Friday Poetry: Sara Coleridge

Happy Friday!

I hope you all have some fab plans for the weekend. I am rather gloomy now the Christmas decorations have come down as I always find the house so bare and dull once the pretty decorations are taken down.

My chosen poem today is from a new poet for me. Sara Coleridge (1802-1852) was a translator, novelist and poet. Coleridge hailed from a very literary family, her father was the early Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Her uncle was the Poet Laureate Robert Southey and her neighbour was William Wordsworth. Coleridge was surrounded by talented poets.

The Garden Year

January brings the snow,
Makes our feet and fingers glow. 

February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lake again.

March brings breezes, loud and shrill,
To stir the dancing daffodil.

April brings the primrose sweet,
Scatters daises at our feet.

May brings flocks of pretty lambs
Skipping by their fleecy dams.

June brings tulips, lilies, roses,
Fills the children's hands with posies.

Hot July brings cooling showers,
Apricots, and gillyflowers.

August brings the sheaves of corn,
Then the harvest home is borne.

Warm September brings the fruit;
Sportsmen then begin to shoot. 

Fresh October brings the pheasant;
Then to gather nuts is pleasant.

Dull November brings the blast;
Then the leaves are whirling fast.

Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.

Sara Coleridge

Happy Reading

Etsy

Friday Poetry: Eleanor Farjeon

Happy Friday!

I hope you are all looking forward to New Year and have some fun plans for New Year’s Eve. We will probably have a quiet New Year’s Eve at home but we have a nice bottle of champagne to help us celebrate.

My chosen poem today is by one of my favourites Eleanor Farjeon.

Poetry

What is Poetry? Who knows?
Not a rose, but the scent of a rose;
Not a sky, but the light in the sky;
Not the fly, but the gleam of the fly;
Not the sea, but the sound of the sea;
Not myself, but what makes me
See, hear, and feel something that prose
Cannot: and what it is, who knows?

Eleanor Farjeon

Happy Reading

Etsy

Friday Poetry: Cicely Mary Barker

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone is ready for Christmas. My chosen poem today is a favourite of mine by Cicely Mary Barker.

Sadly our tree won’t have a Christmas Tree fairy living in it because our tree is artificial, this is mainly because my husband and myself are both allergic to real Christmas trees.

The Christmas Tree Fairy

The little Christmas Tree was born
And dwelt in open air;
It did not guess how bright a dress
Some day its boughs would wear;
Brown cones were all, it thought, a tall
And grown-up Fir would bear.

O little Fir! Your forest home
Is far and far away;
And here indoors these boughs of yours
With coloured balls are gay,
With candle-light, and tinsel bright,
For this is Christmas Day!

A dolly-fairy stands on top,
Till children sleep; then she
(A live one now!) from bough to bough
Goes gliding silently.
O magic sight, this joyous night!
O laden, sparkling tree!

Cicely Mary Barker

Happy Reading

Etsy

Friday Poetry: Eleanor Farjeon

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone is having a good week so far and you all have exciting weekend plans. I will be honest December is not proving to be our best month. I have spent most of the week without a car and just because I have a hugely busy weekend of playing jobs my car is still not fixed so I will have to borrow my Mom’s car. This will be the first time ever my Mom will have let me drive her car.

As we get closer to Christmas I have decided to go for a Christmas themed poem.

Mary's Burden

My Baby, my Burden,
Tomorrow the morn
I shall go lighter
And you will be born. 

I shall go lighter,
But heavier too
For seeing the burden
That falls upon you. 

The burden of love,
The burden of pain,
I'll see you bear both
Among men once again.

Tomorrow you'll bear it
Your burden alone,
Tonight you've no burden
That is not my own

My Baby, my Burden,
Tomorrow the morn
I shall go lighter
And you will be born. 

Eleanor Farjeon

Happy Reading

Etsy

Friday Poetry: Thomas Hardy

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone has had a good Friday so far and have some exciting plans for the weekend. My chosen poem today is by one of favourites, Thomas Hardy.

Birds at Winter Nightfall

Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly! - faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone!

Thomas Hardy

Happy Reading

Etsy

Friday Poetry: Harold Munro

Happy Friday!

The poem I have chosen for today is a new poet for me. Harold Munro (1879-1932) was an English poet. As the owner of the Poetry Bookshop in London, he helped many poets to get their poetry into the public light.

Overheard on a Saltmarsh

Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?
Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?
Give them me.

No.

Give them me. Give them me.

No.

Then I will howl all night in the reeds,
lie in the mud and howl for them.

Goblin, why do you love them so?

They are better than stars or water,
Better than voices of winds that sing,
Better than any man's fair daughter,
Your green glass beads on a silver ring. 

Hush, I stole them out of the moon.

Give me your beads, I want them. 

No.

I will howl in a deep lagoon
For your green glass beads, I love them so.
Give them me. Give them.

No. 

Harold Munro

Happy Reading

Etsy

Friday Poetry: Rupert Brooke

Hello!

On the 11th November 1918, the fighting ceased on the Western Front, marking the end of WWI. 11th November is known today as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day.

Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) was a poet and a soldier who enlisted to fight. This poem was written in 1914 just as the war was about to begin.

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me: 
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. 

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. 

Rupert Brooke

Happy Reading

Etsy

Friday Poetry: William Shakespeare

Happy Friday!

My chosen poem this week is the song sung at the end of the second act of As You Like It.

from As You Like It

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen, 
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly. 

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly...
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly. 

William Shakespeare

Happy Reading!

Etsy

Friday Poetry: Roald Dahl

Happy Friday!

It will soon be Halloween so I have chosen a poem from Roald Dahl’s book The Witches.

Down Vith Children!

Down vith children! Do them in!
Boil their bones and fry their skin!
Bish them, sqvish them, bash them, mash them!
Brrreak them, shake them, slash them, smash them!
Offer chocs vith magic powder!
Say, 'Eat up!' then say it louder.
Crrram them full of sticky eats,
Send them home still guzzling sveets.
And in the morning little fools
Go marching off to separate schools.
A girl feels sick and goes all pale.
She yells, 'Hey look! I've grrrown a tail!'
A boy who's standing next to her
Screams, 'Help! I think I'm grrrowing fur!'
Another shouts, 'Vee look like frrreaks!
There's viskers growing on our cheeks!'
A boy who vos extremely tall
Cries out, 'Vot's wrong? I'm grrrowing small!'
Four tiny legs begin to sprrrout
From everybody rrround about,
And all at vunce, all in a trrrice,
There are no children! Only MICE!
In every school is mice galore
All rrruning rrround the school-rrrom floor!
And all the poor demented teachers
Is yelling, 'Hey, who are these crrreatures?'
They stand upon the desks and shout, 
'Get out, you filthy mice! Get out!
Vill someone fetch some mouse-trrraps, please!
And don't forrrget to bring the cheese!'
Now mouse-trrraps come and every trrrap
Goes snippy-snipp and snappy-snap.
The mouse-trrraps have a powerful spring,
The springs go crack and snap and ping!
Is lovely noise for us to hear!
Is music to a vitch's ear!
Dead mice is every place arrround,
Piled two feet deep upon the grrround,
Vith teachers searching left and rrright,
But not a single child in sight!
The teachers cry, 'Vot's going on?
Oh vhere have all the children gone?
Is half-past nine and as a rrrule
They're never late as this for school!'
Poor teachers don't know vot to do.
Some sit and rrread, and just a few
Amuse themselves throughout the day
By sveeping all the mice avay. 
AND ALL US VITCHES SHOUT 'HOORAY!'

Roald Dahl

Happy Reading

Etsy