"For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies. To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed themselves."

William Wordsworth, 

Preface to Lyrical Ballads

1800

Image by " target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gerd Altmann from " target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pixabay

The thunderstorm donates its wares

On highly indiscriminate grounds

Till finally in the slight depression

Where the reeling hills converge

The rivulet begins

Then quickly vanishes. And yet

If I were thirsty I'd wait there

As whispering clouds discretely gather

Circulate and merge before

Dispensing life.

I’m always thirsty.

And always waiting.

I am reading Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Lord Byron for the first time. I know Shelley well, and Keats, and some of Coleridge and Wordsworth. But all I knew of Byron was the poem She Walks in Beauty like the Night. Byron was a great traveler and the poem is more travelogue than narrative, but full of passages that speak to me, which is all I ask of a poem. Here is one:

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:
   My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,
   And my frame perish even in conquering pain,
   But there is that within me which shall tire
   Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire:
   Something unearthly, which they deem not of,
   Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,
   Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.

The second edition of Sonets from the Chesapeke is available today, with additional sonets (the sonets have two five line stanzas with a concluding couplet).

Here are a couple:  

  His Joy

Toss a coin into a lake. Go ahead.

Just please be sure to miss the (friendly) fish.

They were there first. If you wish to wait

until the wave is gone, get comfortable.

It’s never gone, just beyond your vision.

His joy was like a wave,

Splash like laughter, washing wavering

Flowing out in all directions

Was all we saw, all we could see.

But I’ll tell you—this I know.

Such joy in life could never dissipate.

Touch the water. Hear it laugh.

  Night of the Harvest

Night of the harvest I dive in,

swimming toward the bay.

The moon rented the creek for the night

But didn’t mind our play

Or wouldn’t say

If it did. The water warm

from the day, still, still

in the breathless calm, the stars shuttered

at the moon’s will,

and ours, until

you. We float, touch, hold, part,

Within, the gravity of absent stars.