m9




A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself.
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them.
Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.


W.Whitman

a6


Echo

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsty longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death;
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!

C. Rossetti

b13



Into Neutral

The scene has lost weight.
Just glance at the pond, the famous pond
Where mallards float around memory.

Hockey boys on ice
Scared kids on double runners.
One girl fell in up to her waist.
The crop of algae every June
Greened into August.
Dad forbade more talk about it
And built a swan boat for our mother.
Bullfrogs woke us dogs shook
Fields flooded again one rainy spring
And the sixty-foot sycamore bloomed.

On this last day look out the window.
In afternoon’s early dark
Black ice reflects the sunset.
Don’t slam the door.



JWB Rogers

e11



What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.
Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.


Stephen Spender

c8



Holy Fragments

Silver water, still or pouring

A whole wide world in each head

A ribbon of sparrows rising

No reason for a skunk’s white stripe

Our dog weeps in his dreams

How the earth sounded before there were ears

The wind.



JWB Rogers