poppy Posted February 26, 2022 Share Posted February 26, 2022 Meanwhile, in the Antipodes ... (although it still feels very summery.) Day in Autumn By Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Mary Kinzie) After the summer's yield, Lord, it is time to let your shadow lengthen on the sundials and in the pastures let the rough winds fly. As for the final fruits, coax them to roundness. Direct on them two days of warmer light to hale them golden toward their term, and harry the last few drops of sweetness through the wine. Whoever's homeless now, will build no shelter; who lives alone will live indefinitely so, waking up to read a little, draft long letters, and, along the city's avenues, fitfully wander, when the wild leaves loosen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hayley Posted February 28, 2022 Share Posted February 28, 2022 On 26/02/2022 at 7:51 AM, poppy said: Meanwhile, in the Antipodes ... (although it still feels very summery.) It's cold and raining here - no need to rub it in I wondered whether there was a poem about spring and autumn and came across this one: Every season hath its pleasures; Spring may boast her flowery prime, Yet the vineyard's ruby treasures Brighten Autumn's soberer time. So Life's year begins and closes; Days tho' shortening still can shine; What tho' youth gave love and roses, Age still leaves us friends and wine. Phillis, when she might have caught me, All the Spring looked coy and shy, Yet herself in Autumn sought me, When the flowers were all gone by. Ah, too late;--she found her lover Calm and free beneath his vine, Drinking to the Spring-time over, In his best autumnal wine. Thus may we, as years are flying, To their flight our pleasures suit, Nor regret the blossoms dying, While we still may taste the fruit, Oh, while days like this are ours, Where's the lip that dares repine? Spring may take our loves and flowers, So Autumn leaves us friends and wine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunababymoonchild Posted February 28, 2022 Share Posted February 28, 2022 10 minutes ago, Hayley said: It's cold and raining here - no need to rub it in I wondered whether there was a poem about spring and autumn and came across this one: Every season hath its pleasures; Spring may boast her flowery prime, Yet the vineyard's ruby treasures Brighten Autumn's soberer time. So Life's year begins and closes; Days tho' shortening still can shine; What tho' youth gave love and roses, Age still leaves us friends and wine. Phillis, when she might have caught me, All the Spring looked coy and shy, Yet herself in Autumn sought me, When the flowers were all gone by. Ah, too late;--she found her lover Calm and free beneath his vine, Drinking to the Spring-time over, In his best autumnal wine. Thus may we, as years are flying, To their flight our pleasures suit, Nor regret the blossoms dying, While we still may taste the fruit, Oh, while days like this are ours, Where's the lip that dares repine? Spring may take our loves and flowers, So Autumn leaves us friends and wine. As written by Thomas Moore Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megustaleer Posted March 1, 2022 Author Share Posted March 1, 2022 A bit of Dylan Thomas for St David's Day Here In This Spring Here in this spring, stars float along the void; Here in this ornamental winter Down pelts the naked weather; This summer buries a spring bird. Symbols are selected from the years' Slow rounding of four seasons' coasts, In autumn teach three seasons' fires And four birds' notes. I should tell summer from the trees, the worms Tell, if at all, the winter's storms Or the funeral of the sun; I should learn spring by the cuckooing, And the slug should teach me destruction. A worm tells summer better than the clock, The slug's a living calendar of days; What shall it tell me if a timeless insect Says the world wears away? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megustaleer Posted March 1, 2022 Author Share Posted March 1, 2022 And one for Shrove Tuesday, by Christina Rossetti: Mix a pancake, Mix a pancake, Stir a pancake, Pop it in the pan; Fry the pancake, Toss the pancake— Catch it if you can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hayley Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 On 28/02/2022 at 10:12 PM, lunababymoonchild said: As written by Thomas Moore Yes! Sorry, I didn’t realise I’d cut the name off! After noticing I have some daffodils coming up (in a spot which was totally overgrown with long grass when I first saw this house last year, so I didn’t know there were any flowers there!) I saw this poem about them earlier: She wore a yellow sun-bonnet, She wore her greenest gown; She turned to the south wind And curtsied up and down. She turned to the sunlight, And shook her yellow head, And whispered to her neighbour 'Winter is dead' A A Milne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megustaleer Posted March 17, 2022 Author Share Posted March 17, 2022 One for St Patrick's Day When things go wrong and will not come right Though you do the best you can When life looks black as the hour of night A pint of plain is your only man When money's tight and hard to get And your horse has also ran When all you have is a heap of debt A pint of plain is your only man When health is bad and your heart feels strange And your face is pale and wan When doctors say you need a change A pint of plain is your only man When food is scarce and your larder bare And no rashers grease your pan When hunger grows as your meals are rare A pint of plain is your only man In time of trouble and lousy strife You have still got a darling plan You still can turn to a brighter life A pint of plain is your only man The Workman’s Friend - Flann O’Brien Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megustaleer Posted March 20, 2022 Author Share Posted March 20, 2022 This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green, Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes, Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes. I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration, Faces