England

England


Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows;
What are those blue remember'd hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content.
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

By A.E. Housman (1859-1936)

Cwmorthin

Cwmorthin

Here the cliffs come together,
Here the cliffs share a secret and draw
Close to each other, stand shoulder to shoulder:
Here is a cup of loneliness.

The cwm lies in an ancient mountain,
And there's a lake between the rock scars
And old heaps of slate that were rolled into it
When times were prosperous.
Everyone has gone now
Leaving behind them the marks of habitation -
Iron wheels, their teeth rusty, on their backs
Like terrible old mouths, old jaws of whales;
Old eyeless ruins, like empty skulls
Here and there, and an old chapel in decay.
The great mountain and its long silence reclaim them.
Everything goes back to the indifference of rock,
To the grasp of the grass and the sedges, to the water's
blackness,
Under the barren sky.

The cliff's old age, the abyss of days,
The motionless elements' age, the rock and its veins
Open a great void.
Here one sees the cleft of the years.

Emptiness, emptiness, emptiness.
In the emptiness of the place, in the emptiness of the season
Under the vast sky
Is a lake in a cup of loneliness.

By Gwyn Thomas

The Sundew

The Sundew

A little marsh-plant, yellow green,
And pricked at lip with tender red.
Tread close, and either way you tread
Some faint black water jets between
Lest you should bruise the curious head.

A live thing maybe; who shall know?
The summer knows and suffers it;
For the cool moss is thick and sweet
Each side, and saves the blossom so
That it lives out the long June heat.

The deep scent of the heather burns
About it; breathless though it be,
Bow down and worship; more than we
Is the least flower whose life returns,
Least weed renascent in the sea.

We are vexed and cumbered in earth's sight
With wants, with many memories;
These see their mother what she is,
Glad-growing, till August leave more bright
The apple-coloured cranberries.

Wind blows and bleaches the strong grass,
Blown all one way to shelter it
From temple of strayed kine, with feet
Felt heavier than the moorhen was
Strayed up past patches of wild wheat.

You call it sundew; how it grows,
If with its colour it have breath,
If life taste sweet to it, if death
Pain its soft petal, no man knows:
Man has no sight or sense that saith.

My sundew, grown of gentle days,
In these green miles the spring begun
Thy growth ere April had half done
With the soft secret of her ways
Or June made ready for the sun.

O red-lipped mouth of marsh-mellow,
I have a secret halved with thee.
The name that is love's name to me
Thou knowest, and the face of her
Who is my festival to see.

The hard sun, as thy petals knew,
Coloured the heavy moss-water;
Thou wert not worth green midsummer
Nor fit to live to August blue,
O sundew, not remembering her.

By Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Another Spring

Another Spring

The seasons revolve and the years change
With no assistance or supervision.
The moon, without taking thought,
Moves in its cycle, full, cresent, full.

The white moon enters the heart of the river;
The air is drugged with azalea blossoms;
Deep in the night a pine cone falls;
Our campfire dies out in the empty mountains.

The sharp stars flicker in the tremulous branches;
The lake is black, bottomless in the crystalline
night;
High in the sky the Northern Crown
Is cut in half by the dim summit of a snow peak.

O heart, heart so singularly
Intransigent and corruptible,
Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,
And moments that should each last forever
Slide unconsciously by us like water.

By Kenneth Rexroth. (1905-1982)

Death of a Gardener

Death of a gardener.

He rested through the Winter, watched the rain
On his cold garden, slept, awoke to snow
Padding the window, thatching the roof again
With silence. He was grateful for the slow
Nights and undemanding days; the dark
Protected him; the pause grew big with cold.
Mice in the shed scufffled like leaves; a spark
Hissed from his pipe as he dreamed beside the fire.
All at once light sharpened; earth drew breath,
Stirred; and he woke to strangeness that was Spring,
Stood on the grass, felt movement underneath
Like a child in the womb; hope troubled him to bring
Barrow and spade once more to the waiting soil.
Slower his lift and thrust; a blackbird filled
Long intervals with song; a worm could coil
To safety underneath the hesitant blade.
Hands tremulous as cherry branches kept
Faith with struggling seedlings till earth
Kept faith with him, claimed him as he slept
Cold in the sun beside his upright spade.

By Phoebe Hesketh.

Starting Early From the Ch'u-Ch'eng Inn

Starting early From the Ch'u Ch'eng Inn.

Washed by the rain, dust and grime are laid;
Skirting the river, the road's course flat.
The moon has risen on the last remnants of night;
The travellors' speed profits by the early cold.
In the great silence I whisper a faint song;
In the black darknness are bred sombre thoughts.
On the lotus-bank hovers a dewy breeze;
Through the rice furrows trickles a singing stream.
At the noise of our bells a sleepng dog stirs;
At the sight of our torches a roosting bird wakes.
Dawn glimmers through the shapes of misty trees
For ten miles, till day at last brakes.

