Remembering [originally posted November 11, 2006]

 November 11 - Remembering

Remembrance Day originally commemorated the brave soldiers who fought and died in WWI. The Great War. The War to End All Wars.


Will there ever be a time of no war? Was there ever such a time?

I would like to honor all the young men and women who risk and give their lives for that shining ideal, that wish for peace, for a kinder, gentler world.

Perhaps in the next millennium...


Here are some works by poets of WWI, who sadly died in combat, much too young.


In Flanders Fields - by Royal Canadian Army Medical Corp officer, Dr. John McCrae [1872-1918]


In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae, written May 1915
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


~


Wilfred Edward Salter Owen (March 18, 1893 - November 4, 1918). English poet and soldier, regarded by some as the leading poet of the First World War. He died one week before the end of the war.


Anthem For Doomed Youth
by Wilfred Owen
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,--
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.



Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori
by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Note: Dulce et decorum est Pro Patria mori is from Horace. Owen wrote in a letter to his mother: "The famous Latin tag means of course It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. Sweet! and decorous!"

Written in 1917



Futility
by Wilfred Owen

Move him into the sun-
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds-
Woke once the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
-O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

Written in 1918.




The Next War
by Wilfred Owen

War's a joke for me and you,
While we know such dreams are true--Siegfried Sassoon

Out there, we've walked quite friendly up to Death;
Sat down an eaten with him, cool and bland, -
Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath, -
Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe.
He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed
Shrapnel. We chorused when he sang aloft;
We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.

Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
No soldier's paid to kick against his powers.
We laughed, knowing that better men would come,
And greater wars; when each proud fighter brags
He wars on Death - for lives; not men - for flags.


written 1915



--Cat

Max Ehrmann -- September 26

       

                                  Max Ehrmann  September 26, 1872 – September 9, 1945

His best-known work is the prose poem,  Desiderata  [Latin for – "all things desired"] was written in 1927. It enjoyed great popularity in the early 1970s.

                             Desiderata


    Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
    and remember what peace there may be in silence.

    As far as possible without surrender
    be on good terms with all persons.
    Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
    and listen to others,
    even the dull and the ignorant;
    they too have their story.
    Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
    they are vexations to the spirit.

    If you compare yourself with others,
    you may become vain or bitter;
    for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

    Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
    Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
    it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
    Exercise caution in your business affairs;
    for the world is full of trickery.
    But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
    many persons strive for high ideals;
    and everywhere life is full of heroism.

    Be yourself.
    Especially, do not feign affection.
    Neither be cynical about love;
    for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
    it is as perennial as the grass.

    Take kindly the counsel of the years,
    gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
    Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
    But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
    Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

    Beyond a wholesome discipline,
    be gentle with yourself.
    You are a child of the universe,
    no less than the trees and the stars;
    you have a right to be here.
    And whether or not it is clear to you,
    no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

    Therefore be at peace with God,
    whatever you conceive Him to be,
    and whatever your labors and aspirations,
    in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
    it is still a beautiful world.
    Be cheerful.
    Strive to be happy.


In 1971, Les Crane's spoken-word recording of Desiderata was high in the music charts .





--Cat

Johan Wolfgang von Goethe - August 28

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

August 28, 1749 - March 22, 1832

Calm At Sea
                              
Silence deep rules o'er the waters,
Calmly slumb'ring lies the main,
While the sailor views with trouble
Nought but one vast level plain.

Not a zephyr is in motion!
Silence fearful as the grave!
In the mighty waste of ocean
Sunk to rest is ev'ry wave.




May

Light and silv'ry cloudlets hover
In the air, as yet scarce warm;
Mild, with glimmer soft tinged over,
Peeps the sun through fragrant balm.

Gently rolls and heaves the ocean
As its waves the bank o'erflow.
And with restless motion
Moves the verdure to and fro,

Mirror'd brightly far below.
What is now the foliage moving?
Air is still, and hush'd the breeze,
Sultriness, this fullness loving,

Through the thicket, from the trees.
Now the eye at once gleams brightly,
See! the infant band with mirth
Moves and dances nimbly, lightly,
As the morning gave it birth,
Flutt'ring two and two o'er earth.




The Violet


A violet in the meadow grew,
Bowed to earth, and hid from view:
It was a dear sweet violet.
Along came a young shepherdess
Free of heart, and light of step,
Came by, came by,
Singing, through the flowers.

Oh! Thought the violet, were I,
If only for a little while,
Nature’s sweetest flower yet,
Till my Beloved picked me, pressed
Me fainting, dying to her breast!
So I might lie,
There, for but an hour!

Alas! Alas! The girl went past:
Unseen the violet in the grass,
Was crushed, poor violet. 
It drooped and died, and yet it cried:
‘And though I die, yet still I die
By her, by her,
By her feet passing by.’






