When green buds hang in the elm like dust
And sprinkle the lime like rain,
Forth I wander, forth I must,
And drink of life again.
Forth I must by hedgerow bowers
To look at the leaves uncurled,
And stand in the fields where cuckoo-flowers
Are lying about the world.
Ah, I like doing things which are done in no time and thus don't keep me from doing things I do really like and want to do ... such as writing.
.... together with eggshells, pulverised in a mortar ...
... I do peu à peu add while shifting ...
... one of the composters so that there will be excellent compost when next April it will be time again for applying compost to the field, ploughing, milling, planting the first potatoes and kohlrabi, setting onions, sowing carrots, red radish, peas and basil, parsley, parsley root, savory and, of course, new natural arts :) ...
Alack what poverty my muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument all bare is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside.
O blame me not if I no more can write!
Look in your glass and there appears a face,
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful then striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?
For to no other my verses tend,
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.
And more, much more than in my verse can sit,
Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.
CIII
The tightness and the nilness round that space
when the car stops in the road, the troops inspect
its make and number and, as one bends his face
towards your window, you catch sight of more
on a hill beyond, eyeing with intent
down cradled guns that hold you under cover
and everything is pure interrogation
until a rifle motions and you move
with guarded unconcerned acceleration-
a little emptier, a little spent
as always by that quiver in the self,
subjugated, yes, and obedient.
Eagle patrol, Co. Tyrone, July 1985So you drive on to the frontier of writing
where it happens again. The guns on tripods;
the sergeant with his on-off mike repeating
data about you, waiting for the squawk
of clearance; the marksman training down
out of the sun upon you like a hawk.
And suddenly you're through, arraigned yet freed,
as if you'd passed from behind a waterfall
on the black current of a tarmac road
past armor-plated vehicles, out between
the posted soldiers flowing and receding
like tree shadows into the polished windscreen.
Seamus Heaney (* 13. April 1939)
Spring in Seanhenge
Cherry
MagnoliaAge is when to man[Long pause.]
Huddled o'er the ingle
Shivering for the hag
To put the pen in the bed
And bring the toddy
She comes in the ashes
Who loved could not be won
Or won not loved
Or some other trouble
Comes in the ashes
Like in that cold light
The faces in the ashes
That old starlight
On the earth again.
On the other side I had seen a little girl,
her right hand holding a man's left,
leading him towards the night,
her voice being his eyes.
The sun is red, she said, and soon
she will dive into the glistening sea.
Having eyes only for the man at her side
she had not taken notice of me,
and still I felt like an intruder.
Suddenly I sensed myself walking away,
and only the sun could see
my eyes burning with sorrow and joy.
Could you see through walls,ONE word is often profaned!
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it.
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And Pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.
I can give not what men call love
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the heaven rejects not:
The desire of the moth for the star
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion for something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?
WHOSE is the love that, gleaming through the world,
Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?
Whose is the warm and partial praise,
Virtue's most sweet reward?
Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul
Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow?
Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,
And loved mankind the more?
Harriet! on thine :—thou wert my purer mind;
Thou wert the Inspiration of my song;
Thine are these early wilding flowers,
Though garlanded by me.
Then press into thy breast this pledge of love,
And know, though time may change and years may roll,
Each flow'ret gathered in my heart
It consecrates to thine.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
I ARISE from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me - who knows how?
To thy chamber window, sweet.
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream -
The champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
Oh, beloved as thou art!
Oh lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white alas!
My heart beats loud and fast
Oh, I press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Galaxy NGC 3628
