The Cafe Cat: Poetry

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Monday, 1 July 2013

A London Summer #1

And so starts a new season and a new photo series with some of my ever favourite poems and my own shots.

A London Summer

No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist

Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd

By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;

Make not your rosary of yew-berries,

Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be

Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl

A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;

For shade to shade will come too drowsily,

And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;

And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:

Ay, in the very temple of Delight

Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;

His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,

And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

Ode on Melancholy, John Keats

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Thursday, 4 April 2013

Signs of Spring #18

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest; keep us here

All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,

Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;

And make us happy in the happy bees,

The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird

That suddenly above the bees is heard,

The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,

And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,

The which it is reserved for God above

To sanctify to what far ends He will,

But which it only needs that we fulfil.

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Wednesday, 3 April 2013

Signs of Spring #17

The snow melts on the mountain

And the water runs down to the spring,

And the spring in a turbulent fountain,

With a song of youth to sing,

Runs down to the riotous river,

And the river flows on to the sea,

And the water again

Goes back in rain

To the hills where it used to be.

And I wonder if Life's deep mystery

Isn't much like the rain and the snow

Returning through all eternity

To the places it used to know.

For life was born on the lofty heights

And flows in a laughing stream

To the river below

Whose onward flow

Ends in a peaceful dream.

And so at last,

When our life has passed

And the river has run its course,

It again goes back,

O'er the selfsame track,

To the mountain which was its source.

So why prize life

Or why fear death,

Or dread what is to be?

The river ran its allotted span

Till it reached the silent sea.

Then the water harked back to the mountaintop

To begin its course once more.

So we shall run the course begun

Till we reach the silent shore,

Then revisit earth in a pure rebirth

From the heart of the virgin snow.

So don't ask why we live or die,

Or wither, or when we go,

Or wonder about the mysteries

That only God may know.

Willam Randalph Hurst

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Friday, 29 March 2013

Signs of Spring #16

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,

Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,

Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between

Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration

Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze

Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,

Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

And I, what fountain of fire am I among

This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed

About like a shadow buffeted in the throng

Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

D.H.Lawrence

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Thursday, 28 March 2013

Signs of Spring #15

Born with the moon in Cancer

Choose her a name she will answer to

Call her green and the winters cannot fade her

Call her green for the children who've made her

Little green, be a gypsy dancer

He went to California

Hearing that everything's warmer there

So you write him a letter and say, "Her eyes are blue."

He sends you a poem and she's lost to you

Little green, he's a non-conformer

Just a little green

Like the color when the spring is born

There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow

Just a little green

Like the nights when the Northern lights perform

There'll be icicles and birthday clothes

And sometimes there'll be sorrow

Child with a child pretending

Weary of lies you are sending home

So you sign all the papers in the family name

You're sad and you're sorry, but you're not ashamed

Little green, have a happy ending

Just a little green

Like the color when the spring is born

There'll be crocuses to bring to school tomorrow

Just a little green

Like the nights when the Northern lights perform

There'll be icicles and birthday clothes

And sometimes there'll be sorrow

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Wednesday, 27 March 2013

Signs of Spring #14

By the road to the contagious hospital

under the surge of the blue

mottled clouds driven from the

northeast -- a cold wind. Beyond, the

waste of broad, muddy fields

brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water

the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish

purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy

stuff of bushes and small trees

with dead, brown leaves under them

leafless vines --

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish

dazed spring approaches --

They enter the new world naked,

cold, uncertain of all

save that they enter. All about them

the cold, familiar wind --

Now the grass, tomorrow

the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf

One by one objects are defined --

It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of

entrance -- Still, the profound change

has come upon them: rooted they

grip down and begin to awaken

William Carlos Williams

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Tuesday, 26 March 2013

Signs of Spring #13

For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

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Monday, 25 March 2013

Signs of Spring

Have you been following my Signs of Spring photo series over on the Cafe Cat?

You haven't?

But there's famous poems and everything!

Get ye gone and see...

(Click image to be transported on the eastern wind)

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Signs of Spring #12

Sound the flute!

Now it’s mute.

Birds delight

Day and night.

Nightingale

In the dale,

Lark in the sky,

Merrily,

Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little boy

Full of joy,

Little girl

Sweet and small.

Cock does crow,

So do you.

Merry voice,

Infant noise,

Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

Little lamb

Here I am

Come and lick

My white neck.

Let me pull

Your soft wool.

Let me kiss

Your soft face,

Merrily, merrily we welcome in the year.

William Blake

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Friday, 22 March 2013

Signs of Spring #11

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

William Wordsworth

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Thursday, 21 March 2013

Signs of Spring #10

The air was full of sun and birds,

The fresh air sparkled clearly.

Remembrance wakened in my heart

And I knew I loved her dearly.

The fallows and the leafless trees

And all my spirit tingled.

My earliest thought of love, and Spring's

First puff of perfume mingled.

In my still heart the thoughts awoke,

Came lone by lone together -

Say, birds and Sun and Spring, is Love

A mere affair of weather?

Robert Louis Stevenson

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Tuesday, 19 March 2013

Signs of Spring #9

Where I lived - winter and hard earth.

I sat in my cold stone room

choosing tough words, granite, flint,

to break the ice. My broken heart -

I tried that, but it skimmed,

flat, over the frozen lake.

She came from a long, long way,

but I saw her at last, walking,

my daughter, my girl, across the fields,

In bare feet, bringing all spring's flowers

to her mother's house. I swear

the air softened and warmed as she moved,

the blue sky smiling, none too soon,

with the small shy mouth of a new moon.

Carol Ann Duffy

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