Loneliness
Sappho

Set are the Pleiades; the Moon is down
And midnight dark on high.
The hours, the hours, drift by,
And here I lie,
Alone     

To my friend Lynn x

 

Britons Beyond The Seas
Harold Begbie (part only)

And tho' we weave on a hundred shores,
And spin on a thousand quays,
And tho' we are truant with all the winds,
And gypsy with all the seas,
We are touched to tears as the heart is touched
By the sound of an ancient tune
At the name of the Isle in the Western seas
With the rose on her breast of June.

And it's O for a glimpse of England
And the buds that her garden yields,
The delicate scent which her hedges wind,
And the shimmering green of her fields,
The roll of her downs and the lull of her streams,
And the grace of her dew-drenched lawns,
And the calm of her shores where the waters wash
Rose-tinged with her thousand dawns.

And it's O for a glimpse of London Town,
Tho' it be through the fog and the rain,
The loud-thronged streets and the glittering shops,
The pageant of pomp and pain;
And it's O for a sight, tho' it be in a dream
Of the Briton's beacon and pride-
The cold grey Abbey that guards our ghosts
On Thames's sacred side.

End of the Mayan Calendar, courtesy of Google

The Folly of Being Comforted
W B Yeats

One that is ever kind said yesterday:
'Your well-beloved's hair has threads of grey,
And little shadows come about her eyes;
Time can but make it easier to be wise
Though now it seems impossible, and so
All that you need is patience.'
                                       Heart cries, 'No,
I have not a crumb of comfort, not a grain.
Time can but make her beauty over again:
Because of that great nobleness of hers
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs,
Burns but more clearly. O she had not these ways
When all the wild Summer was in her gaze.'
Heart! O heart! if she'd but turn her head,
You'd know the folly of being comforted.      

Today's date,  12-12-12

 

Didn't catch the time, myself,

this is as close as I got...

Winter
Walter de la Mare

Clouded with snow
The cold winds blow,
And shrill on leafless bough
The robin with its burning breast
Alone sings now.

The rayless sun,
Day's journey done,
Sheds its last ebbing light
On fields in leagues of beauty spread
Unearthly white.

Thick draws the dark,
And spark by spark,
The frost-fires kindle, and soon
Over that sea of frozen foam
Floats the white moon.      

http://youtu.be/fhcZ6b2FSsk

Incomputable
Walter de la Mare

Think you the nimblest tongue has ever said
A morsel of what may ravish heart and head?
Think you the readiest pen that ever writ
Has more than hinted at what makes life sweet?

As well assume old Thames—eyot, meadow, copse—
Sums, as he disembogues, his waterdrops:
That beechen woods count up their countless leaves;
Furrows the birds once nurtured on their sheaves.

See, now, the stars that mist the Milky Way;
The hosting snowflakes of a winter's day;
Count them for tally of what life gives, thus shown,
Then reckon how many you have made your own!

 

Song To Celia

Ben Jonson

 

Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I’ll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise

Doth ask a drink divine;

But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,

I would not change for thine.

 

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee

As giving it a hope, that there

It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,

And sent’st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

Not of itself, but thee.

The Dreamer
Walter De La Mare

The woods were still. No breath of air
Stirred in leaf or brake.
Cold hung the rose, unearthly fair;
The nightingale, awake,
In rusted coverts of the may
Shook out his bosom's down;

Alone, upon her starry way,
The moon, to fulness grown,
Moved, shining, through her misty meads;
And, roofless from the dew,
Knelt way-worn Love, with idle beads,
And dreamed of you.

So, I have a poem in an actual book!

 

Give All To Love

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Give all to love;

Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good-frame,
Plans, credit and the Muse,—
Nothing refuse.

’Tis a brave master;
Let it have scope:
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope:
High and more high
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent:
But it is a god,
Knows its own path
And the outlets of the sky.

It was never for the mean;
It requireth courage stout.
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending,
It will reward,—
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.

Leave all for love;
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,—
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, forever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.

Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
First vague shadow of surmise
Flits across her bosom young,
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free;
Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.

Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Though her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive;
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.

May's Love
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

You love all, you say,
Round, beneath, above me:
Find me then some way
Better than to love me,
Me, too, dearest May!

O world-kissing eyes
Which the blue heavens melt to!
I, sad, overwise,
Loathe the sweet looks dealt to
All things -- men and flies.

