🎓 Doc Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@qoto.org

FYI, I love the fact that this poem was literally written from prison!

@General

> Stone walls do not a prison make,
> Nor iron bars a cage:
> Minds innocent and quiet take
> That for an hermitage.
> If I have freedom in my love,
> And in my soul am free,
> Angels alone, that soar above,
> Enjoy such liberty.

-- Richard Lovelace, To Althea, from Prison

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Althea,_from_Prison

#Lovelace #RichardLovelace #Poem #poetry #writing #literature @General

> Though much is taken, much abides; and though
> We are not now that strength which in old days
> Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
> One equal temper of heroic hearts,
> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
> To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

-- Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses

https://poets.org/poem/ulysses

#Tennyson #Ulysses #Poetry #poem #writing @General

XVII( I do not love you)

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

-- Pablo Neruda

#PabloNeruda #Neruda #Poetry #writing @General

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old time, and regulate the sun;
Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Or tread the mazy round his follow'rs trod,
And quitting sense call imitating God;
As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,
And turn their heads to imitate the sun.
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule—
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!

Superior beings, when of late they saw
A mortal Man unfold all Nature's law,
Admir'd such wisdom in an earthly shape,
And showed a Newton as we shew an Ape.

Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind,
Describe or fix one movement of his mind?
Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend,
Explain his own beginning, or his end?
Alas what wonder! Man's superior part
Uncheck'd may rise, and climb from art to art;
But when his own great work is but begun,
What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.

Trace science then, with modesty thy guide;
First strip off all her equipage of pride;
Deduct what is but vanity, or dress,
Or learning's luxury, or idleness;
Or tricks to show the stretch of human brain,
Mere curious pleasure, or ingenious pain;
Expunge the whole, or lop th' excrescent parts
Of all our Vices have created Arts;
Then see how little the remaining sum,
Which serv'd the past, and must the times to come!

-- Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man: Epistle II

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44900/an-essay-on-man-epistle-ii

(Note: May want to read epistle I first)

#writing #poetry #quote #AlexanderPope #APope

> This above all:
> To thine own self be true.
> And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man"

-- Shakespeare, Hamlet

#writing #Shakespear #Hamlet #poetry

So here we do stand with our flaws to be seen;
the trust in each other does wash it all clean.
My love for myself is my love for you too,
for your love is my love, we both can imbue.
See!
I need naught from you, for its part of myself,
and to give from that part only strengthens ourself.

https://jeffreyfreeman.me/holy-guardian-angel/

But her [the moon's] radiance grew,
and the stars themselves did envy her.
Yet she gave of herself freely,
turning envy to love.
So that they did dance,
the stars with the moon,
happily overhead,
for all to see.

https://jeffreyfreeman.me/initiation/

#poetry #writing