POETRY
Landscapes: New Hampshire
by T.S. Eliot (1988 - 1965)
I. New Hampshire
CHILDREN'S voices in the orchard
Between the blossom- and the fruit-time:
Golden head, crimson head,
Between the green tip and the root.
Black wing, brown wing, hover over;
Twenty years and the spring is over;
To-day grieves, to-morrow grieves,
Cover me over, light-in-leaves;
Golden head, black wing,
Cling, swing,
Spring, sing,
Swing up into the apple-tree.
To Autumn
by John Keats (1795-1821)
1.
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Complete poem: http://www.potw.org/archive/potw279.html
The Cow
by Ogden Nash (1902 - 1971)
The cow is of bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other is milk.
Apple Blossom
by Louis MacNiece (1907 - 1963)
The first blossom was the best blossom
For the child who never had seen an orchard;
Complete poem: http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3546
A Song on the End of the World
by Czeslaw Milosz (1911 - 2004)
Translated by Anthony Milosz
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.
Complete poem: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179559
by T.S. Eliot (1988 - 1965)
I. New Hampshire
CHILDREN'S voices in the orchard
Between the blossom- and the fruit-time:
Golden head, crimson head,
Between the green tip and the root.
Black wing, brown wing, hover over;
Twenty years and the spring is over;
To-day grieves, to-morrow grieves,
Cover me over, light-in-leaves;
Golden head, black wing,
Cling, swing,
Spring, sing,
Swing up into the apple-tree.
To Autumn
by John Keats (1795-1821)
1.
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Complete poem: http://www.potw.org/archive/potw279.html
The Cow
by Ogden Nash (1902 - 1971)
The cow is of bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other is milk.
Apple Blossom
by Louis MacNiece (1907 - 1963)
The first blossom was the best blossom
For the child who never had seen an orchard;
Complete poem: http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3546
A Song on the End of the World
by Czeslaw Milosz (1911 - 2004)
Translated by Anthony Milosz
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.
Complete poem: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179559
I've put in gardens south of the fields,
Opened up a stream and planted trees
by Hsieh Ling-Yun (385 - 433)
Translated by David Hinton
I've put in gardens south of the fields,
Opened up a stream and planted trees
Woodcutter and recluse - they inhabit
these mountains for different reasons,
And there are other forms of difference.
You can heal here among these gardens,
Sheltered from rank vapours of turmoil,
wilderness clarity calling distant winds.
I ch'i-sited my house on a northern hill,
doors opening out onto a southern river,
Ended trips to the well with a new stream
and planted hibiscus in terraced banks.
Now there are flocks of trees at my door
and crowds of mountains at my window,
And I wander thin trails down to fields
or gaze into a distance of towering peaks,
Wanting little, never wearing myself out.
It's rare luck to make yourself such a life,
Though like ancient recluse paths, mine
bring longing for the footsteps of friends:
How could I forget them in this exquisite
adoration kindred spirits alone can share?
Notes from a Non-existent Himalayan Expedition
by Wislawa Szymborska (1923 - 2012)
So these are the Himalayas.
Mountains racing to the moon.
The moment of their start recorded
On the startling, ripped canvas of the sky.
Holes punched in a desert of clouds.
Thrust into nothing.
Echo - a white mute.
Quiet.
Yeti, down there we've got Wednesday,
Bread and alphabets.
Two times two is four.
Roses are red there,
And violets are blue.
Yeti, crime is not all
We're up to down there.
Yeti, not every sentence
Means death.
We've inherited hope -
The gift of forgetting.
You'll see how we give
Birth among the ruins.
Yeti, we've got Shakespeare there.
Yeti, we play solitaire
And violin. At nightfall,
We turn lights on, Yeti.
Up here it's neither moon nor earth.
Tears freeze.
Oh Yeti, semi-moonman,
Turn back, think again!
I called this to the Yeti
Inside four walls of avalanche,
Stomping my feet for warmth
On the everlasting
Snow.
After Apple-Picking
by Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear
Complete poem: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173523
Fern Hill
by Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953)
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green
Complete poem: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15378
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by W B Yeats (1865 - 1939)
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow
Complete poem: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15529
Apples
by Laurie Lee (1914 - 1997)
Behold the apples’ rounded worlds
juice-green of July rain
Complete poem: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/apples/
Song of Solomon
Chapter 2
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons.
I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
Complete chapter: http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/Bible/Song_of_Solomon.html
Opened up a stream and planted trees
by Hsieh Ling-Yun (385 - 433)
Translated by David Hinton
I've put in gardens south of the fields,
Opened up a stream and planted trees
Woodcutter and recluse - they inhabit
these mountains for different reasons,
And there are other forms of difference.
You can heal here among these gardens,
Sheltered from rank vapours of turmoil,
wilderness clarity calling distant winds.
I ch'i-sited my house on a northern hill,
doors opening out onto a southern river,
Ended trips to the well with a new stream
and planted hibiscus in terraced banks.
Now there are flocks of trees at my door
and crowds of mountains at my window,
And I wander thin trails down to fields
or gaze into a distance of towering peaks,
Wanting little, never wearing myself out.
It's rare luck to make yourself such a life,
Though like ancient recluse paths, mine
bring longing for the footsteps of friends:
How could I forget them in this exquisite
adoration kindred spirits alone can share?
Notes from a Non-existent Himalayan Expedition
by Wislawa Szymborska (1923 - 2012)
So these are the Himalayas.
Mountains racing to the moon.
The moment of their start recorded
On the startling, ripped canvas of the sky.
Holes punched in a desert of clouds.
Thrust into nothing.
Echo - a white mute.
Quiet.
Yeti, down there we've got Wednesday,
Bread and alphabets.
Two times two is four.
Roses are red there,
And violets are blue.
Yeti, crime is not all
We're up to down there.
Yeti, not every sentence
Means death.
We've inherited hope -
The gift of forgetting.
You'll see how we give
Birth among the ruins.
Yeti, we've got Shakespeare there.
Yeti, we play solitaire
And violin. At nightfall,
We turn lights on, Yeti.
Up here it's neither moon nor earth.
Tears freeze.
Oh Yeti, semi-moonman,
Turn back, think again!
I called this to the Yeti
Inside four walls of avalanche,
Stomping my feet for warmth
On the everlasting
Snow.
After Apple-Picking
by Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear
Complete poem: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173523
Fern Hill
by Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953)
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green
Complete poem: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15378
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by W B Yeats (1865 - 1939)
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow
Complete poem: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15529
Apples
by Laurie Lee (1914 - 1997)
Behold the apples’ rounded worlds
juice-green of July rain
Complete poem: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/apples/
Song of Solomon
Chapter 2
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons.
I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
Complete chapter: http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/Bible/Song_of_Solomon.html