You love all, you say:
Therefore, Dear, abate me
Just your love, I pray!
Shut your eyes and hate me --
Only me -- fair May!

Maya Angelou

"I am convinced that most people do not grow up. We find parking spaces and honor our credit cards. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up.I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias.
We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do."

At the Mid Hour of Night
Thomas Moore

AT the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;
And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,
And tell me our love is remember'd even in the sky.

Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to hear,
When our voices commingling breathed like one on the ear;
And as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,
I think, O my love! 'tis thy voice from the Kingdom of Souls
Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.

Daybreak
John Donne

STAY, O sweet and do not rise!
 The light that shines comes from thine eyes;
 The day breaks not: it is my heart,
 Because that you and I must part.
 Stay! or else my joys will die
 And perish in their infancy.

My lovely Mum was 92 years old yesterday.
My daughter sent me this and gave me food for thought.

LETTER FROM A MOTHER TO A DAUGHTER:

"My dear girl, the day you see I’m getting old, I ask you to please be patient, but most of all, try to understand what I’m going through.

If when we talk, I repeat the same thing a thousand times, do...

n’t interrupt to say: “You said the same thing a minute ago”... Just listen, please. Try to remember the times when you were little and I would read the same story night after night until you would fall asleep.

When I don’t want to take a bath, don’t be mad and don’t embarrass me. Remember when I had to run after you making excuses and trying to get you to take a shower when you were just a girl?

When you see how ignorant I am when it comes to new technology, give me the time to learn and don’t look at me that way... remember, honey, I patiently taught you how to do many things like eating appropriately, getting dressed, combing your hair and dealing with life’s issues every day... the day you see I’m getting old, I ask you to please be patient, but most of all, try to understand what I’m going through.

If I occasionally lose track of what we’re talking about, give me the time to remember, and if I can’t, don’t be nervous, impatient or arrogant. Just know in your heart that the most important thing for me is to be with you.

And when my old, tired legs don’t let me move as quickly as before, give me your hand the same way that I offered mine to you when you first walked.

When those days come, don’t feel sad... just be with me, and understand me while I get to the end of my life with love.

I’ll cherish and thank you for the gift of time and joy we shared. With a big smile and the huge love I’ve always had for you, I just want to say, I love you... my darling daughter."

Rococo
John Payne

Straight and swift the swallows fly
To the sojourn of the sun;
All the golden year is done,
All the flower-time flittered by;
Thro' the boughs the witch-winds sigh;
But heart's summer is begun;
Life and love at last are one;
Love-lights glitter in the sky.
Summer days were soon outrun
With the setting of the sun;
Love's delight is never done.
Let the turn-coat roses die;
We are lovers, Love and I;
In Love's lips my roses lie.

Congratulations!
It's Top Gear's tenth birthday!

In Derbyshire, my home county, yesterday...

In The Highlands
Robert Louis Stevenson

In the highlands in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
And the young fair maidens
Quiet eyes;
Where essential silence cheers and blesses,
And for ever in the hill-recesses
Her more lovely music
Broods and dies.

O to mount again where erst I haunted;
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
And the low green meadows
Bright with sward;
And when even dies, the million-tinted,
And the night has come, and planets glinted,
Lo, the valley hollow
Lamp-bestarred!

O to dream, O to awake and wander
There, and with delight to take and render,
Through the trance of silence,
Quiet breath;
Lo! for there, among the flowers and the grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
Only winds and rivers,
Life and death.

Gaudeamus Igitur
Margaret Louisa Woods

Come, no more of grief and dying!
Sing the time too swiftly flying.
Just an hour
Youth's in flower,
Give me roses to remember
In the shadow of December.

Fie on steeds with leaden paces!
Winds shall bear us on our races,
Speed, O speed,
Wind, my steed,
Beat the lightning for your master,
Yet my Fancy shall fly faster.

Give me music, give me rapture,
Youth that's fled can none recapture;
Not with thought
Wisdom's bought.
Out on pride and scorn and sadness!
Give me laughter, give me gladness.

Sweetest Earth, I love and love thee,
Seas about thee, skies above thee,
Sun and storms,
Hues and forms
Of the clouds with floating shadows
On thy mountains and thy meadows.

Earth, there's none that can enslave thee,
Not thy lords it is that have thee;
Not for gold
Art thou sold,
But thy lovers at their pleasure
Take thy beauty and thy treasure.

