Green Glass Beads Read online

  And dreaming through the twilight

  That doth not rise nor set,

  Haply I may remember,

  And haply may forget.

  Christina Rossetti

  Remember

  Remember me when I am gone away,

  Gone far away into the silent land;

  When you can no more hold me by the hand

  Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

  Remember me when no more day by day

  You tell me of our future that you planned:

  Only remember me; you understand

  It will be late to counsel then or pray.

  Yet if you should forget me for a while

  And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

  For if the darkness and corruption leave

  A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

  Better by far you should forget and smile

  Than that you should remember and be sad.

  Christina Rossetti

  Fidele’s Dirge

  from Cymbeline

  Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,

  Nor the furious winter’s rages;

  Thou thy worldly task hast done,

  Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages.

  Golden lads and girls all must,

  As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

  Fear no more the frown o’ the great,

  Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;

  Care no more to clothe and eat,

  To thee the reed is as the oak.

  The sceptre, learning, physic, must

  All follow this, and come to dust.

  Fear no more the lightning-flash,

  Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;

  Fear not slander, censure rash;

  Thou hast finished joy and moan.

  All lovers young, all lovers must

  Consign to thee, and come to dust.

  No exorciser harm thee!

  Nor no witchcraft charm thee!

  Ghost unlaid forbear thee!

  Nothing ill come near thee!

  Quiet consummation have,

  And renowned be thy grave!

  William Shakespeare

  Stop All the Clocks

  Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

  Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

  Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

  Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

  Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

  Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

  Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

  Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

  He was my North, my South, my East and West,

  My working week and my Sunday rest,

  My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

  I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

  The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

  Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

  Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

  For nothing now can ever come to any good.

  W. H. Auden

  Break, Break, Break

  Break, break, break,

  On thy cold grey stones, O sea!

  And I would that my tongue could utter

  The thoughts that arise in me.

  O, well for the fisherman’s boy,

  That he shouts with his sister at play!

  O, well for the sailor lad,

  That he sings in his boat on the bay!

  And the stately ships go on

  To their haven under the hill;

  But O for the touch of a vanished hand,

  And the sound of a voice that is still!

  Break, break, break,

  At the foot of thy crags, O sea!

  But the tender grace of a day that is dead

  Will never come back to me.

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  Ariel’s Song

  from The Tempest

  Full fathom five thy father lies,

  Of his bones are coral made:

  Those are pearls that were his eyes,

  Nothing of him that doth fade,

  But doth suffer a sea-change

  Into something rich, and strange:

  Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell –

  Hark! now I hear them,

  Ding-dong bell.

  William Shakespeare

  The Stranger

  Half-hidden in a graveyard,

  In the blackness of a yew,

  Where never living creature stirs,

  Nor sunbeam pierces through,

  Is a tomb-stone, green and crooked –

  Its faded legend gone –

  With one rain-worn cherub’s head

  To sing of the unknown.

  There, when the dusk is falling,

  Silence broods so deep

  It seems that every air that breathes

  Sighs from the fields of sleep.

  Day breaks in heedless beauty,

  Kindling each drop of dew,

  But unforsaking shadow dwells

  Beneath this lonely yew.

  And, all else lost and faded,

  Only this listening head

  Keeps with a strange unanswering smile

  I ts secret with the dead.

  Walter de la Mare

  CHILDREN

  A Song about Myself

  There was a naughty boy,

  A naughty boy was he,

  He would not stop at home,

  He could not quiet be –

  He took

  In his knapsack

  A book

  Full of vowels

  And a shirt

  With some towels –

  A slight cap

  For a night-cap –

  A hair brush,

  Comb ditto,

  New stockings,

  For old ones

  Would split O!

  This knapsack

  Tight at’s back

  He rivetted close

  And followed his nose

  To the North,

  To the North,

  And followed his nose

  To the North.

  There was a naughty boy,

  And a naughty boy was he,

  He ran away to Scotland

  The people for to see –

  There he found

  That the ground

  Was as hard,

  That a yard

  Was as long,

  That a song

  Was as merry,

  That a cherry

  Was as red,

  That lead

  Was as weighty,

  That fourscore

  Was as eighty,

  That a door

  Was as wooden

  As in England –

  So he stood in his shoes

  And he wondered,

  He wondered,

  He stood in his shoes

  And he wondered.

  John Keats

  What Are Little Girls . . .

  I’m not

  a

  sugar and spice

  girl

  an all-things-nice

  girl

  a do-as-told

  good-as-gold

  pretty frock

  never shock

  girl

  I’m

  a

  slugs and snails

  girl

  a puppy-dogs’-tails

  girl

  a climbing trees

  dirty knees

  hole-in-sock

  love-to-shock

  girl

  cricket bats

  and big white rats

  crested newts

  and football boots

  that’s what

  this little girl’s

  . . . Made Of.

  Adrian Henri

  T