DOLLIE RADFORD 1858-1920

WHEN FIRST I SAW YOUR FACE, LOVE

When first I saw your face, love,

I knew my search was done,

You passed my lonely place, love,

The light I sought was won,

When your steadfast eyes looked down on me,

And I arose to follow thee.

And something in your smile, love,

I knew to be a part

Of joy that for a while, love,

Had slumbered in my heart:

To what sweet music it awoke,

When first you turned to me and spoke! 

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Dollie Radford was the nom de plume of Caroline Maitland, the British poet and writer. Her friends included Eleanor Marx, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx.

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POETRY - A PERSONAL CHOICE is updated every weekday

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WALT WHITMAN 1819-92

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up - for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths - for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist.This entire poem is a metaphor about the death of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is the Captain and America is the ship. The line "our fearful trip is done" refers to the Civil War which has ended and everyone is celebrating what Lincoln has done - the end of slavery and the unification of the people.

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A new art blog began today

CONSTABLE'S CLOUDS

will feature outstanding paintings of cloud formations by John Constable and will be updated every Friday

http://constablesclouds.blogspot.com

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WALTER DE LA MARE 1873-1956

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SILVER

Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon;

This way, and that, she peers, and sees

Silver fruit upon silver trees;

One by one the casements catch

Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;

Couched in his kennel, like a log,

With paws of silver sleeps the dog;

From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep

Of doves in silver feathered sleep

A harvest mouse goes scampering by,

With silver claws, and silver eye;

And moveless fish in the water gleam,

By silver reeds in a silver stream. 

Walter John de la Mare OM. CH. was born in what is now an area in Greenwich, Kent.  A poet, short story writer and novelist, he is best remembered for his writing for children

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POETRY - A PERSONAL CHOICE is updated every weekday

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WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 1770-1850

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LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING

I heard a thousand blended notes,

While in a grove I sate reclined,

In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts

Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link

The human soul that through me ran;

And much it grieved my heart to think

What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,

The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;

And ’tis my faith that every flower

Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,

Their thoughts I cannot measure:—

But the least motion which they made

It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,

To catch the breezy air;

And I must think, do all I can,

That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,

If such be Nature’s holy plan,

Have I not reason to lament

What man has made of man?

Wordsworth, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was an important figure in the launching of the Romantic Age in English literature. He was made Poet Laureate in 1843.

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POETRY - A PERSONAL CHOICE is updated every weekday

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JEAN INGELOW 1820-97

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THE LONG WHITE SEAM

As I came round the harbour buoy,

The lights began to gleam,

No wave the land-locked water stirred,

The crags were white as cream;

And I marked my love by candlelight

Sewing her long white seam.

It's aye sewing ashore, my dear,

Watch and steer at sea,

It's reef and furl, and haul the line,

Set sail and think of thee.

I climbed to reach her cottage door;

O sweetly my love sings!

Like a shaft of light her voice breaks forth,

My soul to meet it springs

As the shining water leaped of old,

When stirred by angel wings.

Aye longing to list anew,

Awake and in my dream,

But never a song she sang like this,

Sewing her long white seam.

Fair fall the lights, the harbour lights,

That brought me in to thee,

And peace drop down on that low roof

For the sight that I did see,

And the voice, my dear, that rang so clear

All for the love of me.

For O, for O, with brows bent low

By the candle's flickering gleam,

Her wedding-gown it was she wrought.

Sewing the long white seam. 

The works of this English poet and novelist were praised by Tennyson and they later became good friends.

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POETRY - A PERSONAL CHOICE is updated every weekday

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EDWARD THOMAS 1878-1917

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THE UNKNOWN BIRD

Three lovely notes he whistled, too soft to be heard

If others sang; but others never sang

In the great beech-wood all that May and June.

No one saw him: I alone could hear him

Though many listened. Was it but four years

Ago? or five? He never came again.

Oftenest when I heard him I was alone,

Nor could I ever make another hear.

La-la-la! he called, seeming far-off -

As if a cock crowed past the edge of the world,

As if the bird or I were in a dream.

Yet that he travelled through the trees and sometimes

Neared me, was plain, though somehow distant still

He sounded. All the proof is -I told men

What I had heard.

I never knew a voice,
Man, beast, or bird, better than this. I told
The naturalists; but neither had they heard
Anything like the notes that did so haunt me,
I had them clear by heart and have them still.
Four years, or five, have made no difference. Then
As now that La-la-la! was bodiless sweet:
Sad more than joyful it was, if I must say
That it was one or other, but if sad
'Twas sad only with joy too, too far off
For me to taste it. But I cannot tell
If truly never anything but fair
The days were when he sang, as now they seem.
This surely I know, that I who listened then,
Happy sometimes, sometimes suffering
A heavy body and a heavy heart,
Now straightway, if I think of it, become
Light as that bird wandering beyond my shore.

Edward Thomas was an Anglo-Welsh poet, essayist and novelist. He enlisted in the Army during the First World War and was killed in action not long after he arrived in France.

A new art blog featuring paintings by John Constable
CONSTABLE'S CLOUDS
begins on Friday 28th August
http://constablesclouds.blogspot.com

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SAMUEL ROGERS 1763-1855

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A WISH

Mine be a cot beside the hill,
A bee-hive's hum shall sooth my ear;
A willowy brook, that turns a mill,
With many a fall shall linger near.

The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch,
Shall twitter from her clay-built nest;
Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch,
And share my meal, a welcome guest.

Around my ivy'd porch shall spring
Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew;
And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing
In russet gown and apron blue.

The village-church, among the trees,
Where first our marriage-vows were giv'n,
With merry peals shall swell the breeze,
And point with taper spire to heav'n.

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Samuel Rogers was a well-known poet during his lifetime, but since then his fame has been eclipsed by his friends William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge and and Lord Byron.

NEXT POST MONDAY

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