FERN HILL

Dyfi Valley, Wales

     Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
     About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
       The night above the dingle starry,
         Time let me hail and climb
       Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
     And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
     And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
         Trail with daisies and barley
       Down the rivers of the windfall light.

     And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
     About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
       In the sun that is young once only,
         Time let me play and be
       Golden in the mercy of his means,
     And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
     Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
         And the sabbath rang slowly
       In the pebbles of the holy streams.

     All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
     Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
       And playing, lovely and watery
         And fire green as grass.
       And nightly under the simple stars
     As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
     All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
       Flying with the ricks, and the horses
         Flashing into the dark.

     And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
     With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
       Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
         The sky gathered again
       And the sun grew round that very day.
     So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
     In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
       Out of the whinnying green stable
         On to the fields of praise.

     And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
     Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
       In the sun born over and over,
         I ran my heedless ways,
       My wishes raced through the house high hay
     And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
     In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
       Before the children green and golden
         Follow him out of grace.

     Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
     Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
       In the moon that is always rising,
         Nor that riding to sleep
       I should hear him fly with the high fields
     And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
     Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
         Time held me green and dying
       Though I sang in my chains like the sea.


Dylan Thomas
1934-1952

BE NOT AFEARD: THIS ISLE IS FULL OF NOISES

Be not afeard: this isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,

That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,

The clouds methought would open and show riches

Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked

I cried to dream again.

Shakespeare

From The Tempest

Act 3 Scene 2

ANGER LAY BY ME ALL NIGHT LONG

Charles Le Brun
French Painter 1619-1690

Anger lay by me all night long,

His breath was hot upon my brow,

He told me of my burning wrong,

All night he talked and would not go.

He stood by me all through the day,

Struck from my hand the book, the pen;

He said; " Hear first, what I've to say,

And sing, if you've the heart to, then.

And can I cast him from my couch?

And can I lock him from my room?

Ah no, his honest words are such

That he's my True-Lord, and my doom.

Elizabeth Daryush

1887-1977

THE TOURISTS

Carl Spitzweg
1808-1885
19th Century English Tourist in the Roman Campagna

Arriving was their passion,

Into the new place out of the blue

Flying, sailing, driving - 

How well these veteran tourists knew

Each fashion of arriving.

Leaving a place behind them,

There was no sense of loss; they fed

Upon the act of leaving -

So hot their hearts for the land ahead -

As a kind of pre-conceiving.

Arrival has stern laws, though,

Condemning men to lose their eyes

If they have treated travel

As a brief necessary disease,

A pause before arrival.

And merciless the fate is 

Of him who leaves nothing behind,

No hostage, no reversion;

He travels on, not only blind

But a stateless person.

Fleeing from love and hate,

Pursuing change, consumed by motion,

Such arrivistes, unseeing,

Forfeit through endless self-evasion

The estate of simple being.

C. Day Lewis

1904-1972

Poet Laureate

ALMANAC

Robert Rauschenberg
Almanac

The indifferent rivers 

Will keep on flowing to the sea

Or ruinously overflowing dikes,

Ancient handiwork of determined men.

The glaciers will continue to grate,

Smoothing what's under them

Or suddenly fall headlong,

Cutting short fir trees' lives.

The sea, captive between

Two continents, will go on struggling,

Always miserly with its riches.

Sun stars planets and comets

Will continue on their course.

Earth too will fear the immutable

Laws of the universe.

Not us. We, rebellious progeny

With great brainpower, little sense,

Will destroy, defile

Always more feverishly.

Very soon we'll extend the desert

Into the Amazonian forests,

Into the living heart of our cities,

Into our very hearts.

Primo Levi

1919-1987

translated from the Italian by Ruth Feldman

SOMETIMES IT HAPPENS

The Fountain of Indolence
J.M.W. Turner
British  Painter 1775-1851

And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then

You are not friends,

And friendship has passed.

And whole days are lost and among them

A fountain empties itself.

And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then

You are not loved,

And love is past.

And whole days are lost and among them

A fountain empties itself into the grass.

And sometimes you want to speak to her and then

You do not want to speak,

Then the opportunity has passed.

Your dreams flare up, they suddenly vanish.

And also it happens that there is nowhere to go and then

There is somewhere to go,

Then you have bypassed.

And the years flare up and are gone,

Quicker than a minute.

So you have nothing.

You wonder if these things matter and then

As soon as you begin to wonder if these things matter

They cease to matter,

And caring is past.

And a fountain empties itself into the grass.

Brian Patten

born February 1946

WANTS

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone;

However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards

However we follow the printed directions of sex

However the family is photographed under the flagstaff - 

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.

Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs;

despite the artful tensions of the calendar,

The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,

The costly aversion of the eyes from death -

Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.

Philip Larkin

1922-1985

NURSERY RHYME OF INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE

I had a silver penny

And an apricot tree

And I said to the sailor

On the white quay

'Sailor o sailor

will you bring me

If I give you my penny

And my apricot tree

A fez from Algeria

An Arab drum to beat

A little gilt sword

And a parakeet?'

  And he smiled and he kissed me

  as strong as death

  And I saw his red tongue

  And I felt his sweet breath.

''You may keep your penny

And your apricot tree

And I'll bring your presents

Back from the sea.'

O the ship dipped down

On the rim of the sky

And I waited while three

Long summers went by.

Then one steel morning

On the white quay

I saw a grey ship

come in from the sea.

Slowly she came

Across the bay

For her flashing rigging

Was shot away

All round her wake

The seabirds cried

And flew in and out

Of the hole in her side

Slowly she came

In the path of the sun

And I heard the sound

Of a distant gun

And a stranger came running

up to me

From the deck of the ship

And he said, said he

'O are you the boy

Who would wait on the quay

With the silver penny

And the apricot tree?

I've a plum coloured fez

And a drum for thee

And a sword and a parakeet

From over the sea.'

'O where is the sailor

With bold red hair?

And what is that volley

On the bright air?

O where are the other 

Girls and boys?

And why have you brought me

Children's toys?

Charles Causley

1917-2003