Our latest autumn poetry selection
Our poetry is chosen from the work of both well-known and new poets, and assessed by a practising psychotherapist for suitability for patients waiting to see their doctor. We hope you enjoy our latest winter selection.
There Is a Budding Morrow in Midnight
Wintry boughs against a wintry sky;
Yet the sky is partly blue
And the clouds are partly bright:--
Who can tell but sap is mounting high
Out of sight,
Ready to burst through?
Winter is the mother-nurse of Spring,
Lovely for her daughter's sake,
Not unlovely for her own:
For a future buds in everything;
Grown, or blown,
Or about to break.
Christina Georgina Rossetti 1830-1894)
Wintry boughs against a wintry sky;
Yet the sky is partly blue
And the clouds are partly bright:--
Who can tell but sap is mounting high
Out of sight,
Ready to burst through?
Winter is the mother-nurse of Spring,
Lovely for her daughter's sake,
Not unlovely for her own:
For a future buds in everything;
Grown, or blown,
Or about to break.
Christina Georgina Rossetti 1830-1894)
From Noel; Christmas Eve, 1913
Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis
A frosty Christmas Eve
when the stars were shining
Fared I forth alone
where westward falls the hill,
And from many a village
in the water'd valley
Distant music reach'd me
peals of bells aringing:
The constellated sounds
ran sprinkling on earth's floor
As the dark vault above
with stars was spangled o'er.
Then sped my thought to keep that first Christmas of all
When the shepherds watching by their folds ere the dawn
Heard music in the fields and marveling could not tell
Whether it were angels or the bright stars singing.
Robert Bridges (1944-1930)
Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis
A frosty Christmas Eve
when the stars were shining
Fared I forth alone
where westward falls the hill,
And from many a village
in the water'd valley
Distant music reach'd me
peals of bells aringing:
The constellated sounds
ran sprinkling on earth's floor
As the dark vault above
with stars was spangled o'er.
Then sped my thought to keep that first Christmas of all
When the shepherds watching by their folds ere the dawn
Heard music in the fields and marveling could not tell
Whether it were angels or the bright stars singing.
Robert Bridges (1944-1930)
Nightfall
She sits beside: through four low panes of glass
The sun, a misty meadow, and the stream;
Falling through rounded elms the last sunbeam.
Through night's thick fibre sudden barges pass
With great forelights of gold, with trailing mass
Of timber: rearward of their transient gleam
The shadows settle, and profounder dream
Enters, fulfils the shadows. Vale and grass
Are now no more; a last leaf strays about,
Then every wandering ceases; we remain.
Clear dusk, the face of wind is on the sky:
The eyes I love lift to the upper pane--
Their voice gives note of welcome quietly
‘I love the air in which the stars come out.’
Michael Field (1846-1914)
She sits beside: through four low panes of glass
The sun, a misty meadow, and the stream;
Falling through rounded elms the last sunbeam.
Through night's thick fibre sudden barges pass
With great forelights of gold, with trailing mass
Of timber: rearward of their transient gleam
The shadows settle, and profounder dream
Enters, fulfils the shadows. Vale and grass
Are now no more; a last leaf strays about,
Then every wandering ceases; we remain.
Clear dusk, the face of wind is on the sky:
The eyes I love lift to the upper pane--
Their voice gives note of welcome quietly
‘I love the air in which the stars come out.’
Michael Field (1846-1914)
In Winter Paths
The tumbled drifts like fixed and frozen seas
Are billowed up around us, all in white,
The swirling winds on leafless branches smite
And round about the trunks of naked trees
Flit restlessly the black-capped chickadees;
Shy bits of grey, in brief and silent flight;
The woods are blacker than at dead of night
And under icy shields the waters freeze.
But yonder was a spray where on a time
The robin sang; in that lone reach remote
Wild violets gathered, bluer than the sea;
Nor shall this dearth banish the water's rhyme
The green of the grass, the blue-bird's April note,
While side by side you wander here with me.
Ernest McGaffrey (1861-1941)
The tumbled drifts like fixed and frozen seas
Are billowed up around us, all in white,
The swirling winds on leafless branches smite
And round about the trunks of naked trees
Flit restlessly the black-capped chickadees;
Shy bits of grey, in brief and silent flight;
The woods are blacker than at dead of night
And under icy shields the waters freeze.
But yonder was a spray where on a time
The robin sang; in that lone reach remote
Wild violets gathered, bluer than the sea;
Nor shall this dearth banish the water's rhyme
The green of the grass, the blue-bird's April note,
While side by side you wander here with me.
Ernest McGaffrey (1861-1941)
Bury Hill
To this green hill a something dream-like clings,
Where day by day the little blunt sheep graze,
Threading the tussocks and the toadstool rings,
Nosing the barrows of the olden days.
An air drifts here that's sweet of sea and grass,
And down the combe-side living colour glows;
Spring, Summer, Fall, the chasing seasons pass
To Winter, even lovelier than those.
The dream is deep today, when all that's far
Of wandering water and of darkling wood,
Of weald and ghost-like Down combinèd are
In haze below this hill where God has stood.
Here I, too, stand until the light is gone,
And feed my wonder, while the sheep graze on.