While sweet fancies meet me singing,
While the April blood is springing
In my breast,
While a jest
And my youth thou yet must leave me,
Fortune, 'tis not thou canst grieve me.

When at length the grasses cover
Me, the world's unwearied lover,
If regret
Haunt me yet,
It shall be for joys untasted,
Nature lent and folly wasted.

Youth and jests and summer weather,
Goods that kings and clowns together
Waste or use
As they choose,
These, the best, we miss pursuing
Sullen shades that mock our wooing.

Feigning Age will not delay it--
When the reckoning comes we'll pay it,
Own our mirth
Has been worth
All the forfeit light or heavy
Wintry Time and Fortune levy.

Feigning grief will not escape it,
What though ne'er so well you ape it--
Age and care
All must share,
All alike must pay hereafter,
Some for sighs and some for laughter.

Know, ye sons of Melancholy,
To be young and wise is folly.
'Tis the weak
Fear to wreak
On this clay of life their fancies,
Shaping battles, shaping dances.

While ye scorn our names unspoken,
Roses dead and garlands broken,
O ye wise,
We arise,
Out of failures, dreams, disasters,
We arise to be your masters.

London John Davidson Athwart the sky a lowly sigh
From west to east the sweet wind carried;
The sun stood still on Primrose Hill;
His light in all the city tarried;
The clouds on viewless columns bloomed
Like smouldering lilies unconsumed.
“Oh sweetheart, see! How shadowy,
Of some occult magician’s rearing,
Or swung in space of heaven’s grace
Dissolving, dimly reappearing,
Afloat upon ethereal tides
St. Paul’s above the city rides!”
A rumor broke through the thin smoke,
Enwreathing abbey, tower, and palace,
The parks, the squares, the thoroughfares,
The million-peopled lanes and alleys,
An ever-muttering prisoned storm,
The heart of London beating warm.

After
Richard Elwes

And after-
the laughing done, there follows in its place,
gentle and soft and warm,
a rippling, sunlit calm;
the smiling peace, the dear tranquility
dawns in your face
and hovers over me so tenderly.
O stay! O will you never stay?
Dissolving wraith by day,
by night retreating dream,
never remaining,
fading, waning,
becoming dimmer,
soon but a glimmer
the darkening gleam,
that was, a moment since, your eyes,
the gleam that dies
and vanishes and will not shine,
for all the gathering mists in mine.      

The Recollection (part only) P B Shelley Now the last day of many days
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead:
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up, to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled,
For now the earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven’s brow.
We wander’d to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean’s foam;
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.
The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay;
It seem’d as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies
Which scatter’d from above the sun
A light of Paradise!

This Ipresent must have worn out by now. A new one for Christmas, I think.

The Dead
Rupert Brooke

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.      

I'm so excited to have seen a meteor last night; it was spectacular!

(p.s. Turns out it was probably space junk burning up, but still a sight to see!)

Your first virtual Christmas present;
you've probably got it already.
Been there, done that, got the T-shirt, I know!

 

 

To Ianthe
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I love thee, Baby! for thine own sweet sake;
Those azure eyes, that faintly dimpled cheek,
Thy tender frame, so eloquently weak,
Love in the sternest heart of hate might wake;
But more when o'er thy fitful slumber bending
Thy mother folds thee to her wakeful heart,
Whilst love and pity, in her glances blending,
All that thy passive eyes can feel impart:
More, when some feeble lineaments of her,
Who bore thy weight beneath her spotless bosom,
As with deep love I read thy face, recur, --
More dear art thou, O fair and fragile blossom;
Dearest when most thy tender traits express
The image of thy mother's loveliness.

Being Her Friend
John Masefield

Being her friend, I do not care, Not I,
How gods or men may wrong me, beat me down;
Her word's sufficient star to travel by,
I count her quiet praise sufficient crown.

Being her friend, I do not covet gold,
Save for a royal gift to give her pleasure;
To sit with her, and have her hand to hold,
Is wealth, I think, surpassing minted treasure.

Being her friend, I only covet art,
A white pure flame to search me as I trace
In crooked letters from a throbbing heart,
The hymn to beauty written on her face.

