CHRISTMASTIDE

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

The rain-shafts splintered on me

As despondently I strode;

The twilight gloomed upon me

And bleared the blank high-road.

Each bush gave forth, when blown on

By gusts in shower and shower,

A sigh, as it were sown on

In handfuls by a sower.

A cheerful voice called, nigh me,

“A merry Christmas, friend!”

There rose a figure by me,

Walking with townward trend,

A sodden tramp’s, who, breaking

Into thin song, bore straight

Ahead, direction taking

Toward the Casuals’ gate.

[The Casual Ward was a place of refuge. Often, a queue of homeless people would form outside, waiting to get a bed for the night]

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MINSTRELS
William Wordsworth 1770-1850

The minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage-eaves;
While, smitten by a lofty moon,
The encircling laurels, thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
That overpowered their natural green.

Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sunk to rest with folded wings:
Keen was the air, but could not freeze,
Nor check, the music of the strings;
So stout and hardy were the band
That scraped the chords with strenuous hand.

And who but listened? Till was paid
Respect to every inmate's claim,
The greeting given, the music played
In honour of each household name,
Duly pronounced with lusty call,
And "Merry Christmas" wished to all.

-o0o-

MISTLETOE
Walter de la Mare 1873-1956

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.

-o0o-

A POEM FOR NEW YEAR
Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1850-1919

What can be said in New Year rhymes,

That's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,

We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,

We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,

We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,

We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that's the burden of the year.

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THE NEXT POET HERE WILL BE ON FRIDAY 9TH JANUARY

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THE TIDE RISES, THE TIDE FALLS

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  1807-82

The tide rises, the tide falls,

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;

Along the sea-sands damp and brown

The traveller hastens toward the town,

      And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;

The little waves, with their soft, white hands,

Efface the footprints in the sands,

      And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;

The day returns, but nevermore

Returns the traveller to the shore,

      And the tide rises, the tide falls.

-o0o-

YE BANKS AND BRAES
Robert Burns 1759-96

Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary fu' o' care!
Thou'll break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro' the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o' departed joys,
Departed never to return.

Aft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine:
And ilka bird sang o' its luve,
And fondly sae did I o' mine;
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree!
And my fause luver staw my rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi' me.

-o0o-

TO A FAT LADY SEEN FROM THE TRAIN
Frances Cornford  1886-1960

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
And shivering sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?

-o0o-

THE FAT WHITE WOMAN SPEAKS
G.K.Chesterton  1874-1936

Why do you rush through the field in trains,
Guessing so much and so much?
Why do you flash through the flowery meads,
Fat-head poet that nobody reads;
And why do you know such a frightful lot
About people in gloves as such?
And how the devil can you be sure,
Guessing so much and so much,
How do you know but what someone who loves
Always to see me in nice white gloves
At the end of the field you are rushing by,
Is waiting for his Old Dutch?

-o0o-

THE FAIR SINGER

Andrew Marvell  1621-78

To make a final conquest of all me,

Love did compose so sweet an enemy,

In whom both beauties to my death agree,

Joining themselves in fatal harmony;

That while she with her eyes my heart does bind,

She with her voice might captivate my mind.

I could have fled from one but singly fair:

My disentangled soul itself might save,

Breaking the curled trammels of her hair.

But how should I avoid to be her slave,

Whose subtle art invisibly can wreath

My fetters of the very air I breath?

-o0o-

BAGS OF MEAT

Thomas Hardy  1840-1928

“Here’s a fine bag of meat,” 

   Says the master-auctioneer, 

   As the timid, quivering steer, 

   Starting a couple of feet 

   At the prod of a drover’s stick, 

   And trotting lightly and quick, 

   A ticket stuck on his rump, 

Enters with a bewildered jump. 

   ”Where he’s lived lately, friends, 

   I’d live till lifetime ends: 

   They’ve a whole life everyday 

   Down there in the Vale, have they! 

   He’d be worth the money to kill 

And give away Christmas for goodwill.” 

   ”Now here’s a heifer - worth more 

   Than bid, were she bone-poor; 

   Yet she’s round as a barrel of beer”; 

"She’s a plum," said the second auctioneer. 

"Now this young bull - for thirty pound? 

   Worth that to manure your ground!” 

   ”Or to stand,” chimed the second one, 

   ”And have his picter done!” 

The beast was rapped on the horns and snout 

   To make him turn about. 

"Well," cried a buyer, "another crown - 

Since I’ve dragged here from Taunton Town!” 

   ”That calf, she sucked three cows, 

   Which is not matched for bouse 

   In the nurseries of high life 

By the first-born of a nobleman’s wife!” 

The stick falls, meaning, “A true tale’s told,” 

On the buttock of the creature sold, 

   And the buyer leans over and snips 

His mark on one of the animal’s hips. 

   Each beast, when driven in, 

Looks round at the ring of bidders there 

With a much-amazed reproachful stare, 

   As at unnatural kin, 

For bringing him to a sinister scene 

So strange, unhomelike, hungry, mean; 

His fate the while suspended between 

   A butcher, to kill out of hand, 

   And a farmer, to keep on the land; 

One can fancy a tear runs down his face 

When the butcher wins, and he’s driven from the place.

-o0o-

I KNOW A BANK

from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" spoken by Oberon

William Shakespeare  1564-1616

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,

Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;

And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,

Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

-o0o-

I BENDED UNTO ME A BOUGH

Thomas Edward Brown  1830-97  

I bended unto me a bough of May,

That I might see and smell:

It bore it in a sort of way,

It bore it very well.

But, when I let it backward sway,

Then it were hard to tell

With what a toss, with what a swing,

The dainty thing

Resumed its proper level,

And sent me to the devil.

I know it did - you doubt it?

I turned, and saw them whispering about it. 

-o0o-

THE BLOG WITHOUT A NAME HAS BEEN UPDATED TODAY

http://apersonalscrapblog.blogspot.com

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