WARP AND WOOF

Through the sunshine, and through the rain
Of these changing days of mist and splendour,
I see the face of a year-old pain
Looking at me with a smile half tender.

With a smile half tender, and yet all sad,
Into each hour of the mild September
It comes, and finding my life grown glad
Looks down in my eyes, and says 'Remember.'

Says 'Remember,' and points behind
To days of sorrow, and tear-wet lashes;
When joy lay dead and hope was blind,
And nothing was left but dust and ashes.

Dust and ashes and vain regret,
Flames fanned out, and the embers falling.
But the sun of the saddest day must set,
And hope wakes ever with Springtime's calling.

With Springtime's calling the pulses thrill;
And the heart is tuned to a sweeter measure.
For never a green Spring crossed the hill
That came not laden with some new pleasure.

Some new pleasure that brings content;
And the heart looks up with a smile of gladness,
And wonders idly when sorrow went
Out of the life that seemed all sadness.

That seemed all sadness, and yet grew bright
With colours we thought could tinge it never.
Yet I think the pain though out of sight,
Like the warp of the carpet, is there for ever.

There for ever, and by and by
When the woof wears thin, or draws asunder,
We see the sombre threads that lie
Intertwining and twisting under.

Twisting under and binding so
The brighter threads that they may not sever.
Thus the pain of a year ago
Must stay a part of my life for ever.

Yesterdays. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
London: Gay & Hancock, 1916.

Testing!!!

I sense your pain.

Reluctance
by Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The Heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question "Whither?"

Ah, when to the Heart of man
Was it ever less than a Treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a Grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a Love or a season?

Splendour in the Grass
by William Wordsworth

What though the radiance
which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

Beauty and Beauty
by Rupert Brooke

When Beauty and Beauty meet
All naked, fair to fair,
The earth is crying-sweet,
And scattering-bright the air,
Eddying, dizzying, closing round,
With soft and drunken laughter;
Veiling all that may befall
After -- after --

Where Beauty and Beauty met,
Earth's still a-tremble there,
And winds are scented yet,
And memory-soft the air,
Bosoming, folding glints of light,
And shreds of shadowy laughter;
Not the tears that fill the years
After -- after --

Alms
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

My Heart is what it was before,
A house where people come and go
But it is winter with your Love,
The sashes are beset with snow.

I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
I blow the coals to blaze again
But it is winter with your Love
The frost is thick upon the pane

I know a winter when it comes
The leaves are listless on the boughs;
I watched your Love a little while
And brought my plants into the house.

I water them and turned them South,
I snap the dead brown from the stem
But it is winter with your Love,
I only tend and water them.

There was a time I stood and watched
The small ill-natured sparrows' fray
I Loved the beggar that I fed,
I cared for what he had to say.

I stood and watched him out of sight;
Today I reach around the door
And set a bowl upon the step
My Heart is what it was before.

But it is winter with your Love;
I scatter crumbs upon the sill
And close the window - and the birds
May take or leave them, as they will.

I Was Again Beside Thee in a Dream
by Mathilde Blind

I was again beside thee in a dream:
Earth was so beautiful, the moon was shining;
The muffled voice of many a cataract stream
Came like a love-song, as, with arms entwining,
Our hearts were mixed in unison supreme.

The wind lay spell-bound in each pillared pine,
The tasselled larches had no sound or motion,
As my whole life was sinking into thine--
Sinking into a deep, unfathomed ocean
Of infinite love--uncircumscribed, divine.

Night held her breath, it seemed, with all her stars:
Eternal eyes that watched in mute compassion
Our little lives o'erleap their mortal bars,
Fused in the fulness of immortal passion,
A passion as immortal as the stars.

There was no longer any thee or me;
No sense of self, no wish or incompleteness
The moment, rounded to Eternity,
Annihilated time's destructive fleetness:
For all but love itself had ceased to be.

About Mathilde Blind

The Rose in the Deeps of His Heart
by William Butler Yeats

All things uncomely and broken,
all things worn-out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway,
the creak of a lumbering cart,

The heavy steps of the ploughman,
splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms
a Rose in the deeps of my Heart.

The wrong of unshapely things
is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew
and sit on a green knoll apart,

With the earth and the sky and the water,
remade, like a casket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms
a Rose in the deeps of my Heart.

