The saplings of the green-tipped birch
Draw my foot from bondage:
Let no boy know your secret!
Oak saplings in the grove
Draw my foot from its chain:
Tell no secret to a maid!
The leafy saplings in the oak
Draw my foot from prison:
Tell no babbler a secret!
Briar shoots with berries on –
Neither a blackbird on her nest,
Nor a liar, are ever still.
by Anonymous
12th century
‘They flash upon that inward eye
from ‘The Daffodils’ by William Wordsworth
which is the bliss of solitude
An afternoon yellow and open-mouthed
with daffodils. The sun treads the path
among cedars and enormous oaks.
It might be a country house, guests strolling,
the rumps of gardeners between nursery shrubs.
I am reading poetry to the insane.
An old woman, interrupting, offers
as many buckets of coal as I need.
A beautiful chestnut-haired boy listens
entirely absorbed. A schizophrenic
on a good day, they tell me later.
In a cage of first March sun a woman
sits not listening, not feeling.
In her neat clothes the woman is absent.
A big, mild man is tenderly led
to his chair. He has never spoken.
His labourer’s hands on his knees, he rocks
gently to the rhythms of the poems.
I read to their presences, absences,
to the big, dumb labouring man as he rocks.
He is suddenly standing, silently,
huge and mild, but I feel afraid. Like slow
movement of spring water or the first bird
of the year in the breaking darkness,
the labourer’s voice recites ‘The Daffodils’.
The nurses are frozen, alert; the patients
seem to listen. He is hoarse but word-perfect.
Outside the daffodils are still as wax,
a thousand, ten thousand, their syllables
unspoken, their creams and yellows still.
Forty years ago, in a Valleys school,
the class recited poetry by rote.
Since the dumbness of misery fell
he has remembered there was a music
of speech and that once he had something to say.
When he’s done, before the applause, we observe
the flowers’ silence. A thrush sings
and the daffodils are flame.
By Gillian Clarke
from Letter from a Far Country (1982)
Gillian remarks on her site: “All you need to know about this poem is that it is a true story. It happened in the ’70s, and it took me years to find a way to write the poem.“
I go outside to find the way.
Through broken mist I glimpse a flinty path.
I am alone. This empty place hears God;
and stars converse with stars.
The heavens are a miracle
and pale blue sleep lies over all the earth.
What’s wrong with me? Why does life seem so hard?
Do I still cherish hope? Or hurt?
No, no, I have no expectations.
I’ve said goodbye to my past joys and griefs.
Freedom and peace are all I wish for now;
I seek oblivion and sleep.
But not the cold sleep of the grave –
my dream is of a sweeter sleep that will
allow life’s force to rest within a breast
that breathes, that still can rise and fall.
I wish a voice to sing all day
and night to me of love, and a dark tree,
an oak with spreading boughs, to still my sleep
with the green rustle of its leaves.
by Михаил Юрьевич Лермонтов (Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov)
(1841)
translated by Robert Chandler
O make me a mask and a wall to shut from your spies
Of the sharp, enamelled eyes and the spectacled claws
Rape and rebellion in the nurseries of the face,
Gag of a dumbstruck tree to block from bare enemies
The bayonet tongue in this undefended prayerpiece,
The present mouth, and the sweetly blown trumpet of lies,
Shaped in old armour and oak the counternance of a dunce
To shield the glistening brain and blunt the examiners,
And a tear-stained widower grief drooped from the lashes
To veil belladonna and let the dry eyes perceive
Others betray the lamenting lies of their losses
By the curve of the nude mouth or the laugh up the sleeve.
by Dylan Thomas
(Notebook version March 1933; rephrased and severely shortened November 1937)
He seeks to defend his inner privacy against the sharp examination of strangers and critics.
Not the autumn wind in the forest,
not streams hurtling down to the plains –
what we hear is Frost the Commander,
patrolling his far-flung domains.
Has snow been swept by the blizzards
over every pathway and track?
Is there any bare ground still showing,
any last brown fissure or crack?
Have the oak trees been handsomely dappled,
are the tops of the pines fluffed just right?
Have the ice floes been shackled together
so that every lake is gripped tight?
Frost comes striding over the treetops;
shards of ice crackle under his tread.
Lord Frost moves closer and closer;
beams of sunlight dance in his beard.
What pathway is closed to a wizard?
Ever nearer the widow he draws.
Now Frost is looming above her,
rehearsing his wintry laws.
There he stands in a pine tree,
beating time with his cane,
boasting of his own glory
and repeating his old refrain:
‘No need to be bashful, sweet maiden,
see how fine a Commander I am!
Speak truthfully now: have you ever
glimpsed a more handsome young man?
‘Blizzards, downpours and whirlwinds –
I can quieten them all in a trice;
I can stroll out over the ocean
and build myself chambers of ice.
‘One breath – and the greatest of rivers
lie silenced beneath my yoke,
transformed to the strongest of bridges,
broad roads for the merchant folk.
‘I love dropping down into graves
to scatter diamonds over the dead,
to freeze the blood in their veins
and ice the brains in their heads.
‘I love frightening a lonely robber
riding home with a purse he’s plundered:
in the depth of the forest silence
I make branches resound like thunder.
‘Old women go rushing back home,
their heads full of spirits and devils.
But there’s more pleasure still to be had
with drunkards returning from revels.
‘I don’t need chalk to whiten their faces!
I set their noses ablaze without fire!
I freeze beards to reins in a tangle
not even an axe can sever!
‘I’m rich, there’s no counting my treasure;
my fortune’s as great as the world.
Every day I bejewel my kingdom
anew with silver and pearls.
‘Dear Maiden, I bid you now enter
my empire. Let me make you my queen!
We shall reign in glory all winter,
then let summer slip by in a dream.
‘Come, maiden, and let me warm you
in a palace of pale blue ice!’
So Lord Frost sings out above her
as he swings his sparkling mace.
‘Are you warm enough there, dear maiden?’
he calls from high in the pine.
‘Oh yes,’ the young widow answers –
and icy shivers run down her spine.
Now Frost has dropped down lower,
his mace swinging ever so near,
and he whispers softly and tenderly:
‘Warm enough?’ ‘Oh yes, my dear!’
Warm enough – but what does she feel?
Frost’s breath has already numbed her
and needles of ice from his beard,
though colder and sharper than steel,
are lulling her into slumber.
‘Are you warm enough now?’ Frost whispers,
his arms now encircling her waist –
and she hears not Frost but Proklyusha
and all she sees is long past.
On her lips and her eyes and her shoulders
Darya feels the wizard’s long kisses –
and she sees not Frost but her husband
and she drinks in his honeyed whispers.
He’s talking to her of a wedding,
his words so caressing and sweet
that Darya’s eyes are now closing
and her axe lies still by her feet.
And the arc of a smile now parts
the poor lips of the wretched widow.
White flakes now cover her eyelids
and needles of ice her brow…
A lump of snow falls on Darya
as a squirrel takes a flying leap,
but Darya does not lift a finger;
she’s frozen, enchanted, asleep.
by Николай Алексеевич Некрасов (Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasov)
(1864)
translated by Robert Chandler and Boris Dralyuk
Rambling At The Bridge Head 