Folly

(For A. K. K.)



What distant mountains thrill and glow
    Beneath our Lady Folly's tread?
Why has she left us, wise in woe,
    Shrewd, practical, uncomforted?
We cannot love or dream or sing,
    We are too cynical to pray,
There is no joy in anything
    Since Lady Folly went away.

Many a knight and gentle maid,
    Whose glory shines from years gone by,
Through ignorance was unafraid
    And as a fool knew how to die.
Saint Folly rode beside Jehanne
    And broke the ranks of Hell with her,
And Folly's smile shone brightly on
    Christ's plaything, Brother Juniper.

Our minds are troubled and defiled
    By study in a weary school.
O for the folly of the child!
    The ready courage of the fool!
Lord, crush our knowledge utterly
    And make us humble, simple men;
And cleansed of wisdom, let us see
    Our Lady Folly's face again.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

Alfred Joyce Kilmer was an American poet, journalist, literary critic, lecturer, and soldier. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated the common beauty of the natural world, he is best known for a short poem titled 'Trees' (1913), which was published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Kilmer's work has been widely anthologized and remains well-loved. He died during World War I in France at the age of 31.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

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English

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Love And Folly. - From La Fontaine. (Translations.)

Love's worshippers alone can know
The thousand mysteries that are his;
His blazing torch, his twanging bow,
His blooming age are mysteries.
A charming science, but the day
Were all too short to con it o'er;
So take of me this little lay,
A sample of its boundless lore.

As once, beneath the fragrant shade
Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air,
The children, Love and Folly, played,
A quarrel rose betwixt the pair.
Love said the gods should do him right,
But Folly vowed to do it then,
And struck him, o'er the orbs of sight,
So hard he never saw again.

His lovely mother's grief was deep,
She called for vengeance on the deed;
A beauty does not vainly weep,
Nor coldly does a mother plead.
A shade came o'er the eternal bliss
That ...

William Cullen Bryant

Love And Folly.

^[1]

Love bears a world of mystery -
His arrows, quiver, torch, and infancy:
'Tis not a trifling work to sound
A sea of science so profound:
And, hence, t' explain it all to-day
Is not my aim; but, in my simple way,
To show how that blind archer lad
(And he a god!) came by the loss of sight,
And eke what consequence the evil had,
Or good, perhaps, if named aright -
A point I leave the lover to decide,
As fittest judge, who hath the matter tried.
Together on a certain day,
Said Love and Folly were at play:
The former yet enjoy'd his eyes.
Dispute arose. Love thought it wise
Before the council of the gods to go,
Where both of them by birth held stations;
But Folly, in her lack of patience,
Dealt on his forehead such a blow

Jean de La Fontaine

Apology

(For Eleanor Rogers Cox)



For blows on the fort of evil
That never shows a breach,
For terrible life-long races
To a goal no foot can reach,
For reckless leaps into darkness
With hands outstretched to a star,
There is jubilation in Heaven
Where the great dead poets are.

There is joy over disappointment
And delight in hopes that were vain.
Each poet is glad there was no cure
To stop his lonely pain.
For nothing keeps a poet
In his high singing mood
Like unappeasable hunger
For unattainable food.

So fools are glad of the folly
That made them weep and sing,
And Keats is thankful for Fanny Brawne
And Drummond for his king.
They know that on flinty sorrow
And failure and desire
The steel of their souls...

Alfred Joyce Kilmer

To The Book Of Follies.

WRITTEN IN A COMMONPLACE BOOK, CALLED "THE BOOK OF FOLLIES;" IN WHICH EVERY ONE THAT OPENED IT WAS TO CONTRIBUTE SOMETHING.


This tribute's from a wretched elf,
Who hails thee, emblem of himself.
The book of life, which I have traced,
Has been, like thee, a motley waste
Of follies scribbled o'er and o'er,
One folly bringing hundreds more.
Some have indeed been writ so neat,
In characters so fair, so sweet,
That those who judge not too severely,
Have said they loved such follies dearly!
Yet still, O book! the allusion stands;
For these were penned by female hands:
The rest--alas! I own the truth--
Have all been scribbled so uncouth
That Prudence, with a withering look,
Disdainful, flings away the book.
Like thine, its pages here and there...

Thomas Moore

To Fancy

O! what a nameless feeling of delight
Stole o'er my wondering spirit, like a gleam
From opening heaven! dost thou, then, Fancy, deign
Once more to visit me? thou dost! thou dost!
That breath of extacy, that heavenly light,
Flow'd from the wafture of thy angel wings,
And from thy smiling eyes: divinest Power!
Welcome, thrice welcome! O vouchsafe to make
My breast thy temple, and my heart thy shrine!
Still will I worship thee, and thou shalt keep,
In peace, thy new abode, nor fear the approach
Of aught profane or hostile, to disturb
Thy holy mysteries; for I will chase
Far from the hallow'd precincts where thou dwell'st
Each worldly passion, every grovelling thought,
And all the train of Vice; striving to make
The shrine well-worthy its celestial guest.
Sti...

Thomas Oldham

The Fool Rings His Bells

Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee;
And thou, poor Innocency;
And Love - a lad with broken wing;
And Pity, too:
The Fool shall sing to you,
As Fools will sing.

Aye, music hath small sense.
And a time's soon told,
And Earth is old,
And my poor wits are dense;
Yet I have secrets, - dark, my dear,
To breathe you all: Come near.
And lest some hideous listener tells,
I'll ring the bells.

They're all at war!
Yes, yes, their bodies go
'Neath burning sun and icy star
To chaunted songs of woe,
Dragging cold cannon through a mire
Of rain and blood and spouting fire,
The new moon glinting hard on eyes
Wide with insanities!

Hush!... I use words
I hardly know the meaning of;
And the mute birds
Are glancing ...

Walter De La Mare