POEMS PAGE

My Favourite Poem

The Brook

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

And many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel.

And draw them all along, and flow,
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

Nature

by Gillian Wallington

I looked up and saw her
Her eyes were the colour of the sea
Of the sky
Of the river as it goes drifting by
Of the shadows where the horses lie

Her voice was the voice of the wind
Of the breeze
As they whisper their secrets to the trees
The voice of the sea as it breaks on the land
And washes away the grains of sand

Her laugh was the laugh of the brook
As it rushes downhill to the lake
Of the jackal, as alone he stands
On a moonlit night on the desert sands

Her speed was the speed of the hare
As he rushes swiftly by
The speed of the silver mare
With a wind tossed mane
As she gallops swiftly on
Back to home pastures again

Her joy was the joy of the wild
The fearless proud and free
Who run alone on the plains
With nought but the hills to see

Her sorrow was that of pain
Of a creature caught in a trap
Ne'er to be seen again

Her love was the love of all things
Tame or wild
The love of brother for brother
The love of mother for child

Mountain Train

by Edward Shanks

Snorting, champing, streaming mane,
Upwards plods the mountain train,
Tugging at its iron load
Iron hoof on iron road,
Streaming flanks and nostrils wide
Pistons pounding at each side
Reined and harnessed, girth bands tight,
Pulling with its iron might,
Heart pulsating to the pull
Slow and hard and gradual
Climbing, sure mechanical
Till it wind the level plain
And begins to trot again
And with cheek-bit slackened back
Gallops down the homeward track
Racing, chasing to the sea
In dynamic esctasy.

And now for a bit of a change to a less cheery one. This poem never fails to move me, and it's by a Shropshire compatriot, too.

Dulce et Decorum Est

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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped 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 I 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,
Obscene as cancer, 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.

And here's another:

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 from prayers or 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 silent minds,
    And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.