Things to remember

[helenwyler]

Things to Remember
James Reeves (1909-1978)

The buttercups in May,
The wild rose on the spray,
The poppy in the hay,

The primrose in the dell,
The freckled foxglove bell,
The honeysuckle's smell

Are things I would remember
When cheerless, raw November
Makes room for dark December.

[Angela]

Must say I struggle to remember spring or summer at this time of year Helen!

Here's another poem for December. Perhaps other people will post their favourites.... :)

Advent 1955

The Advent wind begins to stir
With sea-like sounds in our Scotch fir,
It's dark at breakfast, dark at tea,
And in between we only see
Clouds hurrying across the sky
And rain-wet roads the wind blows dry
And branches bending to the gale
Against great skies all silver pale
The world seems travelling into space,
And travelling at a faster pace
Than in the leisured summer weather
When we and it sit out together,
For now we feel the world spin round
On some momentous journey bound -
Journey to what? to whom? to where?
The Advent bells call out 'Prepare,
Your world is journeying to the birth
Of God made Man for us on earth.'

And how, in fact, do we prepare
The great day that waits us there -
For the twenty-fifth day of December,
The birth of Christ? For some it means
An interchange of hunting scenes
On coloured cards, And I remember
Last year I sent out twenty yards,
Laid end to end, of Christmas cards
To people that I scarcely know -
They'd sent a card to me, and so
I had to send one back. Oh dear!
Is this a form of Christmas cheer?
Or is it, which is less surprising,
My pride gone in for advertising?
The only cards that really count
Are that extremely small amount
From real friends who keep in touch
And are not rich but love us much
Some ways indeed are very odd
By which we hail the birth of God.

We raise the price of things in shops,
We give plain boxes fancy tops
And lines which traders cannot sell
Thus parcell'd go extremely well
We dole out bribes we call a present
To those to whom we must be pleasant
For business reasons. Our defence is
These bribes are charged against expenses
And bring relief in Income Tax
Enough of these unworthy cracks!
'The time draws near the birth of Christ'.
A present that cannot be priced
Given two thousand years ago
Yet if God had not given so
He still would be a distant stranger
And not the Baby in the manger.

John Betjeman (1906-1984)

[helenwyler]

Must say I struggle to remember spring or summer at this time of year Helen!


Not even if you screw your eyes tight shut and hover over your heater? ;) I love bright winter days like today, but yesterday was dark and wet.


Dust of Snowhttp://z.about.com/by Robert Frost (1923)http://z.about.com/
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

P.S. I'm not feeling miserable, just like this poem.

[Moira]

Angela & Helen, I went a-Googling for Winter Poems and felt thoroughly depressed by some of the dirges I came up with. Then I found this wee gem :D


The Sounds of Silence

The morning was mute, quiet and still
as I awoke from a peaceful rest;
The sounds of silence were a soft calm
and peace was mine - I was blessed.


A hushed world was solemn in thought
at the silence all around;
Snowflakes fell like pure-white feathers
and never made a sound.


A lull like this, in a busy world,
was Nature's gift of wonder;
I stifled thoughts of anything
that might put it asunder.


For just awhile on a winter's morn,
I turned within, in awe;
Listening to the sounds of silence
and the beauty that I saw.


Joan Adams Burchell
December 11, 2004

[Sporran]

Here's another poem by Robert Frost:


Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

by Robert Frost (1923)


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

[helenwyler]

What a winterfest to read all these fabulous poems :)!

Moira, this next one is an old favourite of mine. It starts off a bit dirgy, but read on! ;)

The Darkling Thrush

I LEANT upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.


The land’s sharp features seem’d to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seem'd fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.


Thomas Hardy
December 1900