The World Is Too Much With Us
William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. -Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Behold, me who can't abide red Ferraris...                       fell in love with this at MPH...



Then I watched Apocalypse!

Why Be At Pains? (Wooer's Song)
 Thomas Hardy

Why be at pains that I should know
You sought not me?
Do breezes, then, make features glow
So rosily?
Come, the lit port is at our back,
And the tumbling sea;
Elsewhere the lampless uphill track
To uncertainty!

O should not we two waifs join hands?
I am alone,
You would enrich me more than lands
By being my own.
Yet, though this facile moment flies,
Close is your tone,
And ere to-morrow's dewfall dries
I plough the unknown.

NOT EVEN IN DREAM
Francis Thompson

HIS love is crueller than the other love:
We had the Dreams for Tryst, we other
pair;
But here there is no we; — not anywhere
Returning breaths of sighs about me move.
No wings, even of the stuff which fancy wove,
Perturb Sleep's air with a responsive flight
When mine sweep into dreams. My soul in fright
Circles as round its widowed nest a dove.

One shadow but usurps another's place:
And, though this shadow more enthralling is,
Alas, it hath no lips at all to miss!
I have not even that former poignant bliss,
That haunting sweetness, that forlorn sad trace,
The phantom memory of a vanished kiss.

may my heart always be open to little...
e.e.cummings

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
  
may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young
  
and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

Another Summer of War
(1942) John Pudney

O war is whispering in the barley,
And green ears sweeten in the sun.
O with charlock and red poppy
Weed-proud summer is begun.

Summer too innocent in beauty
Strips the eye which wakes ashamed:
Drenching daylight with high lark-song
Where the very sky is aimed.

In a chastity of air, war ventures,
Where the rose forms innocently whole.
In the ardent pallor of the barley,
War sighs, fumbling for the soul.

We shall remember them

Back from MPH and Top Gear Live - brilliant as usual!

(It was very moving to see the heaving halls of the NEC suddenly fall quiet to observe the two minutes silence in honour of the fallen.)

Wild Nights—Wild Nights!
Emily Dickinson

Wild Nights—Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile—the Winds—
To a Heart in port—
Done with the Compass—
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden—
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor—Tonight—
In Thee!

Ferrari in pole position,  -  a bit tasteless considering the amount of blood.

Not Just for Christmas.
---------------------------------
So you've got rid of your Boxer, sorry, Boxter,
They're just for Christmas presents, after all?
Treated yourself to a new pup, sorry Porsche,
All it took was please sign here and a quick call.

Perhaps poor Boxter's out there in the cold now,
Chained up to some firm's forecourt in the frost,
Little headlights might contain salt water,
Looking all abandoned, sad and lost. Ah!

Oh, how could you, Mr May,
treat that little cur/car this way!

You only had to say, dear Maid, please take him,
And treat him kindly now he's past his prime.
I would have shown him love, not AC/DC,
And his innards full of detris was a crime!

I'd have taken him long runs in clement weather,
And kept his coat all glossy with a sheen,
And kept him tucked up warm inside my garage,
I'd never, ever, ever treat him mean.

And when I knew that it was rust to dust time,
When he had to meet the 'breaker in the sky',
I'd stay with doggy Boxter 'til the crush came,
Then I'd probably walk home and have a cry.

Yes, every cur/car will have his day,
A tomorrow? - not with Mr May!

As Sweet
Wendy Cope

It's all because we're so alike
Twin souls, we two.
We smile at the expression, yes,
And know it's true.

I told the shrink. He gave our love
A different name.
But he can call it what he likes-
It's still the same.

I long to see you, hear your voice,
My narcissistic object-choice.

Combat Report
John Pudney

"Just then I saw the bloody Hun" You saw the Hun? You, light and easy,
Carving the soundless daylight. "I was breezy
When I saw that Hun." Oh wonder,
Pattern of stress, of nerve poise, flyer,
Overtaking time. "He came out under
Nine-tenths cloud, but I was higher." Did Michelangelo aspire,
Painting the laughing cumulus, to ride
The majesty of air. " He was a trier
I'll give him that, the Hun." So you convert
Ultimate sky to air speed, drift, and cover;
Sure with the tricky tools of God and lover.
"I let him have a sharp four-second squirt,
Closing to fifty yards. He went on fire." Your deadly petals painted, you exert
A simple stature. Man-high, without pride,
You pick your way through heaven and the dirt.
"He burnt out in the air; that's how the poor sod died."

O You Whom I Often And Silently Come

Walt Whitman

O YOU whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you;
As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.

what a proud dreamhorse
by ee cummings

what a proud dreamhorse pulling(smoothloomingly)through
(stepp)this(ing)crazily seething of this
Raving city screamingly street wonderful
flowers And o the Light thrown by Them opens

sharp holes in dark places paints eyes touches hand with new-
ness and these startled whats are a(piercing clothes thoughts kiss
-ing wishes bodies)squirm-of-frightened shy are whichs small
its hungry for Is for Love Spring thirsty for happens
only and beautiful

there is a ragged beside the who limps
man crying silence upward
-to have tasted Beautiful to have known
Only to have smelled Happens-skip dance kids hop point at
red blue yellow voilet white orange green-
ness

o what a proud dreamhorse moving(whose feet
almost walk air). now who stops. Smiles. he
stamps

Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable

Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable,
Elaine the lily maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the east
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;
........................  so she lived in fantasy.

Sonnet
William Shakespeare

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage,
To witness duty, not to show my wit:
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
Points on me graciously with fair aspect
And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;
Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me.