As poets
we are keepers
of the wonders
of the human world
of space and matter
of time and mind
Our songs are
to renew
and strengthen
all failing hope
All things are recreated
and the flame
of consensual love
inspires all life
John Lyons
With words taken from the poetry of Shelley (1792-1822)
The poet and the poem
the eye
and the landscape
the painter
and the canvas
are one
the field
the campus
all over
streaks and shreds
and flecks of colour
an alphabet
of shape
of gesture
all under the same
heavenly stars
skylarks nest
on the ground
their young sheltered
in the dense undergrowth
until their muscles
are fit enough
to bear them
high into the air
they herald the dawn
with an artistry
and complexity of song
that suggest
true musicianship :
the bird and the song
and the listener
are one
John Lyons
Beware of metaphor
beware of symbol
beware of slack simile
that will fill your pages
to no good purpose
No one thing is like another
and the truth is irreducible
to fragments
just as love and beauty
are whole
in and of themselves
Clarity is not a virtue
it is the cornerstone
a sine qua non :
the lark that soars
in the summer air
the nightingale
the thrush that drinks
from the garden pool—
these are not ciphers
and they stand for nothing
but themselves
their lives are their
intrinsic celebration
The beauty of truth
and the truth of beauty
were what drove Keats
and Shelley to poetry
the musical phrase
that sustains the fancy
as they called it
Beware of death
and those who espouse
death and those who
condone death and those
who promote death
Pound’s late lament
that he betrayed Dante
that he tried to make
a paradiso terrestre
from the very muck
of civilization
and that he failed
to disown death
Admission at last
that the cycle must be reset
that the ship must again
be hauled down to the shore
to set forth once more
upon the ungodly sea
so that Helen may be returned
to her rightful home
and the golden fleece
to its rightful place
John Lyons
The British Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) wrote his celebrated essay, A Defence of Poetry, in 1821. It was published posthumously in 1840. It is not difficult to perceive in the tone and content of Shelley’s eloquent and passionate thesis, a reflection of the civic values of the French Revolution (Liberty, Equality and Fraternity) which so fired the imagination of the Romantic poets in England.
In the wake of the terrible atrocities perpetrated in Paris on 13 November, it is important to remain vigilant and to defend the core human, cultural values to which Shelley alludes in his defence of poetry. These universal, life-affirming values are enshrined in the liberties of the great French cultural tradition that has enriched the world’s heritage with timeless works across the whole range of the arts from poetry to painting to music to dance, liberties that should never be surrendered.
A Defence of Poetry (an adapted extract)
Poetry is indeed something divine
it is the centre and circumference
of knowledge
it comprehends all science
it is the root and blossom of all
other systems of thought
it is that from which all spring
and that which adorns all
and that which if blighted,
denies the fruit and the seed
and withholds from the barren world
the nourishment and the succession
of the scions of the tree of life
It is the perfect and consummate surface
and bloom of all things
it is as the odour and the colour
of the rose to the texture
of the elements which compose it
as the form and splendor
of unfaded beauty to the secrets
of anatomy and corruption
What were virtue
love patriotism friendship
what were the scenery
of this beautiful universe
which we inhabit
what were our consolations
on this side of the grave
and what were our aspirations
beyond it
if poetry did not ascend
to bring light and fire
from those eternal regions
where the owl-winged faculty
of calculation dare not ever soar ?
Poetry is not like reasoning
a power to be exerted according
to the determination of the will
A man cannot say
« I will compose poetry »
the greatest poet even cannot say it
for the mind in creation
is as a fading coal
which some invisible influence
like an inconstant wind
awakens to transitory brightness
this power arises from within
like the colour of a flower
which fades and changes
as it is developed
and the conscious portions
of our natures are unprophetic
either of its approach or its departure
Percy Bysshe Shelley
johnjosephlyons 