Our latest winter 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.
The Fairy Queen
Come follow, follow me,
You, fairy elves that be:
Which circle on the green,
Come follow Mab your queen.
Hand in hand let’s dance around,
For this place is fairy ground.
When mortals are at rest,
And snoring in their nest:
Unheard, and unespied,
Through keyholes we do glide;
Over tables, stools and shelves,
We trip it with our fairy elves.
And, if the house be foul,
With platter, dish or bowl,
Up stairs we nimbly creep,
And find the sluts asleep:
There we pinch their arms and thighs;
None escapes, nor none espies.
But if the house be swept,
And from uncleanness kept,
We praise the household maid,
And duly she is paid:
For we use before we go
To drop a tester in her shoe.
Upon a mushroom’s head
Our table-cloth we spread;
A grain of rye, or wheat,
Is manchet, which we eat;
Pearly drops of dew we drink
In acorn cups filled to the brink…
The grasshopper, gnat and fly,
Serve for our minstrelsy;
Grace said, we dance a while,
And so the time beguile:
And if the moon doth hide her head,
The glow-worm lights us home to bed.
On tops of dewy grass
So nimbly do we pass,
The young and tender stalk
Ne’er bends when we do walk:
Yet in the morning may be seen
Where we the night before have been.
The Percy’s Reliques:
from The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence 1658
Come follow, follow me,
You, fairy elves that be:
Which circle on the green,
Come follow Mab your queen.
Hand in hand let’s dance around,
For this place is fairy ground.
When mortals are at rest,
And snoring in their nest:
Unheard, and unespied,
Through keyholes we do glide;
Over tables, stools and shelves,
We trip it with our fairy elves.
And, if the house be foul,
With platter, dish or bowl,
Up stairs we nimbly creep,
And find the sluts asleep:
There we pinch their arms and thighs;
None escapes, nor none espies.
But if the house be swept,
And from uncleanness kept,
We praise the household maid,
And duly she is paid:
For we use before we go
To drop a tester in her shoe.
Upon a mushroom’s head
Our table-cloth we spread;
A grain of rye, or wheat,
Is manchet, which we eat;
Pearly drops of dew we drink
In acorn cups filled to the brink…
The grasshopper, gnat and fly,
Serve for our minstrelsy;
Grace said, we dance a while,
And so the time beguile:
And if the moon doth hide her head,
The glow-worm lights us home to bed.
On tops of dewy grass
So nimbly do we pass,
The young and tender stalk
Ne’er bends when we do walk:
Yet in the morning may be seen
Where we the night before have been.
The Percy’s Reliques:
from The Mysteries of Love and Eloquence 1658
Afton water
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream…
How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills,
Far mark'd with the courses of clear winding rills;
There daily I wander as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.
How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;
There oft, as mild Ev'ning sweeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birch shades my Mary and me.
Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides,
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As gathering sweet flowrets she stems thy clear wave.
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
Robert Burns (1759 - 1796)
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream…
How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills,
Far mark'd with the courses of clear winding rills;
There daily I wander as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.
How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;
There oft, as mild Ev'ning sweeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birch shades my Mary and me.
Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides,
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As gathering sweet flowrets she stems thy clear wave.
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes,
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
Robert Burns (1759 - 1796)
from Ode to the West Wind
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth,
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth,
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)
Vespers
O Blackbird, what a boy you are!
How you do go it!
Blowing your bugle to that one sweet star__
How you do blow it!
And does she hear you, blackbird boy, so far?
Or is it wasted breath?
“Good Lord! she is so bright
To-night!”
The blackbird saith.
T E Brown (1830 - 1897)
O Blackbird, what a boy you are!
How you do go it!
Blowing your bugle to that one sweet star__
How you do blow it!
And does she hear you, blackbird boy, so far?
Or is it wasted breath?
“Good Lord! she is so bright
To-night!”
The blackbird saith.
