POETRY

 

I like poetry that is a narrative.  My first introduction to poetry was my high school English teacher, Miss Long, requiring us to memorize and recite a poem of our choice.   I chose The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service.   I still remember and can recite that poem.    

My favorite poet is Robert Frost.    

I have read portions of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and I find much of it hard to get through.  Many of his poems continue for multiple pages and seem to ramble on forever.   However, if you are interested in the history of the Civil War (I am not) you must read “Drum Taps”.  There are many books written by historians that chronicle the carnage of the Civil War, but Whitman, a battlefield nurse, puts you there.     You can not but be moved by A SIGHT IN CAMP IN THE DAYBREAK GRAY AND DIM or feel the futility of  A WOUND-DRESSER.

  

 A SIGHT IN CAMP IN THE DAYBREAK GRAY AND

DIM.

A SIGHT in camp in the daybreak gray and dim,

As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless,

As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital
tent,

Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended
lying,

Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket,

Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.

Curious I halt and silent stand,

Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first just
lift the blanket;

Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray'd
hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes?

Who are you my dear comrade?

Then to the second I step—and who are you my child and
darling?

Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of
beautiful yellow-white ivory;

Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face
of the Christ himself,

Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.

the Ol'Buzzard