“funny how my world goes round without you/youre the one thing i never thought i could live without”

[larryhammer]

For Poetry Monday:

What the Bullet Sang, Bret Harte

O joy of creation
        To be!
O rapture to fly
        And be free!
Be the battle lost or won,
Though its smoke shall hide the sun,
I shall find my love,—the one
        Born for me!

I shall know him where he stands,
        All alone,
With the power in his hands
        Not o’erthrown;
I shall know him by his face,
By his godlike front and grace;
I shall hold him for a space,
        All my own!

It is he—O my love!
        So bold!
It is I—all thy love
        Foretold!
It is I. O love! what bliss!
Dost thou answer to my kiss?
O sweetheart! what is this
        Lieth there so cold?


Harte (1836-1902) is best known today for his short stories of the California Gold Rush, rather than his novels, essays, or poetry, but this one still shows up in anthologies from time to time.

---L.

Subject quote from On Grafton Street, Nanci Griffith.

Comments

[mme_n_b]

He is indeed best known for things like Luck of Roaring Camp, which sucks, because he deserves to be known as the first person to report unfavorably on the discriminate slaughter of Native Americans. I just finished writing about him and am overflowing with small pieces of Bret Harte trivia :)))

[larryhammer]

He's not the only 19th century artist known for only a part of their scope, but possibly the most annoying example.

[mme_n_b]

People do stop reading at the weirdest points in an writer's oeuvre. I know at least two women whose favorite children's writer is Oscar Wilde.

[swan_tower]

I am finally getting around to copying down some poems I had open in tabs, and this one is amazingly disturbing.

[larryhammer]

Isn’t it? Prime late 19th century horror in a tiny space.