Dead Poets Remembrance Day

I heard on the news this morning that today is "dead poets day". This intrigued me. I never heard of this before, so I did what any curious person would do and looked it up on the internet. Sure enough, it's real. (A word of warning, if you click over, wear your shades - the site is rather bright.)  Part of this celebration includes traveling around to dead poets' grave sites and doing a poetry reading. I checked it out and none are very close to me, but I really wish I could participate.

To that end, I post two of my all-time favorite poems. If you happen to be in Bennington, Vermont, feel free to stop by Robert Frost's grave and read Nothing Gold Can Stay.

Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf's a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay. 

If you're close to Cambridge, Massachusetts, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is buried there and you could recite The Children's Hour.

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

I like poetry but only the simple kind.  I'm not a fan of any type of work that requires someone with a Ph.D. to explain what "it" means.  For me that kind of dissection interferes with the beauty of the piece.

Do you like poetry?    Do you like to dissect and analyze?