Our latest summer 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 selection.
Wind on the Corn
Full often as I rove by path or stile,
To watch the harvest ripening in the vale,
Slowly and sweetly, like a growing smile--
A smile that ends in laughter—the quick gale
Upon the breadths of gold-green wheat descends;
While still the swallow, with unbaffled grace,
About his viewless quarry dips and bends--
And all the fine excitement of the chase
Lies in the hunter's beauty: In the eclipse
Of that brief shadow, how the barley's beard
Tilts at the passing gloom, and wild-rose dips
Among the white-tops in the ditches rear'd:
And hedgerow's flowery breast of lacework stirs
Faintly in that full wind that rocks the outstanding firs.
Charles Tennyson Turner (1808 -1879)
Full often as I rove by path or stile,
To watch the harvest ripening in the vale,
Slowly and sweetly, like a growing smile--
A smile that ends in laughter—the quick gale
Upon the breadths of gold-green wheat descends;
While still the swallow, with unbaffled grace,
About his viewless quarry dips and bends--
And all the fine excitement of the chase
Lies in the hunter's beauty: In the eclipse
Of that brief shadow, how the barley's beard
Tilts at the passing gloom, and wild-rose dips
Among the white-tops in the ditches rear'd:
And hedgerow's flowery breast of lacework stirs
Faintly in that full wind that rocks the outstanding firs.
Charles Tennyson Turner (1808 -1879)
A Scherzo
With the wasp at the innermost heart of a peach,
On a sunny wall out of tip-toe reach,
With the trout in the darkest summer pool,
With the fern-seed clinging behind its cool
Smooth frond, in the chink of an aged tree,
In the woodbine’s horn with the drunken bee,
With the mouse in its nest in a furrow old,
With the chrysalis wrapt in its gauzy fold;
With things that are hidden, and safe, and bold,
With things that are timid, and shy, and free,
Wishing to be;
With the nut in its shell, with the seed in its pod,
With the corn as it sprouts in the kindly clod,
Far down where the secret of beauty shows
In the bulb of the tulip, before it blows;
With things that are rooted, and firm, and deep,
Quiet to lie, and dreamless to sleep;
With things that are chainless, and tameless, and proud,
With the fire in the jagged thunder-cloud,
With the wind in its sleep, with the wind in its waking,
With the drops that go to the rainbow’s making,
Wishing to be with the light leaves shaking,
Or stones on some desolate highway breaking;
Far up on the hills, where no foot surprises
The dew as it falls, or the dust as it rises;
To be couched with the beast in its torrid lair,
Or drifting on ice with the polar bear,
With the weaver at work at his quiet loom;
Anywhere, anywhere, out of this room!
Dora Greenwell (1821-1882)
With the wasp at the innermost heart of a peach,
On a sunny wall out of tip-toe reach,
With the trout in the darkest summer pool,
With the fern-seed clinging behind its cool
Smooth frond, in the chink of an aged tree,
In the woodbine’s horn with the drunken bee,
With the mouse in its nest in a furrow old,
With the chrysalis wrapt in its gauzy fold;
With things that are hidden, and safe, and bold,
With things that are timid, and shy, and free,
Wishing to be;
With the nut in its shell, with the seed in its pod,
With the corn as it sprouts in the kindly clod,
Far down where the secret of beauty shows
In the bulb of the tulip, before it blows;
With things that are rooted, and firm, and deep,
Quiet to lie, and dreamless to sleep;
With things that are chainless, and tameless, and proud,
With the fire in the jagged thunder-cloud,
With the wind in its sleep, with the wind in its waking,
With the drops that go to the rainbow’s making,
Wishing to be with the light leaves shaking,
Or stones on some desolate highway breaking;
Far up on the hills, where no foot surprises
The dew as it falls, or the dust as it rises;
To be couched with the beast in its torrid lair,
Or drifting on ice with the polar bear,
With the weaver at work at his quiet loom;
Anywhere, anywhere, out of this room!
Dora Greenwell (1821-1882)
The Moat
Around this lichened home of hoary peace,
Invulnerable in its glassy moat,
A breath of ghostly summers seems to float
And murmur mid the immemorial trees.
The tender slopes, where cattle browse at ease,
Swell softly, like a pigeon's emerald throat;
And, self-oblivious, Time forgets to note
The flight of velvet-footed centuries.
The very sunlight hushed within the close,
Sleeps indolently by the Yew's slow shade;
Still as a relic some old Master made
The jewelled peacock's rich enamel glows;
And on yon mossy wall that youthful rose
Blooms like a rose that never means to fade.
Mathilde Blind (1841-1896)
Around this lichened home of hoary peace,
Invulnerable in its glassy moat,
A breath of ghostly summers seems to float
And murmur mid the immemorial trees.
The tender slopes, where cattle browse at ease,
Swell softly, like a pigeon's emerald throat;
And, self-oblivious, Time forgets to note
The flight of velvet-footed centuries.
The very sunlight hushed within the close,
Sleeps indolently by the Yew's slow shade;
Still as a relic some old Master made
The jewelled peacock's rich enamel glows;
And on yon mossy wall that youthful rose
Blooms like a rose that never means to fade.
Mathilde Blind (1841-1896)
A Water-Colour
Low hidden in among the forest trees
An artist’s tilted easel, ankle-deep
In tousled ferns and mosses, and in these
A fluffy water-spaniel, half asleep
Beside a sketch-book and a fallen hat–
A little wicker flask tossed into that.
