"end of december"

Wow "end of december" also means new year's night; Yes, there would be music on clinton street. Ok, I understood the first line of Leonard cohen's "Famous blue rain coat" which I had glossed over all these times :-)

The Grave of Shelly - Oscar Wilde

The Grave of Shelly - Oscar Wilde
Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed -->
Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone; -->
Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,
And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.
And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,
In the still chamber of yon pyramid
Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,
Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.

Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb
Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep,
But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb
In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,
Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom
Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.


*Gaunt-thin or bleak
*chaliced-cupshaped
*pleasaunce- secluded garden
*yon-Distance within sight
*founder-break down


I understand that he is talking about graves: one on in the land and other is ocean.

I feel proud of myself whenever I understand a poem because it is hard to get inside a one; and this is the first poem that i read, rather understood, in 2009. Infact, I did not choose this poem; usually I try to understand which ever poem comes across when I open the book.