The Artist’s Evening Song


Oh, for some inner creative force
Through my mind, echoing!
That through my hands might course
A sap-filled blossoming.

I only shudder, I only stutter, 
And yet can’t halt: at last,
I feel I know you, Nature,
And must hold you fast.

When I think how all these years
My powers have been growing,
And where barren heath appeared
Now streams of joy are flowing:

How I yearn for you, Nature, then,
And long for you, with faith and love!
For me you’ll be the leaping fountain,
A thousand springs will hurl above.

And every single power
In my mind you’ll heighten,
And this narrow being-here
To Eternity you’ll widen.




To The Moon (Final Version)

Bushes, valleys, silently,
You fill with misty light,
Easing my soul utterly
Again, at last, at night:

Soothingly you cast your gaze
Over a dark country,
As gentle and friendly eyes
Guard my destiny. 

Glad, and troubled, times
Echo in my heart,
I walk between pain and delight,
In solitude, apart. 

Flow on, beloved flood: flow on!
I’ll never know joy again,
Laughter and kisses, both are gone,
And loyalty flows away.

There was a time I had as yet
Life’s most precious thing!
Ah, a man can never forget
That which torments him!

River, through the valley, murmur,
Without rest or peace,
For my singing, gently whisper,
Murmuring melodies,

When you rage on winter nights
And then overflow,
Or when around the Spring’s delights
Of bursting buds, you go.

Happy are we if, without hate,
Hidden from the world,
We hold a friend to our heart
And with him explore

What, unknown to all their art,
Ignored, by all mankind,
Through the labyrinth of the heart
Wanders in the night.





--Cat

August 8 - Sara Teasdale

Reposted, because I love her poems

Originally posted Wednesday, August 08, 2007

  

Sara Teasdale August 8, 1884- January 29, 1933

American lyric poet, born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her delicate, personal poetry often deals with love, death, disillusionment, and also the beauties of the natural world. She ended her life by suicide at the age of 48.

Some of Sara Teasdale's poems:

Longing

I am not sorry for my soul
That it must go unsatisfied,
For it can live a thousand times,
Eternity is deep and wide.

I am not sorry for my soul,
But oh, my body that must go
Back to a little drift of dust
Without the joy it longed to know.


Immortal

So soon my body will have gone
Beyond the sound and sight of men,
And tho' it wakes and suffers now,
Its sleep will be unbroken then;
But oh, my frail immortal soul
That will not sleep forevermore,
A leaf borne onward by the blast,
A wave that never finds the shore.


If Death Is Kind

Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning,
We will come back to earth some fragrant night,
And take these lanes to find the sea, and bending
Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.

We will come down at night to these resounding beaches
And the long gentle thunder of the sea,
Here for a single hour in the wide starlight
We shall be happy, for the dead are free.


Barter

Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things;
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up,
Holding wonder like a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell;
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And, for the Spirit's still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Give all you have for loveliness;
Buy it, and never count the cost!
For one white, singing hour of peace
Count many a year of strife well lost;
And for a breath of ecstasy,
Give all you have been, or could be.


At Midnight

Now at last I have come to see what life is,
Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun,
And the brave victories that seem so splendid
Are never really won.

Even love that I built my spirit's house for,
Comes like a brooding and a baffled guest,
And music and men's praise and even laughter
Are not so good as rest.


-- Cat

July poets -2

Gerard Manley Hopkins  July 28, 1844 – June 8, 1889

Binsey Poplars 
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
               
(Felled 1879)

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
          Of a fresh and following folded rank
                    Not spared, not one
                    That dandled a sandalled
               Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering
          weed-winding bank.

O if we but knew what we do
          When we delve or hew-
Hack and rack the growing green!
          Since country is so tender
To touch, her being so slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will made no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
               To mend her we end her,
          When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
          Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
               Strokes of havoc unselve
          The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.


  
                               
Inversnaid
by Gerard Manley Hopkins 
   
THIS darksome burn, horseback brown, 
His rollrock highroad roaring down, 
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam 
Flutes and low to the lake falls home. 
 
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth         
Turns and twindles over the broth 
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning, 
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning. 
 
Degged with dew, dappled with dew 
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern, 
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn. 
 
What would the world be, once bereft 
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, 
O let them be left, wildness and wet;         
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Emma Lazarus July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887 

Dreams 
by Emma Lazarus  
     
A DREAM of lilies: all the blooming earth,
A garden full of fairies and of flowers;
Its only music the glad cry of mirth,
While the warm sun weaves golden-tissued hours;
Hope a bright angel, beautiful and true
As Truth herself, and life a lovely toy,
Which ne'er will weary us, ne'er break, a new
Eternal source of pleasure and of joy.

