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.