By Po Chii-i (A.D.815)












The moon

The Wild Iris

Wild Iris
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Here me out; that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the centre of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.

By Louise Gluck.

The Florist Rose

The Florist Rose

This wax-mannequin nude, the florist rose,
she of the long stem and too glossy leaf,
is dead to honest greenfly and leaf- cutter:
Behind plate-glass watches the yellow fog.

Claims kin with the robust male areoplane
Whom eagles hate and phantoms of the air,
Who has no legend, as she breaks from legend -
From fellowship with sword and sail and crown.

Experiment's flower, scentless (he its bird);
Is dewed by the spray-gun; is tender-thorned;
Pouts, false-virginal, between bud and bloom;
Bought as a love-gift, droops within the day.

By Robert Graves.

From Fidelity

From Fidelity

O flowers they fade because they are moving swiftly; a little torrent of life
leaps up to the summit of the stem, gleams, turns over round the bend
of the parabola of curved flight,
sinks, and is gone, like a comet curving into the invisible.

O flowers they are all the time travelling
like comets, and they come into our ken
for a day, for two days, and withdraw, slowly vanish again.

And we, we must take them on the wing, and let them go.
Embalmed flowers are not flowers, immortelles are not flowers;
flowers are just motion, a swift motion, a coloured gesture;
that is their loveliness. And that is love.

By D.H. Lawrence. (1885-1930)

The South

The South.

In the southern land many birds sing;
Of towns and cities half are unwalled.
The country markets are thronged by wild tribes;
The mountain-villages bear river-names.
Poisonous mists rise from the damp sands;
Strange fires gleam through the night-rain.
And none passes but the lonely seeker of pearls
Year by year on his way to the South Sea.

By Wang Chien(c A.D. 756-835)

Peacocks

Peacocks

Roam the gardens
in their head-high vegetation.
aloof survivors of a lost paradise.
Now they proclaim mating time.

transplnt air's burgeoning scene
to bank of the Hydaspes -
echo Alexander's battle
cries at his world's end.

By Clyde Holmes

Chrome Yellow

Chrome Yellow

Your three brave sunflowers are ready to drop.
Standing in a jug of stale drink
they've all about reached a steepening patch
on the curve of decay. Their dark-eyed
flameheads raddle at the tips and close
then, lax as pulp or crape, they start to droop
on thick eyestalks. That mad dutchman
who crammed his mouth with the chrome yellow
he used by the tubeful to paint them
made toxic lead his edible gold.
Their gold now lead , the sunflowers turn
towards the black sun of the earth .
Their time has gone. Their big leaves drape
and darken round them like a field of crows.

By Jamie McKendrick

White Tulips

White Tulip

Last night I saw you in my dream:
wrenching the hands off clocks,
tearing out springs, weights, jewels.
And now I find you in an orchard,
lying face-up under red blossom
like one of those stone kings
with lion cubs at your feet.
There's a smile on your face;
you're surrounded by white tulips.
You must have cored the earth,
pushed home the papery bulbs
just for this moment --- knowing
I'd peer through locked gates,
pressing my forehead against
a blacksmiths's tracery
of bells and whorled leaves.
I feel myself shrinking, drying ---
skin, bones, nerves, veins
contracting. I fly into the white bowls
of the flowers, emerge sticky with nectar
and pollen, alight on your neck, crawl
under your shirt, and sting.

By Vicki Feaver.

The Evening Star

The Evening Star

One star in the dark pass of the houses,
Shines as if it were a sign
Set there to point the way to---
But more beautiful, somehow, than what it points
to,
So that no one has ever gone on beyond
Except those who could not see it, and went on
To what it pointed to, and could not see that
either.
The star far off separates yet how could I see it
If there were not inside me the same star?
We wish on the star because the star itself is a
wish,
An unwilling halting place, so far and no farther.
Everything is its own sigh at being what it is
And no more, an unanswered yearning
Toward what will be, or was once perhaps,
Or might be, might have been, or---

As so soon after the sun goes, and night comes,
The star has set

By Rainer Maria Rilke.

A Bed of Mint

A Bed of Mint

A bed of mint
beneath the window
of the room where we sleep
will render the morning air
sharp and sweet.

I'd turn to you in my sleep
half out of dreams
murmuring "Whose bed
is it that smells of mint?"
"Ours" you will whisper.

Then we will roll over
like the waves in the wake
to draw tea from the source
springing beneath the window,
living mint and sweet to each other.

