Fourth Year HS poems

COMMUNICATION ARTS IN ENGLISH

Ms. Lourdes Merin

Now Mrs. Lourdes Merin Monta

(teacher)

Jean Monta Melgar

Fourth Year-A

Santa Cruz Academy

Sta. Cruz, Zambales

                School Year 1992 – 1993, we were Fourth Year high school students in Santa Cruz Academy, Sta. Cruz, Zambales when we were given these poems to study, memorize and interpret. Two of these poems we need to recite with a partner. They were titled “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” and “Her Reply”.  I was looking for something in our bodega when I come across  my 4^th year HS notebook. So I copied these poems, encoded them and shared to our group. They bring back memories of way back then, 20 years ago.

LOVE HAVE I KNOWN

By Toribia Maño

Love have I known as birds have known their skies

In lush of spring and in the summer’s fall

In a gray field of rain and sun drenched wall

I have watched petals fall and new moons rise

And these I found that although I am wise

To all the ways of love, I know not all-

But like a child still grope and heed the call

Of magic sunlight dancing in my eyes

And love is this; a sun that burns and sets

A kingdom greater than a pile of gold

Or name written in fire or flag unfurled

Or silver stars across vast orbits hurled

And love is this too: strength that one begets

By toil, fear, ecstasy the heart can hold.

THE RHODORA

In May, when sea winds pierce our solitudes,

I found the fresh rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

The purple petals, fallen in the pool,

Made the black water with their beauty gay,
Here might the redbird come his plumes cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the earth and sky;
Fill them, dear, that if eyes were made seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for being.

Why thou were there, O Rival of the rose?

I never thought to ask, I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance suppose,
The self-same power that brought me there brought you.

The Rhodora" is an 1847 poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is a response to the question "on being asked whence is the flower". The poem is about the rhodora, a common flowering shrub, and the beauty of this shrub in its natural setting.

THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD TO HIS LOVE

Christopher Marlowe

Come live with me and be my Love,

And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Or woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,

And see the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow river, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

 And I will make thee beds of roses

And a thousand fragrant posies
A cap of flowers and a kertle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair lined slipper for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.

 A belt of straw and ivy buds

With coral clasps and amber studs
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

 The shepherd swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning;
If these delights thy mind may move
Then live with me and be my love.

HER REPLY

Sir Walter Raleigh

If all the world and love were young,

And truth in every shepherds tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be Thy love.

But Time drives flocks from field to fold

When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
The rest complains of cares to come

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields

To wayward winter reckoning yields
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrows fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,

Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies,
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds

Thy coral clasps and amber studs
All these in no mean can
To come to thee and be thy Love.

But could youth last, and love still heed.
Had joys no date, nor age no need
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with me thee and be thy Love.