Today's poet

[Mountain Goatess]

Life

Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall ?

Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly !

What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away ?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway ?
Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair !

Charlotte Bronte

[freckle]

Life

Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall ?

Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly !

What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away ?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway ?
Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair !

Charlotte Bronte

A very inspired choice from a very inspired MG! Nice one :-) x

[freckle]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010...-shelley-prize

armitage seems to be more popular than ever....


The Present by Simon Armitage

Winner of the Keats-Shelley poetry prize


I cannot dodge you, though I have tried
I shove up through the old plantation – larch
out of season, drab, drained of all greenness,
widowed princesses in moth-eaten furs –
and stumble out on the lap of the moor.
Rotten and rusted, a five-bar gate
lies felled in the mud, letting the fields escape.

Winter is late and light this year, thin snow
half puddled, sun still trapped in the earth,
sludge underfoot all the way to the ridge.

And none of the stuff that I came here to find,
except in a high nick at the valley head
where a wet, north-facing lintel of rock
has cornered and cupped enough of the wind
for running water to freeze. Icicles:

once, I un-rooted some six-foot tusk
from the waterfall's crystallised overhang,
lowered it down and stood it on end, then stared
at an ice-age locked in its glassy depths,
at far hills bottled in its weird lens.

These are brittle and timid and rare, and weep
in my gloved fist as I ferry them home.
I'd wanted to offer my daughter
a taste of the glacier, a sense of the world
being pinned in place by a diamond-like cold
at each pole. But opening up my hand
there's nothing to pass on, nothing to hold.

[Alf]

A good choice there Alf..."my days are in the yellow leaf" a corker of a line....

I can't quite believe that this thread is almost a year old and a nudge and wink away from 10,000 posts....it has been a tumultous year in many ways but I have found this thread very sustaining at some tricky times....there has been so many excellent pieces of writing that if anyone had the time I bet we could produce a nice little publication...there's definately a project there!

anyhow...I wonder if anyone recalls this particular verse...i read it again tonight and it took my right back...


Original version of La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 1819
John Keats

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said -
'I love thee true'.
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
And there she lulled me asleep
And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! -
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.
And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Thanks freckle, thats a personal favourite of mine. It can't be posted too often that one

[Hes]

And that....gives me hope...a lovely choice Mossy.

I found this gem while just perusing, as one does, and it struck a cord.....

The Answer I Will Offer You

The Answer I Will Offer You
The act of creation is perhaps
more important
than love

certainly more
constant and
tangible

to fill the emptiness
with something that wasn’t
there before

is a grand defiance

and the only form of hope

I truly understand

it is the answer I will offer you
no matter the question

it may well be
the last bit of grace
left to us

and right here
and now
I tell you
it is

enough.

William Taylor Jnr

[Alf]

Life

Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall ?

Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily,
Enjoy them as they fly !

What though Death at times steps in
And calls our Best away ?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway ?
Yet hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair !

Charlotte Bronte

"If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall ?"

Excellent choice MG

[Hes]

hmmm... me too, very odd...anyone else remember:

autumn days when the grass is jewelled
and the silk inside a chestnut shell,
jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled
all the things I know so well
oh I mustn't forget
no I mustn't forget
to say a great big thank you
I mustn't forget.... (I imagine there followed a bit about god or something but luckily memory is kind)

etc etc etc

..theres no discouragement
that made him once relent
his first avowed intent
to be a Pilgrim.......I've forgotten what they taught me in the classroom but still remember the hymns

Whats that all about

[Alf]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010...-shelley-prize

armitage seems to be more popular than ever....


The Present by Simon Armitage

Winner of the Keats-Shelley poetry prize


I cannot dodge you, though I have tried
I shove up through the old plantation – larch
out of season, drab, drained of all greenness,
widowed princesses in moth-eaten furs –
and stumble out on the lap of the moor.
Rotten and rusted, a five-bar gate
lies felled in the mud, letting the fields escape.

Winter is late and light this year, thin snow
half puddled, sun still trapped in the earth,
sludge underfoot all the way to the ridge.

And none of the stuff that I came here to find,
except in a high nick at the valley head
where a wet, north-facing lintel of rock
has cornered and cupped enough of the wind
for running water to freeze. Icicles:

once, I un-rooted some six-foot tusk
from the waterfall's crystallised overhang,
lowered it down and stood it on end, then stared
at an ice-age locked in its glassy depths,
at far hills bottled in its weird lens.

These are brittle and timid and rare, and weep
in my gloved fist as I ferry them home.
I'd wanted to offer my daughter
a taste of the glacier, a sense of the world
being pinned in place by a diamond-like cold
at each pole. But opening up my hand
there's nothing to pass on, nothing to hold.

"Rotten and rusted, a five-bar gate
lies felled in the mud, letting the fields escape."

Now thats not a bad line and is he talking about High Cup Nick in verse 3 ?

[freckle]

"Rotten and rusted, a five-bar gate
lies felled in the mud, letting the fields escape."

Now thats not a bad line and is he talking about High Cup Nick in verse 3 ?

Oooooo now i thnk you might be on to something there Alf, after all he has been up there recently.... , the story behind the poem is that he went searching in the hills for icycles to take to his daughter who was poorly at the time (just in case you didn't read attached link like!) x

[Hes]

I read the above Armitage poem in the Guardian on the train back from Wales today. I liked it, glad Freckle posted it here. All these lovely poems about autumn have been great to read. However, it is also a time when the grey seals are giving birth. Here is my contribution:

smooth as a pebble
the grey seal lies watching
her ermine baby