T E Brown (1830 - 1897)
Epithalamion
Smile then, children, hand in hand
Bright and white as the summer snow,
Or that young King of the Grecian land,
Who smiled on Thetis, long ago, —
So long ago when, heart aflame,
The grave and gentle Peleus came
To the shore where the halcyon flies
To wed the maiden of his devotion,
The dancing lady with sky-blue eyes,
Thetis, the darling of Paradise,
The daughter of old Ocean.
Seas before her rise and break,
Dolphins tumble in her wake
Along the sapphire courses:
With Tritons ablow on their pearly shells
With a plash of waves and a clash of bells
From the glimmering house where her Father dwells
She drives his white-tail horses!
And the boys of heaven gowned and crowned,
Have Aphrodite to lead them round,
Aphrodite with hair unbound
Her silver breasts adorning.
Her long, her soft, her streaming hair,
Falls on a silver breast laid bare
By the stir and swing of the sea-lit air
And the movement of the morning.
James Elroy Flecker (1884 -1919)
Smile then, children, hand in hand
Bright and white as the summer snow,
Or that young King of the Grecian land,
Who smiled on Thetis, long ago, —
So long ago when, heart aflame,
The grave and gentle Peleus came
To the shore where the halcyon flies
To wed the maiden of his devotion,
The dancing lady with sky-blue eyes,
Thetis, the darling of Paradise,
The daughter of old Ocean.
Seas before her rise and break,
Dolphins tumble in her wake
Along the sapphire courses:
With Tritons ablow on their pearly shells
With a plash of waves and a clash of bells
From the glimmering house where her Father dwells
She drives his white-tail horses!
And the boys of heaven gowned and crowned,
Have Aphrodite to lead them round,
Aphrodite with hair unbound
Her silver breasts adorning.
Her long, her soft, her streaming hair,
Falls on a silver breast laid bare
By the stir and swing of the sea-lit air
And the movement of the morning.
James Elroy Flecker (1884 -1919)
Willow
You’re like The Angel of the North, the way you
own the heavens, your arms sweep across
an empty pale sky. I love your light, the way
you startle air, shape gaps, and sway towards
the sun. You know the angled rain, the tenderness of water.
In twilight you’re a vision to behold,
a gilded icon as the sun slips behind you, coppering
your edges. You’re a healer of the sick — the juice
from your sap, your bark soothes my headaches.
If I sleep with a wand made from your wood
I’ll dream of a pink moon and hear Celtic music
playing on harps. I love you clothed in catkins,
dressed in summer’s leaves, bare in the winter.
Most of all I love the way you look at me.
Audrey Ardern-Jones (1948 -)
You’re like The Angel of the North, the way you
own the heavens, your arms sweep across
an empty pale sky. I love your light, the way
you startle air, shape gaps, and sway towards
the sun. You know the angled rain, the tenderness of water.
In twilight you’re a vision to behold,
a gilded icon as the sun slips behind you, coppering
your edges. You’re a healer of the sick — the juice
from your sap, your bark soothes my headaches.
If I sleep with a wand made from your wood
I’ll dream of a pink moon and hear Celtic music
playing on harps. I love you clothed in catkins,
dressed in summer’s leaves, bare in the winter.
Most of all I love the way you look at me.
Audrey Ardern-Jones (1948 -)
Solstice
and we are surrounded
by a landscape freezing
swiftly into night.
Curtains are drawn
and as we approach,
the lights, dim against
a rampant Milky Way,
guide us well enough to
this table by a blistering fire,
this plate of local partridge,
red wine from a newer world
and a sudden reminder
of who we are, and what it was
that brought us here.
Jeremy Page (1958 -)
and we are surrounded
by a landscape freezing
swiftly into night.
Curtains are drawn
and as we approach,
the lights, dim against
a rampant Milky Way,
guide us well enough to
this table by a blistering fire,
this plate of local partridge,
red wine from a newer world
and a sudden reminder
of who we are, and what it was
that brought us here.
Jeremy Page (1958 -)
Editor: Isobel Montgomery Campbell
Copyright title and collection Poems in the Waiting Room 2024. Copyright of recent poems retained by the authors.
Copyright title and collection Poems in the Waiting Room 2024. Copyright of recent poems retained by the authors.
