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.
Balade of Midsummer Days and Nights
With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams
The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,
And the winds are one with the clouds and beams--
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
The dusk grows vast; in purple haze,
While the West from a rapture of sunset rights,
Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise--
Midsummer nights! Midsummer nights!
The wood’s green heart is a nest of dreams,
The lush grass thickens and springs and sways
The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams--
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways,
All secret shadows and mystic lights,
Late lovers murmur and linger and gaze--
Midsummer nights! Midsummer nights!
There’s a music of bells from the trampling teams,
Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze,
The rich, ripe rose as with incense steams–
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
A soul from the honeysuckle strays,
And the nightingale as from prophet heights
Sings to the Earth of her million Mays--
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
Envoy
And it’s O, for my dear and the charm that stays--
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
It’s O, for my Love and the dark that plights--
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
W E Henley (1849 – 1903)
With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams
The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,
And the winds are one with the clouds and beams--
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
The dusk grows vast; in purple haze,
While the West from a rapture of sunset rights,
Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise--
Midsummer nights! Midsummer nights!
The wood’s green heart is a nest of dreams,
The lush grass thickens and springs and sways
The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams--
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways,
All secret shadows and mystic lights,
Late lovers murmur and linger and gaze--
Midsummer nights! Midsummer nights!
There’s a music of bells from the trampling teams,
Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze,
The rich, ripe rose as with incense steams–
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
A soul from the honeysuckle strays,
And the nightingale as from prophet heights
Sings to the Earth of her million Mays--
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
Envoy
And it’s O, for my dear and the charm that stays--
Midsummer days! Midsummer days!
It’s O, for my Love and the dark that plights--
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
W E Henley (1849 – 1903)
From Sussex
…Yea, Sussex by the sea!
No tender-hearted garden crowns,
No bosomed woods adorn
Our blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs,
But gnarled and writhen thorn--
Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim,
And, through the gaps revealed,
Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim,
Blue goodness of the Weald.
…
I will go out against the sun
Where the rolled scarp retires,
And the Long Man of Wilmington
Looks naked toward the shires;
And east till doubling Rother crawls
To find the fickle tide,
By dry and sea-forgotten walls,
Our ports of stranded pride.
I will go north about the shaws
And the deep ghylls that breed
Huge oaks and old, the which we hold
No more than Sussex weed;
Or south where windy Piddinghoe’s
Begilded dolphin veers
And red beside wide-bankèd Ouse
Lie down our Sussex steers.
God gives all men all earth to love,
But since man’s heart is small,
Ordains for each one spot shall prove
Beloved over all.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground—in a fair ground--
Yea, Sussex by the sea!
Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936)
…Yea, Sussex by the sea!
No tender-hearted garden crowns,
No bosomed woods adorn
Our blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs,
But gnarled and writhen thorn--
Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim,
And, through the gaps revealed,
Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim,
Blue goodness of the Weald.
…
I will go out against the sun
Where the rolled scarp retires,
And the Long Man of Wilmington
Looks naked toward the shires;
And east till doubling Rother crawls
To find the fickle tide,
By dry and sea-forgotten walls,
Our ports of stranded pride.
I will go north about the shaws
And the deep ghylls that breed
Huge oaks and old, the which we hold
No more than Sussex weed;
Or south where windy Piddinghoe’s
Begilded dolphin veers
And red beside wide-bankèd Ouse
Lie down our Sussex steers.
God gives all men all earth to love,
But since man’s heart is small,
Ordains for each one spot shall prove
Beloved over all.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground—in a fair ground--
Yea, Sussex by the sea!
Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936)
At Meissen
Beneath the lime trees in the garden
High above the town,
The scent of whose suspended bloom
Entranced the air with warm perfume
I stood, and watched the river flowering,
Flowing smooth and brown.
The heat of all the summer sunshine
Centred in the skies,
Beneath its spell the city’s towers
Grew dreamy, and the climbing flowers
Upon the balconies hung limply
Down, with closing eyes.
Some drowsy pigeons cooed together
On the nearer eaves,
Gnats danced, and one big foolish bee
Grown honey-drunk, bumped into me,
And ere he buzzed a lazy protest
Fell amid the leaves.
A bell began to chime, I watched it
Swinging to and fro,
It made a solemn, pious sound,
While flippant swallows, darting round
To peer within the ancient belfry
Soared now high, now low.
Time passed, and still I stayed to ponder
Through the afternoon,
Within my brain the golden haze
Wrought magic musings, and my gaze
Bent inward could behold no image
Save the form of June.
Radclyffe Hall (1880—1940)
Beneath the lime trees in the garden
High above the town,
The scent of whose suspended bloom
Entranced the air with warm perfume
I stood, and watched the river flowering,
Flowing smooth and brown.
The heat of all the summer sunshine
Centred in the skies,
Beneath its spell the city’s towers
Grew dreamy, and the climbing flowers
Upon the balconies hung limply
Down, with closing eyes.
Some drowsy pigeons cooed together
On the nearer eaves,
Gnats danced, and one big foolish bee
Grown honey-drunk, bumped into me,
And ere he buzzed a lazy protest
Fell amid the leaves.
A bell began to chime, I watched it
Swinging to and fro,
It made a solemn, pious sound,
While flippant swallows, darting round
To peer within the ancient belfry
Soared now high, now low.
Time passed, and still I stayed to ponder
Through the afternoon,
Within my brain the golden haze
Wrought magic musings, and my gaze
Bent inward could behold no image
Save the form of June.
Radclyffe Hall (1880—1940)
Lunigiana
Moss drips in the midday pool.
Rocks ripple with light;
breeze arches the ferns.
On the pool bed ghost the shadows
of water boatmen, in their alien world
weaving their bright myths
like the dragonfly, whose shock of fire
and rainbow armour tells its tall tales,
slaloming its hieroglyphs in the air.
These rocks are too old, older than all
our memories – and how can we predict
when the ammonites of ancient seas
will weave again their darkest meaning
around this star-old stippled stone?
Philip Wells (1962 -)
Moss drips in the midday pool.
Rocks ripple with light;
breeze arches the ferns.
On the pool bed ghost the shadows
of water boatmen, in their alien world
weaving their bright myths
like the dragonfly, whose shock of fire
and rainbow armour tells its tall tales,
slaloming its hieroglyphs in the air.
These rocks are too old, older than all
our memories – and how can we predict
when the ammonites of ancient seas
will weave again their darkest meaning
around this star-old stippled stone?
Philip Wells (1962 -)
Oak Tree
The old oak tree is well established, roots thick and strong–
Leaves glittering in the sunshine, confirming I belong.
Love, tears and laughter blowing in the wind–
Hope, loss and knowledge slightly dimmed.
Breeze, warm and gentle, performing a simple dance-
Rattling through the foliage, the promise of a chance.
Kristina Rowlands (1966 -)
The old oak tree is well established, roots thick and strong–
Leaves glittering in the sunshine, confirming I belong.
Love, tears and laughter blowing in the wind–
Hope, loss and knowledge slightly dimmed.
Breeze, warm and gentle, performing a simple dance-
Rattling through the foliage, the promise of a chance.
Kristina Rowlands (1966 -)
love’s topology
the tube map
is not a precise
representation
but the best way
of showing how
places relate
when there is nothing
to block our way
Tristan Moss (1968 –)
the tube map
is not a precise
representation
but the best way
of showing how
places relate
when there is nothing
to block our way
Tristan Moss (1968 –)
Editor: Isobel Montgomery Campbell
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
