“Comin Thro’ the Rye” by Robert Burns never ceases to remind me of Catcher in the Rye. In fact, I never thought about the poem much before I read that book. Funny how that happens sometimes.

Enjoy this poetry Saturday.

O, Jenny’s a’ weet, poor body,
Jenny’s seldom dry:
She draigl’t a’ her petticoatie,
Comin thro’ the rye!

Comin thro’ the rye, poor body,
Comin thro’ the rye,
She draigl’t a’ her petticoatie,
Comin thro’ the rye!

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro’ the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro’ the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warl’ ken?

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro’ the grain;
Gin a body kiss a body,
The thing’s a body’s ain.

More books by and about Robert Burns:

• Poems and Songs of Robert Burns
• Burns: Poems (Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets)
• The Bard: Robert Burns, A Biography

For this poetry Saturday, how about a classic from Edgar Allan Poe.

‘Twas noontide of summer,
And mid-time of night;
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, thro’ the light
Of the brighter, cold moon,
‘Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.
I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;

Too cold- too cold for me-
There pass’d, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar,
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.

More by Edgar Allan Poe:

• The Portable Edgar Allan Poe
• Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Madness
• Edgar Allan Poe’s Complete Poetical Works

How is your Saturday going? Here is an old favorite from William Butler Yeats.

I call on those that call me son,
Grandson, or great-grandson,
On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts,
To judge what I have done.
Have I, that put it into words,
Spoilt what old loins have sent?
Eyes spiritualised by death can judge,
I cannot, but I am not content.
He that in Sligo at Drumcliff
Set up the old stone Cross,

That red-headed rector in County Down,
A good man on a horse,
Sandymount Corbets, that notable man
Old William Pollexfen,
The smuggler Middleton, Butlers far back,
Half legendary men.
Infirm and aged I might stay
In some good company,
I who have always hated work,
Smiling at the sea,
Or demonstrate in my own life
What Robert Browning meant
By an old hunter talking with Gods;
But I am not content.

More Good Stuff From William Butler Yeats:

• Selected Poems And Four Plays of William Butler Yeats
• The Celtic Twilight
• The Wild Swans at Coole

Who couldn’t use some more Robert Frost? Hope you enjoy this one from him today.

I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
you shook your pensive head as who should say,
‘I dare not — too far in his footsteps stray –
He must seek me would he undo the wrong.’

Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all
behind low boughs the trees let down outside;
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide.
But ’tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.

When it comes to Emily Dickinson poems, this one has to be my favorite. And that’s saying something! Because I like many of her poems.

I hope you enjoy this one. Happy Saturday.

This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.

Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!

Books by Emily Dickinson:

• The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
• Poetry for Young People: Emily Dickinson
• Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries

Robert Louis Stevenson was one of those amazingly talented authors who could write classics like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped, and Treaure Island, and yet still pen wonderful poems like “Fear Not, Dear Friend, But Freely Live Your Days.”

Enjoy this poem today and if you have a favorite you’d like to share, let me know. Happy Saturday to you all!

Fear not, dear friend, but freely live your days
Though lesser lives should suffer. Such am I,
A lesser life, that what is his of sky
Gladly would give for you, and what of praise.
Step, without trouble, down the sunlit ways.
We that have touched your raiment, are made whole
From all the selfish cankers of man’s soul,
And we would see you happy, dear, or die.
Therefore be brave, and therefore, dear, be free;
Try all things resolutely, till the best,
Out of all lesser betters, you shall find;
And we, who have learned greatness from you, we,
Your lovers, with a still, contented mind,
See you well anchored in some port of rest.

When it comes to poetry, it’s hard to go wrong with Robert Frost. I’ve enjoyed his work for many years, and this poem is one of his most popular. Enjoy your Saturday!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

More by Robert Frost:

• The Road Not Taken: A Selection of Robert Frost’s Poems
• A Boy’s Will (1884)
• Early Poems (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

A great one from Walt Whitman for your Saturday. Enjoy.

A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
Ever unreeling them–ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,–seeking the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form’d–till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

Books by Walt Whitman:

• The Portable Walt Whitman (Penguin Classics)
• Leaves of Grass
• Whitman: Poetry and Prose (Library of America College Editions)

Image: Morguefile

Today’s poem is by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Enjoy.

Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, – act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Works by Longfellow:

• Poetry for Young People: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Paul Revere’s Ride

Another classic poem, this time by John Donne. Enjoy. (And enjoy your Saturday!)

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallow’d in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more.