By Lorna Goodison.

The Owl

The Owl

Downhill I came, hungry, and yet not starved;
Cold, yet had heat within me that was proof
Against the North wind; tired, yet so that rest
Had seemed the sweetest thing under a roof
Then at the inn I had food, fire, and rest,
Knowing how hungry, cold, and tired was I.
All of the night was quite barred out except
An owl's cry, a most melancholy cry

Shaken out long and clear upon the hill,
No merry note, nor cause of merriment,
But one telling me plain what I escaped
And others could not, that night, as in I went.
And salted was my food, and my repose,
Salted and sobered too, by the bird's voice
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and the poor, unable to rejoice.

By Edward Thomas(1878-1917)

The Quiet Tide Near Ardrossan

The Quiet Tide Near Ardrosson.

On to the beach the quiet waters crept:
But, though I stood not far within the land,
No tidal murmur reached me from the strand.
The mirrored clouds beneath old Arran slept.
I looked again across the watery waste:
The shores were full, the tide was near height,
Though scarcely heard: the reefs were drowning fast ,
And an imperial whisper told the might
Of the outer floods, that pressed into bay.
Though all besides was silent. I delight
In the rough billows, and the foam ball's flight:
I love the shore upon a stormy day;
But yet more stately were the power and ease
That with a whisper deepened all the seas.

By Charles Tennyson-Turner.

Aconites

Aconites

Winter holds fast,
But a little warmth escapes like sand
Through closed fingers.
The error is annual and certain,
Letting the pygmy flowers
Make their prompt appearance
Under creaking trees.
They stand with serious faces, green ruffed,
As prim as Tudor portraits.

In the west
The greys and gleam slide in the wind
And only the descended blackbird
Augments the intrepid yellow.

By Freda Downie.

Marigolds

Marigolds

Not the flowers men give women ---
delicatly-scented freesias,
stiff red roses, carnations
the shades of bridesmaids' dresses,
almost sapless flowers,
drying and fading --- but flowers
that wilt as soon as their stems
are cut, leaves blackening
as if blighted by the enzymes
in our breath, rotting to a slime
we have to scour from the rims
of vases; flowers that burst
from tight, explosive buds, rayed
like the sun, that lit the path
up the Thracian mountain, that we wound
into our hair, stamped on
in ecstatic dance, that remined us
we are killers, can tear the heads
off men's shoulders;
flowers we still bring
secretly and shamefully
into the house, stroking
our arms and breasts and legs
with their hot orange fringes,
the smell of arousal.

By Vicki Feaver (1994)

A Frosty Day

A frosty day

Grass afield wears silver thatch;
Palings all are edged with rime;
Frost- flowers pattern round the latch;
Cloud nor breeze dissolve the clime:

When the waves are solid floor,
And the clods are iron-bound,
And the boughs are crystall'd hoar,
And the red leaf nailed aground.

When the fildfare's flight is slow,
And a rosy vapour rim,
Now the sun is small and low,
Belts along the region dim.

When the ice-crack flies and flaws,
Shore to shore, with thunder shock,
Deeper then the evening daws,
Clearer than the village clock.

When the rusty blackbird strips,
Bunch by bunch, the coral thorn;
And the pale day- cresent dip,
New to heaven a slender horn.

By Lord De Tabley (1835-1895)

Fireweed

Fireweed

A single seedling, camp- follower
of arson -- frothing bombed-out
rubble with rose-purple lotfuls

unwittingly as water overbrims,
tarn-dark or sun-ignited, down
churnmilk rockfalls --aspiring

from the foothold of a London
roof-ledge, taken wistful note of
by an uprooted prairie-dweller,

less settled in St Martin's Lane
(no lane now but a riverbed of
noise) than even the unlikely

blackbird that's to be heard here,
gilding and regilding a matutinal
ancestral scripture, unwitting

of past devastation as of what
remains: spires, finials, lofted
domes, the homilectic caveat

underneath -- Here wee have no
continuing city -- by the Dean
whose effigy survived one burning

By Amy Clampitt (1991)

Gentians

Gentians

In my alpine house, the slavery I pay
My wiful gentians! exploring all their pleats
And tucks as though they had something precious
Deep inside, that beard of camel- hair
In the throat. I watch them
Ease their heads so slowly
Through their thumbhole necklines, till they sit
Like tailors in their earth shoes,
Their watery husband's knots. No insects
Visit them, nor do theit ovaries swell,
Yet every night in Tibet their seeds
Are membbraned by the snow, their roots
Are bathed by the passage of melt-water,
They tease like sullen spinsters
The dewfall of summer limes

By Medbh McGuckian (1982)