A sense of utter carelessness and grace
Of pure abandon in the slumb’rous scene,–
As if the June, all hoydenish of face,
Had romped herself to sleep there on the green,
And brink and sagging bridge and sliding stream
Were just romantic parcels of her dream.
James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)
Hoydenish : wild and boisterous
Low hidden in among the forest trees
An artist’s tilted easel, ankle-deep
In tousled ferns and mosses, and in these
A fluffy water-spaniel, half asleep
Beside a sketch-book and a fallen hat–
A little wicker flask tossed into that.
A sense of utter carelessness and grace
Of pure abandon in the slumb’rous scene,–
As if the June, all hoydenish of face,
Had romped herself to sleep there on the green,
And brink and sagging bridge and sliding stream
Were just romantic parcels of her dream.
James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)
Hoydenish : wild and boisterous
Winged Words
As darting swallows skim across a pool,
— Whose tranquil depths reflect a tranquil sky,
So, o'er the depths of silence, dark and cool,
— Our winged words dart playfully,
And seldom break
— The quiet surface of the lake,
As they flit by.
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907)
As darting swallows skim across a pool,
— Whose tranquil depths reflect a tranquil sky,
So, o'er the depths of silence, dark and cool,
— Our winged words dart playfully,
And seldom break
— The quiet surface of the lake,
As they flit by.
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (1861-1907)
Paths
Crushing in my hand
The bay as I pass,
Drinking in its fragrance
With the sea’s scent,
While gull-wings write
Poems white and fast
On the blue sky
That is soft with content;
Crushing in my hand
The bay and the juniper,
While I record
Each line the gulls write, I go by sea paths
Down to the sea’s edge,
I go by hearts paths
Deep into delight.
Simple is my joy
As the little sandpiper’s,
Who follows beside me
With silvery song;
Blither than the breeze,
That skims great billows
Nor knows how deep
Is their flow – or strong.
Simple is my joy,
A sunny sense-sweetness,
Full of bird-bliss,
Bay-warmth, spray-leap.
Mysteries there are
And miseries beneath it,
But sunk, like wrecks,
Far down in the deep.
Cale Young Rice (1872-1943)
Crushing in my hand
The bay as I pass,
Drinking in its fragrance
With the sea’s scent,
While gull-wings write
Poems white and fast
On the blue sky
That is soft with content;
Crushing in my hand
The bay and the juniper,
While I record
Each line the gulls write, I go by sea paths
Down to the sea’s edge,
I go by hearts paths
Deep into delight.
Simple is my joy
As the little sandpiper’s,
Who follows beside me
With silvery song;
Blither than the breeze,
That skims great billows
Nor knows how deep
Is their flow – or strong.
Simple is my joy,
A sunny sense-sweetness,
Full of bird-bliss,
Bay-warmth, spray-leap.
Mysteries there are
And miseries beneath it,
But sunk, like wrecks,
Far down in the deep.
Cale Young Rice (1872-1943)
Voices of the Air
But then there comes that moment rare
When, for no cause that I can find,
The little voices of the air
Sound above all the sea and wind.
The sea and wind do then obey
And sighing, sighing double notes
Of double basses, content to play
A droning chord for the little throats-
The little throats that sing and rise
Up into the light with lovely ease
And a kind of magical, sweet surprise
To hear and know themselves for these--
For these little voices: the bee, the fly
The leaf that taps, the pod that breaks,
The breeze on the grass-tops bending by,
The shrill quick sound that insect makes.
Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)
But then there comes that moment rare
When, for no cause that I can find,
The little voices of the air
Sound above all the sea and wind.
The sea and wind do then obey
And sighing, sighing double notes
Of double basses, content to play
A droning chord for the little throats-
The little throats that sing and rise
Up into the light with lovely ease
And a kind of magical, sweet surprise
To hear and know themselves for these--
For these little voices: the bee, the fly
The leaf that taps, the pod that breaks,
The breeze on the grass-tops bending by,
The shrill quick sound that insect makes.
Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)
Tamarisk
Along the seashore
the salty cedar trees grow;
boughs stiff with needles,
cascading pink feathered plumes –
flowers soft as candle flame.
Denise Bennett (1950-
Along the seashore
the salty cedar trees grow;
boughs stiff with needles,
cascading pink feathered plumes –
flowers soft as candle flame.
Denise Bennett (1950-
L’Heure Bleue
The slow ceding of day to night
makes the hour this warm, soft tone
as light drains into fields and
woodland merges with skyline,
and something in all this recalls a blue hour
more than thirty years ago somewhere in France
when that day’s embers half lit the contours
of a face turned towards the marais, a woman,
perhaps nineteen, breathing the scent
of trees and water, oblivious to everything else,
but at one with the blueness of the hour; her dawning
beauty and all she looked to, fleeting as those moments.
Jeremy Page (1958 -
The slow ceding of day to night
makes the hour this warm, soft tone
as light drains into fields and
woodland merges with skyline,
and something in all this recalls a blue hour
more than thirty years ago somewhere in France
when that day’s embers half lit the contours
of a face turned towards the marais, a woman,
perhaps nineteen, breathing the scent
of trees and water, oblivious to everything else,
but at one with the blueness of the hour; her dawning
beauty and all she looked to, fleeting as those moments.
Jeremy Page (1958 -
Editor: Helen Lee
Copyright title and collection Poems in the Waiting Room 2022. Copyright of recent poems retained by the authors
Copyright title and collection Poems in the Waiting Room 2022. Copyright of recent poems retained by the authors
