GUEST POST // Tairngreacht by Whitecatgrove

The last hum of summer — I hunger
for more, a kinder year when all is not
withered on the vine. The burning boats
are not a kind sun, the wildfires are not
the butterfly migration. The cup
poured out again, by an unjust king
emptied and spent on wasted earth. Red
the riders to the house of red, red
the naked spirit who knocks on the door.
What a time to live — seeing a myth
paid in full, embodied and poured out
in a sea without fish, a summer
without fruit, a land without justice.

by WHITECATGROVE
© All rights reserved 2026

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Ode To Man. by Thomas Frederick Young

A man is not what oft he seems,
On this terrestrial sphere,
No pow’r to wield, no honor’d place,
Oft curb his spirit here.

He knows not what within him lies,
Until his pow’rs be tried,
And when for them some use is found,
They spring from where they hide,

To startle and to puzzle him,
Who never knew their force,
Because his unfreed spirit kept
A low and shackl’d course.

Dishearten’d and despairing, he
Had often sigh’d alone,
Not thinking that in other ways
His spirit might have grown.

Not thinking that another course,
Which needed pluck and vim,
Might raise his drowning spirit high,
And teach it how to swim;

To battle with the rolling tide,
That hurries onward men,
And raise his head above the waves,
That come and go again.

by THOMAS FREDERICK YOUNG (1892-1940)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Sweeping The Floor. by George MacDonald

Sweep and sweep and sweep the floor,
Sweep the dust, pick up the pin;
Make it clean from fire to door,
Clean for father to come in!

Mother said that God goes sweeping,
Looking, sweeping with a broom,
All the time that we are sleeping,
For a shilling in the room:

Did he drop it out of glory,
Walking far above the birds?
Or did parson make the story
For the thinking afterwards?

If I were the swept-for shilling
I would hearken through the gloom;
Roll out fast, and fall down willing
Right before the sweeping broom!

by GEORGE MACDONALD (1824-1905)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // If by H.C. Dodge

If a man could live a thousand years,
When half his life had passed,
He might, by strict economy,
A fortune have amassed.

Then having gained some common-sense,
And knowledge, too, of life,
He could select the woman who
Would make him a true wife.

But as it is, man hasn’t time
To even pay his debts,
And weds to be acquainted with
The woman whom he gets.

by H.C. DODGE (1865-1915)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // A Hope by Charles Kingsley

Twin stars, aloft in ether clear,
Around each other roll alway,
Within one common atmosphere
Of their own mutual light and day.

And myriad happy eyes are bent
Upon their changeless love alway;
As, strengthened by their one intent,
They pour the flood of life and day.

So we through this world’s waning night
May, hand in hand, pursue our way;
Shed round us order, love, and light,
And shine unto the perfect day.

by CHARLES KINGSLEY (1819–1875)
Public Domain Poetry