Lustic Limerick #2

There was a young lass from Belsize
She looked at me, rolling her eyes.
When she put out her tongue
I thought “You’re a bit young,
And to touch you just wouldn’t be wise.”

SPRING

As earth sleeps
And winter thrives
My heart with the season rests
I await in peace,
I live in hope
Of new growth life attests

As winter ends
Ceases its hold
As daffodils emerge
So life releases
Love again
Its impulse and its urge.

The primrose wakes
Me to the spring
Its milky yellow songs
Sing to me
In gentle tones
Of where my heart belongs

Which is where life
And lust exist
Side by side in joy
So has it ever
always been
Since I was just a boy

And now that I
Am old and wise
Content to face my fate
I look on spring
And with it sing
New life to celebrate.

 

Photographs: WHB . . . Surrey – March 10th 2018   ©

 

Requiescat in Pace

Sir Edward Coley BURNE-JONES ‘The Morning of the Resurrection’ 1886 … Oil on Canvas – Tate Gallery

REQUIEM

 

Let it be
Words of Wisdom

Words of Solace
Just let go

Let it happen
You can’t stop it

Come what may
It will run its course

So as it goes
Don’t resist

Life will happen
Anyway

Che sera sera
I cannot stop it

So be it
I can’t change it

It’s past and gone
That’s it

Done and dusted
Destiny

Such is Life
It’s dead and buried

That’s Life
And Death is part of it

 

 

 

Love and Wisdom

Bust portrait of Robert Herrick, 17th century English poet,  from a rare print by W Marshal

 

One of the great love poems in the English language is Robert Herrick’s (1591 – 1674) poem ‘To Sylvia , to Wed’.   The poem was published in 1674 in a collection of Herrick’s poems called ‘Hesperides’.  You will find a transcription of it at:  poets.org   The last line of this extremely short poem is . . .

“No Man can at one time be wise and love.” 

The truth of these words by Herrick have often struck me, and I have been led to compose the following poem to amplify my thoughts on the beauty of the words and the wisdom which they hold . . .

Great truth lies here
For love consumes the soul
Drives out the rational
In favour of those headstrong thoughts
Those unconsidered deeds
Which couple love with lust
And joy with pain
Breaching reason
As a burst dam
Floods life’s valleys
As the wildfire strips life’s undergrowth
Devouring what it most values
In the thoughtless rush and swell
Of its inflamed ardour