A dream of roses: vision of Loves tree,
Of beauty and of madness, and as bright
As naught on earth save only dreams can be,
Made fair and odorous with flower and light;
A dream that Love is strong to outlast Time,
That hearts are stronger than forgetfulness,
The slippery sand than changeful waves that climb,
The wind-blown foam than mighty waters' stress.

A dream of laurels: after much is gone,
Much buried, much lamented, much forgot,
With what remains to do and what is done,
With what yet is, and what, alas! is not,
Man dreams a dream of laurel and of bays,
A dream of crowns and guerdons and rewards,
Wherein sounds sweet the hollow voice of praise,
And bright appears the wreath that it awards.

A dream of poppies, sad and true as Truth,—
That all these dreams were dreams of vanity;
And full of bitter penitence and ruth,
In his last dream, man deems 'twere good to die;
And weeping o'er the visions vain of yore,
In the sad vigils he doth nightly keep,
He dreams it may be good to dream no more,
And life has nothing like Death's dreamless sleep.




The New Colossus 
by Emma Lazarus
                              

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Arthur Seymour John Tessimond  July 19, 1902 - May 13, 1962

Discovery 
by ASJ Tessimond )

Discovery
When you are slightly drunk
Things are so close, so friendly.
The road asks to be walked upon,
The road rewards you for walking
With firm upward contact answering your downward contact
Like the pressure of a hand in yours.
You think - this studious balancing
Of right leg while left leg advances, of left while right,
How splendid
Like somebody-or-other-on-a-peak-in-Darien!
How cleverly that seat shapes the body of the girl who sits there.
How well, how skilfully that man there walks towards you,
Arms hanging, swinging, waiting.
You move the muscles of your cheeks,
How cunningly a smile responds.
And now you are actually speaking
Round sounding words
Magnificent
As that lady's hat!



Music
by ASJ Tessimond
 
This shape without space,
This pattern without stuff,
This stream without dimension
Surrounds us, flows through us,
But leaves no mark.

This message without meaning,
These tears without eyes
This laughter without lips
Speaks to us but does not
Disclose its clue.

These waves without sea
Surge over us, smooth us.
These hands without fingers
Close-hold us, caress us.
These wings without birds
Strong-lift us, would carry us
If only the one thread broke.


--Cat

July birthday poets

Hilaire Belloc  July 27, 1870 - July 16, 1953

 

An Author’s Hope
by Hilaire Belloc
            
When I am dead, I hope it may be said:
‘His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.’




Drinking Song, On the Excellence of Burgundy Wine
by Hilaire Belloc

My jolly fat host with your face all a-grin,
Come, open the door to us, let us come in.
A score of stout fellows who think it no sin
If they toast till they're hoarse, and drink till they spin,
Hoofed it amain
Rain or no rain,
To crack your old jokes, and your bottle to drain.

Such a warmth in the belly that nectar begets
As soon as his guts with its humour he wets,
The miser his gold, and the student his debts,
And the beggar his rags and his hunger forgets.
For there's never a wine
Like this tipple of thine
From the great hill of Nuits to the River of Rhine.

Outside you may hear the great gusts as they go
By Foy, by Duerne, and the hills of Lerraulx,
But the rain he may rain, and the wind he mayblow,
If the Devil's above there's good liquor below.
So it abound,
Pass it around,
Burgundy's Burgundy all the year round.

                 



|

Emily Jane Brontë July 30, 1818 - December 19, 1848

A Little Budding Rose
by Emily Jane Brontë

                                

It was a little budding rose,
Round like a fairy globe,
And shyly did its leaves unclose
Hid in their mossy robe,
But sweet was the slight and spicy smell
It breathed from its heart invisible.

The rose is blasted, withered, blighted,
Its root has felt a worm,
And like a heart beloved and slighted,
Failed, faded, shrunk its form.
Bud of beauty, bonnie flower,
I stole thee from thy natal bower.

I was the worm that withered thee,
Thy tears of dew all fell for me;
Leaf and stalk and rose are gone,
Exile earth they died upon.
Yes, that last breath of balmy scent
With alien breezes sadly blent!





Mild the mist upon the hill
by Emily Jane Brontë
                                                        
Mild the mist upon the hill
Telling not of storms tomorrow;
No, the day has wept its fill,
Spent its store of silent sorrow.

O, I'm gone back to the days of youth,
I am a child once more,
And 'neath my father's sheltering roof
And near the old hall door

I watch this cloudy evening fall
After a day of rain;
Blue mists, sweet mists of summer pall
The horizon's mountain chain.

The damp stands on the long green grass
As thick as morning's tears,
And dreamy scents of fragrance pass
That breathe of other years.

Robert Graves  July 24, 1895 - dec 7, 1985

A Slice Of Wedding Cake 
by Robert Graves

Why have such scores of lovely, gifted girls
Married impossible men?
Simple self-sacrifice may be ruled out,
And missionary endeavour, nine times out of ten.

