Poetry: February 20, 2008 Issue [#2228]
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Poetry


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  Edited by: Stormy Lady Author IconMail Icon
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Table of Contents

1. About this Newsletter
2. A Word from our Sponsor
3. Letter from the Editor
4. Editor's Picks
5. A Word from Writing.Com
6. Ask & Answer
7. Removal instructions

About This Newsletter

This is poetry from the minds and the hearts of poets on Writing.Com. The poems I am going to be exposing throughout this newsletter are ones that I have found to be, very visual, mood setting and uniquely done. Stormy Lady Author Icon


Word from our sponsor



Letter from the editor

The Rain and the Wind
by William Ernest Henley

The rain and the wind, the wind and the rain --
They are with us like a disease:
They worry the heart, they work the brain,
As they shoulder and clutch at the shrieking pane,
And savage the helpless trees.

What does it profit a man to know
These tattered and tumbling skies
A million stately stars will show,
And the ruining grace of the after-glow
And the rush of the wild sunrise?

Ever the rain -- the rain and the wind!
Come, hunch with me over the fire,
Dream of the dreams that leered and grinned,
Ere the blood of the Year got chilled and thinned,
And the death came on desire!

William Ernest Henley was born on August 23, 1849. Henley attended Crypt Grammar School as a child. At twelve years old Henley suffered from tuberculosis of the bone. This did not stop him from living his life and continuing his schooling. He enrolled in Oxford but found himself hospitalized instead for going to the university. From his hospital bed he sent poems to the Cornhill Magazine.

Henley’s condition got so bad that the doctors had to amputate his leg below the knee. After the success of the first surgery doctors told him that they would have to remove the other leg also, to save his life. Henley refused and searched for other answers. After a few new surgeries Henley was allowed to leave the hospital still having his one leg and he continued living his life for almost thirty more years.

One year after leaving the hospital Henley moved to London. He became an editor for London. This journal was the start of The New Arabian Nights of Stevenson, which Henley himself added to. Henley spent ten years there and when the journal folded he went to work as an editor for the Magazine of Art. It wasn’t until 1887 that Henley poems caught the attention of a publishing firm and they published A Book of Verse, for him. Over the next three years two more volumes of his poems were published.

Henley published most of is work in his later years. In 1890, he published Views and Reviews.Two years later in 1892 he published The Song of the Sword a book for poems named after one of the first poems he wrote. In 1900 he published For England’s Sake. During this time he also published three plays cowritten with Robert Louis Stevenson, Beau Austin, Deacon Brodie and Admiral Guinea.

On July 11, 1903, at the age of 53, Willaim Ernest Henley died. He is buried in a churchyard in the small village of Cockayne Hatley in Bedfordshire.

Ballade of Dead Actors
by William Ernest Henley

Where are the passions they essayed,
And where the tears they made to flow?
Where the wild humours they portrayed
For laughing worlds to see and know?
Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe?
Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall?
And Millamant and Romeo?
Into the night go one and all.
Where are the braveries, fresh or frayed?
The plumes, the armours -- friend and foe?
The cloth of gold, the rare brocade,
The mantles glittering to and fro?
The pomp, the pride, the royal show?
The cries of war and festival?
The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow?
Into the night go one and all.
The curtain falls, the play is played:
The Beggar packs beside the Beau;
The Monarch troops, and troops the Maid;
The Thunder huddles with the Snow.
Where are the revellers high and low?
The clashing swords? The lover's call?
The dancers gleaming row on row?
Into the night go one and all.

Invictus
by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.



Thank you all!
Stormy Lady Author Icon

A logo for Poetry Newsletter Editors
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Editor's Picks


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The winner of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contestOpen in new Window. [ASR] is:


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#1381104 by Not Available.


You wrote to me those final words "good bye"
No honor yours, nor courage to my face ~
Perhaps you felt that I would surely cry
Or snap the thread that kept my life in place.

The words you penned upon this parchment white
Did sting my eyes like scent of peppermint
I am "a rose of crimson, dark as night...
The passion ours is much too decadent."

Such narrow scope of words from one too loved
Does disappoint and sadden, in a way.
Though once I thought you helped me rise above,
I see a weak and foolish man today.

So now I leave to search for love once more,
Your note in scattered pieces on the floor.

Honorable mention:
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#1381679 by Not Available.

 Roses Are The Color Open in new Window. (13+)
An acrostic poem for Stormy Lady's contest
#1379885 by VictoriaMcCullough Author IconMail Icon



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These are the rules:

1) You must use the words I give in a poem or prose with no limits on length.

2) The words can be in any order and anywhere throughout the poem and can be any form of the word.

3) All entries must be posted in your portfolio and you must post the link in this forum by March 14, 2008.

4) The winner will get 3000 gift points and the poem will be displayed in this section of the newsletter the next time it is my turn to post (March 19, 2008)

The words are:


window wood willow water waiting white wonder wolf


*Delight* Good luck to all *Delight*

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 AN EMPTY SCREEN: award winner Open in new Window. (E)
The secrets behind a beautiful face.
#1386387 by Dr M C Gupta Author IconMail Icon

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#1386856 by Not Available.

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