Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!
I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now ’tis little joy
To know I’m farther off from heav’n
Than when I was a boy.
Thomas Hood
Cottage
When I live in a Cottage
I shall keep in my Cottage
Two different Dogs
Three creamy Cows
Four giddy Goats
Five pewter Pots
Six silver Spoons
Seven busy Beehives
Eight ancient Appletrees
Nine red Rosebushes
Ten teeming Teapots
Eleven chirping Chickens
Twelve cosy Cats with their kittenish Kittens
and
One blessèd Baby in a Basket.
That’s what I’ll have when I live in my Cottage.
Eleanor Farjeon
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morningto where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
W. B. Yeats
The Way through the Woods
They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods . . .
But there is no road through the woods.
Rudyard Kipling
Adlestrop
Yes. I remember Adlestrop –
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop – only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Edward Thomas
The Counties
Saturday 7 August 2010
(It was announced that county names could disappear by 2016 after Royal Mail unveiled plans to delete them from its database)
But I want to write to an Essex girl,
greeting her warmly.
But I want to write to a Shropshire lad,
brave boy, home from the army,
and I want to write to the Lincolnshire Poacher
to hear of his hare
who makes a wooden hill of her stair.
But I want to post a rose to a Lancashire lass,
red, I’ll pick it,
and I want to write to a Middlesex mate
for tickets for cricket.
But I want to write to the Ayrshire cheesemaker
and his good cow
and it is my duty to write to the Queen at Berkshire
in praise of Slough.
But I want to write to the National Poet of Wales at Ceredigion
in celebration
and I want to write to the Dorset Giant
in admiration
and I want to write to a widow in Rutland
in commiseration
and to the Inland Revenue in Yorkshire
in desperation.
But I want to write to my uncle in Clackmannanshire
in his kilt
and to my scrumptious cousin in Somerset
with her cidery lilt.
But I want to write to two ladies in Denbighshire,
near Llangollen
and I want to write to a laddie in Lanarkshire,
Dear Lachlan . . .
But I want to write to the Cheshire Cat,
returning its smile.
But I want to write the names of the Counties down
for my own child
and may they never be lost to her . . .
all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire . . .
Carol Ann Duffy
RAINBOWS, MOONS AND STARS
Spell to Bring a Smile
Come down Rainbow
Rainbow come down
I have a space for you
in my small face
If my face is too small for you
take a space in my chest
If my chest is too small for you
take a space in my belly
If my belly is too small for you
then take every part of me
Come down Rainbow
Rainbow come down
You can eat me from head to toe
John Agard
My Heart Leaps Up
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
William Wordsworth
Above the Dock
Above the quiet dock in midnight,
Tangled in the tall mast’s corded height,
Hangs the moon. What seemed so far away
is but a child’s balloon, forgotten after play.
T. E. Hulme
Lemon Moon
On a hot and thirsty summer night,
The moon’s a wedge of lemon light
Sitting low among the trees,
Close enough for you to squeeze
And make a moonade, icy-sweet,
To cool your summer-dusty heat.
Beverly McLoughland
The Moon Landing
July 1969
To celebrate
the first moonwalk
I invented
my own TV
All it took
was a cardboard box
some bottle tops
a spot of glue
and a piece of card –
on which I drew
an orange moon
with a tiny astronaut man
on top
Nearly everyone
came round
our house
on the big day
And the whole world
seemed to stop breathing
for a moment
as we watched
those fuzzy pictures
and listened
to those crackly voices
travelling thousands
of miles
from the moon
into our home
In fact
my aunty
reckoned my TV
was even better
than watching
the real thing –
so she put it
in the window
so everyone passing
could see
my paper moon
James Carter
Where Am I?
There are mountains here, and craters,
and places with beautiful names:
The Bay of Rainbows,
The Lake of Dreams,
The Sea of Nectar,
The Sea of Tranquillity.
There is no water
in the seas or the lakes.
The hottest days
are hotter than boiling water.
The nights are colder
than anywhere on Earth.
I can see stars very clearly,
and nearer than them,
something wonderful. Imagine
a huge blue and white marble
glowing in a black sky.
Wendy Cope
The Heavenly City
I sigh for the heavenly country,
Where the heavenly people pass,
And the sea is as quiet as a mirror
Of beautiful, beautiful glass.
I walk in the heavenly field,
With lilies and poppies bright,
I am dressed in a heavenly coat
Of polished white.
When I walk in the heavenly parkland
My feet on the pastures are bare,
Tall waves the grass, but no harmful
Creature is there.
