Happy Burns Day!

Robert Burns (1759 – 1796), happy date of birth, lad …

I wanted to find a poem of his that I hadn’t previously read, and, coming across a few, I really enjoyed the following (hope you do too) …


*****

Love in the Guise of Friendship

Talk not of love, it gives me pain,
For love has been my foe;
He bound me in an iron chain,
And plung'd me deep in woe.

But friendship's pure and lasting joys,
My heart was form'd to prove;
There, welcome win and wear the prize,
But never talk of love.

Your friendship much can make me blest,
O why that bliss destroy?
Why urge the only, one request
You know I will deny?

Your thought, if Love must harbour there,
Conceal it in that thought;
Nor cause it in that thought;
Nor cause me from my bosom tear
The very friend I sought.

A Few Single Stanza/Poems

Speaking of single stanza poems, here’s a few that I think are pretty good (poet’s names included):



Infinity

To the ever-rising sun
There is no time, no age-
Tomorrow yesterday are one;
That which was as is to be
Doth with now as one become.
From whence we glean infinity.

Edwin A. Ackerman





Memory

Memory is a fragile thing;
A bee’s honey, and its sting.

Violet Wiggins Newton




Night is so Long

A strip of void fastened to my window frame,
And one assertive star;
Chasing me, purging me in its white flame,
Where all tomorrows are.

Mary Caluori





Friends

Some are true;
Others are not.
They’ll either love you,
Or what you’ve got.

Bea Myers



Stoic True*

Although you’ve read Chrysippus through-
And studied Epictetus too-
This doesn’t make you Stoic true,
Until you do what Stoics do.

John W. May





Hilltop Chapel

Those barless prison walls of Delta camp
Were not as frightening as one would deem.
Indeed, there I received the Spirit’s stamp,
And on hilltop chapel seen angels gleam.

Johm W. May




Bunky

With a crumpled ear and a crooked tail
And a stripped coat, like they wear in jail,
I may not amount to so very much
But still I’d like to make it clear:
I’ve earned my bed and board for life;
I caught a mouse . . . last year!

Billie Marie Crabb

****

It delights me through- this thing that bothered me a little in the past- to know that the idea of a single subject (a subject that could easily fill volumes) can be so beautifully conveyed in so short a poem. Not that I hadn’t known this before, but to see it reinforces the knowledge that it’s so.



* For the pronunciation of Chrysippus and Epictetus