She Does Not Need Any Praise (Cavatina Sequence)
(after Archibald MacLeish)
The greatest happiness she have given
today to me,
in the ways that together our lives is,
tranquillity
is in each smile, like a hot summer day,
totally free
she does her duty in words and her ways,
she acts unhindered like the sun's rays.
Fresh loaves of bread, lovely food she spreads,
great joy she finds
in her selfless acts that brings happiness,
free like the winds
her feet run while she lights candles, sometimes sings;
one of her kind
my wife is, she does not need any praise
as she loves with an amazing true grace.
[Reference: 'Poem in Prose' by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Related quotes
Poem in Prose
This poem is for my wife.
I have made it plainly and honestly:
The mark is on it
Like the burl on the knife.
I have not made it for praise.
She has no more need for praise
Than summer has
Or the bright days.
In all that becomes a woman
Her words and her ways are beautiful:
Love's lovely duty,
the well-swept room.
Wherever she is there is sun
And time and a sweet air:
Peace is there,
Work done.
There are always curtains and flowers
And candles and baked bread
And a cloth spread
And a clean house.
Her voice when she sings is a voice
At dawn by a freshening spring
Where the wave leaps in the wind
And rejoices.
Wherever she is it is now.
It is here where the apples are:
Here in the stars,
In the quick hour.
The greatest and richest good,
My own life to live in,
This she has given me --
If giver could.
poem by Archibald MacLeish
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Will Nature At A Time Be Really Lost? (Cavatina Sequence)
(after Archibald MacLeish)
Will nature at a time be really lost,
no snowflake fall
as the world becomes extremely hot,
while big and small
live in a man-made kind of sheer hot hell?
If man kills all;
the fish, each bird, each animal and tree,
what's living will at a time, no more be.
No bird will sing, or even be flying,
tranquility
will be gone in a world as stark as stone,
each thing lovely,
each leaping fish, diving crying great eagle
will die slowly,
when all of the ozone layer is gone
and the greenhouse effect just lingers on.
[Reference: 'The Snowflake Which Is Now And Hence Forever' by Archibald MacLeish.}
poem by Gert Strydom
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On The End Of The World (Cavatina Sequence)
(after Archibald MacLeish)
Behind the scenes they act, while on the stage
life is a dance
and we fall for the show and laugh and play
in romance,
as in quick-time we are very smitten,
are in a trance
as some Bee-bee Bob the clown laughs and cries;
men go off to war to kill and some dies
and then still lurking are unseen beings,
in sheer darkness;
they poise, do mislead and cover their tracks,
with great aloofness
they turn all beliefs in nothing at all,
bring lawlessness,
try to drag most of humanity down
to wait on great disaster as their own.
[Reference: 'The End of the World' by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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The Night Dream (Cavatina Sequence)
(after Archibald MacLeish)
It had been a dream but seemed much too real;
her eyes, her voice,
had a quiet kind of lovely quality,
even her poise
had maturity, some kind of gentleness,
with no noise
but the buzzing of bees at a flower
while we lay down in fields of white clover.
The sun fell hot on our skins, her smile was
very dazzling,
while her soft hand gently touched my face,
there was something
known in the way that she did speak with me,
how she did fling
her hair back, while my head did gently rest,
on her soft heaving perfect naked breast.
Love I do not know she said and smiled,
but she was mine,
while we kissed in moments of pure bliss,
drank some white wine,
talked about some things close to the heart,
the curving line
I traced of her bended lovely back
while the greatest pure joy we did not lack.
It had only been a rapturous dream,
that was fading
but her skin, her smile was kind of special;
away wading
into the vast ocean of memory
until reading
from the magazine you looked up at me,
I could not pass when your face I did see.
[Reference: 'The Night Dream' by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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On science (cavatina sequence)
(after Archibald MacLeish)
She does not worry about why things are;
that they exist
to be contemplated or observed,
how they persist,
is far enough for her own simple reasoning,
she does resist
their reason, in rote produces answers,
perfect to devotions of her followers.
