A MAGIC MOMENT I REMEMBER

Alexander Sergeyevich Poushkin 1799-1837

A magic moment I remember:

I raised my eyes and you were there,

A fleeting vision, the quintessence

Of all that's beautiful and rare.

I pray to mute despair and anguish,

To pursuits the vain world esteems,

Long did I hear your soothing accents,

Long did your features haunt my dreams. 

Time passed. A rebel storm-blast scattered

The reveries that once were mine

And I forgot your soothing accents,

Your features gracefully divine. 

In dark days of enforced retirement

I gazed upon grey skies above

With no ideals to inspire me

No one to cry for, live for, love. 

Then came a moment of renaissance,

I looked up - you again are there

A fleeting vision, the quintessence

Of all that's beautiful and rare.

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A BIRD FROM THE WEST

Dora Sigerson Shorter 1866-1918

At the grey dawn, amongst the falling leaves,

   A little bird outside my window swung,

High on a topmost branch he trilled his song,

   And "Ireland! Ireland! Ireland!" ever sung.

Take me, I cried, back to my island home;

   Sweet bird, my soul shall ride between thy wings;

For my lone spirit wide his pinions spread,

   And home and home and home he ever sings.

We lingered over Ulster stern and wild.

   I called: "Arise! doth none remember me?"

One turnèd in the darkness murmuring,

   "How loud upon the breakers sobs the sea!"

We rested over Connaught – whispering said:

   "Awake, awake, and welcome! I am here."

One woke and shivered at the morning grey;

   "The trees, I never heard them sigh so drear."

We flew low over Munster. Long I wept:

   "You used to love me, love me once again!"

They spoke from out the shadows wondering;

   "You'd think of tears, so bitter falls the rain."

Long over Leinster lingered we. "Good-bye!

   My best beloved, good-bye for evermore."

Sleepless they tossed and whispered to the dawn;

   "So sad a wind was never heard before."

Was it a dream I dreamt? For yet there swings

   In the grey morn a bird upon the bough,

And "Ireland! Ireland! Ireland!" ever sings.

   Oh! fair the breaking day in Ireland now.

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THE HARVEST MOON

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807-82

It is the Harvest Moon! On gilded vanes

And roofs of villages, on woodland crests

And their aerial neighbourhoods of nests

Deserted, on the curtained window-panes

Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes

And harvest-fields, its mystic splendour rests!

Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,

With the last sheaves return the labouring wains!

All things are symbols: the external shows

Of Nature have their image in the mind,

As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;

The song-birds leave us at the summer’s close,

Only the empty nests are left behind,

And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

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SUNSET

Florence Peacock (dates not known)

"The setting sun of old age ever gilds with rosy tints the days gone by."

The setting sun of life gilds with its rays

The unforgotten but far distant days,

The days when youth and hope walked hand in hand.

It sheds around the past a rosy glow,

That past which never was a present, though

On looking back o'er life it seems to stand

Bathed in a crimson glory, - and old age

Lingers with loving fondness o'er the page

Thus lighted up by memory's golden rays.

-o=0=o-

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THE THOMAS HARDY PAGE

AFTER THE FAIR

The singers are gone from the Cornmarket-place

With their broadsheets of rhymes,

The street rings no longer in treble and bass

With their skits on the times,

And the Cross, lately thronged, is a dim naked space

That but echoes the stammering chimes.

From Clock-corner steps, as each quarter ding-dongs,

Away the folk roam

By the "Hart" and Grey's Bridge into byways and drongs,*

Or across the ridged loam;

The younger ones shrilling the lately heard songs,

The old saying, "Would we were home."

The shy-seeming maiden so mute in the fair

Now rattles and talks,

And that one who looked the most swaggering there

Grows sad as she walks,

And she who seemed eaten by cankering care

In statuesque sturdiness stalks.

And midnight clears High Street of all but the ghosts

Of its buried burghees,

From the latest far back to those old Roman hosts

Whose remains one yet sees,

Who loved, laughed, and fought, hailed their friends, drank their toasts

At their meeting-times here, just as these!

*drong = a passageway or lane especially between walls or hedges

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HALFWAY DOWN

A.A. Milne 1882-1956

Halfway down the stairs

Is a stair

Where I sit.

There isn't any

Other stair

Quite like

It.

I'm not at the bottom,

I'm not at the top;

So this is the stair

Where

I always

Stop.

Halfway up the stairs

Isn't up

And it isn't down.

It isn't in the nursery,

It isn't in town.

And all sorts of funny thoughts

Run round my head.

It isn't really

Anywhere!

It's somewhere else

Instead!

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THE REDBREAST CHASING THE BUTTERFLY

William Wordsworth 1770-1850

Art thou the bird whom Man loves best,

The pious bird with the scarlet breast,

Our little English Robin;

The bird that comes about our doors

When Autumn-winds are sobbing?

Art thou the Peter of Norway Boors?

Their Thomas in Finland,

And Russia far inland?

The bird, that by some name or other

All men who know thee call their brother,

The darling of children and men?

Could Father Adam open his eyes

And see this sight beneath the skies,

He'd wish to close them again.

—If the Butterfly knew but his friend,

Hither his flight he would bend;

And find his way to me,

Under the branches of the tree:

In and out, he darts about;

Can this be the bird, to man so good,

That, after their bewildering,

Covered with leaves the little children,

So painfully in the wood?

What ailed thee, Robin, that thou could'st pursue

A beautiful creature,

That is gentle by nature?

Beneath the summer sky

From flower to flower let him fly;

'Tis all that he wishes to do.

The cheerer Thou of our in-door sadness,

He is the friend of our summer gladness:

What hinders, then, that ye should be

Playmates in the sunny weather,

And fly about in the air together!

His beautiful wings in crimson are drest,

A crimson as bright as thine own:

Would'st thou be happy in thy nest,

O pious Bird! whom man loves best,

Love him, or leave him alone! 

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