poetry

The twilight is sad and cloudy,

The wind blows wild and free,

And like the wings of sea-birds

Flash the white caps of the sea.

But in the fisherman's cottage

There shines a ruddier light,

And a little face at the window

Peers out into the night.

Close, close it is pressed to the window,

As if those childish eyes

Were looking into the darkness,

To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow

Is passing to and fro,

Now rising to the ceiling,

Now bowing and bending low.

What tale do the roaring ocean,

And the night wind, bleak and wild,

As they beat at the crazy casement,

Tell to that little child?

And why do the roaring ocean,

And the night-wind, cold and bleak

As they beat at the heart of the mother,

Drive the colour from her cheek?

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness !

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swathe and all its twine'd flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--

While barr'ed clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

JOHN KEATS

If I should die, think only this of me :

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

This is a wild land, country of my choice,

With harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare.

Seldom in these acres is heard any voice

But of cold water that runs here and there

Through rocks and lank heather growing without care.

No mice in the heath run nor no birds cry

For fear of the dark speck that floats in the sky.

He soars and he hovers rocking on his wings,

He scans his wide parish with a sharp eye,

He captures the trembling of small hidden things,

He drops them in pieces, dropping from the sky :

Tenderness and pity the land will deny,

Where life is but nourished from water and rock

A hardy adventure, full of fear and shock.

Time has never journeyed to this lost land,

Crakeberries and heather bloom out of date,

The rocks jut, the streams flow singing on either hand,

Careless if the season be early or late

The skies wander overhead, now blue, now slate :

Winter would be known by his cold cutting snow

If June did not borrow his armour also.

Yet this is my country beloved by me best,

The first land that rose from Chaos and the Flood,

Nursing no fat valleys for comfort and rest,

Trampled by no hard hooves, stained with no blood.

Bold immortal country whose hill tops have stood

Strongholds for proud gods when on earth they go,

Terror for fat burghers in far plains below.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players :

They have their exits and their entrances ;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and pewking in the nurse's arms.

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like a snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like a pard*,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick to quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances ;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank ; and his big and manly voice,

Turning again towards childish treble pipes

And whistles in his* sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans* teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

(pard-leopard, his-its, sans-without).

Under a spreading chestnut-tree

The village smithy stands;

The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands;

And the muscles of his brawny arms

Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,

His face is like the tan;

His brow is wet with honest sweat,

He earns whate'er he can,

And looks the whole world in the face,

For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,

You can hear his bellows blow;

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,

With measured beat and slow,

Like a sexton ringing the village bell,

When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school

Look in at the open door;

They love to see the flaming forge,

And hear the bellows roar,

And catch the burning sparks that fly

Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church

And sits among his boys;

He hears the parson pray and preach,

He hears his daughter's voice

Singing in the village choir,

And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like his mother's voice,

Singing in Paradise !

He needs must think of her once more,

How in the grave she lies;

And with his hard, rough hand he wipes

A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling, - rejoicing, - sorrowing,

Onward through life he goes;

Each morning sees some task begin,

Each evening sees it close;

Something attempted, something done,

Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,

For the lesson thou hast taught !

Thus at the flaming forge of life

Our fortunes must be wrought;

Thus on its sounding anvil shaped

Each burning deed and thought !

OH, to be in England

Now that April's there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England - now !

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows !

Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops - at the bent sprays edge --

That's the wise thrush ; he sings his song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture !

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children's dower

--Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower.

When fishes flew and forests walked

And figs grew upon thorn,

Some moment when the moon was blood

Then surely I was born ;

With monstrous head and sickening cry

And ears like errant wings,

The devil's walking parody

On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,

Of ancient crooked will,

Starve, scourge, deride me : I am dumb,

I keep my secret still.

Fools ! For I also had my hour ;

One far fierce hour and sweet :

There was a shout about my ears,

And palms before my feet.

Old Meg she was a gipsy,

And lived upon the moors :

Her bed it was the brown heath turf,

And her house was out of doors.

Her apples were swart blackberries,

Her currants, pods o' broom ;

Her wine was dew of the wild white rose,

Her book a churchyard tomb.

Her brothers were the craggy hills,

Her sisters larchen trees ;

Alone with her great family

She lived as she did please.

No breakfast had she many a morn,

No dinner many a noon,

And 'stead of supper, she would stare

Full hard against the moon.

And every morn of woodbine fresh

She made her garlanding,

And every night the dark glen yew

She wove, and she would sing.

And with her fingers old and brown

She plaited mats o' rushes,

And gave them to the cottagers

She met among the bushes.

Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen

And tall as Amazon ;

An old red blanket cloak she wore ;

A chip hat had she on.

God rest her aged bones somewhere --

She died full long agone !