Dead Poets: *
Every now and then I will post a poem written by someone who is dead. I do this for two reasons: 1) Even though poetry is often nonsense, some of it is brilliant. 2) The dead are not likely to sue me for copyright infringement (and hopefully their publishers will view such posting as free advertising).
I may even post some lines and poems from living poets safely, knowing that no one is reading this right now anyway and legal actions are not likely to be on the horizon.
*Remember when I said this blog would be educational?
And the first poem of this possible series is:
‘The Seven Sorrows’
The first sorrow of autumn
Is the slow goodbye
Of the garden who stands so long in the evening-
A brown poppy head,
The stalk of a lily,
And still cannot go.
The second sorrow
Is the empty feet
Of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers.
The woodland of gold
Is folded in feathers
With its head in a bag.
And the third sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the sun who has gathered the birds and who gathers
The minutes of evening,
The golden and holy
Ground of the picture.
The fourth sorrow
Is the pond gone black
Ruined and sunken the city of water-
The beetle's palace,
The catacombs
Of the dragonfly.
And the fifth sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the woodland that quietly breaks up its camp.
One day it's gone.
It has only left litter-
Firewood, tentpoles.
And the sixth sorrow
Is the fox's sorrow
The joy of the huntsman, the joy of the hounds,
The hooves that pound
Till earth closes her ear
To the fox's prayer.
And the seventh sorrow
Is the slow goodbye
Of the face with its wrinkles that looks through the window
As the year packs up
Like a tatty fairground
That came for the children.
By Ted Hughes
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