At night I fly over the housetops,
And stand on the bright moony beams;
Gold are all heaven’s rivers,
And silver her streams.
Stevie Smith
The More Loving One
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, how I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
W. H. Auden
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
Walt Whitman
Index of First Lines
A fairy went a-marketing ref1
Above the quiet dock in midnight ref1
And staying inside the lines ref1
Annabel-Emily Huntington-Horne ref1
As I walked out one evening ref1
At the top of the house the apples are laid in rows ref1
Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen ref1
Break, break, break ref1
But I want to write to an Essex girl ref1
Clownlike, happiest on your hands ref1
Come down Rainbow ref1
Come live with me and be my Love ref1
Dad keeps Mum’s favourite dress ref1
Dear God ref1
Dear Grandmamma, with what we give ref1
Dear Mum ref1
Do I love you ref1
Do you remember an Inn ref1
Don’t bite your nails, Amanda! ref1
‘Established’ is a good word; much used in garden books ref1
Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey ref1
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun ref1
Fly away, fly away, over the sea ref1
For I will consider my cat Jeoffry ref1
For months he taught us, stiff-faced ref1
Foxgloves on the moon keep to dark caves ref1
Full fathom five thy father lies ref1
Fur is soft, skin isn’t ref1
Good girls ref1
Grandad used to be a pop star ref1
Half-hidden in a graveyard ref1
He brought her an apple. She would not eat ref1
He was seven and I was six, my Brendon Gallacher ref1
Her day out from the workhouse-ward, she stands ref1
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways ref1
I am a witch, and a kind old witch ref1
I can remember. I can remember ref1
I fear it’s very wrong of me ref1
I heard you were coming and ref1
I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong ref1
I remember, I remember ref1
I sigh for the heavenly country ref1
I took her for my kind of person ref1
I wander’d lonely as a cloud ref1
I was as good as gold, an angel, said ta very much, no thanks ref1
I was best friends with Sabah ref1
I was writing my doll’s name on the back of her neck ref1
I went out to the hazel wood ref1
I went to school ref1
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree ref1
I will make you brooches and toys for your delight ref1
If no one ever marries me, – ref1
I’m nobody! Who are you? ref1
I’m not ref1
In among the silver birches ref1
In Art I drew a park ref1
Isabel met an enormous bear ref1
It was a little captive cat ref1
It was not in the winter ref1
I’ve found a small dragon in the woodshed ref1
Jellicle Cats come out tonight ref1
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota ref1
Leaping and dancing ref1
Lilies are white ref1
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well ref1
Love set you going like a fat gold watch ref1
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now ref1
maggie and milly and molly and may ref1
Marcia and I went over the curve ref1
Me and my best pal (well, she was ref1
Minnie and Winnie ref1
Morning and evening ref1
Mother, I love you so ref1
Mother said if I wore this hat ref1
Mrs Mackenzie’s quite stern ref1
Mum and me had a row yesterday ref1
My baby brother makes s
o much noise ref1
My friend ref1
My heart is like a singing bird ref1
My heart leaps up when I behold ref1
My team ref1
My turn for Audrey Pomegranate ref1
No one makes soup like my Grandpa’s ref1
Nobody heard him, the dead man ref1
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white ref1
Nuns, now: ladies in black hoods ref1
Nymph, nymph, what are your beads? ref1
O lovely O most charming pug ref1
‘O what can ail thee, Knight-at-arms ref1
Of all the girls that are so smart ref1
Oh I’m in love with the janitor’s boy ref1
On a hot and thirsty summer night ref1
On either side the river lie ref1
On the first day of Christmas ref1
Our teacher’s pet ref1
Over hill, over dale ref1
Prior Knowledge was a strange boy ref1
Remember me when I am gone away ref1
Remember, remember, there’s many a thing ref1
Round about the cauldron go ref1
Sabrina fair ref1
Saris hang on the washing line ref1
See, they are clearing the sawdust course ref1
Seventeen years ago you said ref1
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? ref1
She went, to plain-work, and to purling brooks ref1
She wished she could fly ref1
Since Christmas they have lived with us ref1
Sleep, baby, sleep ref1
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone ref1
The cat went here and there ref1
The Cow comes home swinging ref1
The fairy child loved her spider ref1
The friendly cow, all red and white ref1
The long-legged girl who takes goal-kicks is me ref1
The new girl stood at Miss Moon’s desk ref1
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea ref1
The wind sings its gusty song ref1
There are mountains here, and craters ref1
There, in a meadow, by the river’s side ref1
There once was a frog ref1
There was a naughty boy ref1