Wisdom
W. B. Yeats

THE true faith discovered was
When painted panel, statuary.
Glass-mosaic, window-glass,
Amended what was told awry
By some peasant gospeller;
Swept the Sawdust from the floor
Of that working-carpenter.
Miracle had its playtime where
In damask clothed and on a seat
Chryselephantine, cedar-boarded,
His majestic Mother sat
Stitching at a purple hoarded
That He might be nobly breeched
In starry towers of Babylon
Noah's freshet never reached.
King Abundance got Him on
Innocence; and Wisdom He.
That cognomen sounded best
Considering what wild infancy
Drove horror from His Mother's breast.                         

And There was a Great Calm
Thomas Hardy

There had been years of Passion—scorching, cold,
And much Despair, and Anger heaving high,
Care whitely watching, Sorrows manifold,
Among the young, among the weak and old,
And the pensive Spirit of Pity whispered, “Why?”

Men had not paused to answer. Foes distraught
Pierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness,
Philosophies that sages long had taught,
And Selflessness, were as an unknown thought,
And “Hell!” and “Shell!” were yapped at Lovingkindness

 

The feeble folk at home had grown full-used

To 'dug-outs', 'snipers', 'Huns', from the war-adept

In the mornings heard, and at evetides perused;

To day-dreamt men in millions, when they mused-

To nightmare-men in millions when they slept.

 

Waking to wish existence timeless, null,

Sirius they watched above where armies fell;

He seemed to check his flapping when, in the lull

Of night a boom came thencewise, like the dull

Plunge of a stone dropped into some deep well.

 

So, when old hopes that earth was bettering slowly

Were dead and damned, there sounded 'War is done!'

One morrow. Said the bereft, and meek, and lowly,

'Will men some day be given to grace? yea, wholly,

And in good sooth, as our dreams used to run?'

 

Breathless they paused. Out there men raised their glance

To where had stood those poplars lank and lopped,

As they had raised it through the four years’ dance

Of Death in the now familiar flats of France;

And murmured, 'Strange, this! How? All firing stopped?'

 

Aye; all was hushed. The about-to-fire fired not,

The aimed-at moved away in trance-lipped song.

One checkless regiment slung a clinching shot

And turned. The Spirit of Irony smirked out, 'What?

Spoil peradventures woven of Rage and Wrong?'

 

Thenceforth no flying fires inflamed the grey,

No hurtlings shook the dewdrop from the thorn,

No moan perplexed the mute bird on the spray;

Worn horses mused: 'We are not whipped to-day;'

No weft-winged engines blurred the moon’s thin horn.

 

Calm fell. From Heaven distilled a clemency;

There was peace on earth, and silence in the sky;

Some could, some could not, shake off misery:

The Sinister Spirit sneered: 'It had to be!'

And again the Spirit of Pity whispered, 'Why?'

 

 

 

Autumn by the Sea
John Galsworthy

We'll hear the murmur of the swell,
And touch the driftwood, grey,
And with our quickened senses smell
The sea-flowers all the day.

We'll watch the hills, the pastures brown,
The trees of changing hue,
Till evening's ice comes stealing down
From those high fields of blue.

And far the crimson sun-god sails
Away in sunset cloak;
And gentle heat's gold pathway fails
In autumn's opal smoke.

And then we'll watch the bright half-moon—
Slow-spinning in the sky,
And trace the dark flight—all too soon—
Of land-birds wheeling by.

Through all the night of stars we'll touch
The quietude of things,
And gain brief freedom from the clutch
Of life's encompassings.

The Secret Joy
Mary Webb

Face to face with the sunflower,
Cheek to cheek with the rose,
We follow a secret highway
Hardly a traveller knows.
The gold that lies in the folded bloom
Is all our wealth;
We eat of the heart of the forest
With innocent stealth.
We know the ancient roads
in the leaf of a nettle,
And bathe in the blue profound
Of a speedwell petal.

Distant View of the Ching Mountains
Chiang Yen

On the cold frontier no shadow to be seen
The autumn sun lets fall a pale radiance
A mournful wind dishevels the thick forests
The clouds are red, the river rising cold.

'The autumn sun lets fall a pale radiance.'
Wang Wei

The great void, the cool sky is calm
Crystal brilliance, the white sun is autumn
The round light contains all things
And its broken image enters the quiet stream
Far up and uniting with the blue depths
Away and down floating with the river plain
The shades at noon make all the trees distinct
The slanting light falls on the high houses
Sung u climbed up and resented it
Chang Heng looked into the distance and grieved
But if that last glow can be trusted
Will those paths in the clouds be sad, sad?

