most quoted inspirational speeches ever.

And for good reasons.

Its success owes much to Shakespeare's use of rhetoric and visualisation.

Few Is Not Bad - Few Is Good - In reply to his cousin Westmoreland, who points out that they are vastly outnumbered by the enemy, Henry V turns this handicap into a blessing:
"The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more."

Visualising Victory - Shakespeare has Henry V paint a vivid picture of what victory will look and feel like:
"He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
...Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, 'These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.' "

Promoting Unity and Belonging:
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother..."

Visualising Shame - it describes the shame that will be felt by those who decide not to join battle:
"And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day."

This speech is doing many things at once, and it's doing them very well:

• it's encouraging the troops to fight against all odds.
• it's promoting unity and belonging; and
• it's discouraging the troops from abandoning the fight.

It's a lucid example of how a memorable Call to Action should be crafted.


Alberico Collina


Saint Crispin's Day Speech from Shakespeare's Henry V

KING (Henry V):
What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin.
If we are marked to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires;
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart. His passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse.
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, “These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford, and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Lifesaver


This poem is not a poem.

This poem is a lifesaver.

Whenever I can see myself drowning in chaos, I reach for "If".

And the solace it brings comes to me in waves.


Alberico Collina


If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Life Continued


This brief poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye begins on the ground and ends in the sky.

It starts out in sadness and ends in joy.

It is a prayer - for we are the Earth, the Air, the Fire, and the Water.

And Death shall not have us.

For we are Life continued.


Alberico Collina


Do not stand at my grave and weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Her Song


The following poem is one of my favourites.

We hear the sad songs, we smell the breathing roses, and we feel the grass covering us.

We also perceive what the author will not: we see the soft shadows and the silent rain, and we hear the lamenting nightingale.

And we know the poet's life is a song she will remember; a song her lover could never forget.

Her Song.


Alberico Collina


Song by Christina G. Rossetti

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain;
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

The Meaning of Night


In Acquainted with the Night, the poem below, we walk with the author, Robert Frost, through darkness.

We see how his imagination colours and shapes the sights and sounds of the night.

We witness how, at night, his hopes and fears surface lending unusual meaning to everyday objects and noises.

And whenever we find ourselves taking a late evening walk, and immersing ourselves in its ink-black stillness, we too transform our landscape through our thoughts and feelings, we too become Acquainted with the Night.


Alberico Collina

Acquainted with the Night By Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

The Pilgrim Soul


This is one of my favourite poems.

Its language is simple.

Its message is universal.

And the tone is of someone who knows the value of loving with irony.


Alberico Collina


When You Are Old by William Butler Yeats

When you are old and grey 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.

No Reset


The following four line stanza tells us that life is more than regret and remorse.

Life means making mistakes and getting over them.

Life means embracing the future as it comes towards you. Fast.

Life means enjoying today. Now.

No second chance.

No reset.


Alberico Collina


The Moving Finger Writes; and, Having Writ

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it

from Edward Fitzgerald's translation of 'The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam'

We Learn from Every Leap

This brief and brilliant poem by Carl Sandburg is a game of mirrors where meaning jumps from one word to another.

And we learn from every leap.


Alberico Collina


Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Carl Sandburg

Alchemy through Ink

In this canto from the Love-song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S.Eliot dazzles us with words, which morph into vivid images.

The fog is a dog.

The night is a solid space.

Everything is a metaphor that carries meaning from one entity to another, and by so doing, transfigures both.

It's alchemy through ink.

Alberico Collina


"The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep."

from the Love-song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S.Eliot