FAIRIES' SONG
Leigh Hunt 1784-1859

We the fairies, blithe and antic,
Of dimensions not gigantic,
Through the moonshine mostly keep us,
Oft in orchards frisk and peep us.

Stolen sweets are always sweeter,
Stolen kisses much completer,
Stolen looks are nice in chapels,
Stolen, stolen be your apples.

When to bed the world is bobbing,
Then's the time for orchard robbing,
Yet the fruit were scarce worth peeling,
Were it not for stealing, stealing.

EXECUTIVE

John Betjeman 1906-84

I am a young executive. No cuffs than mine are cleaner;
I have a Slimline brief-case and I use the firm's Cortina.

In every roadside hostelry from here to Burgess Hill

The maitres d'hotel all know me well, and let me sign the bill.

You ask me what it is I do. Well, actually, you know,

I'm partly a liaison man, and partly P.R.O.

Essentially, I integrate the current export drive

And basically I'm viable from ten o'clock till five.

For vital off-the-record work - that's talking transport-wise -

I've a scarlet Aston-Martin - and does she go? She flies!

Pedestrians and dogs and cats, we mark them down for slaughter.

I also own a speedboat which has never touched the water.

She's built of fibre-glass, of course. I call her "Mandy Jane"

After a bird I used to know - no soda, please, just plain -

And how did I acquire her? Well, to tell you about that

And to put you in the picture, and I must wear my other hat.

I do some mild developing. The sort of place I need

Is a quiet country market town that's rather run to seed.

A luncheon and a drink or two, a little savoir faire -

I fix the Planning Officer, the Town Clerk and the Mayor.

And if some Preservationist attempts to interfere

A "dangerous structure" notice from the Borough Engineer

Will settle any buildings that are standing in our way,

The modern style, sir, with respect, has really come to stay.

A GARDEN SONG
Henry Austin Dobson 1840-1921

Here, in this sequestered close,
Bloom the hyacinth and rose;
Here beside the modest stock
Flaunts the flaring hollyhock;
Here, without a pang, one sees
Ranks, conditions, and degrees.

Here, in alleys cool and green
Far ahead the thrush is seen;
Here along the southern wall
Keeps the bee his festival;
All is quiet else - afar
Sounds of toil and turmoil are.

WILD GEESE
Mary Oliver b.1935

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-o=0=o-

MORE POETRY NEXT WEEKEND

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