A WINTER’S TALE

Let me steal the midnight’s silence,
The stillness of the dawn,
The dampness of the morning grass,
As one more day is born.

Let me tread the crisp new snow
And breathe the icy blast;
Match my step to winter’s wind,
Relive those pleasures past.

For I must reach another goal
Fate’s purpose to pursue.
Life has been short and gone too soon
My devils to subdue.

And when my grave has opened up
My body to receive
Already mildew on my heart
And few there’ll be to grieve.

 

 

How Can It Be?

Photo by Immortal shots on Pexels.com

 

Sad the moment
Instant grief
No containment
No relief

How can it be
That such a stricture
Such hurt
Such pain
Can come to blight
A life again
When all else seems
So sweet
So rich

One thought sustains
And moves us on
Relentless time
Regarding none
Ensures at last
The past is gone
While healing hope remains

 

Thomas Hardy – ‘Regret Not Me’

 [  No.71 of my favourite short poems  ]

‘The Churchyard, Haworth’ … WHB – Pen & Ink:  1983

There is sadness, but with a quiet acceptance, in Hardy’s recall of the optimism of his ‘heydays’.  He has come to an accommodation with old age. long life and a resignation which will take him content into his everlasting ‘slumber’.

Regret not me;
Beneath the sunny tree
I lie uncaring, slumbering peacefully.

Swift as the light
I flew my faery flight;
Ecstatically I moved, and feared no night.

I did not know
That heydays fade and go,
But deemed that what was would be always so.

I skipped at morn
Between the yellowing corn,
Thinking it good and glorious to be born.

I ran at eves
Among the piled-up sheaves,
Dreaming, “I grieve not, therefore nothing grieves.”

Now soon will come
The apple, pear, and plum
And hinds will sing, and autumn insects hum.

Again you will fare
To cider-makings rare,
And junketings; but I shall not be there.

Yet gaily sing
Until the pewter ring
Those songs we sang when we went gipsying.

And lightly dance
Some triple-timed romance
In coupled figures, and forget mischance;

And mourn not me
Beneath the yellowing tree;
For I shall mind not, slumbering peacefully

‘Thomas Hardy’ (1840-1928) by Walter William Ouless (National Portrait Gallery) 

Readers may find it interesting to compare and contrast the lyrics of the classic Edith Piaf song . . .

 

William Blake – ‘On Another’s Sorrow’

This poem, in its first published form is by the English poet and painter, William Blake (1757-1827).   Blake was not highly recognised during his lifetime but is now regarded as a leading poet and painter of the Romantic Period.   As an important printmaker, Blake, as he did for many others of his poems, produced the decoration himself.  The poem discusses human and divine understanding and compassion. It was first published in 1789 as the last song in the ‘Songs of Innocence’ section, part of the collection ‘Songs of Innocence and of Experience’. 

Grief’s Threnody

On 4th June, The Isle of Barra came together as “one big family” to celebrate the life of  14 year-old Eilidh Macleod, the “dear, beautiful” teenager who died in the Manchester bombing terrorist attack on 22 May.
Eilidh herself was a piper with Sgoil Lionacleit Pipe Band.

Coffin on the sands of Barra
Processed across the bay
Piped to eternity
By the winds of the Hebrides
Lost to the world
That nurtured her here
In youth still full of joy
At large on that southern stage
Whereon she was slaughtered
Bombed to death by bitterness
Unleashed unbidden on humanity
By senseless gross insanity
By gullibility beyond belief
Returned now in remembrance
A life’s peroration
Grief’s threnody
On love’s lasting hold on life