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 4th 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.
