A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

John Donne (1633)

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls, to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
“The breath goes now,” and some say, “No:”

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
’Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refin’d,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the’ other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.


source: http://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/bldonnelove.htm

Romantic poetry

Romantic poetry was part of the Romantic movement of European literature during the 18th-mid-19th centuries.

Some have attributed the Romantic era of poetry as a reaction against the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

Romantic poetry displays a return to nature by man, which is strongly seen in the works of Wordsworth.

Further, the Romantic poets were frustrated by the limitations placed on knowledge and the human condition by the Enlightenment's valorization of reason over emotion.

As a result, the Romantics often praised imagination as a means of furthering systems of knowledge they believed were truncated by embracing reason solely.

The specific use of the term romantic poetry varies, but the most common definition is a movement in poetry seeking formal freedom, increased emotional effect and use of ancient and folk sources for poetry.

source: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_poetry

Interpreting Poetry

Poetry is, more or less, up for interpretation.
Most poetry is not written like a novel, it does not tell a specific story and give you all of the details you need to decipher it.
A poem is there for the reader to interpret on his or her own.
After recently reading Seamus Heaney?s poem, St. Kevin and the Blackbird, I have taken my own understanding of it, which could be completely different from any one of my classmates? understandings.
Coming from a Christian background, rather than a Catholic background, I will
have a different interpretation than my Catholic classmates.
Catholicism and Christianity are similar, but in Christianity, there are no prominents saints, therefore I have very little background on the actual story of St. Kevin. This is the first, and probably biggest difference in interpretation between readers.



source: http://www.123helpme.com