In 1846 Elizabeth Barrett met Robert Browning. She was a British poet and was 40 years old at the time. Browning was a renowned man of letter. Barrett had injured her spine in a fall and was a semi-invalid. She lived with her father who was overbearing and had actually forbidden any of his children to ever marry.

However, he also encouraged her to pursue writing, and even had 50 copies of her first narrative poem published himself. So Barrett and Browning, when they fell in love, kept their love a secret and ended up eloping to Italy.

Elizabeth wrote many beautiful love poems to her husband, and in 1850 she published 44 of these poems in a collection titled Sonnets from the Portuguese because Browning often called her “my little Portuguese” because of her dark complexion. The most famous of the sonnets if #43. Here it is:

Sonnets from the Portuguese, #43
~Elizabeth Barrett-Browning (1850)~

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Absolutely beautiful, isn’t it? My favorite line is “I love thee freely as men strive for right.”

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April Fools’ Day is my least favorite day of the school year. I’m always happy when the date lands on a weekend. For a teacher, it’s a matter of trying to respond appropriately to “There’s a spider on your back!” over and over and over again. I don’t know why, but that seems to be the prevailing “joke” that kids like to play on teachers.  It’s usually followed by uncontrollable laughter - as though the line was completely original.  And perhaps, for that particular child, it is, which is why I always try to keep a positive attitude about it.

Here’s a poem I found that the kids enjoy reading on this momentous day:

Good Morning, Dear Students
~By Kenn Nesbitt~

“Good morning, dear students,” the principal said,
“Please put down your pencils and go back to bed.
Today we will spend the day playing outside
Then take the whole school on a carnival ride.

“We’ll learn to eat candy while watching TV
then listen to records and swing from a tree.
We’ll also be learning to draw on the walls,
to scream in the classrooms and run in the halls.

“So bring your skateboard, your scooter, your bike.
It’s time to be different and do what you like.
The teachers are going to give you a rest.
You don’t have to study. There won’t be a test.

“And if you’d prefer, for a bit of a change,
feel free to go wild and act really strange.
Go put on a clown suit and dye your hair green,
and copy your face on the Xerox machine.

“Tomorrow, it’s back to the regular grind.
Today, just go crazy. We really don’t mind.
So tear up your homework. We’ll give you an A.
Oh wait. I’m just kidding. It’s April Fools’ Day!”

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Don’t you just love this poem?

      LOVE’S PHILOSOPHY

The fountains mingle with the river,
  And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever,
  With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
  All thing by a law divine
In one another’s being mingle: -
  Why not I with thine?

See! the mountains kiss high heaven,
  And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven
  If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
  And the moonbeams kiss the sea: -
What are all these kissings worth,
  If thou kiss not me?
~Percy Bysshe Shelley~

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This is a poem my mother wrote.  Here’s her story about it: 

A few years before my husband died, we bought a cemetery lot in Conyers where his father and grandparents were burried.  Charles was still in a busy pastorate, but late one afternoon we finally went down to see the lot and to visit his mother who lived nearby.  As it began to get dark in the cemetery, I noticed lights going on in the homes near the cemetery.  It seemed like a parable to me, comparable to parents leaving lights on at night for their children.  I wrote:

The Light

My father always left a light  for me …
Against the nighttime shadows
Lovingly

He left the door unlocked
It opened wide
And I could safely find
My way inside

Beyond the grave
I see a light . . . I see
The Light of home.

God left a light for me
So I can walk through death
With faith . . . not fear
I see the lights of home
And God is near!

~RBS, 1980~

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This is one of RT’s favorite poems. He just asked me to look it up on the internet - within seconds I had it and read it aloud to him. I wanted to include it here, too.

The Bridge Builder

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim, near,
“You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head:
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.”

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This has been one of my favorite poems ever since I first heard it many many years ago.  Maybe because it’s almost unbearably sentimental, and it makes one wonder what happened to Little Boy Blue:

Little Boy Blue

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
  But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
  And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
  And the soldier was passing fair,
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
  Kissed them and put them there.

“Now, don’t you go till I come,” he said,
  “And don’t you make any noise!”
So toddling off to his trundle bed
  He dreamt of his pretty toys.
And as he was dreaming, an angel song
  Awakened our Little Boy Blue, -
Oh, the years are many, the years are long
  But the little toy friends are true!

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
  Each in the same old place.
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
  The smile of a little face.
And they wonder, as waiting these long years through,
  In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue
  Since he kissed them and put them there.

~Eugene Field, 1850-1895~

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RT has been writing poetry again. This one is about his mother and dedicated to his mother, Lillian.  I think it’s beautiful.

Sunflower Mountain

In the early morning sun
hands worn thin by time
and soft by the love
of giving and doing
for others

Pour sunflower seeds high
from a rusty coffee can
onto a weathered plank
atop a worn old cedar post
all dressed in clematis
planted years ago by those
same loving hands.

In moments one small
seed at a time is
given a brief flight
from feeder to limb

Some are stored in
crevices and cracks
while others are cracked
open and fuel the next
flight.

One by one the
sunflower mountain is
made low
As a reminder
that those who neither
sow nor reap
are cared for by those
who share
the love of heart
by the gifts of their
hands

Copyright 2008, RTJ

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I told RT that he’s going to be like Grandma Moses and wait until his later years to give his artistic and creative side full rein.  Here is this morning’s poem - inspired by watching the birds on the bird feeders outside out family room windows:

Come to my Feeder, My Feathered Friends

From generation to generation,
feathered flyers
come and they go
Carrying no baggage
yet dressed to the nines
in plummage so brilliant
so rich and so fine

Our hearts are warmed
and spirits renewed
by regulars we
know well and
unknown guests we seek to name
by shape of beak
plump or sleek
by markings or wing bars
by color, by flight.

Whoever they are
whatever their name
at the end of the day
we thank God they
all came.

Copyright 2008, RTJ

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RT wrote this poem this morning as a “gift” to bring a smile to my face.  I think it is beautiful.  What do you think?

Seeking Unity

A lonely flighted goose
wings across the
lighted moon

with grace and
mystery.

Flying high
above the wintry, barren
fields

He moves so
gallantly -

Moves to join
a forming vee
to build again
a
family.

~Copyright 2008, RTJ~

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RT is writing a poem, and he needs your help.  Here is the setting:  RT is sitting on a ridge in Tennessee looking out on trees and the shedding process.  What should be the next line to this poem.  Any ideas?

Winter’s Why

Why do the trees shed their leaves

when facing winter’s approaching icing?

____________________________

____________________________

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