Livia Ellis's Blog, page 4

Sunday Poem: Laurence Binyon - O World, be Nobler

Laurence Binyon. b. 1869  O World, be Nobler  O WORLD, be nobler, for her sake!  If she but knew thee what thou art,What wrongs are borne, what deeds are doneIn thee, beneath thy daily sun,  Know'st thou not that her tender heart

Sunday Poem: Robert Louis Stevenson – Requiem

Robert Louis Stevenson. 1850–1894


  


Requiem


  






UNDER the wide and starry sky



Dig the grave and let me lie:



Glad did I live and gladly die,



  And I laid me down with a will.






This be the verse you grave for me:



Here he lies where he long’d to be;



Home is the sailor, home from sea,



  And the hunter home from the hill.

Sunday Poem: Robert Louis Stevenson - Requiem

Robert Louis Stevenson. 1850–1894  Requiem  UNDER the wide and starry skyDig the grave and let me lie:Glad did I live and gladly die,  And I laid me down with a will.This be the verse you grave for me:

Sunday Poem: William Butler Yeats – Where My Books go

William Butler Yeats. b. 1865


  


Where My Books go


  






ALL the words that I utter,



  And all the words that I write,



Must spread out their wings untiring,



  And never rest in their flight,



Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,



  And sing to you in the night,



Beyond where the waters are moving,



  Storm-darken’d or starry bright.

Sunday Poem: William Butler Yeats - Where My Books go

William Butler Yeats. b. 1865  Where My Books go  ALL the words that I utter,  And all the words that I write,Must spread out their wings untiring,  And never rest in their flight,Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,

Sunday Poem: Francis Thompson – The Poppy

Francis Thompson. 1859–1907


  


The Poppy


  






SUMMER set lip to earth’s bosom bare,



And left the flush’d print in a poppy there;



Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came,



And the fanning wind puff’d it to flapping flame.






With burnt mouth red like a lion’s it drank



The blood of the sun as he slaughter’d sank,



And dipp’d its cup in the purpurate shine



When the eastern conduits ran with wine.






Till it grew lethargied with fierce bliss,



And hot as a swinkèd gipsy is,



And drowsed in sleepy savageries,



With mouth wide a-pout for a sultry kiss.






A child and man paced side by side,



Treading the skirts of eventide;



But between the clasp of his hand and hers



Lay, felt not, twenty wither’d years.






She turn’d, with the rout of her dusk South hair,



And saw the sleeping gipsy there;



And snatch’d and snapp’d it in swift child’s whim,



With—’Keep it, long as you live!’—to him.






And his smile, as nymphs from their laving meres,



Trembled up from a bath of tears;



And joy, like a mew sea-rock’d apart,



Toss’d on the wave of his troubled heart.






For he saw what she did not see,



That—as kindled by its own fervency—



The verge shrivell’d inward smoulderingly:






And suddenly ‘twixt his hand and hers



He knew the twenty wither’d years—



No flower, but twenty shrivell’d years.






‘Was never such thing until this hour,’



Low to his heart he said; ‘the flower



Of sleep brings wakening to me,



And of oblivion memory.’






‘Was never this thing to me,’ he said,



‘Though with bruisèd poppies my feet are red!’



And again to his own heart very low:



‘O child! I love, for I love and know;






‘But you, who love nor know at all



The diverse chambers in Love’s guest-hall,



Where some rise early, few sit long:



In how differing accents hear the throng



His great Pentecostal tongue;






‘Who know not love from amity,



Nor my reported self from me;



A fair fit gift is this, meseems,



You give—this withering flower of dreams.






‘O frankly fickle, and fickly true,



Do you know what the days will do to you?



To your Love and you what the days will do,



O frankly fickle, and fickly true?






‘You have loved me, Fair, three lives—or days:



‘Twill pass with the passing of my face.



But where I go, your face goes too,



To watch lest I play false to you.






‘I am but, my sweet, your foster-lover,



Knowing well when certain years are over



You vanish from me to another;



Yet I know, and love, like the foster-mother.






‘So frankly fickle, and fickly true!



For my brief life-while I take from you



This token, fair and fit, meseems,



For me—this withering flower of dreams.’



.      .      .


The sleep-flower sways in the wheat its head,



Heavy with dreams, as that with bread:



The goodly grain and the sun-flush’d sleeper



The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.






I hang ‘mid men my needless head,



And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread:



The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper



Time shall reap, but after the reaper



The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper!






Love! love! your flower of wither’d dream



In leavèd rhyme lies safe, I deem,



Shelter’d and shut in a nook of rhyme,



From the reaper man, and his reaper Time.






Love! I fall into the claws of Time:



But lasts within a leavèd rhyme



All that the world of me esteems—



My wither’d dreams, my wither’d dreams.

Sunday Poem: Francis Thompson - The Poppy

Francis Thompson. 1859–1907  The Poppy  SUMMER set lip to earth's bosom bare,And left the flush'd print in a poppy there;Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came,And the fanning wind puff'd it to flapping flame.With burnt mouth red like a lion's it drank

Sunday Poem: Robert Burns – Auld Lang Syne

Robert Burns. 1759–1796





Auld Lang Syne 

SHOULD auld acquaintance be forgot,



  And never brought to min’?



Should auld acquaintance be forgot,



  And days o’ lang syne?






We twa hae rin about the braes,



  And pu’d the gowans fine;



But we’ve wander’d monie a weary fit



  Sin’ auld lang syne.






We twa hae paidl’t i’ the burn,



  Frae mornin’ sun till dine;



But seas between us braid hae roar’d



  Sin’ auld lang syne.






And here ‘s a hand, my trusty fiere,



  And gie’s a hand o’ thine;



And we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught



  For auld lang syne.






And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp,



  And surely I’ll be mine;



And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet



  For auld lang syne!






      For auld lang syne, my dear,



        For auld lang syne,



      We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet



        For auld lang syne.

Sunday Poem: Robert Burns - Auld Lang Syne

Robert Burns. 1759–1796Auld Lang Syne 
SHOULD auld acquaintance be forgot,  And never brought to min'?Should auld acquaintance be forgot,  And days o' lang syne?We twa hae rin about the braes,

Sunday Poem: John Milton - Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity

John Milton. 1608–1674  Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity  IT was the Winter wilde,While the Heav'n-born-childe,  All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;Nature in aw to himHad doff't her gawdy trim,