Snowfall
Hamish Brown

When the first snows come
It is like quiet benediction,
The service over.
We shuffle out, at peace,
Cleansed from civilisation
And the year done.
We look out on drifting purity
As strangers from another age,
Misunderstood.
For a world impoverished, this we know:
That truth has stood.

Tonight I Can Write (incomplete)
Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Sonnets of War
Richard Elwes

The melting waters move and flow again,
and Life's awakening pulse is everywhere,
responsive, stirring in the souls of men.
And Spring's heroic song is in the air,
sounding her deathless, ancient certainties:
that valiant hearts were never vainly stilled,
that truth must ever triumph over lies,
that martyred blood was never vainly spilled.
As heirs of an immortal chivalry,
advancing bravely down the storied years,
we take our places in their company
and catch her message with their dauntless ears.
For Life itself is with us in the field,
who call on perjured tyranny to yield.

Christmas Eve Sunrise

GIFSoup

The Song of Love
Ludwig Lewisohn

How shall I guard my soul so that it be
Touched not by thine? And how shall it be brought,
Lifted above thee, unto other things?
Ah, gladly would I hide it utterly
Lost in the dark where are no murmurings,
In strange and silent places that do not
Vibrate when thy deep soul quivers and sings.
But all that touches us two makes us twin
Even as the bow crossing the violin
Draws but one voice from the two strings that meet.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what great player has us in his hand?
O song most sweet.

it may not always be so
e e cummings

it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be --
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

Oh, look who it is! Thomas Campion (1567-1620)

Fain would I wed
Thomas Campion

Fain would I wed a fair young man that night and day could please me,
When my mind or body grieved, that had the power to ease me.
Maids are full of longing thoughts that breed a bloodless sickness,
And that, oft I hear men say, is only cured by quickness.
Oft I have been wooed and praised, but never could be movèd;
Many for a day or so I have most dearly lovèd,
But this foolish mind of mine straight loathes the thing resolvèd;
If to love be sin in me, that sin is soon absolvèd.
Sure I think I shall at last fly to some holy order;
When I once am settled there, then can I fly no farther.
Yet I would not die a maid, because I had a mother,
As I was by one brought forth, I would bring forth another.

i carry your heart with me
e.e.cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Who Ever Loved That Loved Not at First Sight?
Christopher Marlowe

It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should love, the other win;

And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows; let it suffice
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

My Love Was Warm
Robert Louis Stevenson

MY love was warm; for that I crossed
The mountains and the sea,
Nor counted that endeavour lost
That gave my love to me.

If that indeed were love at all,
As still, my love, I trow,
By what dear name am I to call
The bond that holds me now.

As we never forget a loved, lost pet and because James has recently mentioned Fusker again, here's a couple of paragraphs from his Telegraph column...

"My Top Gear colleagues think it terribly funny that I once proclaimed that I loved my cat, Fusker, above all else; more, even, than my old Bentley. But, so help me, I do. Before anyone writes in with some cod psychology and any nonsense about me projecting on to a dumb animal, I am well aware that Fusker does not love me. He loves cat food.

The flow of adoration runs in one direction; I spend hours talking to him, even though the only word he might possibly understand is "Fusker", and in return not one sound of any consequence has ever emanated from his witless furry face. He has never passed me a spanner or written any of this column, except for a bit that went fasdfij ffeug djdvbv9821."

And I will bring back this...

'I took a chair and threw it...'
Felix Dennis

I took a chair and threw it
Across my unmade bed
When I returned one evening,
To find my old cat dead.

Yet when an ailing neighbour
Passed on - no missiles flew.
The ties that bind are stronger
Than what we tie them to.