Spenser is most famous for his famously l-o-n-g poem, The Faerie Queen, which I, like 99% of the world, have never read. He lived in Elizabethan England, a contemporary of Shakespeare and a friend of Sir Walter Raleigh.

Spenser wrote the following poem, and my question to you is: what is the poem about? A hunting expedition? A woman? Both? Something else?

The Tamed Deer

Like as a huntsman after weary chase
Seeing the game from him escaped away,
Sits down to rest him in some shady place,
With panting hounds beguiled of their prey:
So, after long pursuit and vain assay,
When I all weary had the chase forsook,
The gentle deer returned the self-same way,
Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brook.
There she beholding me with milder look,
Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide;
Till I in hand her yet half trembling took,
And with her own good-will her firmly tied.
Strange thing, me seemed, to see a beast so wild
So goodly won, with her own will beguiled.

The Hunted Roe-Deer on the Alert, Spring, 1867

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Courbet, Gustave


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More Poetry Friday at A Year of Reading: Two Teachers Who Read. A Lot.

Caedmon was a servant at the monastery of Whitby Abbey in the seventh century and is the first English poet whose name is known. Bede wrote of him:

Then he did this on a certain occasion, that he left the banquet-hall and he was going out to the animal stables, which herd had been assigned to him that night. When he there at a suitable time set his limbs at rest and fell asleep, then some man stood by him in his dream and hailed and greeted him and addressed him by his name: ‘Caedmon, sing me something.’ Then he answered and said: ‘I do not know how to sing and for that reason I went out from this feast and went hither, because I did not know how to sing at all.’ Again he said, he who was speaking with him: ‘Nevertheless, you must sing.’ Then he said: ‘What must I sing?’ Said he: ‘Sing to me of the first Creation.’ When he received this answer, then he began immediately to sing in praise of God the Creator verses and words which he had never heard, whose order is this:

Now [we] must honour the Guardian of Heaven,
the might of the Architect, and His purpose,
the work of the Father of Glory
— as He, the Eternal Lord, established the beginning of wonders.
He, the holy Creator,
first created heaven as a roof for the children of men.
Then the Guardian of mankind, the Eternal Lord,
the Lord Almighty, afterwards appointed the middle earth,
the lands, for men.

Saint Hilda of Whitby Anglo-Saxon Abbess Receiving a Visit from Caedmon

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Reid, Stephen


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This poem fragment (translated from Old English) is the only one of Caedmon’s poems extant. If you want to try your hand at reading seventh century English, you can find Bede’s account of Caedmon here.

Cloudscome has the Poetry Friday Roundup at A Wrung Sponge this week.

I haven’t been much of a Poetry Friday participant lately, but maybe I’ll start again with today’s entry. Christian Rossetti is one of my favorite poets, and I found this poem when looking for “summer poems.”

Here’s hoping that your summer will not drone on in dusty, musty lag-last fashion but will rather be like the lark singing, singing, singing . . .

Summer Bouquet

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Picasso, Pablo


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The Poetry Friday Roundup for this week is at Just Another Day of Catholic Pondering.

Here are a couple of the poems we put in our May baskets yesterday, along with the wildflowers we picked in the vacant lots behind the mall. Who says you can’t get close to nature in Major Suburbia?

A delicate fabric of bird song 

Floats in the air, 

The smell of wet wild earth

 Is everywhere. 

Red small leaves of the maple
Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
The pear trees stand.
Oh I must pass nothing by 

Without loving it much, 

The raindrop try with my lips,
The grass with my touch; 

For how can I be sure

 I shall see again 

The world on the first of May 

Shining after the rain?
- Sara Teasdale, May Day

Now the bright morning-star, Day’s harbinger,

Comes dancing from the East, and leads withher

The flowery May, who from her green lap throws

The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.

Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire

Mirth, and youth, and warm desire!

Woods and groves are of thy dressing;

Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.

Thus we salute thee with our early song,

And welcome thee, and wish thee long.
-
John Milton, Song on a May Morning, 1660

May is Get Caught Reading Month:

Tete d’une Femme Lisant

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Picasso, Pablo


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I asked the urchins what this picture was, and they had multiple answers: two people kissing, weird, colored body parts . . . I had one of the French-speaking urchins translate the title: “Head of a Girl Reading.”

Spring

What is the time of year where flowers grow, 
where the sun comes out, and water flows. 
When is the time the birds come out, 
the time of year everybody talks about. 

It has such a wonderful sound, 
It's the time of year leaves don't fall on the ground. 
I never knew it's the best time of year, 
until my grandpa started living here. 
He says " Son now you should know 
the time of year you use the hoes,
because it's when the flowers grow, 
SO pretty now you need to know. 

I'll tell you now but keep it a secret, 
you can't even tell it to the egret. 
The thing i've been telling you is Spring my boy
and that always filled me up with joy. 
And so now you know what i've been saying, 
better go see the dog Huffy baying. 
Oh, yes it's my favorite time of the year, 
have no fear it's spring!