• Percy Bysshe Shelley

    A Dirge

    Rough Wind, that moanest loud
    Grief too sad for song;
    Wild wind, when sullen cloud
    Knells all the night long;
    Sad storm, whose tears are vain,
    Bare woods, whose branches strain,
    Deep caves and dreary main, _
    Wail, for the world’s wrong!

  • Piet Hein

    Thoughts On A Station Platform

    It ought to be plain
    how little you gain
    by getting excited
    and vexed.

    You’ll always be late
    for the previous train,
    and always in time
    for the next.

  • Henry Reed

    Naming of Parts                                                       

    Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
    We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
    We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
    Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
    Glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens,
    And today we have naming of parts.

    This is the lower sling swivel. And this
    Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
    When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
    Which in your case you have not got. The branches
    Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
    Which in our case we have not got.

    This is the safety-catch, which is always released
    With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
    See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
    If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
    Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
    Any of them using their finger.

    And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
    Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
    Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
    Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
    The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
    They call it easing the Spring.

    They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
    If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
    And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
    Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
    Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
    For today we have naming of parts.

     

  • Hilaire Belloc

    Tarantella

    Do you remember an Inn,
    Miranda?
    Do you remember an Inn?
    And the tedding and the spreading
    Of the straw for a bedding,
    And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
    And the wine that tasted of tar?
    And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
    (Under the vine of the dark veranda)?
    Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
    Do you remember an Inn?
    And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
    Who hadn’t got a penny,
    And who weren’t paying any,
    And the hammer at the doors and the din?
    And the hip! hop! hap!
    Of the clap
    Of the hands to the swirl and the twirl
    Of the girl gone chancing,
    Glancing,
    Dancing,
    Backing and advancing,
    Snapping of the clapper to the spin
    Out and in–
    And the ting, tong, tang of the guitar!
    Do you remember an Inn,
    Miranda?
    Do you remember an Inn?

    Never more;
    Miranda,
    Never more.
    Only the high peaks hoar;
    And Aragon a torrent at the door.
    No sound
    In the walls of the halls where falls
    The tread
    Of the feet of the dead to the ground,
    No sound:
    But the boom
    Of the far waterfall like doom.

     

  • G K Chesterton

    The Donkey

    When forests walked and fishes flew
    And figs grew upon thorn,
    Some moment when the moon was blood,
    Then, surely, I was born.

    With monstrous head and sickening bray
    And ears like errant wings—
    The devil's walking parody
    Of all four-footed things:

    The battered outlaw of the earth
    Of ancient crooked will;
    Scourge, beat, 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 around my head
    And palms about my feet.
  • Moniza Alvi

    Arrival 1946

    The boat docked in Liverpool.
    From the train Tariq stared
    at an unbroken line of washing
    from the North West to Euston.

    These are strange people, he thought
    an Empire, and all this washing,
    the underwear, the Englishmen’s garden.
    It was Monday, and very sharp.

  • Eugene Guillevic

    Elegies

    He probably held too tightly
    (In the palm of his hand,
    Looking out on the sea)

    To the sand the wind
    Was taking, grain by grain —

    He who is held by the fear
    Of becoming mist.

  • E E Cummings

    maggie and milly and molly and may
    went down to the beach (to play one day)

    and maggie discovered a shell that sang
    so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and

    milly befriended a stranded star
    whose rays five languid fingers were;

    and molly was chased by a horrible thing
    which raced sideways while blowing bubbles; and

    may came home with a smooth round stone
    as small as a world and as large as alone.

    For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
    it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

  • Czeslaw Milosz

    Gift

    A day so happy.
    Fog lifted early I worked in the garden.
    Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
    There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
    I knew no man worth my envying him.
    Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
    To think that once I was the same man didn’t embarrass me.
    In my body I felt no pain.
    On straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

     

     

  • John Masefield

     

    Cargoes

    Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
    Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
    With a cargo of ivory,
    And apes and peacocks,
    Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

    Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
    Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
    With a cargo of diamonds,
    Emeralds, amethysts,
    Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

    Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke-stack,
    Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
    With a cargo of Tyne coal,
    Road-rails, pig-lead,
    Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.


  • Philip Larkin

    The Trees

    The trees are coming into leaf,
    Like something almost being said;
    The recent buds relax and spread,
    Their greenness is a kind of grief.

    Is it that they are born again,
    And we grow old? No, they die too,
    Their yearly trick of looking new
    Is written down in rings of grain.

    Yet still the unresting castles thresh
    In fullgrown thickness every May.
    Last year is dead, they seem to say
    Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.