Bringing this one back...

Fears and Scruples (incomplete)
Robert Browning

Here’s my case. Of old I used to love him,
This same unseen friend, before I knew:
Dream there was none like him, none above him,—
Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.

Loved I not his letters full of beauty?
Not his actions famous far and wide?
Absent, he would know I vowed him duty;
Present, he would find me at his side.

Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters,
Only knew of actions by hearsay:
He himself was busied with my betters;
What of that? My turn must come some day.

Somebody's Mother
Mary Dow Brine

The woman was old and ragged and grey
    And bent with the chill of the Winter's day.
    The street was wet with a recent snow
    And the woman's feet were aged and slow.
    She stood at the crossing and waited long,
    Alone, uncared for, amid the throng
    Of human beings who passed her by
    Nor heeded the glance of her anxious eyes.
    Down the street, with laughter and shout,
    Glad in the freedom of "school let out,"
    Came the boys like a flock of sheep,
    Hailing the snow piled white and deep.
    Past the woman so old and gray
    Hastened the children on their way.
    Nor offered a helping hand to her -
    So meek, so timid, afraid to stir
    Lest the carriage wheels or the horses' feet
    Should crowd her down in the slippery street.
    At last came one of the merry troop,
    The gayest laddie of all the group;
    He paused beside her and whispered low,
    "I'll help you cross, if you wish to go."
    Her aged hand on his strong young arm
    She placed, and so, without hurt or harm,
    He guided the trembling feet along,
    Proud that his own were firm and strong.
    Then back again to his friends he went,
    His young heart happy and well content.
    "She's somebody's mother, boys, you know,
    For all she's aged and poor and slow,
    "And I hope some fellow will lend a hand
    To help my mother, you understand,
    "If ever she's poor and old and gray,
    When her own dear boy is far away."
   
And "somebody's mother" bowed low her head
    In her home that night, and the prayer she said
    Was "God be kind to the noble boy,
    Who is somebody's son, and pride and joy!"

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, moonlight sky.
Men, materials, 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 citizen's worried dreams.
Very soon they'll have reached the sea
And far below them will lie the bays
And coves and sands where they used to be
Taken for summer holidays.
Lie in the dark and let them go
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 flying above your heads
Just turn over and try to sleep.
Lie in the dark and let them go
Theirs is a world you'll never know
Lie in the dark and listen.

Third Day of the Third Month, Rain: Written to Dispel My Depression
Yang Wan-Li 1127-1206

I go out the door; but I can't go back now,
so I borrow someone's bamboo hat to wear for a while.
Spring has tinted ten thousand leaves, and I didn't even know;
the clouds have taken a thousand mountains and swept them away.

I look for flowers in the village
but they hide from me on purpose;
and even when I find them, they only sadden me.
It would be better to lie down
and listen to the rain
in the spring mountains -
a quick downpour. then a few scattered drops.

As spring dies, the scenes grow more beautiful:
the poet will remember them for the rest of his life.
Level fields overflowing with green -
wheat in every village;
soft waters reflecting red -
flowers on every bank.

It Will Not Change
Sarah Teasdale

It will not change now
After so many years;
Life has not broken it
With parting or tears;
Death will not alter it,
It will live on
In all my songs for you
When I am gone.      

The Licorice Fields of Pontefract
John Betjeman

In the licorice fields at Pontefract
My love and I did meet
And many a burdened licorice bush
Was blooming round our feet;
Red hair she had and golden skin,
Her sulky lips were shaped for sin,
Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd
The strongest legs in Pontefract.

The light and dangling licorice flowers
Gave off the sweetest smells;
From various black Victorian towers
The Sunday evening bells
Came pealing over dales and hills
And tanneries and silent mills
And lowly streets where country stops
And little shuttered corner shops.

She cast her blazing eyes on me
And plucked a licorice leaf;
I was her captive slave and she
My red-haired robber chief.
Oh love! for love I could not speak,
It left me winded, wilting, weak,
And held in brown arms strong and bare
And wound with flaming ropes of hair.





 

 

The Voice

Thomas Hardy

 

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,

Saying that now you are not as you were

When you had changed from the one who was all to me,

But as at first, when our day was fair.

 

Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then,

Standing as when I drew near to the town

Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,

Even to the original air-blue gown!

 

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness

Travelling across the wet mead to me here,

You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,

Heard no more again far or near?

 

Thus I; faltering forward,

Leaves around me falling,

Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,

And the woman calling.

 

Time Does Not Bring Relief
Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
   Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
   I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
   And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
   But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide

There are a hundred places where I fear
   To go,—so with his memory they brim
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
   And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

 

Absence

William Shakespeare

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

Ranting Muses
Felix Dennis

We grow impatient waiting on your pleasure,
Why then affect surprise when we have flown?
A muse is not some slut to take at leisure:
You either come when called - or sleep alone.

Of Mercy and Kindness
Felix Dennis

Formal mercy clothes itself in duty,
Obnoxious to the ear and to the heart,
While kindness is itself a form of beauty,
And all its artists masters of their art.

 

Two very different poems from this Australian poet.