First Love
by John Clare

I ne'er was struck before that hour
With Love so sudden and so sweet.
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my Heart away complete.

My face turned pale, a deadly pale.
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked what could I ail
My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away.
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.

I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start.
They spoke as chords do from the string,
And blood burnt round my Heart.

Are flowers the winter's choice
Is Love's bed always snow
She seemed to hear my silent voice
Not Love appeals to know.

I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before.
My Heart has left its dwelling place
And can return no more.

John Clare

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Rose>,

The Bridal Veil
by Alice Cary


We're Married, they say, and you think you have won me,--
Well, take this white veil from my head, and look on me;
Here's matter to vex you, and matter to grieve you,
Here's doubt to distrust you, and Faith to believe you,--
I am all as you see, common earth, common dew;
Be wary, and mould me to roses, not rue!

Ah! shake out the filmy thing, fold after fold,
And see if you have me to keep and to hold,--
Look close on my Heart--see the worst of its sinning,--
It is not yours to-day for the yesterday's winning--
The past is not mine--I am too proud to borrow--
You must grow to new heights if I love you to-morrow.

I have wings flattened down and hid under my veil:
They are subtle as light--you can never undo them,
And swift in their flight--you can never pursue them,
And spite of all clasping, and spite of all bands,
I can slip like a shadow, a dream, from your hands.

Nay, call me not cruel, and fear not to take me,
I am yours for my life-time, to be what you make me,--
To wear my white veil for a sign, or a cover,
As you shall be proven my lord, or my Lover;
A cover for peace that is dead, or a token
Of bliss that can never be written or spoken.

John Clare - The Instinct Of Hope

Is there another world for this frail dust
To warm with life and be itself again?
Something about me daily speaks there must,
And why should instinct nourish hopes in vain?
'Tis nature's prophesy that such will be,
And everything seems struggling to explain
The close sealed volume of its mystery.
Time wandering onward keeps its usual pace
As seeming anxious of eternity,
To meet that calm and find a resting place.
E'en the small violet feels a future power
And waits each year renewing blooms to bring,
And surely man is no inferior flower
To die unworthy of a second spring?

Dreaming - Julie Redmond (1949)

Of deep Love rare
The Love that reaches from the here to there
That even Death can then but bring
The closer - for Love's the only thing
We can take with us from this world to - where?
Can pierce the shadows of that great divide,
Can feel through Heart beats of the far and wide,
Can pray! "I want you, need you, Dear"
And God grant me Heaven with the clear
Sure knowledge that you know, out there
That like a shaft of sunshine from the blue
Our Love's a ladder from my Heart to you.

ROSE

LOVE CANNOT DIE

The sweetest voice that lips contain,
The sweetest thought that leaves the brain,
The sweetest feeling of the Heart--
There's pleasure in its very smart.
The scent of Rose and cinnamon
Is not like Love remembered on;
In falsehood's enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us Love can die.


JOHN CLARE 1793-1864

Joyce Kilmer - Love's Lantern

(For Aline)

Because the road was steep and long
And through a dark and lonely land,
God set upon my lips a song
And put a lantern in my hand.
Through miles on weary miles of night
That stretch relentless in my way
My lantern burns serene and white,
An unexhausted cup of day.
O golden lights and lights like wine,
How dim your boasted splendors are.
Behold this little lamp of mine;
It is more starlike than a star!

The Lamp


If I can bear your love like a lamp before me,
When I go down the long steep Road of Darkness,
I shall not fear the everlasting shadows,
Nor cry in terror.

If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,
If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly,
Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me,
A lamp in darkness.

Sara Teasdale

First Love


I ne'er was struck before that hour
With Love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my Heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale.
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked, what could I ail?
My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away,
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start --
They spoke as chords do from the string,
And blood burnt round my Heart.

Are flowers the winter's choice?
Is Love's bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice,
Not Love's appeals to know.
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before.
My Heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more

John Clare (1793-1864)

Poems by Emily ****inson


This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me, --
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.

Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For Love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!

Maya Angelou - (1928-Present)
A Conceit

Give me your hand

Make room for me
to lead and follow
you
beyond this rage of poetry.

Let others have
the privacy of
touching words
and Love of loss
of Love.

For me
Give me your hand.