Dream of Winter

These were the sounds that dinned upon his ear -
The spider’s fatal purring, and the grey
Trumpeting of old mammoths locked in ice.
No human sound there was: only the evil
Shriek of the violin sang of human woe
And conquest and defeat, and the round drums
Sobbed as they beat.
 
He saw the victim nailed against the night
With ritual stars. [...]

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Grantchester Memories (1908)

Rupert Brook
Mid-May morning; the quiet pool gleaming,
Meadows gilt with buttercup, diamonded with dew;
One cuckoo calling, the old river dreaming;
And the dawn-wind chasing dainty clouds across the blue.
*
The tall slim figure of the strong young swimmer,
Proud head lifted to catch the morning air,
Poising for the plunge, his wet skin a-glimmer,
A laughter in his eyes and a [...]

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from Autumn Testament

22
To pray for an easy heart is no prayer at all
Because the heart itself is the creaking bridge
On which we cross these Himalayan gorges
From bluff to bluff. To sweat out the soul’s blood
Midnight after midnight is the ministry of Jacob,
And Jacob will be healed. This body that shivers
In the foggy cold, tasting the sour fat,
Was [...]

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from Remembrance

Cold in the earth – and fifteen wild Decembers,
From those brown hills, have melted into spring:
Faithful indeed is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!
 
Sweet Love of youth, forgive if I forget thee,
While the world’s tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee [...]

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from Autumn Journal

September has come, it is hers
Whose vitality leaps in the autumn,
Whose nature prefers
Trees without leaves and a fire in the fire-place;
So I give her this month and the next
Though the whole of my year should be hers who has rendered already
So many of its days intolerable or perplexed
But so many more so happy;
Who has left [...]

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Dreams

Be gentle, O hands of a child;
Be true: like a shadowy sea
In the starry darkness of night
Are your eyes to me.
 
But words are shallow, and soon
Dreams fade that the heart once knew;
And youth fades out in the mind,
In the dark eyes too.
 
What can a tired heart say,
Which the wise of the world have made dumb?
Save [...]

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The Mental Traveller

But that is perhaps not Blake at his best. This is:
 
…
I travel’d thro’ a Land of Men,
A Land of Men & Women too,
And heard & saw such dreadful things
As cold Earth wanderers never knew.   
 
For there the Babe is born in joy
That was begotten in dire woe;
Just as we Reap in joy the fruit
Which we in [...]

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Blake’s Sunflower

1. 
Why did Blake say
‘Sunflower weary of time’?
Every time I see them
they seem to say
Now! with a crash
of symbols!
Very pleased
and positive
and absolutely delighting
in their own round brightness.
2.
Sorry, Blake!
Now I see what you mean.
Storms and frost have battered
their bright delight
and though they are still upright
nothing could say dejection
more than their weary
disillusioned
hanging heads.
(Elizabeth Smart)
*
And the lines from Blake [...]

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Jesus of the Scars

If we never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the scars.
 
The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is Thy balm?
Lord Jesus, [...]

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I died for beauty …

I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
 
He questioned softly why I failed?
‘For beauty,’ I replied.
‘And I for truth, – the two are one;
We brethren are,’ he said.
 
And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our [...]

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