Unite the world through sharing poetry

The New Arthurians

Morris walked the long French roads,
straight, poplar-spired, golden-landscaped,
in search of transcendence in stone.
At Amiens, Louviers, Evreux, Chartres
The memory-filling group went staring
Up at the surging lines, the weightless
Thrust and rise of the masoned buttress,
Aisles flamboyant or Norman arched
Transept fronts and mighty Gothic naves.
Pacing the quayside at Le Havre
Morris and Ned Burne-Jones
Pledged themselves to making art
Turning their backs on holy orders.

He knew already he was marked for her:
Guinevere: passionate, dazzling, austere,
A helper, a lover, a traitor,
A loyal companion, a faithless wife.
And love was all to Morris. Physical,
Sexual. He felt its energy beating
His heart, driving him onto a woman
Just as he’d walked with bleeding feet
In broken boots to see those spires,
So he worked without deflection,
Punching his head to oust corruption,
Towards a life espoused to the ideal.

She was a girl from the servant class
Rossetti had drawn. Tall, quiet and cool,
She glanced down at Morris’s humble gifts
As he gazed upwards to gauge her response,
Heart-intent on her motionless face
Her dark and remarkable beauty.
Money whispered, he knew his power
And everything was possible.
He made her a queen in flowing robes,
Crowned with flowers in plaited hair
In the ancient orchard amongst the daisies
Two babies cried and grew and toddled
While she neatly needled his designs
Claiming rest; was ill with nerves
When he stormed and raged she ignored him,
Sneering and hardly speaking.
Soft in silks she shunned his kisses
Lying in wait for the snake in the grass
Wanting the beast who was really a beast,
Longing to smash the mirror.

I don’t know where I came across this poem but I’m sure it could help to unite the world!

Not all giant trees
Are broken by the storm;
Not all seeds
Find no soil to strike roots;
Not all true feelings
Vanish in the desert of man’s heart;
Not all dreams
Allow their wings to be clipped.

No, not everything
Ends as you foretold!

Not all flames
Burn themselves out
Without sparking off others;
Not all stars
Indicate the night
Without predicting the dawn;
Not all songs
Brush past the ears
Without remaining in the heart.

No, not everything
Ends as you foretold!

Not all appeals
Receive no response;
Not all losses
Are beyond retrieval;
Not all abysses
Mean destruction;
Not all destruction
Falls on the weak;

Not all souls
Can be ground underfoot
Ad turned into putrid mud;
Not all consequences
Are streaked with tears and blood
And do not show a smiling face.

Everything present is pregnant with the future,
Everything future comes from the past.

Have hope, struggle for it,
Bear these on your shoulders.

This is Florence’s favourite poem. She knows it by heart. We recited this poem in the waiting area of the Marks and Spencer sale, while Ashley was trying on trousers.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

When you are old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

W.B Yeats, Irish

Last week was the centenary of JB’s birth, so there was a positive orgy of Betjeman on the TV and radio. This poem is about the remote part of Cornwall where JB used to go every summer for his holidays, and is much-loved.

We used to picnic where the thrift
Grew deep and tufted to the edge;
We saw the yellow foam-flakes drift
In trembling sponges on the ledge
Below us, till the wind would lift
Them up the cliff and o’er the hedge.
Sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea,
Sun on our bathing-dresses heavy with the wet,
Squelch of the bladder-wrack waiting for the sea,
Fleas round the tamarisk, an early cigarette.

From where the coastguard houses stood
One used to see, below the hill,
The lichened branches of a wood
In summer silver-cool and still;
And there the Shade of Evil could
Stretch out at us from Shilla Mill.
Thick with sloe and blackberry, uneven in the light,
Lonely ran the hedge, the heavy meadow was remote,
The oldest part of Cornwall was the wood as black as night,
And the pheasant and the rabbit lay torn open at the throat.

But when a storm was at its height,
And feathery slate was black in rain,
And tamarisks were hung with light
And golden sand was brown again,
Spring tide and blizzard would unite
And sea came flooding up the lane.
Waves full of treasure then were roaring up th beach,
Ropes round our mackintoshes, waders warm and dry,
We waited for the wreckage to come swirling into reach,
Ralph, Vasey Alastair, Biddy, John and I.

Then roller into roller curled
And thundered down the rocky bay
And we were in a water-world
Of rain and blizzard, sea and spray,
And one against the other hurled
We struggled round to Greenaway.
Blessed be St. Enodoc, blessed be the wave,
Blessed be the springy turf, we pray, pray to thee,
Ask for our children all the happy days you gave
To Ralph, Vasey, Alastair, Biddy, John and me.