*Verse & Prose* that I love...

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Yeats

Beautiful Ariadne

Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
In a flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.
Now see I
That warmth's the very stuff of poetry.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie.

T. E. Hulme

High overhead that silent throne
Of wild and cloud betravelled sky
That makes ones lonliness more lone
Sends forth a crank and reedy cry
I look the crane is sailing ore
That pathless world without a mate
The Heath looked brown and dull before
But now tis more than desolate.
John Clare

A wonderful poet whose observations ofvthe natural world and man's place in it are beautiful. Anyone else a fan?

gb - Yep, definitely - although I find this one sad. But then he wasn't the happiest of chappies, was he.

That true Butternut. Have you read his biography?

grannybug Clare is amazing, isn't he?

The Parting...^Elizabeth Jennings^

Though there was nothing final then,
No word or look or sign,
I felt some ending in the air
As when a sesed design
Draws back from the completing touch
And dies along a line.

For through the words that seemed to show
That we were learning each
Trick of the other's thought and sense,
A shyness seemed to reach
As if such talk continuing
Would make the hour too rich.

Maybe this strangeness only was
The safe place all men make
To hide themselves from happiness;
I only know I lack
The strangeness our last meeting had
And try to force it back.

Ariadne
yes he is indeed. Such a tortured soul with such an affinity ti the natural world around him resulting in poetry that evokes strong responses..... The Shepherds Calender is beautiful Volume . You can almost feel the seasons change.

You're...Sylvia Plath

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo's mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools' Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog, and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.

I learned this poem by heart, and recited it at a special function for my son and his wife. It is a favourite of theirs. They were expecting their first child. This poem is a tribute to the unborn.

The Young Ones...^Elizabeth Jennings^

They slip on to the bus, hair piled up high.
New styles each month, it seems to me. I look,
Not wanting to be seen, casting my eye
Above the unread pages of my book.

They are fifteen or so. When I was thus,
I huddled in school coats, my satchel hung
Lop-sided on my shoulder. Without fuss
These enter adolescence; being young

Seems good to them, a state we cannot reach,
No talk of "awkward ages" now, I see
How childish gazes staring out of each
Unfinished face prove me incredibly

Old-fashioned. Yet at least I have the chance
To size up several stages - young yet old,
Doing the twist, mocking an "old-time" dance:
So many ways to be unsure or bold.

Choices...^Elizabeth Jennings^

Inside the room I see the table laid,
Four chairs, a patch of light the lamp has made

And people there so deep in tenderness
They could not speak a word of happiness.

Outside I stand and see my shadow drawn
Lengthening the clipped grass of the cared-for lawn.

Above, their roof holds half the sky behind.
A dog barks bringing distances to mind.

Comfort, I think, or safety then, or both?
I warm the cold air with my steady breath.

They have designed a way to live and I,
Clothed in confusion, set their choices by:

Though sometimes one looks up and sees me there,
Alerts his shadow, pushes back his chair

And, opening windows wide, looks out at me
And close past words we stare. It seems that he

Urges my darkness, dares it to be freed
Into that room. We need each other's need.

I will make you brooches and toys...^Robert Louis Stevenson^

I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
I will make a palace fit for you and me
Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom,
And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white
In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.

And this shall be the music when no one else is near,
The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remembeer, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.

Soop What a lovely poem The Photo is. I am making a memory book for my family and this poem really expresses how I often feel when selecting old photographs . Thank you for posting it.

Apologia
My life is too dull and too careful-
Even I can see that:
The orderly beside table,
The spoilt cat

Surely I should have been bolder.
What could biographers say?
She got up,ate toast and went shopping
Day after day?

Whisky and gin are alarming,
Ecstasy makes you drop dead.
Toy boys make inroads on cash
and your half of the bed.

Emily Dickinson, help me.
Stevie, look up from your Aunt
Some people can stand excitement
some people can't

Connie Bensley

Just a bit of fun really but It makes me smile.

Thank you, Grannybug.

Peace...Amy Witting

At the ship's bow. It was my eye that drew
the erfect circle of blue meeting blue.
No land was visible. There was no sail,
no cloud to show the mighty world in scale,
so sky and ocean, by my gaze defined,
were drawn within the compass of my mind
under a temperate sun. The engine's sound
sank to a heartbeat. Stillness all around.
Only the perfect circle and the mast.
That moment knew no future and no past.

Grannybug Love your poem.

Detail

I was watching a Robin fly after a finch- the smaller bird
Chirping with excitement ,the bigger,it's breast blazing,silent
In light -winged earnest chase- when ,out of nowhere
Over the chimneys and the shivering front gardens,
Flashes a sparrowhawk headlong,a light brown burn
Scorching the air from which it simply plucks
Like a ripe fuit the stopped Robin,whose two or three
cheeps of terminal surprise twinkle in the silence
closing over the empty street when the birds have gone
about their own business,and I begin to understand
how a poem can happen: you have your eye on a small
elusive detail,Pershing it's music,when a terrible truth
strikes and your heart cries out,being carried off.

Eamon Grennan

Oops It should read pursuing

Another poem that is so evocative. We often witness the hawk 'surprise' it's prey.

gb Loved 'Detail'

It's an amazing sight Soop. We have red kites soaring above as I type but only the occasional hawk. Poetry soothes and stimulates in equal measures!

How very true, Grannybug

Children's Song...R. S. Thomas

We live in our own world.
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven.

Soop(flowers) A children's song. Beautiful.