Oh Why?
Walter de la Mare

Oh, why make such ado -
This fretful care and trouble?
The sun in noonday's blue
Pours radiance on earth's bubble.
What though the heart-strings crack,
And sorrow bid thee languish,
Dew falls; the night comes back;
Sleep, and forget thine anguish.
Oh, why in shadow haunt?
Shines not the evening flower?
Hark, how the sweet birds chaunt,
The lovely light their bower.
Water her music makes,
Lulling even these to slumber;
And only dead of darkness wakes
Stars without number.

 

Sacrifice: 53,573 members of Bomber Command were killed during the Second World War

 

 

 

Lie in the Dark and Listen
Noel Coward

Lie in the dark and listen
 It’s clear tonight so they’re flying high
 Hundreds of them, thousands perhaps
 Riding the icy, moonlit sky
 Men, machinery, bombs and maps
 Altimeters and guns and charts
 Coffee, sandwiches, fleece-lined boots
 Bones and muscles and minds and hearts
 English saplings with English roots
 Deep in the earth they’ve left below
 Lie in the dark and let them go
 Lie in the dark and listen.

Lie in the dark and listen
 They’re going over in waves and waves
 High above villages, hills and streams
 Country churches and little graves
 And little citizens’ worried dreams
 Very soon they’ll have reached the sea
 And far below them will lie the bays
 And cliffs and sands where they used to be
 Taken for summer holidays
 Lie in the dark and let them go
 Theirs is a world we’ll never know
 Lie in the dark and listen.

Lie in the dark and listen
 City magnates and steel contractors
 Factory workers and politicians
 Soft hysterical little actors
 Ballet dancers, reserved musicians
 Safe in your warm civilian beds
 Count your profits and count your sheep
 Life is passing over your heads
 Just turn over and try to sleep
 Lie in the dark and let them go
 There’s one debt you’ll forever owe
 Lie in the dark and listen.

Not all things go wrong...
Felix Dennis

Not all things go wrong, and knowing
This, be wary of despair,
As you go through hell — keep going,
Make no brave oasis there.

Through the shadowlands of grieving,
Past the giants, Doubt and Fear,
Heartsick, stunned, and half believing —
Heed no whisper in your ear.

Not all things go wrong — and after
Winter’s famine comes the spring,
Kindness, beauty, children’s laughter —
Joy is ever on the wing.

Bringing this back...

A Woman's Last Word 
Robert Browning

Let's contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love,
---Only sleep!

What so wild as words are?
I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough!

See the creature stalking
While we speak!
Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek!

What so false as truth is,
False to thee?
Where the serpent's tooth is
Shun the tree---

Where the apple reddens
Never pry---
Lest we lose our Edens,
Eve and I.

Be a god and hold me
With a charm!
Be a man and fold me
With thine arm!

Teach me, only teach, Love
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought---

Meet, if thou require it,
Both demands,
Laying flesh and spirit
In thy hands.

That shall be to-morrow
Not to-night:
I must bury sorrow
Out of sight:

---Must a little weep, Love,
(Foolish me!)
And so fall asleep, Love,
Loved by thee.

London Tom-Cat
Michael Hamburger

Look at the gentle savage, monstrous gentleman
With jungles in his heart, yet metropolitan
As we shall never be; who- while his human hosts,
Afraid of their own past and it's primaeval ghosts,
Pile up great walls for comfort - walks coquettishly
Through their elaborate cares, sure of himself and free
To be like them, domesticated, or aloof!
A dandy in the room, a demon on the roof,
He's delicately tough, endearingly reserved,
Adaptable, fastidious, rope-and-fibre-nerved.
Now an accomplished Yogi good at sitting still
He ponders ancient mysteries on the window-sill,
Now stretches, bares his claws and saunters off to find
the thrills of love and hunting, cunningly combined.
Acrobat, diplomat, and simple tabby cat,
He conjures tangled forests in a furnished flat.