Unrequited Love
Empress Eifuku (1271-1342)

If even now
in the midst of rejection
I still love him so,
then what would be my feelings
if he were to love me back?

Lunar Magic

Enchanted hare in golden barley lies,
With just a touch of madness in his eyes,
The harvest moon intensifies it's light,
Empowers in him the magic of the night.
And when dawn’s traces creep across the sky,
With joy, he wakes and leaps the barley high,
Then panting, rests and weaves an autumn spell,
While whispering winds Earth’s tale of winter tell.

Robin Redbreast
William Allingham

Good-bye, good-bye to Summer!
For Summer's nearly done;
The garden smiling faintly,
Cool breezes in the sun;
Our Thrushes now are silent,
Our Swallows flown away, --
But Robin's here, in coat of brown,
With ruddy breast-knot gay.
Robin, Robin Redbreast,
O Robin dear!
Robin singing sweetly
In the falling of the year.

Bright yellow, red, and orange,
The leaves come down in hosts;
The trees are Indian princes,
But soon they'll turn to ghosts;
The scanty pears and apples
Hang russet on the bough,
It's autumn, autumn, autumn late,
'Twill soon be Winter now.
Robin, Robin Redbreast,
O Robin dear!
And what will this poor Robin do?
For pinching times are near.

The fireside for the cricket,
The wheatstack for the mouse,
When trembling night-winds whistle
And moan all round the house.
The frosty ways like iron,
The branches plumed with snow, --
Alas! in Winter, dead and dark,
Where can poor Robin go?
Robin, Robin Redbreast,
O Robin dear!
And a crumb of bread for Robin,
His little heart to cheer.                             

Japanese Maple
Clive James

Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain.
Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:

Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?

Ever more lavish as the dusk descends
This glistening illuminates the air.
It never ends.
Whenever the rain comes it will be there,
Beyond my time, but now I take my share.

My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that. That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same:

Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colors will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.

   Renouncement Alice Meynell   I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight—
The thought of thee—and in the blue Heaven’s height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.
Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away,—
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

Daisy
Francis Thompson

Where the thistle lifts a purple crown
     Six foot out of the turf,
And the harebell shakes on the windy hill--
     O breath of the distant surf!--

The hills look over on the South,
     And southward dreams the sea;
And with the sea-breeze hand in hand
     Came innocence and she.

Where 'mid the gorse the raspberry
     Red for the gatherer springs;
Two children did we stray and talk
     Wise, idle, childish things.

She listened with big-lipped surprise,
     Breast-deep 'mid flower and spine:
Her skin was like a grape whose veins
     Run snow instead of wine.

She knew not those sweet words she spake,
     Nor knew her own sweet way;
But there's never a bird, so sweet a song
     Thronged in whose throat all day.

Oh, there were flowers in Storrington
     On the turf and on the spray;
But the sweetest flower on Sussex hills
     Was the Daisy-flower that day!

Her beauty smoothed earth's furrowed face.
     She gave me tokens three:--
A look, a word of her winsome mouth,
     And a wild raspberry.

A berry red, a guileless look,
     A still word,--strings of sand!
And yet they made my wild, wild heart
     Fly down to her little hand.

For standing artless as the air,
     And candid as the skies,
She took the berries with her hand,
     And the love with her sweet eyes.

The fairest things have fleetest end,
     Their scent survives their close:
But the rose's scent is bitterness
     To him that loved the rose.

She looked a little wistfully,
     Then went her sunshine way:--
The sea's eye had a mist on it,
     And the leaves fell from the day.

She went her unremembering way,
     She went and left in me
The pang of all the partings gone,
     And partings yet to be.

She left me marvelling why my soul
     Was sad that she was glad;
At all the sadness in the sweet,
     The sweetness in the sad.

Still, still I seemed to see her, still
     Look up with soft replies,
And take the berries with her hand,
     And the love with her lovely eyes.

Nothing begins, and nothing ends,
     That is not paid with moan,
For we are born in other's pain,
     And perish in our own.

Perhaps-
( To R.A.L. Died of wounds in France, December 23rd, 1915)
Vera Brittain

Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,
And I shall see that still the skies are blue,
And feel once more I do not live in vain,
Although bereft of You.

Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet
Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay,
And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet,
Though You have passed away.

Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright,
And crimson roses once again be fair,
And autumn harvest fields a rich delight,
Although You are not there.

Perhaps some day I shall not shrink in pain
To see the passing of the dying year,
And listen to Christmas songs again,
Although You cannot hear.' 

But though kind Time may many joys renew,
There is one greatest joy I shall not know
Again, because my heart for loss of You
Was broken, long ago.

Seat Ibiza, Party Time!

Seat Ibiza, party time!
A car that so deserves a rhyme!
'Quest for perfection,’ - short climb.

Not too pretentious - unassuming,
Saving the planet - low consuming.

Vague steering? Transmission shunting?
Hold the flags and hide the bunting!

Though overall, James thinks it’s fine,
I’ll go ahead and order mine.

When talking cars, he's quite a smarty,
Appears the Ibiza is quite hearty,
I'll provide the beer, let's have that party!

 

The Self-banished

Edmund Waller 1606-1687

 

It is not that I love you less

Than when before your feet I lay,

But to prevent the sad increase

Of hopeless love, I keep away.

In vain (alas!) for everything

Which I have known belong to you,

Your form does to my fancy bring,

And makes my old wounds bleed anew.

Who in the spring from the new sun

Already has a fever got,

Too late begins those shafts to shun,

Which Phœbus through his veins has shot.

Too late he would the pain assuage,

And to thick shadows does retire;

About with him he bears the rage,

And in his tainted blood the fire.

But vow’d I have, and never must

Your banish’d servant trouble you;

For if I break, you may distrust

The vow I made to love you, too.

If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.                             

'All sunsets are illusions to the eye...'
Felix Dennis

All sunsets are illusions to the eye;
No sun has ever set from mortal sight —
Our puny ball of mud spins in the sky
To stare upon the void men call the night.

All gods are but the churn of plow to seeds,
The chaff of priests mere superstitious cant.
Their words are perilous, judge by their deeds!
Their prophets profitless, mere beards and rant.

When imams pray in interstellar space
Five times a day — pray, which way must they face?
When bishops rage at inter-species love,
Shall demons mock below — or screech above?

All sunsets are illusions to the eye;
And we ourselves are gods— and all gods die.