To Miss Whyte on Seeing a Picture of Her Designed for Her Father

z 03-07-22
Henrietta Battier
Irish
c. 1751 – 1813

To say you are lovely is to say no more,
Than what ten thousand must have said before;
To say that beauty and her handmaid grace,
Attend your footsteps and illume your face,
Is truth, dear maid! in the most literal sense,
Your form possessing every excellence:
Yet face and shape may be pourtray’d by art;
But who can paint the beauties of your heart,
The glow of tenderness and filial joy,
That only fervent bliss without alloy,
Which sweetly mantles on your virgin cheek,
Whene’er your honour’d father’s name you speak?—
Thus, heavenly maid! the reason is reveal’d
Why every artist in your likeness fail’d;
Their earthy pencils could not draw the line
Between mere beauty and the rays divine,
That prove your form all lovely and refin’d,
The casket only of a lovelier mind.

White Magic

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 145th birthday.

03-06 Fyleman
Rose Fyleman
English
1877 – 1957

Blind folk see the fairies,

Oh, better far than we,
Who miss the shining of their wings
Because our eyes are filled with things

We do not wish to see.
They need not seek enchantment

From solemn, printed books,
For all about them as they go
The fairies flutter to and fro

With smiling, friendly looks.

Deaf folk hear the fairies

However soft their song;
‘Tis we who lose the honey sound
Amid the clamour all around

That beats the whole day long.
But they with gentle faces

Sit quietly apart;
What room have they for sorrowing
While fairy minstrels sit and sing
Close to their listening heart?

Winter Twilight in West Lothian

03-05 Hutchison
Isobel Wylie Hutchison
Scots
1889 – 1982

The sun’s going down behind the great shale-heap
Over against the village; shadows creep
Shifting from door to door, and all the bings
Of Broxburn stand like tombs of Theban kings
Black on the crimson, crowned by fierce blue stars.

From the fields mist is rising. Motor cars
Pass swiftly through the film of gathering grey,
Their drivers peering apprehensively
For furtive waggons, dazzled by the bits
Of sunset that still float above the pits
And fall into the puddles on the road.

Beyond the hedge the ploughman has bestrode
His horse, or seated edgewise lumbering rides
With feet that flap against the steaming sides
Of his tired beast, homeward beneath the moon,
Now and then whistling snatches of a tune
The harness echoes with its tinkling brass.

From time to time belated miners pass
With uncouth, blackened faces, taciturn;
Behind the bings the fires of sunset burn
To ashes very slowly. In the north
The Bear prowls softly up above the Forth
In a dark gulf the wind has sucked again
Out of the clouds. To-morrow we’ll have rain.

The Cloister of Bones

03-04 Ni Cuilleanain
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Irish
b. 1942

I begin from the highest point,
Best of all a belltower.

I see the tops of heads, cobbles,
Terraces all scuttling down
As if they hunted something buried
Between ledges where tables are set in the morning,
Under plants that grow over walls and pergolas,
The slopes of sheds, the stashed pruning-shears,
Under the measured walk of cats.

I am searching for a shape, a den, watching
For the cloistering blank of a street wall,
A dark reticence of windows
Banked over an inner court,
Especially rooves, arched and bouncing
Naves; a corseted apse,
And always, even if the chapel sinks
Deep inside, lit from a common well,
I search for hints of doors inside doors,
A built-in waiting about
Of threshold and washed floors,
An avid presence demanding flowers and hush.

If I guess right I hope for
A runner of garden, the right length
For taking a prayerbook for a walk,
A small stitching of cemetery ground,
Strict festivals, an hour for the tremble
Of women’s laughter, corners for mile-high panics:

And to find the meaning of the women’s Christmas.

To an Unknown Poet

03-03 McQueen
Cilla McQueen
Kiwi
b. 1949

I was in the middle
of your poem on the internet
when the electricity went out.

You disappeared and left me
mid-sentence in the darkened room,
whereat I lost the gist

and wandered out to the kitchen to poke the fire.
I cannot tell whether you resolve
the unspoken thing,

or whether it will return to haunt us.
In the sudden darkness
I was leaning towards you

impossibly far, stroking
your temple and whispering
incomprehensible fragments –

from How the Sea Will Be

We present this work in honor of the 125th anniversary of the poet’s death.

