Reported Missing
John Bayliss

With broken wing they limped across the sky
caught in late sunlight, with their gunner dead,
one engine gone,- the type was out-of-date, -
blood on the fuselage turning brown from red:

Knew it was finished, looking at the sea
which shone back patterns in kaleidoscope
knew that their shadow would meet them by the way,
close and catch at them, drown their single hope:

Sat in this tattered scarecrow of the sky
hearing it cough, the great plane catching
now the first dark clouds upon her wing-base, -
patching the great tear in evening mockery.

So two men waited, saw the third dead face,
and wondered when the wind would let them die.

 

To His Mistress, Objecting to Him Neither Toying nor Talking. Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

You say I love not, 'cause I do not play

Still with your curls, and kiss the time away.

You blame me, too, because I can't devise

some sport to please those babies in your eyes;-

By Love's religion, I must here confess it,

The most I love, is when I least express it.

Small griefs find tongues; full casks are ever found

To give, if any, yet but little sound.

Deep waters noiseless are; and this we know,

That chiding streams betray small depth below.

So when love speechless is, she doth express

A depth of love, and that depth bottomless.

Now, since my love is tongue less, know me such,

Who speak but little, 'cause I love so much.

'The Sun has long been Set'

William Wordsworth

The sun has long been set,

The stars are out by twos and threes,

The little birds are piping yet

Among the bushes and trees;

There's a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes,

And a far-off wind that rushes,

And a sound of water that gushes,

And the cuckoo's sovereign cry

Fills all the hollow of the sky.

Who would "go parading"

In London, "and masquerading,"

On such a night of June

With that beautiful soft half-moon,

And all these innocent blisses?

On such a night as this is!

Written in my country garden in spring
Wang Wei

On my roof spring pigeons call
And round the village almond trees bloom white
Men take axes to cut the high branches
Shoulder hoes to inspect the conduits
Returning swallows know their old nests
The old resident scans the new calendar
About to drink I suddenly hold my hand
With a pang for a friend on a far journey.

The Fighting Téméraire
Henry Newbolt

It was eight bells ringing,
For the morning watch was done,
And the gunner's lads were singing
As they polished every gun.
It was eight bells ringing,
And the gunner's lads were singing,
For the ship she rode a-swinging,
As they polished every gun.

Oh! to see the linstock lighting,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
Oh! to hear the round shot biting,
Téméraire! Téméraire!

Oh! to see the linstock lighting,
And to hear the round shot biting,
For we're all in love with fighting
On the fighting Téméraire.

It was noontide ringing,
And the battle just begun,
When the ship her way was winging,
As they loaded every gun.
It was noontide ringing,
When the ship her way was winging,
And the gunner's lads were singing
As they loaded every gun.

There'll be many grim and gory,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
There'll be few to tell the story,
Téméraire! Téméraire!

There'll be many grim and gory,
There'll be few to tell the story,
But we'll all be one in glory
With the Fighting Téméraire.

There's a far bell ringing
At the setting of the sun,
And a phantom voice is singing
Of the great days done.
There's a far bell ringing,
And a phantom voice is singing
Of renown for ever clinging
To the great days done.

Now the sunset breezes shiver,
Téméraire! Téméraire!
And she's fading down the river,
Téméraire! Téméraire!

Now the sunset breezes shiver,
And she's fading down the river,
But in England's song for ever
She's the Fighting Téméraire.

Glimpses
John Banister Tabb

As one who in the hush of twilight hears
The pausing pulse of Nature, when the Light
Commingles in the dim mysterious rite
Of Darkness with the mutual pledge of tears,
Till soft, anon, one timorous star appears,
Pale-budding as the earliest blossom white
That comes in Winter's livery bedight,
To hide the gifts of genial Spring she bears-

So, unto me- what time the mysteries
Of consciousness and slumber weave a dream
And pause above it with abated breath,
Like intervals in music- lights arise,
Beyond prophetic Nature's farthest gleam,
That teach me half the mystery of Death.

'For All We Have And Are'

               1914

Rudyard Kipling

For all we have and are,

For all our children's fate,

Stand up and take the war.

