(I don't like this poem beyond the opening lines, with the sappy rhyming couplets; however, with my California/Scottish friends visiting London this week, I've been remembering all of my happy English adventures. Bon voyage.)
O to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf....
(If you've need to finish all the drivel about buds and birds, you may find it here. Apologies to those who may love this poem.)
This is an amazingly beautiful picture - hard to believe such a storybook-like place exists.
ReplyDeleteChoose Something Like a Star
ReplyDeleteby Robert Frost
O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud—
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to the wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says, 'I burn.'
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
Funny. Here I thought I was a friend of yours, too!
ReplyDeleteOh, you are! I just didn't know how much of London you will get to tour.
ReplyDelete