Poetry...I get it, sort of

In my younger days I didn't appreciate poetry. But somewhere, somehow in the last few years I suddenly got it, at least as far as certain poets go. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, and Homer. I'm still not so sure of my take on Rudyard Kipling but I'm trying.

Wadsworth calls to me, there's just something there. I don't know why or how, it just is. No two people get the same thing from anything. A painting in a gallery, a photograph, a film, or the printed word on a page. We all see them, but we process them differently in our mind. We react to the thoughts and emotions brought about by these things in our own way.

As I'm getting older, I've become much more noticeably reflective and thoughtful. Much more appreciative of the creative process that allows others to express themselves. I guess it's just age, experience, and gaining wisdom (I hope) that has changed how I view and think about it all.

For you, my dear readers, let me share one of my favorites by Longfellow. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.


The Sound of the Sea

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
I heard the first wave of the rising tide
Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;
A voice out of the silence of the deep,
A sound mysteriously multiplied
As of a cataract from the mountain's side,
Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.
So comes to us at times, from the unknown
And inaccessible solitudes of being,
The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
And inspirations, that we deem our own,
Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
Of things beyond our reason or control.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Masque of Pandora and Other Poems-1875