More than anyone, I probably have my high school literature teacher to thank for my fascination with and confusion by poetry. It was in his class that I first starting viewing poems as being something to enjoy rather than just endure. I remember thinking that at some indeterminate point in the future I would “get” poetry. Looking back now with nearly a quarter century of perspective, I have to laugh at my naivete because as I near forty I’m no closer to “getting it”. Which I’m beginning to see may just be the point; you don’t have to understand poetry in the same sense that you understand a math problem. You just have to sit back and enjoy it.

The poem below is one of the first two or three that we covered in that long-ago literature class, and the first one that “grabbed me” with it’s words and it’s mood. It feels different than it did all those years ago, but it still brings a smile to my face.

TO THE VIRGINS, TO MAKE MUCH OF TIME.

GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying :
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry :
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.

– Robert Herrick