Four days the earth was rent and torn
By bursting steel,
The houses fell about us;
Three nights we dared not sleep,
Sweating, and listening for the imminent crash
Which meant our death.

The fourth night every man,
Nerve-tortured, racked to exhaustion,
Slept, muttering and twitching,
While the shells crashed overhead.

The fifth day there came a hush;
We left our holes
And looked above the wreckage of the earth
To where the white clouds moved in silent lines
Across the untroubled blue.

Richard Aldington

Apologies for the long silence. Some snippets from Tam O’Shanter

I

nspiring bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi’ tippeny, we fear nae evil;
Wi’ usquabae, we’ll face the devil!—
The swats sae ream’d in Tammie’s noddle,
Fair play, he car’d na deils a boddle.
But Maggie stood right sair astonish’d,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish’d,
She ventured forward on the light;
And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance;
Nae cotillion brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw’d the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl.—

Ah, Tam! Ah, Tam! thou’ll get thy fairin!
In hell they’ll roast thee like a herrin!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin!
Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane of the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the key-stane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie’s mettle—
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain gray tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.

Now, wha this tale o’ truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother’s son, take heed:
Whene’er to drink you are inclin’d,
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind,
Think, ye may buy the joys o’er dear,
Remember Tam o’ Shanter’s mare.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Conversion of Sheep Hugh McMillan

When St Fillian first came upon the sheep
they stood with their Sumerian heads
and stared him out,
for it is a fact that though sheep are mentioned
many times in the bible,
it is always in a bad way.
Follow me said St Fillian,
I have a new path and he pointed
into the hills, to where the sun was rising
setting the gorse to blaze.
They had seen many
paths and sunrises,
you might say they were
inured to them.
They had grass here,
green enough,
and every second Thursday
a book group,
due to discuss that night the third of
Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy,
illustrating existentialism
in a non-Western context.
Nevertheless they saw
the fine pitch of madness
in the old man’s eyes
and, reminding themselves
they were essentially
compliant herd animals,
followed.

High Flight

by John Gillespie Magee

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Rejoycing in St Andrews – Golf courses can open again . .

Seaside Golf                                         John Betjeman

How straight it flew, how long it flew,

It cleared the rutty track

And soaring, disappeared from view

Beyond the bunker’s back –

A glorious, sailing, bounding drive

That made me glad I was alive.

And down the fairway, far along

It glowed a lonely white;

I played an iron sure and strong

And clipp’d it out of sight

And spite of grassy banks between

I knew I’d find it on the green.

And so I did. It lay content

Two paces from the pin;

A steady putt and then it went

Oh, most securely in.

The very turf rejoiced to see

That quite unprecedented three.

Ah! seaweed smells from sandy caves

And thyme and wind in whiffs.

In-coming tide and North Sea waves

Slapping the sunny cliffs,

Lark song and sea sounds in the air

And splendour, splendour eveywhere.

Sea Fever

By John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.   I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.   I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Sometimes things don’t go, after all,

from bad to worse. Some years muscadel

faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail.

Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,

elect an honest man, decide they care

enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.

Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go

amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.

The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow

that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.

John Anderson Robert Burns

John Anderson my jo, John,

When we were first acquent

Your locks were like the raven,

Your bonnie brow was brent;

But now your brow is bald, John,

Your locks are like the snow;

But blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson my jo.

John Anderson my jo, John,

We clamb the hill thegither,

And mony a canty day, John,

We’ve had wi’ ane another:

Now we maun totter down, John,

But hand in hand we’ll go,

And sleep thegither at the foot,

John Anderson my jo. Listen on Youtube

And a more romantic thought …………….

This Morning Hitomano

This morning I will not comb my hair.

It has lain pillowed on the hand of my lover

In the interests of Gender Equality I found the following:

She drove her boy to football and to scouts

And ironed all his clothes that she’d put out

And once, for disobedience, told his mate

About his toilet problem, when aged eight.

She didn’t party after work at all

Her man had charge of the remote control

And once when he came late home from the pub

She served him warmed-up dog food as his grub.

And for her Dad, she let him smoke indoors

On Fridays cleaned his loo and washed his floors

And when he asked to be her lodger, she

Said, “Tough, you cannot ever stay with me.”

Here’s how they rated her when they looked back

Sometimes she did this, sometimes she did that.