Repeat 'impossible men': not merely rustic,
Foul-tempered or depraved
(Dramatic foils chosen to show the world
How well women behave, and always have behaved).

Impossible men: idle, illiterate,
Self-pitying, dirty, sly,
For whose appearance even in City parks
Excuses must be made to casual passers-by.

Has God's supply of tolerable husbands
Fallen, in fact, so low?
Or do I always over-value woman
At the expense of man?
Do I?
It might be so.





Full Moon 
by Robert Graves 

As I walked out one harvestnight
About the stroke of One,
The Moon attained to her full height
Stood beaming like the Sun.
She exorcised the ghostly wheat
To mute assent in Love's defeat
Whose tryst had now begun.

The fields lay sick beneath my tread,
A tedious owlet cried;
The nightingale above my head
With this or that replied,
Like man and wife who nightly keep
Inconsequent debate in sleep
As they dream side by side.

Your phantom wore the moon's cold mask,
My phantom wore the same,
Forgetful of the feverish task
In hope of which they came,
Each image held the other's eyes
And watched a grey distraction rise
To cloud the eager flame.

To cloud the eager flame of love,
To fog the shining gate:
They held the tyrannous queen above
Sole mover of their fate,
They glared as marble statues glare
Across the tessellated stair
Or down the Halls of State.

And now cold earth was Arctic sea,
Each breath came dagger keen,
Two bergs of glinting ice were we,
The broad moon sailed between;
There swam the mermaids, tailed and finned,
And Love went by upon the wind
As though it had not been. 


--Cat          

Cacoethes Scribendi

An incurable itch for scribbling [cacoethes scribendi] takes possession of many, and grows inveterate in their insane breast.
—Juvenal





Cacoethes Scribendi 
by Oliver Wendell Holmes 

August 29, 1809 – October 7, 1894



If all the trees in all the woods were men;
And each and every blade of grass a pen;
If every leaf on every shrub and tree
Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea
Were changed to ink, and all earth's living tribes

Had nothing else to do but act as scribes,
And for ten thousand ages, day and night,
The human race should write, and write, and write,

Till all the pens and paper were used up,
And the huge inkstand was an empty cup,
Still would the scribblers clustered round its brink
Call for more pens, more paper, and more ink.


--Cat

Spring poems

William Morris
March 24, 1834 -- October 3, 1896


Spring's Bedfellow


Spring went about the woods to-day,
The soft-foot winter-thief,
And found where idle sorrow lay
’Twixt flower and faded leaf.
She looked on him, and found him fair
For all she had been told;
She knelt adown beside him there,
And sang of days of old.

His open eyes beheld her nought,
Yet ’gan his lips to move;
But life and deeds were in her thought,
And he would sing of love.

So sang they till their eyes did meet,
And faded fear and shame;
More bold he grew, and she more sweet,
Until they sang the same.

Until, say they who know the thing,
Their very lips did kiss,
And Sorrow laid abed with Spring
Begat an earthly bliss.

 

 


Robert Frost
March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963

 
A Prayer in Spring

 
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.

 




Emily Dickinson
December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886


A light exists in spring


A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
 When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
 On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
 But human naturefeels.

It waits upon the lawn;
 It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
 It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
 Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
 It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
 Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
 Upon a sacrament.


 


William Shakespeare
April 26, 1564 (baptized) –  April 23, 1616


Spring


When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver-white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
'Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.
When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
'Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo!' O word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear.


 


 
Claude McKay
September 15, 1889 – May 22, 1948


Spring in New Hampshire


Too green the springing April grass,
Too blue the silver-speckled sky,
For me to linger here, alas,
While happy winds go laughing by,
Wasting the golden hours indoors,
Washing windows and scrubbing floors.

Too wonderful the April night,
Too faintly sweet the first May flowers,
The stars too gloriously bright,
For me to spend the evening hours,
When fields are fresh and streams are leaping,
Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping.


 


Lucy Maud Montgomery
November 30, 1874 – April 24, 1942


Spring Song


Hark, I hear a robin calling!
List, the wind is from the south!
And the orchard-bloom is falling
Sweet as kisses on the mouth.

In the dreamy vale of beeches
Fair and faint is woven mist,
And the river's orient reaches
Are the palest amethyst.

Every limpid brook is singing
Of the lure of April days;
Every piney glen is ringing
With the maddest roundelays.

Come and let us seek together
Springtime lore of daffodils,
Giving to the golden weather
Greeting on the sun-warm hills.

Ours shall be the moonrise stealing
Through the birches ivory-white;
Ours shall be the mystic healing
Of the velvet-footed night.

Ours shall be the gypsy winding
Of the path with violets blue,
Ours at last the wizard finding
Of the land where dreams come true.


 --Cat  --Happy Spring