03-02 Prieto
Guillermo Prieto
Mexican
1818 – 1897

Your name, or sea, resounds within me;
awakens my tired fantasy:
move, enlarge my soul,
of fervent enthusiasm fills it.
Nothing limited compresses me,
when I imagine contemplating your breast;
alluvial, melancholic and serene,
or august brow; thy mooing sublime.
You will be oh sea! magnificent and great
when you are sleeping in peace and quiet;
when your breast is still and dilated
caress the delicious atmosphere?

The Old Flame

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 105th birthday.

03-01 Lowell
Robert Lowell
American
1917 – 1977

My old flame, my wife!
Remember our lists of birds?
One morning last summer, I drove
by our house in Maine. It was still
on top of its hill –

Now a red ear of Indian maize
was splashed on the door.
Old Glory with thirteen stripes
hung on a pole. The clapboard
was old-red schoolhouse red.

Inside, a new landlord,
a new wife, a new broom!
Atlantic seaboard antique shop
pewter and plunder
shone in each room.

A new frontier!
No running next door
now to phone the sheriff
for his taxi to Bath
and the State Liquor Store!

No one saw your ghostly
imaginary lover
stare through the window
and tighten
the scarf at his throat.

Health to the new people,
health to their flag, to their old
restored house on the hill!
Everything had been swept bare,
furnished, garnished and aired.

Everything’s changed for the best –
how quivering and fierce we were,
there snowbound together,
simmering like wasps
in our tent of books!

Poor ghost, old love, speak
with your old voice
of flaming insight
that kept us awake all night.
In one bed and apart,

we heard the plow
groaning up hill –
a red light, then a blue,
as it tossed off the snow
to the side of the road.

Ballad of the Butterfly

02-28 Walsh
María Elena Walsh
Argentine
1930 – 2011

A butterfly once bestowed her passion
Upon a sailor – in her fashion
Flitting about the hotel gate
Waiting, ecstatic, to follow her mate
Upon his white cap to alight
Then onto his white ship,
at dizzying height
She flew to the vessel’s
high-reaching stack
At her first glimpse of ocean
quite taken aback.
On him she lavished all the rapture
Her brief day’s span of life
could capture
Singing: O lovely Sailor!
O Sailor, my love
Our happiness lights
the heavens above
In the afternoon as the sun sank low
From the sailor’s eyes
sad tears did flow
So to distract him from his sorrow
She danced in the air without
thought of the morrow.
From the white masts
she drifted away
As a mighty gust interrupted
her play.
Into the gray sea she fell and drowned
The stalwart sailor heard not a sound
But all unaware a salty tear
Rolled down his cheek,
though he felt no fear,
Marking the end of the love so true
Of the butterfly and the lad in blue.

At the River Crossing

We present this work in honor of the 120th anniversary of the poet’s death.

02-27 Morant
Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant
Australian
1864 – 1902

Oh! the quiet river-crossing
Where we twain were wont to ride,
Where the wanton winds were to sing
Willow branches o’er the tide.

There the golden noon would find us
Dallying through the summer day,
All the waery world behind us –
All it’s tumult far away.

Oh! thoe rides across the crossing
Where the shallow stream runs wide,
When the sunset’s beams were glossing
Strips of sand on either side.

We would cross the sparkling river
On the brown horse and the bay;
Watch the willows sway and shiver
And their trembling shadows play.

When the opal tints waxed duller
And a gray crept o’er the skies
Yet there stayed the blue sky’s color
In your dreamy dark-blue eyes.

How the sun-god’s bright caresses,
When we rode at sunet there,
Plaited among your braided tresses,
Gleaming on your silky hair.

When the last sunlight’s glory
Faded off the sandy bars,
There we learnt the old, old story,
Riding homeward ‘neat the stars.

‘Tis a memory to be hoarded –
Oh, the follish tale and fond!
Till another stream be forded –
And we reach the Great Beyond.

Tomorrow at Dawn

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 220th birthday.

02-26 Hugo
Victor Hugo
French
1802 – 1885

Tomorrow, at dawn, when the countryside brightens,
I will depart. You see, I know that you wait for me.
I will go through the wood, I will go past the mountains.
I cannot remain far from you any longer.

I will walk, eyes set upon my thoughts,
Seeing nothing around me and hearing no sound,
Alone, unknown, back bent, hands crossed,
Sorrowful, and for me, day will be as night.

I will not watch the evening gold fall,
Nor the distant sails going down to Harfleur,
And, when I arrive, I will put on your grave
A bouquet of green holly and heather in bloom.