of people streaming across my gaze. And I, what fountain of fire am I among This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed About like a shadow buffeted in the throng Of flames, a shadow that’s gone astray, and is lost. The Enkindled Spring - D.H. Lawrence Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hayley Posted March 20, 2022 Share Posted March 20, 2022 Another one for the spring equinox Where am I going? I don't quite know. Down to the stream where the king-cups grow- Up on the hill where the pine-trees blow- Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know. Where am I going? The clouds sail by, Little ones, baby ones, over the sky. Where am I going? The shadows pass, Little ones, baby ones, over the grass. If you were a cloud, and sailed up there, You'd sail on water as blue as air, And you'd see me here in the fields and say: "Doesn't the sky look green today?" Where am I going? The high rooks call: "It's awful fun to be born at all." Where am I going? The ring-doves coo: "We do have beautiful things to do." If you were a bird, and lived on high, You'd lean on the wind when the wind came by, You'd say to the wind when it took you away: "That's where I wanted to go today!" Where am I going? I don't quite know. What does it matter where people go? Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow- Anywhere, anywhere. I don't know. Spring Morning by A A Milne Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megustaleer Posted April 14, 2022 Author Share Posted April 14, 2022 Between the brown hands of a server-lad The silver cross was offered to be kissed. The men came up, lugubrious, but not sad, And knelt reluctantly, half-prejudiced. (And kissing, kissed the emblem of a creed.) Then mourning women knelt; meek mouths they had, (And kissed the Body of the Christ indeed.) Young children came, with eager lips and glad. (These kissed a silver doll, immensely bright.) Then I, too, knelt before that acolyte. Above the crucifix I bent my head: The Christ was thin, and cold, and very dead: And yet I bowed, yea, kissed - my lips did cling. (I kissed the warm live hand that held the thing.) Maundy Thursday - Wilfred Owen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunababymoonchild Posted April 17, 2022 Share Posted April 17, 2022 On Easter morn at early dawn before the cocks were crowing I met a bob-tail bunnykin and asked where he was going. "Tis in the house and out the house a-tipsy, tipsy-toeing, Tis round the house and 'bout the house a-lightly I am going." "But what is that of every hue you carry in your basket?" "Tis eggs of gold and eggs of blue; I wonder that you ask it. Tis chocolate eggs and bonbon eggs and eggs of red and gray, For every child in every house on bonny Easter day." He perked his ears and winked his eye and twitched his little nose; He shook his tail-- what tail he had -- and stood up on his toes. "I must be gone before the sun; the east is growing gray; Tis almost time for bells to chime." -- So he hippity-hopped away. Meeting The Easter Bunny, Rowena Bennett Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megustaleer Posted April 23, 2022 Author Share Posted April 23, 2022 St George was out walking He met a dragon on a hill, It was wise and wonderful Too glorious to kill It slept amongst the wild thyme Where the oxlips and violets grow Its skin was a luminous fire That made the English landscape glow Its tears were England’s crystal rivers Its breath the mist on England’s moors Its larder was England’s orchards, Its house was without doors St George was in awe of it It was a thing apart He hid the sleeping dragon Inside every English heart So on this day let’s celebrate England’s valleys full of light, The green fire of the landscape Lakes shivering with delight Let’s celebrate St George’s Day, The dragon in repose; The brilliant lark ascending, The yew, the oak, the rose The True Dragon - Brian Patten Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted April 25, 2022 Share Posted April 25, 2022 It's Anzac Day here ... In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. In Flanders Fields ~ John McCrae, 1914 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunababymoonchild Posted May 7, 2022 Share Posted May 7, 2022 I cannot tell you how it was, But this I know: it came to pass Upon a bright and sunny day When May was young; ah, pleasant May! As yet the poppies were not born Between the blades of tender corn; The last egg had not hatched as yet, Nor any bird foregone its mate. I cannot tell you what it was, But this I know: it did but pass. It passed away with sunny May, Like all sweet things it passed away, And left me old, and cold, and gray. May by Christina Rossetti Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megustaleer Posted May 8, 2022 Author Share Posted May 8, 2022 There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white Robins will wear their feathery fire, Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn Would scarcely know that we were gone. There Will Come Soft Rains - Sara Teasdale 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hayley Posted March 23, 2023 Share Posted March 23, 2023 We were obviously all feeling a lot more poetic in Spring than other seasons last year! Maybe that’s the thing that made me remember this thread today, so here’s a new Spring choice! ‘Today’ by Billy Collins If ever there were a spring day so perfect, so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze that it made you want to throw open all the windows in the house and unlatch the door to the canary's cage, indeed, rip the little door from its jamb, a day when the cool brick paths and the garden bursting with peonies seemed so etched in sunlight that you felt like taking a hammer to the glass paperweight on the living room end table, releasing the inhabitants from their snow-covered cottage so they could walk out, holding hands and squinting into this larger dome of blue and white, well, today is just that kind of day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunababymoonchild Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 