Great quotes, poems, sonnets and letters.

[Sarah]

No man is a failure if he has friends (It's A Wonderful Life)

After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music. - Aldous Huxley

To be rich doesn't mean you have the most, but need the least.

Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tries and a touch that never hurts. - Charles Dickens

Great things are done when men and mountains meet. - William Blake.

He whose face gives no light shall never become a star. - William Blake.

Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words, 'Wait' and 'Hope'. - Alexander Dumas

[sweetormiger]

"Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater." - Albert Einstein

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. - Maya Angelou

[sweetormiger]

The poems from Nicks latest project are all very nice:

Everyone Sang
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on--on--and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away . . . O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

April 1919
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)


She Walks in Beauty
1
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
2
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
3
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)


Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and half-light,


I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

William Butler Yeats


Lord of the Winds, I cry to Thee
I that Am dust
and blown about with every gust:
I Fly to Thee

Lord of Waters unto Thee I call
that I am weed upon the waters borne
And by the waters torn,
tossed by the waters at Thy feet I fall.

Mary Coleridge

Only a few today, as I am not familiar with many of these it is nice to read them.
Some of them really get my mind into a state all of it's own meandering!

[sweetormiger]

"Crossing the Bar"

Sunset and evening star
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

Alfred Lord Tennyson


Written In March

The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The plowboy is whooping—anon-anon:
There’s joy in the mountains;
There’s life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing;
The rain is over and gone!

William Wordsworth


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 morning to 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 gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

William Butler Yeats


I think I will escape to Innisfree myself today

[Connie]

Those poems are so lovely, it is a great selection of poems. I'm looking forward to the release, so I can get a copy or 2 or 3. Thanks for posting the lyrics on some of them Astrid, I actually remember most of these. I've always loved reading poetry.

[sweetormiger]

Gotta love the internet, you get to learn alot just for looking and you realize sometimes
you know more than you give yourself credit for.

here are some more of the peoms that will be on the CD

from a 10th century love poem

Come, sweetheart, come
Dear as my heart to me
Come to the room
I have made ready for thee

Here there be couches spread
Tapestry tented
Flowers for thee to tread
Green herbs sweet scented.
(Helen Waddell)

I sing of a maiden that is makèles1:
King of all kings to her son she ches2.

He came al so stille there his moder was,
As dew in Aprille that falleth on the grass.

He came al so stille to his moder bour3,
As dew in Aprille that falleth on the flour4.

He came al so stille there his moder lay,
As dew in Aprille that falleth on the spray.

Moder and mayden was never none but she;
Well may such a lady Goddes moder be.
(Anonymous)

Love Came Down at Christmas
Christmas Carol Lyrics
Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.
(Christmas Carol)

In Memmoriam (Alfred Lord Tennyson)
This is a very very long peom, we will have to wait and see if it's recited in
it's entirety (not likely). Tennyson was a great writer and this was one even
I had read before but did not remember. Google it if you like, if you like poems
you will enjoy reading it.

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.
(Anonymous)
The Above poem I actually knew as well but again until
reading it did not realize it.
It was given to me by an acquaintance more than 10 years ago.
Too bad I had forgotten the words to it.

The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
(Rupert Brooke)


There are 5 more poems which I will post later.

[sweetormiger]

This is the Night Mail crossing the border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner and the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.

Thro' sparse counties she rampages,
Her driver's eye upon the gauges.
Panting up past lonely farms
Fed by the fireman's restless arms.
Striding forward along the rails
Thro' southern uplands with northern mails.

Winding up the valley to the watershed,
Thro' the heather and the weather and the dawn overhead.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheepdogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes.

Dawn freshens, the climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends
Towards the steam tugs yelping down the glade of cranes,
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:
In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs
Men long for news.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from the girl and the boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or visit relations,
And applications for situations
And timid lovers' declarations
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled in the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Notes from overseas to Hebrides
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters,
Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's:
Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
And shall wake soon and long for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
(W H Auden)

This is the weather the cuckoo likes,
And so do I;
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,
And nestlings fly;
And the little brown nightingale bills his best,
And they sit outside at 'The Traveller's Rest,'
And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest,
And citizens dream of the south and west,
And so do I.

This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
And thresh and ply;
And hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe,
And meadow rivulets overflow,
And drops on gate bars hang in a row,
And rooks in families homeward go,
And so do I.
(Thomas Hardy)

I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud


That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine


And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they


Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie


In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
(William Wordsworth)



I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.

I remember, I remember
The roses red and white,
The violets and the lily cups--
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,--
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember
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,
The 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 Heaven
Than when I was a boy.
(Thomas Hood)

A Child’s Sleep

I stood at the edge of my child’s sleep
hearing her breathe;
although I could not enter there.
I could not leave.

Her sleep was a small wood,
perfumed with flowers;
dark, peaceful, sacred,
acred in hours.

And she was the spirit that lived
in the heart of such woods;
without time, without history,
wordlessly good,

I spoke her name, a pebble dropped
in the still night
and saw her stir, both open palms
cupping their soft light;

then went to the window. The greater
dark outside the room
gazed back, maternal, wise
with its face of moon.
(Carol Ann Duffy)

This concludes our collection of tracks from
Serenade Poetry

I hope you all enjoy it and give it a try when the CD releases October 9th, 2008!

[sweetormiger]

Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong.
George Carlin
US comedian and actor (1937 - 2008)

[Connie]

WINTER Poem

It's winter in Illinois
And the gentle breezes blow
Seventy miles an hour
At twenty-five below.

Oh, how I love Illinois
When the snow's up to your butt
You take a breath of winter
And your nose gets frozen shut.

Yes, the weather here is wonderful
So I guess I'll hang around
I could never leave Illinois
I'm frozen to the ground!

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