The Week End Blog

The Best of My Choice My Delight

was updated today

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No.40

A Wish for My Children

Evangeline Paterson

On this doorstep I stand

year after year

to watch you going

and think: May you not

skin your knees. May you

not catch your fingers

in car doors. May

your hearts not break.

May tide and weather

wait for your coming

and may you grow strong

to break

all webs of my weaving.

-o0o-

No.39

If I can stop one heart from breaking

Emily Dickinson 1830-86

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one lonely person

Into happiness again,

I shall not live in vain.

-o0o-

No.38

Her Father

 Thomas Hardy 1840-1928

I met her, as we had privily planned,

Where passing feet beat busily:

She whispered: "Father is at hand!

He wished to walk with me."

His presence as he joined us there

Banished our words of warmth away;

We felt, with cloudings of despair,

What Love must lose that day.

Her crimson lips remained unkissed,

Our fingers kept no tender hold,

His lack of feeling made the tryst

Embarrassed, stiff, and cold.

A cynic ghost then rose and said,

"But is his love for her so small

That, nigh to yours, it may be read

As of no worth at all?

"You love her for her pink and white;

But what when their fresh splendours close?

His love will last her in despite

Of Time, and wrack, and foes."

-o0o-

No.37

The Ash Grove

Thomas Oliphant

Down yonder green valley, where streamlets meander,

When twilight is fading I pensively rove

Or at the bright noontide in solitude wander,

Amid the dark shades of the lonely ash grove;

‘Twas there, while the blackbird was cheerfully singing,

I first met my dear one, the joy of my heart!

Around us for gladness the bluebells were ringing,

Ah! then little thought I how soon we should part. 

Still glows the bright sunshine o'er valley and mountain,

Still warbles the blackbird its note from the tree;

Still trembles the moonbeam on streamlet and fountain,

But what are the beauties of nature to me?

With sorrow, deep sorrow, my bosom is laden,

All day I go mourning in search of my love;

Ye echoes, oh, tell me, where is the sweet maiden?

"She sleeps, 'neath the green turf down by the ash grove." 

No.36

A Character

William Wordsworth 1770-1850

I marvel how Nature could ever find space 

For so many strange contrasts in one human face: 

There's thought and no thought, and there's paleness and bloom 

And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom. 

There's weakness, and strength both redundant and vain; 

Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain 

Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease, 

Would be rational peace - a philosopher's ease. 

There's indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds, 

And attention full ten times as much as there needs; 

Pride where there's no envy, there's so much of joy; 

And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy. 

There's freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare 

Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she's there, 

There's virtue, the title it surely may claim, 

Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy the name. 

This picture from nature may seem to depart, 

Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart; 

And I for five centuries right gladly would be 

Such an odd such a kind happy creature as he. 

-o0o-

No.35

The Rose

Gordon Mills

Some say love, it is a river, that drowns the tender reed,

Some say love, it is a razor, that leaves your soul to bleed,

Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need,

I say love, it is a flower, and you, its only seed.

It's the heart afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance,

It's the dream afraid of waking, that never takes the chance,

It's the one who won't be taking, who cannot seem to give,

And the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long,

And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,

Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows,

Lies the seed, that with the sun's love in the spring becomes the rose.

-o0o-

No.34

A Musical Instrument

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-61

What was he doing, the great god Pan, 

    Down in the reeds by the river ? 

Spreading ruin and scattering ban, 

Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, 

And breaking the golden lilies afloat 

    With the dragon-fly on the river. 

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, 

    From the deep cool bed of the river : 

The limpid water turbidly ran, 

And the broken lilies a-dying lay, 

And the dragon-fly had fled away, 

    Ere he brought it out of the river. 

High on the shore sate the great god Pan, 

    While turbidly flowed the river ; 

And hacked and hewed as a great god can, 

With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed, 

Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed 

    To prove it fresh from the river. 

He cut it short, did the great god Pan, 

    (How tall it stood in the river !) 

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, 

Steadily from the outside ring, 

And notched the poor dry empty thing 

    In holes, as he sate by the river. 

This is the way, laughed the great god Pan, 

    Laughed while he sate by the river, 

The only way, since gods began 

To make sweet music, they could succeed.

Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, 

    He blew in power by the river. 

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan ! 

    Piercing sweet by the river ! 

Blinding sweet, O great god Pan ! 

The sun on the hill forgot to die, 

And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly 

    Came back to dream on the river. 

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, 

    To laugh as he sits by the river, 

Making a poet out of a man : 

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, — 

For the reed which grows nevermore again 

    As a reed with the reeds in the river.

-o0o-