 

Beauty of the World

Frank Wilmot 

 

Not what men see,

Not what they draw from the spread

Of hills looming in cloud -

Not this makes them proud;

But what they can hold in fee

With difficulty and dread

To tell to their hearts in pain

Over and over again.

The terror of Beauty is this:

That something may find the abyss,

Some fact of miracle would mean.

The spacious suns

Flow through the heart as water runs,

Known and not held,

Leaving no trace.

O'er Earth's wind-ruffled face

Goes the sun-shuddering air...

Of all the Beauty that rides

Violent or velvet-footed everywhere,

So little abides -

The hunger of life's unquelled!

 

Languid upon their slopes of silvery death

Dead giants sway to the noon breezes' breath;

How these things torture the soul!

Moonlight that loiters on a mossy bole;

Sunglow that makes a pillow of a stone;

The drifts of forest light;

Trees in a stormy night;

Bush echoes; ocean's unresolving tone;

Or groups of falling chords melting to one;

The softness of a kookaburra's crown

The wind puts softly up and softly down;

His eyes of love that almost humanly speak

Peering in softness o'er that murderous beak!

 

Gardens will blossom forever, breaking the spirit,

All your endeavour be guerdonless, trammelled with dross;

Vain the accomplishing ardours the races inherit

Till true men open their mouths, confessing their loss.

Beauty strides like a warrior, tortures the passions,

Troubles the soul with its mountainous loveliness;

Vain what we yearn toward, vain all the deft hand fashions,

Till, turning toward the ranges, men confess

That they shall trouble overmuch

For things they'll never touch;

That forests they move among

Shall always elude their yearning

And all their passion be as the returning

Silence when the thrush has sung.

 

When, folded on gully and crown,

The west light spreads the shadows down

And daylight dies on unapproachable hills,

The breathing silence storms us, the heart fills,

We're sated with sublimity...

But, having tramped those tracks and crossed those rills

Nearing their slopes, the mountains cease to be.

 

Full well we know

Must pass, must pass away

This joy, that woe;

And learn full well in quiet dismay

That Beauty cannot stay.

But this content for which we vainly grope,

This desperate reach for miracle may give place,

Through an intenser waiting, a more passionate hope,

To nobleness in small things, acts of grace.

 

*********************************

 Nursery Rhyme

Frank Wilmot

One year, two year, three year, four,
Comes a khaki gentleman knocking at the door.
"Any little boys at home, send them out to me
To train them and brain them in battles yet to be."

When a little boy is born feed him, train him so.
Put him in a cattle pen and wait for him to grow.
When he's nice and plump and dear, and sensible and sweet,
Throw him in the trenches for the great grey rats to eat.
Toss him in the cannon's mouth, cannons fancy best
Tender little boys' flesh that's easy to digest.

Mother rears her family on two pounds ten a week.
Teaches them to wash themselves, teaches them to speak.
Rears them with a heart's love, rears them to be men.
Grinds her fingers to the bone, and then... what then?

But parents who must rear the boys the cannons love to slay,
Also pay for cannons that blow other boys away.
Parsons tell them that their sons have just been blown to bits.
Patriotic parents must all laugh like fits.

Rear the boys for honest men and send them out to die!
Where's the coward father who would dare raise a cry?
Any gentleman's aware folk rear their children for
Blunderers and plunderers to mangle in a war!

Five year, six year, seven year, eight.
"Hurry up you little chaps, the captain's at the gate!"

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

After Love
Sarah Teasdale

There is no magic any more,
We meet as other people do,
You work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.

You were the wind and I the sea --
There is no splendor any more,
I have grown listless as the pool
Beside the shore.

But though the pool is safe from storm
And from the tide has found surcease,
It grows more bitter than the sea,
For all its peace.      

Tigers
Felix Dennis

When men apply to rise to fame
And test the sun with candle flame,
The spur that sets all such apart
Are tigers tearing at their heart.

Love and hate are but the fees
Such tigers gift their enemies,
Neglectful of the famished rage
That paces in a sunless cage.

If we could learn what love is for
And love ourselves a little more,
What gentler lives might tigers live:
Ourselves it is we must forgive.

 

 

Chatsworth - Autumn 2012 with Lynn

The Hare
Walter de la Mare

In the black furrow of a field
I saw an old witch-hare this night;
And she cocked a lissome ear,
And she eyed the moon so bright,
And she nibbled of the green;
And I whispered “Wh-s-st! witch-hare,”
Away like a ghostie o’er the field
She fled, and left the moonlight there.

A Hare
Walter de la Mare

Eyes that glass fear, though fear on furtive foot
Track thee, in slumber bound;
Ears that whist danger, though the wind sigh not,
Nor Echo list a sound;
Heart - oh, what hazard must thy wild life be,
With sapient Man for thy cold enemy!

Fleet Scatterbrains, thou hast thine hours of peace
In pastures April-green,
Where the shrill skylark's raptures never cease,
And the clear dew englobes the white moon's beam.
All happiness God gave thee, albeit thy foe
Roves Eden, as did Satan, long ago.

16th January 2013

Happy 50th Birthday, James,

with love from Elaine x

 

James May is Fifty!

