Wednesday 30 October 2013

Fruitful.



TWO THINGS

Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand like stone:
Kindess in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.

Adam Lindsay Gordon 















Tuesday 29 October 2013

Pick.

        


      HOURS fly

       Flowers die.
     New days,
      New ways,
  Pass by.
       Love Stays
         
  Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
      But for those who Love,
         Time is Not.


     Henry Van Dyke













Monday 28 October 2013

Between.


A word is dead
When it said,
Some say.
I say it just begins to live
That day.

Emily Dickinson. 











Sunday 27 October 2013

Chime.


To a Skylark.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
from the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire
The blue deep thou widgets,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine.
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter 
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet, if we could scorn
Hate and pride and fear,
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures 
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, though sorter of ground!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 

 from Shelley's Ode to a Skylark 


















Saturday 26 October 2013

Potter.

We shall do so much in the years to come,
But what have we done today?
We shall give our gold in a princely sum,
But what did we give today?
- Nixon Waterman