John Galsworthy (1867-1933)
To this green hill a something dream-like clings,
Where day by day the little blunt sheep graze,
Threading the tussocks and the toadstool rings,
Nosing the barrows of the olden days.
An air drifts here that's sweet of sea and grass,
And down the combe-side living colour glows;
Spring, Summer, Fall, the chasing seasons pass
To Winter, even lovelier than those.
The dream is deep today, when all that's far
Of wandering water and of darkling wood,
Of weald and ghost-like Down combinèd are
In haze below this hill where God has stood.
Here I, too, stand until the light is gone,
And feed my wonder, while the sheep graze on.
John Galsworthy (1867-1933)
As the Tide Comes in
The quivering terns dart wild and dive,
As the tide comes tumbling in.
The calm rock-pools grow all alive,
With the tide tumbling in.
The crab who under the brown weed creeps,
And the snail who lies in his house and sleeps,
Awake and stir, as the plunging sweeps
Of the tide come tumbling in.
Grey driftwood swishes along the sand,
As the tide tumbles in,
With wreck and wrack from many a land,
On the tide, tumbling in.
About the beach are a broken spar, A pale anemone's torn sea-star
And scattered scum of the waves' old war,
As the tide comes tumbling in.
And, oh, there is a stir at the heart of me,
As the tide comes tumbling in,
All life once more is a part of me,
As the tide tumbles in.
New hopes awaken beneath despair
And thoughts slip free of the sloth of care
While beauty and love are everywhere --
As the tide comes tumbling in.
Cale Young Rice (1872-1943)
The quivering terns dart wild and dive,
As the tide comes tumbling in.
The calm rock-pools grow all alive,
With the tide tumbling in.
The crab who under the brown weed creeps,
And the snail who lies in his house and sleeps,
Awake and stir, as the plunging sweeps
Of the tide come tumbling in.
Grey driftwood swishes along the sand,
As the tide tumbles in,
With wreck and wrack from many a land,
On the tide, tumbling in.
About the beach are a broken spar, A pale anemone's torn sea-star
And scattered scum of the waves' old war,
As the tide comes tumbling in.
And, oh, there is a stir at the heart of me,
As the tide comes tumbling in,
All life once more is a part of me,
As the tide tumbles in.
New hopes awaken beneath despair
And thoughts slip free of the sloth of care
While beauty and love are everywhere --
As the tide comes tumbling in.
Cale Young Rice (1872-1943)
The Wood
I walked a nut-wood's gloom. And overhead
A pigeon's wing beat on the hidden boughs,
And shrews upon shy tunnelling woke thin
Late winter leaves with trickling sound.Across
My narrow path I saw the carrier ants
Burdened with little pieces of bright straw.
These things I heard and saw, with senses fine
For all the little traffic of the wood,
While everywhere, above me, underfoot,
And haunting every avenue of leaves,
Was mystery, unresting, taciturn.
And haunting the lucidities of life
That are my daily beauty, moves a theme,
Beating along my undiscovered mind.
John Drinkwater (1882-1937)
I walked a nut-wood's gloom. And overhead
A pigeon's wing beat on the hidden boughs,
And shrews upon shy tunnelling woke thin
Late winter leaves with trickling sound.Across
My narrow path I saw the carrier ants
Burdened with little pieces of bright straw.
These things I heard and saw, with senses fine
For all the little traffic of the wood,
While everywhere, above me, underfoot,
And haunting every avenue of leaves,
Was mystery, unresting, taciturn.
And haunting the lucidities of life
That are my daily beauty, moves a theme,
Beating along my undiscovered mind.
John Drinkwater (1882-1937)
Make Good the World
A dark limb leads the moon across the sky
Evanescent as our desires
Solemn Vespers
Hymns before bed
I accept
The wholesome night the Saviour’s birth
O holy Christmastide
Your tiny
Fingers and toes
Your eyes drifting outward toward the heavens
A night full of ice crystals
Countless snowflakes all descending
Upon the earth wholly made new.
Lara Dolphin (1974- )
Published by Beatific
A dark limb leads the moon across the sky
Evanescent as our desires
Solemn Vespers
Hymns before bed
I accept
The wholesome night the Saviour’s birth
O holy Christmastide
Your tiny
Fingers and toes
Your eyes drifting outward toward the heavens
A night full of ice crystals
Countless snowflakes all descending
Upon the earth wholly made new.
Lara Dolphin (1974- )
Published by Beatific
Hope
Brittle branches touch the silvery sky
Reaching tiny fragments of whispered prayers,
That fly as snow in a storm
Enveloping, swirling mists curl about me
And it seems I've found a beginning;
The place where small utterances
Become songs
Of the birds, that will come to the tree.
Sarah Calahane (1974. )
Brittle branches touch the silvery sky
Reaching tiny fragments of whispered prayers,
That fly as snow in a storm
Enveloping, swirling mists curl about me
And it seems I've found a beginning;
The place where small utterances
Become songs
Of the birds, that will come to the tree.
Sarah Calahane (1974. )
Editor: Helen Lee.
Copyright title and collection Poems in the Waiting Room 2020. Copyright of recent poems retained by the authors.
Copyright title and collection Poems in the Waiting Room 2020. Copyright of recent poems retained by the authors.