Wild Roses
Ronald Campbell Macfie

Wild roses hidden in the hedge
Surrender to the lips of June;
White lilies cloistered in the sedge
Permit the kisses of the moon.

And oh, my heart desires your love,
As never June desires a rose,
And never the pale moon above
Such longing for a lily knows.

And yet your love I vainly seek,
Unto my love no love replies,
No blush gives answer in your cheek,
No passion lightens in your eyes.

Ardent as June I watch and wait,
Pale as the moon I pace your sky;
O Lady be compassionate,
And kiss and love me, or I die.

Love Me
Ronald Campbell Macfie

How long did the sun's round passionate mouth
Kiss that rose's lips, I wonder?
How long did the amorous wind from the south
Try to press her petals asunder?

How long did the honey-bee flit to and fro
Ere she threw her red vest apart,
And showed a glory of gold and snow
Hoarded beside her heart?

Longer far have I yearned for your love,
And flown round your folded blossom.
Will pity or passion never move
The proud disdain of thy bosom?

Love me! I loved thee long ago:
Love me! the land is sunny
Love me! look, how the roses blow
And the bees are gathering honey!

L'ENVOI
(Departmental Ditties)
Rudyard Kipling

The smoke upon your Altar dies,
The flowers decay,
The Goddess of your sacrifice
Has flown away.
What profit then to sing or slay
The sacrifice from day to day?

'We know the shrine is void,' they said,
'The Goddess flown -
'Yet wreaths on the altar laid -
'The Altar-Stone
'Is black with fumes of sacrifice,
'Albeit She has fled our eyes.

'For, it may be, if still we sing
'And tend the Shrine,
'Some Deity on wandering wing
'May there incline;
'And, finding all in order meet,
'Stay while we worship at Her feet.'

Beeny Cliff
Thomas Hardy

O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free-
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.

The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.

A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain,
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.

-Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?

What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,
The woman now is-elsewhere-whom the ambling pony bore,
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.                         

Crumbs of Comfort
Felix Dennis

How many crumbs of comfort - oaf!
Do men require to bake a loaf?
How many draughts of wine, my dear,
Will drown a fire and dry a tear?
For think of this - the rich can never know
Who loves them for their wit or for their gold;
And if men reap but what they sow,
Yet gold grows cold as bones grow old.
Keep friendships, then, in good repair,
We none of us have friends to spare -
And in the end,
Your one true friend
Is gold beyond compare.

Now that the Sky and the Earth and the Wind are Silent
Francesco Petrarch

Now that the sky and the earth and the wind are silent
and the wild creatures and the birds are reined in sleep,
Night leads its starry chariot in its round,
and the sea without a wave lies in its bed,
I look, think, burn, weep: and she who destroys me
is always before my eyes to my sweet distress:
war is my state, filled with grief and anger,
and only in thinking of her do I find peace.
So from one pure living fountain
flow the sweet and bitter which I drink:
one hand alone heals me and pierces me:
and so that my ordeal may not reach haven,
I am born and die a thousand times a day,
I am so far from my salvation.

Little Gidding  (part only)
T. S. Eliot

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time's covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable Zero summer?

If you came this way,
Taking the route you would be likely to take
From the place you would be likely to come from,
If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges
White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.
It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places
Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,
Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city--
But this is the nearest, in place and time,
Now and in England.

Song of the Chattahoochee
Sidney Lanier

Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,
I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side
With a lover's pain to attain the plain
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.

All down the hills of Habersham,
All through the valleys of Hall,
The rushes cried Abide, abide,
The wilful waterweeds held me thrall,
The laving laurel turned my tide,
The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay,
The dewberry dipped for to work delay,
And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide,
Here in the hills of Habersham,
Here in the valleys of Hall.
High o'er the hills of Habersham,
Veiling the valleys of Hall,
The hickory told me manifold
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold,
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,
Overleaning with flickering meaning and sign,
Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold
Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,
These glades in the valleys of Hall.
And oft in the hills of Habersham,
And oft in the valleys of Hall,
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone
Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,
And many a luminous jewel lone
-Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,
Ruby, garnet, and amethyst-
Made lures with the lights of streaming stone
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,
In the beds of the valleys of Hall.

But oh, not the hills of Habersham,
And oh, not the valleys of Hall
Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.
Downward the voices of Duty call-
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,
And the lordly main from beyond the plain
Calls o'er the hills of Habersham,
Calls through the valleys of Hall.