My favourite spring poem is : Spring has sprung The grass is ris I wonder where the birdies is? Some say that the bird is on the wing But that's absurd The wing is on the bird allegedly by Ogden Nash 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunababymoonchild Posted March 24, 2023 Share Posted March 24, 2023 Daffodils I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company: I gazed—and gazed—but little thought what wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. William Wordsworth My mother quoted this in the worst Irish accent she could muster to get me out of bed to go to school. I don't know why, I've never had any problems getting up out of bed, then or now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted March 25, 2023 Share Posted March 25, 2023 in Just by e.e.cummings in Just- spring when the world is mud- luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee and eddieandbill come running from marbles and piracies and it’s spring when the world is puddle-wonderful the queer old balloonman whistles far and wee and bettyandisbel come dancing from hop-scotch and jump-rope and it’s spring and the goat-footed balloonMan whistles far and wee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hayley Posted March 28, 2023 Share Posted March 28, 2023 On 3/25/2023 at 8:31 AM, poppy said: when the world is puddle-wonderful I love that line! In honour of the fact that I saw a little patch of daisies in the grass for the first time the other day: Daisy Time By Marjorie Pickthall See, the grass is full of stars, Fallen in their brightness; Hearts they have of shining gold, Rays of shining whiteness. Buttercups have honeyed hearts, Bees they love the clover, But I love the daisies' dance All the meadow over. Blow, O blow, you happy winds, Singing summer's praises, Up the field and down the field A-dancing with the daisies. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted April 2, 2023 Share Posted April 2, 2023 On 3/28/2023 at 8:36 PM, Hayley said: In honour of the fact that I saw a little patch of daisies in the grass for the first time the other day: Daisy Time By Marjorie Pickthall See, the grass is full of stars, Fallen in their brightness; Hearts they have of shining gold, Rays of shining whiteness. Buttercups have honeyed hearts, Bees they love the clover, But I love the daisies' dance All the meadow over. Blow, O blow, you happy winds, Singing summer's praises, Up the field and down the field A-dancing with the daisies. Isn't there a saying that you know it's spring when you find the first daisy in the lawn?( or is it buttercups?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lunababymoonchild Posted April 2, 2023 Share Posted April 2, 2023 To Daffodils Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; As yet the early-rising sun Has not attain'd his noon. Stay, stay, Until the hasting day Has run But to the even-song; And, having pray'd together, we Will go with you along. We have short time to stay, as you, We have as short a spring; As quick a growth to meet decay, As you, or anything. We die As your hours do, and dry Away, Like to the summer's rain; Or as the pearls of morning's dew, Ne'er to be found again. Robert Herrick *Daffodils are my favourite flower* 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hayley Posted April 2, 2023 Share Posted April 2, 2023 12 hours ago, poppy said: Isn't there a saying that you know it's spring when you find the first daisy in the lawn?( or is it buttercups?) That does sound familiar - I think it’s daisies! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madeleine Posted April 2, 2023 Share Posted April 2, 2023 Not heard that (about daisies) but I saw a ladybird on Thursday morning, on my daffs. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hayley Posted May 1, 2023 Share Posted May 1, 2023 Ode, Composed on a May Morning by William Wordsworth While from the purpling east departs The star that led the dawn, Blithe Flora from her couch upstarts, For May is on the lawn. A quickening hope, a freshening glee, Foreran the expected Power, Whose first-drawn breath, from bush and tree, Shakes off that pearly shower. All Nature welcomes Her whose sway Tempers the year's extremes; Who scattereth lustres o'er noon-day, Like morning's dewy gleams; While mellow warble, sprightly trill, The tremulous heart excite; And hums the balmy air to still The balance of delight. Time was, blest Power! when youth and maids At peep of dawn would rise, And wander forth, in forest glades Thy birth to solemnize. Though mute the song---to grace the rite Untouched the hawthorn bough, Thy Spirit triumphs o'er the slight; Man changes, but not Thou! Thy feathered Lieges bill and wings In love's disport employ; Warmed by thy influence, creeping things Awake to silent joy: Queen art thou still for each gay plant Where the slim wild deer roves; And served in depths where fishes haunt Their own mysterious groves. Cloud-piercing peak, and trackless heath, Instinctive homage pay; Nor wants the dim-lit cave a wreath To honor thee, sweet May! Where cities fanned by thy brisk airs Behold a smokeless sky, Their puniest flower-pot-nursling dares To open a bright eye. And if, on this thy natal morn, The pole, from which thy name Hath not departed, stands forlorn Of song and dance and game; Still from the village-green a vow Aspires to thee addrest, Wherever peace is on the brow, Or love within the breast. Yes! where Love nestles thou canst teach The soul to love the more; Hearts also shall thy lessons reach That never loved before. Stript is the haughty one of pride, The bashful freed from fear, While rising, like the ocean-tide, In flow the joyous year. Hush, feeble lyre! weak words refuse The service to prolong! To yon exulting thrush the Muse Entrusts the imperfect song; His voice shall chant, in accents clear, Throughout the live-long day, Till the first silver star appear, The sovereignty of May. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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