Songs My Mother Sang

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The songs were of chill and anguish,
Sad songs with wistful themes,
Telling of loss and longing,
Songs of uncertain dreams.

Wistful, anxious, plaintive,
Sung in the dark days of war,
As though no end to suffering
Would reach us evermore.

She sang of the wandering gypsies,
The old lady sweet and kind,
Of old Barbara Frietchie’s flag,
And the boys who were left behind.

But though her words were sombre
I knew as she held me tight,
Her clutch was so warm and tender
The darkness would turn to light.

 

 

 

 

The Thralldom of Words

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How unreal
Insensate 
Would this life be
Without words
Sterile
Without the sounds to sing my feelings
The joy of Tongue
Touched by language
Threaded through thought
Expressed
In silken sound
Tempered by the vernacular
Enriched by our true poets

Sounds of the lover’s
Throbbing pleasure
Silken sounds
Of the singer of songs
Soulful
sensuous
That’s what it’s all about, Alfie. 

Living life
Loses meaning 
Is unreal 
Without 
The thrall of words
In trusted tomes
Found fables and
The lust for legend
Joy discovered
In mildewed texts
Throbbing with
Sound
Sense
And feeling

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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 . . .