You cannot be fifty!
You're kidding us surely?
You must be mistaken,
You've counted it poorly!

You have such a sparkle,
A twinkly eye,
You're handsome, and active,
Despite Spam and pie.

You always are busy,
A national treasure,
Who makes lots of shows,
for our teleview pleasure.

Oh no! If it's true,
Do not worry or sigh,
Don't be downhearted,
I'll now tell you why.

I'm right here, to help you,
I've written a list,
To remind you of things
that till now you have missed...

Your nose hair will sprout,
and your eyebrows grow bushy,
Your hair will turn white,
and your six-pack all mushy??

Not to mention the wrinkles,
they'll call 'laughter lines',
But along with the eyesight
that's one of the signs.

You'll get letters from Saga,
they don't hang about,
They are ever so clever
at seeking you out.

Your toenails will harden
your waistline will thicken,
Or else you'll grow scrawny
and look like a chicken!

But,
There is some good news!
And I'm sure you'll agree,
Because like a fine wine
You've matured, favourably.

The ladies, it seems,
Think you're still in fine fettle.
You can drive a Ferrari,
Yet can handle a kettle.

You're loved by your Woman,
The world knows your name.
And yet you will Tweet us,
despite all your fame.

You're older and wiser
It's these things that matter,
It's family and friends,
And a drink and a natter.

But seriously James,
I do think that you're great,
And send my Best Wishes,
As you celebrate.

So lift up your glass,
Have a brilliant time,
Here's to James May at fifty,
Now in his prime.

http://www.high50.com/archives/life-times/mayday-mayday-its-james-mays-50th

Babylon
George William Russell

The blue dusk ran between the streets: my love was winged within my mind,
It left to-day and yesterday and thrice a thousand years behind.
To-day was past and dead for me, for from to-day my feet had run
Through thrice a thousand years to walk the ways of ancient Babylon.
On temple top and palace roof the burnished gold flung back the rays
Of a red sunset that was dead and lost beyond a million days.
The tower of heaven turns darker blue, a starry sparkle now begins;
The mystery and magnificence, the myriad beauty and the sins
Come back to me. I walk beneath the shadowy multitude of towers;
Within the gloom the fountain jets its pallid mist in lily flowers.
The waters lull me and the scent of many gardens, and I hear
Familiar voices, and the voice I love is whispering in my ear.
Oh real as in dream all this; and then a hand on mine is laid:
The wave of phantom time withdraws; and that young Babylonian maid,
One drop of beauty left behind from all the flowing of that tide,
Is looking with the self-same eyes, and here in Ireland by my side.
Oh light our life in Babylon, but Babylon has taken wings,
While we are in the calm and proud procession of eternal things.

A Farewell
Coventry Patmore

With all my will, but much against my heart,
We two now part.
My Very Dear,
Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear.
It needs no art,
With faint, averted feet
And many a tear,
In our opposed paths to persevere.
Go thou to East, I West,
We will not say
There's any hope, it is so far away.
But O my Best,
When the one darling of our widowhead,
The nursling Grief,
Is dead,
And no dews blur our eyes
To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies,
Perchance we may
Where now this night is day,
And even through faith of still averted feet,
Making full circle of our banishment,
Amazed meet;
The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet
Seasoning the termless feast of our content
With tears of recognition never dry.

London celebrates the New Year in style!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20861403

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.

So, I have a poem in an actual book!

 

Give All To Love

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Give all to love;

Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good-frame,
Plans, credit and the Muse,—
Nothing refuse.

’Tis a brave master;
Let it have scope:
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope:
High and more high
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent:
But it is a god,
Knows its own path
And the outlets of the sky.

It was never for the mean;
It requireth courage stout.
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending,
It will reward,—
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.

Leave all for love;
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,—
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, forever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.

Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
First vague shadow of surmise
Flits across her bosom young,
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free;
Nor thou detain her vesture’s hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.

Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Though her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive;
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.

May's Love
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

You love all, you say,
Round, beneath, above me:
Find me then some way
Better than to love me,
Me, too, dearest May!

O world-kissing eyes
Which the blue heavens melt to!
I, sad, overwise,
Loathe the sweet looks dealt to
All things -- men and flies.

You love all, you say:
Therefore, Dear, abate me
Just your love, I pray!
Shut your eyes and hate me --
Only me -- fair May!

Maya Angelou

"I am convinced that most people do not grow up. We find parking spaces and honor our credit cards. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up.I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias.
We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do."

At the Mid Hour of Night
Thomas Moore

AT the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly
To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;
And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air
To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,
And tell me our love is remember'd even in the sky.

Then I sing the wild song it once was rapture to hear,
When our voices commingling breathed like one on the ear;
And as Echo far off through the vale my sad orison rolls,
I think, O my love! 'tis thy voice from the Kingdom of Souls
Faintly answering still the notes that once were so dear.

Daybreak
John Donne

STAY, O sweet and do not rise!
 The light that shines comes from thine eyes;
 The day breaks not: it is my heart,
 Because that you and I must part.
 Stay! or else my joys will die
 And perish in their infancy.