Bhartrhari
(from Sanskrit)

She who is always in my thoughts prefers
Another man, and does not think of me.
Yet he seeks for another's love, not hers;
And some poor girl is grieving for my sake.
Why then, the devil take
Both her and him; and love; and her; and me.

 

Echo
Christina Rossetti

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low
As long ago, my love, how long ago.      

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlC9dLzfDfc&list=PL11706436E7FF54FF&index=4&feature=plpp_video

Lest We Forget

Alabaster
Sarojini Naidu

Like this alabaster box whose art
Is frail as a cassia-flower, is my heart,
Carven with delicate dreams and wrought
With many a subtle and exquisite thought.

Therein I treasure the spice and scent
Of rich and passionate memories blent
Like odours of cinnamon, sandal and clove,
Of song and sorrow and life and love.      

Cornet Henry John Wilkin who survived the
 Charge of the Light Brigade,
taken by Roger Fenton, 1855

The Volunteer
Herbert Asquith

Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Toiling at ledgers in a city grey,
Thinking that so his days would drift away
With no lance broken in life’s tournament:
Yet ever ’twixt the books and his bright eyes
The gleaming eagles of the legions came,
And horsemen, charging under phantom skies,
Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme.

And now those waiting dreams are satisfied;
From twilight to the halls of dawn he went;
His lance is broken; but he lies content
With that high hour, in which he lived and died.
And falling thus he wants no recompense,
Who found his battle in the last resort;
Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence,
Who goes to join the men of Agincourt.      

 

"But to be with you still and see your face,

to serve you and to follow you thr'o the World"

From Lancelot and Elaine
Alfred Lord Tennyson

And the sick man forgot her simple blush,
Would call her friend and sister, sweet Elaine,
Would listen for her coming and regret
Her parting step, and held her tenderly,
And loved her with all love except the love
Of man and woman when they love their best,
Closest and sweetest, and had died the death
In any knightly fashion for her sake.

Out  of Sight, Out of Mind
Barnaby Googe

The oftener seen, the more I lust,
The more I lust, the more I smart,
The more I smart, the more I trust,
The more I trust, the heavier heart;
The heavy heart breeds mine unrest,
Thy absence therefore, like I best.

The rarer seen, the less in mind,
The less in mind, the lesser pain,
The lesser pain, less grief I find,
The lesser grief, the greater gain,
The greater gain, the merrier I,
Therefore I wish thy sight to fly.

The further off, the more I joy,
The more I joy, the happier life,
The happier life, less hurts annoy,
The lesser hurts, pleasure most rife:
Such pleasures rife shall I obtain
When distance doth depart us twain.

When Bullets Prove (1942)
John Pudney

In times when bullets prove, when deeds decide:
Nor the cool laughter of the youthful corn
Nor brief hot poppies hide
Earth trodden and torn.

In times when smiling eyes and lips tell lies,
And only dead men tell no tales, no tales
Casting their last disguise,
Love alone avails.

Hold hard to the dear thought. For courage less
This tenderness is but a dress worn thin
Against the cold. Love's dress
Is blood-deep under the skin.

Rain
Tu Fu

Roads not yet glistening, rain slight,
Broken clouds darken after thinning away.
Where they drift, purple cliffs blacken.
And beyond -- white birds blaze in flight.

Sounds of cold-river rain grown familiar,
Autumn sun casts moist shadows. Below
Our brushwood gate, out to dry at the village
Mill: hulled rice, half-wet and fragrant

Elegy XIII: His Parting From Her (part only)
John Donne

Since she must go, and I must mourn, come night,
Environ me with darkness, whilst I write ;
Shadow that hell unto me, which alone
I am to suffer when my love is gone.
Alas ! the darkest magic cannot do it,
Thou and great hell, to boot, are shadows to it.
Should Cynthia quit thee, Venus, and each star,
It would not form one thought dark as mine are.
I could lend them obscureness now, and say
Out of my self, there should be no more day.
Such is already my self-want of sight,
Did not the fire within me force a light.
O Love, that fire and darkness should be mix'd,
Or to thy triumphs such strange torments fix'd !
Is it because thou thyself art blind, that we,
Thy martyrs, must no more each other see ?
Or takest thou pride to break us on the wheel,
And view old Chaos in the pains we feel ?
Or have we left undone some mutual rite,
That thus with parting thou seek'st us to spite ?
No, no. The fault is mine, impute it to me,
Or rather to conspiring destiny,