Thomas Stearns Eliot – To Walter de la Mare

The children who explored the brook and found

A desert island with a sandy cove

(A hiding place, but very dangerous ground,

For here the water buffalo may rove,

The kinkajou, the mungabey, abound

In the dark jungle of a mango grove,

And shadowy lemurs glide from tree to tree -

The guardians of some long-lost treasure-trove)

Recount their exploits at the nursery tea

And when the lamps are lit and curtains drawn

Demand some poetry, please. Whose shall it be,

At not quite time for bed? ...

Or when the lawn

Is pressed by unseen feet, and ghosts return

Gently at twilight, gently go at dawn,

The sad intangible who grieve and yearn;

When the familiar is suddenly strange

Or the well known is what we yet have to learn,

And two worlds meet, and intersect, and change;

When cats are maddened in the moonlight dance,

Dogs cower, flitter bats, and owls range

At witches' sabbath of the maiden aunts;

When the nocturnal traveller can arouse

No sleeper by his call; or when by chance

An empty face peers from an empty house;

By whom, and by what means, was this designed?

The whispered incantation which allows

Free passage to the phantoms of the mind?

By you; by those deceptive cadences

Wherewith the common measure is refined;

By conscious art practised with natural ease;

By the delicate, invisible web you wove -

The inexplicable mystery of sound.

Sylvia Plath – Who

The month of flowering's finished. The fruit's in,

Eaten or rotten. I am all mouth.

October's the month for storage.

Thie shed's fusty as a mummy's stomach:

Old tools, handles and rusty tusks.

I am at home here among the dead heads.

Let me sit in a flowerpot,

The spiders won't notice.

My heart is a stopped geranium.

If only the wind would leave my lungs alone.

Dogsbody noses the petals. They bloom upside down.

They rattle like hydrangea bushes.

Mouldering heads console me,

Nailed to the rafters yesterday:

Inmates who don't hibernate.

Cabbageheads: wormy purple, silver-glaze,

A dressing of mule ears, mothy pelts, but green-hearted,

Their veins white as porkfat.

O the beauty of usage!

The orange pumpkins have no eyes.

These halls are full of women who think they are birds.

This is a dull school.

I am a root, a stone, an owl pellet,

Without dreams of any sort.

Mother, you are the one mouth

I would be a tongue to. Mother of otherness

Eat me. Wastebasket gaper, shadow of doorways.

I said: I must remember this, being small.

There were such enormous flowers,

Purple and red mouths, utterly lovely.

The hoops of blackberry stems made me cry.

Now they light me up like an electric bulb.

For weeks I can remember nothing at all.

Sylvia Plath – Whiteness I Remember

Whiteness being what I remember

About Sam: whiteness and the great run

He gave me. I've gone nowhere since but

Going's been tame deviation. White,

Not of heraldic stallions: off-white

Of the stable horse whose history's

Humdrum, unexceptionable, his

Tried sobriety hiring him out

To novices and to the timid.

Yet the dapple toning his white down

To safe gray never grayed his temper.

I see him one-tracked, stubborn, white horse,

First horse under me, high as the roofs,

His near trot pitching my tense poise up,

Unsteadying the steady-rooted green

Of country hedgerows and cow pastures

To a giddy jog. Then for ill will

Or to try me he suddenly set

Green grass streaming, houses a river

Of pale fronts, straw thatchings, the hard road

An anvil, hooves four hammers to jolt

Me off into their space of beating,

Stirrups undone, and decorum. And

Wouldn't slow for the hauled reins, his name,

Or shouts of walkers: crossed traffic

Stalling curbside at his oncoming,

The world subdued to his run of it.

I hung on his neck. Resoluteness

Simplified me: a rider, riding

Hung out over the hazard, over hooves

Loud on earth's bedrock. Almost thrown, not

Thrown: fear, wisdom, at one: all colors

Spinning to still in his one whiteness.

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – The Other Side of a Mirror

I sat before my glass one day,

And conjured up a vision bare,

Unlike the aspects glad and gay,

That erst were found reflected there -

The vision of a woman, wild

With more than womanly despair.

Her hair stood back on either side

A face bereft of loveliness.

It had no envy now to hide

What once no man on earth could guess.

It formed the thorny aureole

Of hard, unsanctified distress.

Her lips were open - not a sound

Came though the parted lines of red,

Whate'er it was, the hideous wound

In silence and secret bled.

No sigh relieved her speechless woe,

She had no voice to speak her dread.

And in her lurid eyes there shone

The dying flame of life's desire,

Made mad because its hope was gone,

And kindled at the leaping fire

Of jealousy and fierce revenge,

And strength that could not change nor tire.

Shade of a shadow in the glass,

O set the crystal surface free!

Pass - as the fairer visions pass -

Nor ever more return, to be

The ghost of a distracted hour,

That heard me whisper: - 'I am she!'

Anne Brontë – Views Of Life

When sinks my heart in hopeless gloom,

And life can show no joy for me;

And I behold a yawning tomb,

Where bowers and palaces should be;

In vain you talk of morbid dreams;

In vain you gaily smiling say,

That what to me so dreary seems,

The healthy mind deems bright and gay.

I too have smiled, and thought like you,

But madly smiled, and falsely deemed:

TRUTH led me to the present view,--

I'm waking now--'twas THEN I dreamed.

