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.