Today's poet

[Alf]

Helloooooooooh! Anybody thereeeeeeee? Uhmm.....not sure what's happening to this thread. Maybe it's the recent great weather and everybody is outdoors doing their outdoors thingies - like fellrunning! Just little ol' me sitting here in a grump nursing a bloody knackered left calf muscle - GRRRRRRRRRRH

Anyway, as a slight diversion to me having to mow the lawn again, in a very bad temper, here's something seasonal.


A Summer’s Dream

To the sagging wharf
few ships could come.
The population numbered
two giants, an idiot, a dwarf,

a gentle storekeeper
asleep behind his counter,
and our kind landlady—
the dwarf was her dressmaker.

The idiot could be beguiled
by picking blackberries,
but then threw them away.
The shrunken seamstress smiled.

By the sea, lying
blue as a mackerel,
our boarding house was streaked
as though it had been crying.

Extraordinary geraniums
crowded the front windows,
the floors glittered with
assorted linoleums.

Every night we listened
for a horned owl.
In the horned lamp flame,
the wallpaper glistened.

The giant with the stammer
was the landlady’s son,
grumbling on the stairs
over an old grammar.

He was morose,
but she was cheerful.
The bedroom was cold,
the feather bed close.

We were awakened in the dark by
the somnambulist brook
nearing the sea,
still dreaming audibly.

Elizabeth Bishop

Well I have just been lazy Mossy :thunbdown: Sorry to hear about the leg injury and I hope you are on the mend now ? I have enjoyed the Elizabeth Bishp stuff you have been posting :thumbup:

[Alf]

Geography Lesson
Brian Pattern

Our teacher told us one day he would leave
And sail across a warm blue sea
To places he had only known from maps,
And all his life had longed to be.
The house he lived in was narrow and grey
But in his mind’s eye he could see
Sweet-scented jasmine clinging to the walls,
And green leaves burning on an orange tree.
He spoke of the lands he longed to visit,
Where it was never drab or cold.
I couldn’t understand why he never left,
And shook off the school’s stranglehold.
Then halfway through his final term
He took ill and never returned.
He never got to that place on the map
Where the green leaves of the orange trees burned.
The maps were redrawn on the classroom wall;
His name forgotten, he faded away.
But a lesson he never knew he taught
Is with me to this day.
I travel to where the green leaves burn,
To where the ocean’s glass-clear and blue,
To places our teacher taught me to love –
And which he never knew.

Lush that one freckle

[Alf]

The Solitary Reaper

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;--
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

William Wordsworth

[Alf]

No Second Troy


Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?


William Butler Yeats

[freckle]

The Solitary Reaper

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;--
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

William Wordsworth

a lovely choice that alf...i had the opportunity to get into the hills of northumberland today which felt like a real treat after all the road miles I have been doing of late...there was no maiden there but I can hear the melody of the skylarks (?i think) long after they have passed...beautiful

[stevefoster]

Ennerdale, Joss's race,
Impressive folk can run it with pace,
Just getting round will do for me,
Chuffed to bits with that finish line tea:thumbup:

[Mark Smith]

Ennerdale, Joss's race,
Impressive folk can run it with pace,
Just getting round will do for me,
Chuffed to bits with that finish line tea:thumbup:

My sentiments exactly
Re the race AND the tea

[freckle]

Ennerdale, Joss's race,
Impressive folk can run it with pace,
Just getting round will do for me,
Chuffed to bits with that finish line tea:thumbup:

like this its cute!

[freckle]

I haven't read any Yeats in ages but stumbled across a very special little book before....this poem has been posted many a time but I am still very fond of it.... The Song of Wandering Aengus
by W. B. Yeats
I went out to the hazel wood, Because a fire was in my head, And cut and peeled a hazel wand, And hooked a berry to a thread; And when white moths were on the wing, And moth-like stars were flickering out, I dropped the berry in a stream And caught a little silver trout. When I had laid it on the floor I went to blow the fire a-flame, But something rustled on the floor, And someone called me by my name: It had become a glimmering girl With apple blossom in her hair Who called me by my name and ran And faded through the brightening air. Though I am old with wandering Through hollow lands and hilly lands, I will find out where she has gone, And kiss her lips and take her hands; And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done, The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.

[Hes]

That's a real treat Freckle. I love that poem and also the song of it that Christy Moore did.