I lately saw a sunset sky,

And stood enraptured to behold

Its varied hues of glorious dye:

First, fleecy clouds of shining gold;

These blushing took a rosy hue;

Beneath them shone a flood of green;

Nor less divine, the glorious blue

That smiled above them and between.

I cannot name each lovely shade;

I cannot say how bright they shone;

But one by one, I saw them fade;

And what remained when they were gone?

Dull clouds remained, of sombre hue,

And when their borrowed charm was o'er,

The azure sky had faded too,

That smiled so softly bright before.

So, gilded by the glow of youth,

Our varied life looks fair and gay;

And so remains the naked truth,

When that false light is past away.

Why blame ye, then, my keener sight,

That clearly sees a world of woes

Through all the haze of golden light

That flattering Falsehood round it throws?

When the young mother smiles above

The first-born darling of her heart,

Her bosom glows with earnest love,

While tears of silent transport start.

Fond dreamer! little does she know

The anxious toil, the suffering,

The blasted hopes, the burning woe,

The object of her joy will bring.

Her blinded eyes behold not now

What, soon or late, must be his doom;

The anguish that will cloud his brow,

The bed of death, the dreary tomb.

As little know the youthful pair,

In mutual love supremely blest,

What weariness, and cold despair,

Ere long, will seize the aching breast.

And even should Love and Faith remain,

(The greatest blessings life can show,)

Amid adversity and pain,

To shine throughout with cheering glow;

They do not see how cruel Death

Comes on, their loving hearts to part:

One feels not now the gasping breath,

The rending of the earth-bound heart,--

The soul's and body's agony,

Ere she may sink to her repose.

The sad survivor cannot see

The grave above his darling close;

Nor how, despairing and alone,

He then must wear his life away;

And linger, feebly toiling on,

And fainting, sink into decay.

Oh, Youth may listen patiently,

While sad Experience tells her tale,

But Doubt sits smiling in his eye,

For ardent Hope will still prevail!

He hears how feeble Pleasure dies,

By guilt destroyed, and pain and woe;

He turns to Hope--and she replies,

"Believe it not-it is not so!"

"Oh, heed her not!" Experience says;

"For thus she whispered once to me;

She told me, in my youthful days,

How glorious manhood's prime would be.

"When, in the time of early Spring,

Too chill the winds that o'er me pass'd,

She said, each coming day would bring

a fairer heaven, a gentler blast.

"And when the sun too seldom beamed,

The sky, o'ercast, too darkly frowned,

The soaking rain too constant streamed,

And mists too dreary gathered round;

"She told me, Summer's glorious ray

Would chase those vapours all away,

And scatter glories round;

With sweetest music fill the trees,

Load with rich scent the gentle breeze,

And strew with flowers the ground

"But when, beneath that scorching ray,

I languished, weary through the day,

While birds refused to sing,

Verdure decayed from field and tree,

And panting Nature mourned with me

The freshness of the Spring.

"'Wait but a little while,' she said,

'Till Summer's burning days are fled;

And Autumn shall restore,

With golden riches of her own,

And Summer's glories mellowed down,

The freshness you deplore.'

And long I waited, but in vain:

That freshness never came again,

Though Summer passed away,

Though Autumn's mists hung cold and chill.

And drooping nature languished still,

And sank into decay.

"Till wintry blasts foreboding blew

Through leafless trees--and then I knew

That Hope was all a dream.

But thus, fond youth, she cheated me;

And she will prove as false to thee,

Though sweet her words may seem.

Stern prophet! Cease thy bodings dire--

Thou canst not quench the ardent fire

That warms the breast of youth.

Oh, let it cheer him while it may,

And gently, gently die away--

Chilled by the damps of truth!

Tell him, that earth is not our rest;

Its joys are empty--frail at best;

And point beyond the sky.

But gleams of light may reach us here;

And hope the ROUGHEST path can cheer:

Then do not bid it fly!

Though hope may promise joys, that still

Unkindly time will ne'er fulfil;

Or, if they come at all,

We never find them unalloyed,--

Hurtful perchance, or soon destroyed,

They vanish or they pall;

Yet hope ITSELF a brightness throws

O'er all our labours and our woes;

While dark foreboding Care

A thousand ills will oft portend,

That Providence may ne'er intend

The trembling heart to bear.

Or if they come, it oft appears,

Our woes are lighter than our fears,

And far more bravely borne.

Then let us not enhance our doom

But e'en in midnight's blackest gloom

Expect the rising morn.

Because the road is rough and long,

Shall we despise the skylark's song,

That cheers the wanderer's way?

Or trample down, with reckless feet,

The smiling flowerets, bright and sweet,

Because they soon decay?

Pass pleasant scenes unnoticed by,

Because the next is bleak and drear;

Or not enjoy a smiling sky,

Because a tempest may be near?

No! while we journey on our way,

We'll smile on every lovely thing;

And ever, as they pass away,

To memory and hope we'll cling.

And though that awful river flows

Before us, when the journey's past,

Perchance of all the pilgrim's woes

Most dreadful--shrink not--'tis the last!

Though icy cold, and dark, and deep;

Beyond it smiles that blessed shore,

Where none shall suffer, none shall weep,

And bliss shall reign for evermore!