Our latest 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.
It's All I have to Bring Today
It’s all I have to bring today–
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
Emily Dickinson (1830–86)
It’s all I have to bring today–
This, and my heart beside –
This, and my heart, and all the fields –
And all the meadows wide –
Be sure you count – should I forget
Some one the sum could tell –
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
Emily Dickinson (1830–86)
The Pasture Field
When Spring has burned
The ragged robe of Winter, stitch by stitch,
And deftly turned
To moving melody the wayside ditch,
The pale-green pasture field behind the bars
Is goldened o’er with dandelion stars.
When Summer keeps
Quick pace with sinewy, white-shirted arms,
And daily steeps
In sunny splendour all her spreading farms,
The pasture field is flooded foamy white
With daisy faces looking at the light.
When Autumn lays
Her golden wealth upon the forest floor,
And all the days
Look backward at the days that went before,
A pensive company, the asters, stand,
Their blue eyes brightening the pasture land.
When Winter lifts
A sounding trumpet to his strenuous lips,
And shapes the drifts
To curves of transient loveliness, he slips
Upon the pasture’s ineffectual brown
A swan-soft vestment delicate as down.
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857–1940)
When Spring has burned
The ragged robe of Winter, stitch by stitch,
And deftly turned
To moving melody the wayside ditch,
The pale-green pasture field behind the bars
Is goldened o’er with dandelion stars.
When Summer keeps
Quick pace with sinewy, white-shirted arms,
And daily steeps
In sunny splendour all her spreading farms,
The pasture field is flooded foamy white
With daisy faces looking at the light.
When Autumn lays
Her golden wealth upon the forest floor,
And all the days
Look backward at the days that went before,
A pensive company, the asters, stand,
Their blue eyes brightening the pasture land.
When Winter lifts
A sounding trumpet to his strenuous lips,
And shapes the drifts
To curves of transient loveliness, he slips
Upon the pasture’s ineffectual brown
A swan-soft vestment delicate as down.
Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857–1940)
Budding Time Too Brief
O little buds, break not so fast!
The Spring’s but new.
The skies will yet be brighter blue,
And sunny too.
I would you might thus sweetly last
Till this glad season’s overpast,
Nor hasten through.
It is so exquisite to feel
The light warm sun;
To merely know the Winter done,
And life begun;
And to my heart no blooms appeal
For tenderness so deep and real,
As any one
Of these first April buds, that hold
The hint of Spring’s
Rare perfectness that May-time brings.
So take not wings!
Oh, linger, linger, nor unfold
Too swiftly through the mellow mould,
Sweet growing things!
And errant birds, and honey-bees,
Seek not to wile;
And, sun, let not your warmest smile
Quite yet beguile
The young peach-boughs and apple-trees
To trust their beauty to the breeze;
Wait yet awhile!
Evaleen Stein (1863–1923)
Here by the Brimming April Streams
Here by the brimming April streams,
Here is the valley of my dreams.
Every garden place is seen
Starting up in flames of green;
Breaking forth in yellow gold
Through the blanket of the mould.
Slow unfolded, one by one,
Lantern leaves hang in the sun,
Like the butterflies of June
Weak and wet from the cocoon.
Philip Henry Savage (1868–99)
Here by the brimming April streams,
Here is the valley of my dreams.
Every garden place is seen
Starting up in flames of green;
Breaking forth in yellow gold
Through the blanket of the mould.
Slow unfolded, one by one,
Lantern leaves hang in the sun,
Like the butterflies of June
Weak and wet from the cocoon.
Philip Henry Savage (1868–99)
Heather
You talk of pale primroses,
Of frail and fragrant posies,
The cowslip and the cuckoo-flower
That scent the spring-time lea.
But give to me the heather,
The honey-scented heather,
The glowing gypsy heather –
That is the flower for me!
You love the garden alleys,
Smooth-shaven lawns and valleys,
The cornfield and the shady lane,
And fisher-sails at sea.
But give to me the moorland,
The noble purple moorland,
The free, far-stretching moorland –
That is the land for me!
Flora Thompson (1876–1947)
A Mood of Pavlova
The soul of the Spring through its body of earth
Bursts in a bloom of fire,
And the crocuses come in a rainbow riot of mirth. . . .
They flutter, they burn, they take wing, they aspire. . . .
Wings, motion and music and flame,
Flower, woman and laughter, and all these the same!
She is light and first love and the youth of the world,
She is sandaled with joy . . . she is lifted and whirled,
She is flung, she is swirled, she is driven along
By the carnival winds that have torn her away
From the coronal bloom on the brow of the May. . . .
She is youth, she is foam, she is flame, she is visible Song!
Don Marquis (1878–1937)
The soul of the Spring through its body of earth
Bursts in a bloom of fire,
And the crocuses come in a rainbow riot of mirth. . . .
They flutter, they burn, they take wing, they aspire. . . .
Wings, motion and music and flame,
Flower, woman and laughter, and all these the same!
She is light and first love and the youth of the world,
She is sandaled with joy . . . she is lifted and whirled,
She is flung, she is swirled, she is driven along
By the carnival winds that have torn her away
From the coronal bloom on the brow of the May. . . .
She is youth, she is foam, she is flame, she is visible Song!
Don Marquis (1878–1937)
Found Objects
Watch how willow twigs,
translucent feathers, lichen,
fine hairs, all woven
into model coracles
harboured high up in a tree.
Pat Farrington (1943– )
Watch how willow twigs,
translucent feathers, lichen,
fine hairs, all woven
into model coracles
harboured high up in a tree.
Pat Farrington (1943– )
A Moment
There it is, the wren.
Keep still. Breathe in.
The tiny bird
with stumpy tail
has landed near
the windowsill
and moves from twig to stem
as quietly as rain.
Feathered and breathing,
it matches its portrait
on the bronze farthings
of my childhood
sixty years ago
but look away
and it has gone again
from then to now.
Duncan Forbes (1947– )
Glimpses
Blossoms fall
and the first wink
of spring
drifts
along the streets
I know.
I am of
the city,
rarely see a lamb
in the green field,
I walk
concrete paths.
I see sunsets
behind
towers,
over fences,
in parks the grass
is cut short.
I just have
glimpses
once a year
of what
a time of rebirth
really looks like.
Yet I am
bee-minded,
I see flowers
and feel
a thirst
for life.
Andy Eycott (1966– )
Blossoms fall
and the first wink
of spring
drifts
along the streets
I know.
I am of
the city,
rarely see a lamb
in the green field,
I walk
concrete paths.
I see sunsets
behind
towers,
over fences,
in parks the grass
is cut short.
I just have
glimpses
once a year
of what
a time of rebirth
really looks like.
Yet I am
bee-minded,
I see flowers
and feel
a thirst
for life.
Andy Eycott (1966– )
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.
