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What a lovely thread,
Have just logged on and had a good read.....thank you all :-))
Susan
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I have put this on before but it is a favourite...goodnight all xx
Walter De la Mare. 1873–
Nod
SOFTLY along the road of evening,
In a twilight dim with rose,
Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew
Old Nod, the shepherd, goes.
His drowsy flock streams on before him,
Their fleeces charged with gold,
To where the sun's last beam leans low
On Nod the shepherd's fold.
The hedge is quick and green with briar,
From their sand the conies creep;
And all the birds that fly in heaven
Flock singing home to sleep.
His lambs outnumber a noon's roses,
Yet, when night's shadows fall,
His blind old sheep-dog, Slumber-soon,
Misses not one of all.
His are the quiet steeps of dreamland,
The waters of no-more-pain;
His ram's bell rings 'neath an arch of stars,
"Rest, rest, and rest again."
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Ah, Walter de la Mare! Reminds me of something I was planning to offer. We need a lighter note. ;)
In an old children's annual that I missed being able to buy on line, two of the poets whose work was included were Walter de la Mare and Percival Hale Coke.
What, you've never heard of Percival Hale Coke??
Well, he was my weird gr-grfather's sister's husband's brother's son. So there.
Name: Percival Coke
Year of Registration: 1898
Quarter of Registration: Jul-Aug-Sep
District: Scarborough
County: Yorkshire - East Riding, Yorkshire - North Riding, North Yorkshire
Volume: 9d
Page: 401
son of
Name: Percy Hale Coke
Year of Registration: 1858
Quarter of Registration: Apr-May-Jun
District: Neath (1837-1970)
County: Breconshire, Glamorgan
Volume: 11a
Page: 475
who apparently was not the Mayor of Harrogate, at least not after 1889.
In the early 20s, Percival (the son) self-published poetry. I have found and bought two volumes on line. When I read what follows to The Bob, and then set about wrapping it back up in its voluminous bubble wrap, he said: "You wrap that up. You bury it in the back yard."
Herewith.
THE FOOL
Death touched me with his fleshless claw,
I was calm and unrebuffed,
And when the Blue Bird flew my way,
I tried to have it stuffed.
The Bob knows poop when he smells it.
Percival seems to have been nothing if not self-indulgently morose. Also rather fond of the word "gay", and even though it didn't mean then what it means now, I have my suspicions.
THE POET'S SONG
I've had full measure of laughter and leisure,
Of Pride and Passion, Poetry and Pleasure,
Now let me drink the lees ;
Sorrow can take me, sift me and shake me,
Beat me and break me, or mould me and make me,
What she may please ;
That which remains of me, losses and gains of me,
Bruises and Pains of me, Bondage and chains of me,
All these I throw ;
Since there's an ending of loving and lending,
Giving and spending, and joyous pretending,
Much better be so ;
Vanished the best of me, gallant protest of me,
Dreaming and jest of me, music and zest of me,
Faith, Hope and Trust ;
Not a ray in me of what was gay in me,
Springtime and May in me, Elfin and fay in me,
Crumbled to dust.
For what is great of me, pity the state of me,
Heaviness, Hate of me, Sorrow the mate of me,
Freezing my blood.
Songs still unsung in me, Life hot and young in me,
And the Soul that was flung in me,
Ashes and mud.
Dang. I just went to my email to find that copy, and it was in a message I had sent two years ago to the poetry professor (who also played sax at the House of Blues ... and sigh, didn't want me). It came back as unknown address. I think he had probably died.
So, enough downers.
I have a favourite Walter de la Mare, but I can't remember what it is. Something about the moon?
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Of course.
The Listeners
"IS anybody there?" said the Traveler,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence chomped the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor.
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the traveler's head:
And he smote upon the door a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no one descended to the Traveler;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his gray eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveler's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:--
"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
Walter De La Mare
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Thank you, some lovely poems here, really enjoyed reading them.
Ann
Glos
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I havent time tonight to put on the poems I like but one to look for is Vitae Lampada, cant remember who bybut I think Henry Newbolt. Was inspiring to an idealistic youngster. Jean
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