MORE LOVE POEMS FROM GRANDMOTHER MADGE.

(yes there are lots)

"I Sing My Songs to Thee--"

I sing my songs to thee--

These words so light and free,

Words meaning naught, and yet,

words filled with thoughts of thee.

I sing my songs to thee--

The tune's not always true,

The words not always sweet

But every thought's "I love you".

I'll sing my songs to thee,

Most loved beneath the sky,

To thee I'll sing my songs of love

Until the day I die.

June 14, 1939

(And then when you think, well she WAS going to die pretty soon...maybe she was obsessed with it...she had been sick...and they knew she had a weak heart or something like that...maybe she was obsessed with everything in her life because she was trying to get as much out of it as possible, I don't know...to be obsessed with something means you are really getting a lot out of that thing...)

GREY EVENING

Oh, great, grey skies that hide the sun's last rays

And leave the world in silvery shadow haze!

Oh, skies that brood o'er earth in solemn thought

Reminding me of days when once I sought

The sunny skies--the blue with snowy puffs--

The glowing sunsets made of Heaven-stuff,

The shining lights and ever changing glow

That reddened western skies and earth below!

You bring to mind the days that are long past

When I gave all to living and, at last,

Grown tired of waiting for my dream's fulfillment,

I gave myself to quietness and contentment.

Oh, calm, grey skies foreboding sudden storm

Thy very Silence rings a great alarm!

June 17, 1939

BEWILDERMENT

Oh, I have often heard it said:

"There's more to life than meat and bread."

And as I wander 'neath the sky

I'm often puzzled, wondering why

That everywhere--below, above--

The greatest thing in life is Love.

June 17, 1939

(I'm really detecting some kind of cognitive dissonance here. Especially in light of the fact that one of her poems that I put in this blog ages ago...last year...the one I found in the cookbook, I think it's unfinished...has soooooo many doubts about romantic love in it. She's certainly looking for something with these poems, she's trying to work it out...not just the rhyme scheme, but something else, some questions she has about life. She's always asking questions.)

MISTAKEN LOVE

You thought you loved me truly,

You didn't mean to lie.

You thought I was the only one

For you beneath the sky.

I gave myself so gladly

To you for Love's own sake,

Now, oh, my love, my heart will break

Because of your mistake.

June 17, 1939

(That breakup earlier in the month of June must have been a bad one. She keeps going over it to revisit it and write about it in poems. I wonder who it was? Surely my grandfather was around somewhere. Maybe it was him. I don't know the story. Dysfunctional family, and all that. So many things got lost or disappeared in the shuffle.)

Now she seems to want to get on with it, in this poem dated June 18, 1939:

SUMMER DAY

Oh, lazy, dreamy Summer Day

that makes no sound and has no movement,

Rouse from thy stupid somnolence

And praise thy Maker

with a song.

(I would have written those last couple of lines as "And seek some self-improvement.")