The Hun is at the gate!

Our world has passed away,

In wantonness o'erthrown.

There is nothing left to-day

But steel and fire and stone!

     Though all we knew depart,

     The old Commandments stand:—

     "In courage keep your heart,

     In strength lift up your hand."

Once more we hear the word

That sickened earth of old:—

"No law except the Sword

Unsheathed and uncontrolled."

Once more it knits mankind,

Once more the nations go

To meet and break and bind

A crazed and driven foe.

Comfort, content, delight,

The ages' slow-bought gain,

They shrivelled in a night.

Only ourselves remain

To face the naked days

In silent fortitude,

Through perils and dismays

Renewed and re-renewed.

     Though all we made depart,

     The old Commandments stand:—

     "In patience keep your heart,

     In strength lift up your hand."

No easy hope or lies

Shall bring us to our goal,

But iron sacrifice

Of body, will, and soul.

There is but one task for all—

One life for each to give.

What stands if Freedom fall?

Who dies if England live?

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-bestarr'd!

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 grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
        Only winds and rivers,
                Life and death.

To The Evening Star
William Blake

Thou fair-hair'd angel of the evening,
Now, while the sun rests on the mountains, light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves; and, while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares thro' the dun forest:
The fleeces of our flocks are cover'd with
Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence.

Paradise Lost
John Collings Squire (Sir)

What hues the sunlight had, how rich the shadows were,
The blue and tangled shadows dropped from the crusted branches
Of the warped apple-trees upon the orchard grass.

How heavenly pure the blue of two smooth eggs that lay
Light on the rounded mud that lined the thrush’s nest:
And what a deep delight the spots that speckled them.

And that small tinkling stream that ran from hedge to hedge,
Shadowed over by the trees and glinting in the sunbeams,
How clear the water was, how flat the beds of sand
With travelling bubbles mirrored, each one a golden world
To my enchanted eyes. Then earth was new to me.

But now I walk this earth as it were a lumber room,
And sometimes live a week, seeing nothing but mere herbs,
Mere stones, mere passing birds: nor look at anything
Long enough to feel its conscious calm assault:
The strength of it, the word, the royal heart of it.

Childhood will not return; but have I not the will
To strain my turbid mind that soils all outer things,
And, open again to all the miracles of light,
To see the world with the eyes of a blind man gaining sight?

Come Sleep
John Fletcher

Come, sleep, and with thy sweet deceiving
Lock me in delight a while;
Let some pleasing dreams beguile
All my fancies; that from thence
I may feel an influence,
All my powers of care bereaving!

Though but a shadow, but a sliding,
Let me know some little joy!
We that suffer long annoy
Are contented with a thought
Through an idle fancy wrought:
Oh, let my joys have some abiding!

Ploughing in the Mist
Andrew Young

Pulling the shoulder-sack
Closer about his neck and back,
He called out to his team
That stamped off dragging the weigh-beam;
And as he gripped the stilts and steered
They plunged in mist and disappeared,
Fading so fast away
They seemed on a long journey gone,
Not to return that day;
But while I waited on
The jingle of loose links I caught,
And suddenly on the hill-rise,
Pale phantoms of the mist at first,
Man and his horses burst
As though before my eyes
Creation had been wrought.

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’s hard, till trouble is at an end;
And so be patient, be wise and patient, friend.”
But heart, there is no 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.
O heart! O heart! if she’d but turn her head,
You’d know the folly of being comforted.

The Stars
Andrew Young

The stars rushed forth tonight
Fast on the faltering light;
So thick those stars did lie
No room was left for sky;
And to my upturned stare
A snow-storm filled the air.

Stars lay like yellow pollen
That from a flower has fallen;
And single stars I saw
Crossing themselves in awe;
Some stars in sudden fear
Fell like a falling tear.
 
What is the eye of man,
This little star that can
See all those stars at once,
Multitudinous suns,
Making of them a wind
That blows across the mind?
 
If eye can nothing see
But what is part of me,
I ask and ask again
With a persuasive pain,
What thing, O God, am I,
this Mote and mystery?

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?'