April is National Poetry Month

Ukiah Library Poem of the Day for National Poetry Month
April 15, 2008

The Song of Wandering Aengus

W. B. Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood.

Because a fire was in my head.

And cut and peeled a hazel wand;

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire aflame.

But something rustled on the floor,

And some one called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass;

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

“The Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty"

(In honor of National Library Week)

Willits Library National Poetry Month Poem of the Day April 15, 2008

Wilfred Owen

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

(1921)

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime. –

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes wilting in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs

Bitten as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori*.

*Translation from Horace, Odes iii.2.13 “It is sweet and honorable to die for one’s country.”