Seasonal Poems

[poppy]

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.

[Hayley]

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.

[lunababymoonchild]

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

[megustaleer]

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?

 

 

 

 

[megustaleer]

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.

[Hayley]

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

[megustaleer]

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

[megustaleer]

 

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

[Hayley]

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 

 

[megustaleer]

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

 

[lunababymoonchild]

 

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

[megustaleer]

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

[poppy]

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

 

 

 

[lunababymoonchild]

 

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

[megustaleer]

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