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Thread: Things to remember

  1. #1

    Default Winter poems

    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.
    Last edited by helenwyler; 01-Dec-08 at 15:48.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Edinburgh
    Posts
    2,343

    Default Advent 1955

    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)

  3. #3

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Angela View Post
    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 Snowby Robert Frost (1923)
    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.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    Caithness
    Posts
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    Default

    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


    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

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
    Location
    Over the pond, but not quite over the hill yet
    Posts
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    Default

    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.

  6. #6

    Default

    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

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