Winning Words
Page 7
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
V
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
SIMON ARMITAGE
Let me put it this way:
if you came to lay
your sleeping head
against my arm or sleeve,
and if my arm went dead,
or if I had to take my leave
at midnight, I should rather
cleave it from the joint or seam
than make a scene
or bring you round.
There,
how does that sound?
W. B. YEATS
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds;
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
SHEENAGH PUGH
Envying Owen Beattie
To have stood on the Arctic island
by the graves where Franklin’s men
buried their shipmates: good enough.
To hack through the permafrost
to the coffin, its loving plaque
cut from a tin can: better.
And freeing the lid, seeing
the young sailor cocooned in ice,
asleep in his glass case.
Then melting it so gently, inch
by inch, a hundred years
and more falling away, all the distance
of death a soft hiss of steam
on the air, till at last they cupped
two feet, bare and perfect,
in their hands, and choked up,
because it was any feet
poking out of the bedclothes.
And when the calm, pinched
twenty-year-old face
came free, and he lay there,
five foot four of authentic
Victorian adventurer, tuberculous,
malnourished, John Torrington
the stoker, who came so far
in the cold, and someone whispered,
It’s like he’s unconscious.
Then Beattie stooped, lifted him
out of bed, the six stone
limp in his arms, and the head lolled
and rested on his shoulder,
and he felt the rush
that reckless trust sends
through parents and lovers. To have him
like that, the frail, diseased
little time-traveller,
to feel the lashes prickle
your cheek, to be that close
to the parted lips.
You would know all the fairy-tales
spoke true; how could you not try
to wake him with a kiss?
WALTER DE LA MARE
Fare Well
When I lie where shades of darkness
Shall no more assail mine eyes,
Nor the rain make lamentation
When the wind sighs;
How will fare the world whose wonder
Was the very proof of me?
Memory fades, must the remembered
Perishing be?
Oh, when this my dust surrenders
Hand, foot, lip, to dust again,
May these loved and loving faces
Please other men!
May the rusting harvest hedgerow
Still the Traveller’s Joy entwine,
And as happy children gather
Posies once mine.
Look thy last on all things lovely,
Every hour. Let no night
Seal thy sense in deathly slumber
Till to delight
Thou have paid thy utmost blessing;
Since that all things thou wouldst praise
Beauty took from those who loved them
In other days.
WALT WHITMAN
We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm’d and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving,
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water
drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,
Fulfilling our foray.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
He turns not back who is bound to a star.
Obstacles do not bend me.
Every obstacle yields to stern resolve.
translated from the Latin by Jean Paul Richter
JALALUDDIN RUMI
Come, come, for you will not find another friend like Me,
Where indeed is a Beloved like Me in all the world?
Come, come, and do not spend your life in wandering,
Since there is no market elsewhere for your money.
You are as a dry valley, and I as the rain,
You are as a ruined city, and I as the Architect.
Except My service, which is Joy’s sunrise,
Man never has felt and never will feel an impression of Joy.
translated from the Persian by Professor R. A. Nicholson
ROGER MCGOUGH
The Way Things Are
No, the candle is not crying, it cannot feel pain.
Even telescopes, like the rest of us, grow bored.
Bubblegum will not make the hair soft and shiny.
The duller the imagination, the faster the car –
I am your father and this is the way things are
When the sky is looking the other way,
do not enter the forest. No, the wind
is not caused by the rushing of clouds.
An excuse is as good a reason as any.
A lighthouse, launched, will not go far –
I am your father and this is the way things are
No, old people do not walk slowly
because they have plenty of time.
Gardening books when buried will not flower.
Though lightly worn, a crown may leave a scar –
I am your father and this is the way things are
No, the red woolly hat has not been
put on the railing to keep it warm.
When one glove is missing, both are lost.
Today’s craft fair is tomorrow’s car boot sale.
The guitarist gently we
eps, not the guitar –
I am your father and this is the way things are
Pebbles work best without batteries.
The deckchair will fail as a unit of currency.
Even though your shadow is shortening
it does not mean you are growing smaller.
Moonbeams sadly, will not survive in a jar –
I am your father and this is the way things are
For centuries the bullet remained quietly confident
that the gun would be invented.
A drowning Dadaist will not appreciate
the concrete lifebelt.
No guarantee my last goodbye is au revoir –
I am your father and this is the way things are
Do not become a prison-officer unless you know
what you’re letting someone else in for.
The thrill of being a shower curtain will soon pall.
No trusting hand awaits the falling star –
I am your father, and I am sorry,
but this is the way things are.
MARY E. FRYE
Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
MAYA ANGELOU
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
The free bird leaps
on the back of the win
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and is tune is heard
on the distant hill for the caged bird
sings of freedom
The free bird thinks of another breeze
an the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
MATTHEW ARNOLD
Dover Beach
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; – on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch’d land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight.
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
U. A. FANTHORPE
Atlas
There is a kind of love called maintenance,
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it;
Which checks the insurance, and doesn’t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;
Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists
And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds
The permanently ricketty elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.
And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.
ANON
Life’s Variety
Why do we grumble because a tree is bent,
When, in our streets, there are even men who are bent?
Why must we complain that the new moon is slanting?
Can anyone reach the skies to straighten it?
Can’t we see that some cocks have combs on their heads, but no plumes in their tails?
And some have plumes in their tails, but no claws on their toes?
And others have claws on their toes, but no power to crow?
He who has a head has no cap to wear, and he who has a
cap has no head to wear it on.
The Owa has everything but a horse’s stable.
Some great scholars of Ifa cannot tell the way to Ofa.
Others know the way to Ofa, but not one line of Ifa.
Great eaters have no food to eat, and great drinkers no wine to drink:
Wealth has a coat of many colours.
translated from the Yoruba by Chinweizu
WILLIAM BLAKE
The Angel that presided o’er my birth
Said, ‘Little creature, form’d of Joy and Mirth,
‘Go love without the help of any Thing on Earth.’
W. H. AUDEN
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.
‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
‘I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go
squawking
Like geese about the sky.
‘The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.’
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
Tomorrow or today.
‘Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.
‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.
‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,