Bright Star
John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.       

First Mother's Day without you. x

Drinking Alone
Li Po

I take my wine jug out among the flowers
to drink alone, without friends.

I raise my cup to entice the moon.
That, and my shadow, makes us three.

But the moon doesn't drink,
and my shadow silently follows.

I will travel with moon and shadow,
happy to the end of spring.

When I sing, the moon dances.
When I dance, my shadow dances, too.

We share life's joys when sober.
Drunk, each goes a separate way.

Constant friends, although we wander,
we'll meet again in the Milky Way.

The Good Morrow
John Donne

I wonder, by my truth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved; were we not weaned till then,
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?
'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now good morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room, an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to others, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess our world; each hath one and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mix't equally;
If our two loves be one; or thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.       

yes is a pleasant country
e e cummings

yes is a pleasant country:
if's wintry
(my lovely)
let's open the year

both is the very weather
(not either)
my treasure,
when violets appear

love is a deeper season
than reason;
my sweet one
(and april's where we're)

WORLD POETRY DAY

Song of the Crowning of Kings (part only)
Lauchlan Maclean Watt

Here, all alone in the dark,
While the stars are dying,
My soul grows still, and I hark
To the voice of the sea-winds crying
From far away, where, low on the long-ridged sands,
The tired grey sea beats out his time-old song with weary hands,
And, as I listen, up from the ghostly street,
I hear the throb of a thousand marching feet,
And ever, as they come,
The faint, dull guiding pulse of a distant drum.

The windows are silent all, and darkened, the lights are gone:
And the dying starlight flickers, dimly wan,
But I know that the town is full of the shadows of marching men,
Though never a trace of their passing shall wait the dawn,
And never on earth, except in dream, shall their faces gleam again.

And my soul is caught from its stillness,
And the stars awake in the night,
And the winds, from the waste and the waters,
Cry, half in joy and in fright:
"Who are ye ghostly marchers,
And whence do your squadrons come,
And your companies pressing onward
To the beat of the phantom drum?"
"We are the dead of England:
Our dust is under the leas.
They buried us deep, in our battle-sleep,
They plunged us down in the seas.
We are the brave of England,
We fought for the bristling breach,
And died that our brothers might climb on our bones,
And carry the flag where we could not reach...
We went down in the waste of waters:
We grappled the foe on ships...
In mist and smoke, where battle broke,-
And her name was on our lips.
Living or dying,
Our flag still flying,
Where our hands had nailed it fast,
We fell for the might of England,
And we were not her last.

"Never a cannon's booming,
Never a battles roar,
Never the marching of armies
Thundrous, along the shore,
But it stirred us in our sleeping,
And we turned in our nameless bed,
For we knew there were wars for England,
And we were England's dead...
We have heard... we have burst our prison,
For a king to be hailed, and crowned,
We have waked for a while and risen
To gather, and guard him round.
For a King's to be crowned in the Minster,
And the bravest should be there;
The living and dead of England
Her sorrows and joys must share."

Farewell
Anne Bronte

Farewell to Thee! But not farewell
To all my fondest thoughts of Thee:
Within my heart they still shall dwell
And they shall cheer and comfort me.

Life seems more sweet that Thou didst live
And men more true that Thou wert one;
Nothing is lost that Thou didst give,
Nothing destroyed that Thou hast done.