SPRING from The Life of Love

Come, my beloved; let us walk amidst the knolls,
For the snow is water, and Life is alive from its
Slumber and is roaming the hills and valleys.
Let us follow the footprints of Spring into the
Distant fields, and mount the hilltops to draw
Inspiration high above the cool green plains.


Dawn of Spring has unfolded her winter-kept garment
And placed it on the peach and citrus trees; and
They appear as brides in the ceremonial custom of
the Night of Kedre.


The sprigs of grapevine embrace each other like
Sweethearts, and the brooks burst out in dance
Between the rocks, repeating the song of joy;
And the flowers bud suddenly from the heart of
Nature, like foam from the rich heart of the sea.


Come, my beloved; let us drink the last of Winter's
Tears from the cupped lilies, and soothe our spirits
With the shower of notes from the birds, and wander
In exhilaration through the intoxicating breeze.


Let us sit by that rock, where violets hide; let us
Pursue their exchange of the sweetness of kisses.


Khalil Gibran
1883-1931


translated by Anthony Rizcallah Ferris

NOT LOVE PERHAPS

This is not Love perhaps - Love that lays down
Its life, that many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown -
But something written in lighter ink, said in a lower tone;
Something perhaps especially your own;
A need at times to be together and talk -
And then the finding we can walk
More firmly through dark narrow places
And meet more easily nightmare faces;
A need to reach out sometimes hand to hand -
And then find Earth less like an alien land;
A need for alliance to defeat
The whisperers at the corner of the street;
A need for inns on roads, islands in seas, halts for discoveries to be shared,
Maps checked and notes compared;
A need at times of each for each
Direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech.

A.S.J. Tessimond
1902-1962

TO HELL WITH COMMONSENSE

More kicks than pence

We get from commonsense

Above its door is writ

All hope abandon. It

Is a bank will refuse a post

Dated cheque of the Holy Ghost.

Therefore I say to hell

With all reasonable

Poems in particular

We want no secular

Wisdom plodded together

By concerned fools. Gather

No moss you rolling stones

Nothing thought out atones

For no flight

In the light.

Let them wear out nerve and bone

Those who would have it that way

But in the end nothing that they

Have achieved will be in the shake up

In the final Wake Up

And I have a feeling

That through the hole in reason’s ceiling

We can fly to knowledge

Without ever going to college.

Patrick Kavanagh

1905-1967

Patrick Kavanagh did not go to college. He was born in the parish of Inniskeen, attended Kednaminsha National School till the age of 12, and carried on his father's trade of cobbler and small farmer on the "stony grey soil of Monaghan". At the age of 35 he left for Dublin ("the worst mistake I made in my life") where he published a long poem, "The Great Hunger", about Ireland and the harsh realities of peasant life ("locked in a stable with pigs and cows forever"), a poem that was subversive enough to gain him the attention of the police. In 1953 he developed lung cancer, but lived for another 14 years. He was awarded a pension once he was declared incurable ("like a prize each year until I die"). He married Katharine Moloney in the year of his death.