Happy Friday!

My chosen poem this week is by one of my favourites, William Blake. William Blake (1757-1827) was an English poet, painter and print maker. Sadly he was largely unrecognised during his lifetime but now he is considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age.

Spring

Sound the Flute!
Now it's mute.
Birds delight
Day and Night;
Nightingale
In the dale,
Lark in Sky,
Merrily,
Merrily, Merrily, to welcome in the Year. 

Little Boy,
Full of Joy;
Little Girl,
Sweet and small;
Cock does crow,
So do you;
Merry voice,
Infant noise,
Merrily, Merrily, to welcome in the Year. 

Little Lamb,
Here I am;
Come and lick
My white nick;
Let me pull
Your soft Wool;
Let me kiss
Your soft face:
Merrily, Merrily, we welcome in the Year. 

William Blake

Happy Reading

Etsy

• Instagram
• Facebook

Happy Friday!

I have just returned from a lovely few days in Bath which has involved some book buying and museum visiting.

My chosen poem for today is by the English poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889).

Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring - 
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightenings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. - Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning. 

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Happy Reading

Etsy

• Instagram
• Facebook

Happy Friday and Easter Weekend Everyone!

I hope you all have some fun plans for the Easter weekend. My husband and myself are mainly working but we have some adventures planned for next week which will be a nice break.

There is a Pleasure in the Pathless Woods

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean - roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin - his control
Stops with the shore; - upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. 

His steps are not upon thy paths, - thy fields
Are not a spoil for him, - thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: - there let him lay. 

Lord Byron

Happy Reading

Etsy

• Instagram
• Facebook

Happy Friday!

I have managed quite a bit of reading today which has been nice.

My chosen poem this week is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834).

Work Without Hope

All Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair -
The bees are stirring - birds are on the wing - 
And Winter slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I the while, the sole unbusy thing,
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrightened, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, 
And Hope without an object cannot live. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Happy Reading

Etsy

• Instagram
• Facebook

Happy Friday!

I have managed a good amount of reading today which has been nice.

My chosen poem this week is by the American poet Emily Dickinson (1830-1886).

A Light Exists in Spring

A light exists in spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period - 
When March is scarcely here
A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake,
But Human Nature feels.

It waits upon the Lawn, 
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know;
It almost speaks to you. 

Then, as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes, and we stay -

A quality of loss
Affecting our Content, 
As Trade had suddenly encroached 
Opon a Sacrament -

Emily Dickinson

Happy Reading

Etsy

• Instagram
• Facebook

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone has had a good week so far. I’m hoping for some serious reading tomorrow whilst the husband watches the Grand Prix.

My chosen poem this week is by the American author and poet Ella Higginson (1862-1940).

Four-leaf Clover

I know a place where the sun is like gold, 
And the cherry blooms burst with snow,
And down underneath is the loveliest nook,
Where the four-leaf clovers grow. 

One leaf is for hope, and one is for faith, 
And one is for love, you know, 
And God put another in for luck -
If you search, you will find where they grow. 

But you must have hope, and you must have faith,
You must love and be strong - and so -
If you work, if you wait, you will find the place
Where the four-leaf clovers grow.

Ella Higginson

Happy Reading

Etsy

• Instagram
• Facebook

Happy Friday!

I have been at school today which was a bit of a shock because I only usually do school at the beginning of the week. This week has so far been rather busy so not much reading has happened but I’m still trying to fit in as much as I can.

The poem I have chosen today is by a new poet for me. Ursula Askham Fanthorpe (1929-2009) was an English poet, who published as U. A. Fanthorpe.

Atlas

There is a kind of love called maintenance,
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;

Which checks the insurance, and doesn't forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way 
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living; which is Atlas. 

And maintenance is the sensible side of love, 
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in the air,
As Atlas did the sky. 

U. A. Fanthorpe

Happy Reading

Etsy

• Instagram
• Facebook

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone has had a good week so far. I have had a fab day of reading today and it has been bliss.

My chosen poem today is by the American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962).

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,mydarling)
                                                  i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet) i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud 
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

E. E. Cummings

Happy Reading

Etsy

• Instagram
• Facebook

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone has some fun plans for the weekend.

My chosen poem this week is by the Irish poet, playwright and translator Seamus Heaney (1939-2013).

Scaffolding

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints. 

And yet all this comes down when the job's done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.

Seamus Heaney

Happy Reading

Etsy

• Instagram
• Facebook