She thinks she knows where all things do come from,
far beyond her
kind of scope is metaphysics, physical
she does gather,
she is protected in her own dungeon,
nothing further
she knows about love, joy, fear and sorrow,
as she proclaims things for each tomorrow.
Beyond the stars, the sheer utter darkness,
shines a true light,
beyond the unknown, beyond a ocean,
out of her sight
are things like life to which He answers know,
to her its night
to comprehend the very soul of man,
as mechanical she does what she can.
[Reference: "Dr. Sigmund Freud Discovers the Sea Shell" by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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A man who lives, not by what he loves but what he hates, is a sick man.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The art of poetry (cavatina sequence) (in answer to Archibald Macleish)
A poem should touch, should palpable belong,
it should reach out,
with a kind of eternal caring truth;
it should scream, shout
of each injustice and pain that do remain
and be about
almost anything or each happening,
as something that is truly worth saying.
Not silent or dumb it falls on the ear,
as it's profound,
in a great symphony of the purest
kind of clear sound,
its rhythms do ring with every line
it is not bound
by politics, machinations of men
and can be a blessing or an omen.
[Reference: "Ars poetica" by Archibald Macleish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Spring has many American faces. There are cities where it will come and go in a day and counties where it hangs around and never quite gets there. Summer is drawn blinds in Louisiana, long winds in Wyoming, shade of elms and maples in New England.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
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Enigmatic People (Cavatina Sequence) (In Answer To Archibald Macleish)
Reflected in glass with golden bubbles
distorted faces
stare at him, some looking quite grim and some old;
different places
they call home while to this place they do come,
girls with their graces
that are totally gone, smile, look, at him
before they do triple on, while his eyes swim.
He sits in a bar in Fourth Avenue
while twilight falls,
a soft hot hand covers his for a moment,
his thoughts do stall;
she is very beautiful, her eyes gleam,
and he feels tall
when they leave chatting and are full of lust
and they do know together sleep they must.
Taxis with sharp headlights pass them roaring
as they walk on,
they are comfortable with each other,
but love is gone
from both their lives and the intimate touch
just like set stone
helps them to fit in the puzzle of life
as they with other people leave and arrive.
In the morning their names are unknown, it's strange,
the air is stale
with the smell of cigarette buts, sex and wine
and totally male
he smiles at her as they make love again;
the taste of ale
is bitter in his mouth, her kisses sweet;
but they might never again like this meet.
No words hurt as they go their different ways,
past the white beach
he walks where the wind roars, gulls screech, flutter;
now out of reach
like a sweet kind of dream she is now gone
and each to each
they go to home, to work and they do play;
in their lives it's just another new day.
[Reference: 'inema of a Man' by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Liberty
When liberty is headlong girl
And runs her roads and wends her ways
Liberty will shriek and whirl
Her showery torch to see it blaze.
When liberty is wedded wife
And keeps the barn and counts the byre
Liberty amends her life.
She drowns her torch for fear of fire.
poem by Archibald MacLeish
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Freedom is the right to one's dignity as a man.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
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We have no choice but to be guilty. God is unthinkable if we are innocent.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
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What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
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The Too-Late Born (Cavatina) (In Answer To Archibald Macleish)
We were too late born to escape from war,
was forced to go,
have caused with great manmade bolts of thunder
the slain; do know
the soulless agony that comes from killing,
saw phosphor glow
as it burns red with a projectile strike;
the destruction, killing, we did not like.
[Reference: 'The Too-Late Born' by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Autumn (In Reply To Archibald Macleish)
Like the end of life that comes with old age,
Autumn stripped
turns most of the trees into skeletons,
in cold nipped
days are windswept, the sun without its glare,
we are gripped
by the first spells of winter that is coming,
as if death is already in homing.
[Reference: Immortal Autumn by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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You burned the city of London in our houses and we felt the flames.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What Any Nature Lover Knows (Cavatina) (In Answer To Archibald Macleish)
Water rushes on; brown, green or silver
as it breaks stone,
it caries particles as sand along
till it is gone,
filling everything that it covers,
has a loud tone
that thunders ominous where it does fall
but it allures, draws both people big and small.
[Reference: 'What Any Lover Learns' by Archibald MacLeish.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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