And I must seek for mine.

The moon, like a flower,

In heaven’s high bower,

With silent delight

Sits and smiles on the night.

William Blake

One Bright September Morning

One Bright September Morning

One bright September morning in the middle of July,

The sun lay thick upon the ground, the snow shone in the sky.

The flowers were singing gaily, the birds were full of bloom;

I went upstairs to the cellar to clean a downstairs room.

I saw ten thousand miles away a house just out of sight,

It stood alone between two more and it was black-washed white.

Anon.

Pleasant Sounds

Pleasant Sounds

The rustling of leaves under the feet in woods and under hedges;

The crumping of cat-ice and snow down wood-rides, narrow lanes, and every street causeway;

Rustling through a wood or rather rushing, while the wind halloos in the oak-top like thunder;

The rustle of birds’ wings startled from their nests or flying unseen into the bushes;

The whizzing of larger birds overhead in a wood, such as crows, puddocks, buzzards;

The trample of robins and woodlarks on the brown leaves, and the patter of squirrels on the green moss;

The fall of an acorn on the ground, the pattering of nuts on the hazel branches as they fall from ripeness;

The flirt of the groundlark’s wing from the stubbles – how sweet such pictures on dewy mornings, when the dew flashes from its brown feathers!

John Clare

Where Go the Boats?

Where Go the Boats?

Dark brown is the river,

Golden is the sand.

It flows along for ever,

With trees on either hand.

Green leaves a-floating,

Castles of the foam,

Boats of mine a-boating –

Where will all come home?

On goes the river

And out past the mill,

Away down the valley,

Away down the hill.

Away down the river,

A hundred miles or more,

Other little children

Shall bring my boats ashore.

Robert Louis Stevenson

The Cataract of Lodore

from The Cataract of Lodore

From its sources which well

In the Tarn on the fell;

From its fountains

In the mountains,

Its rills and its gills;

Through moss and through brake,

It runs and it creeps

For a while, till it sleeps

In its own little lake.

And thence at departing,

Awakening and starting,

It runs through the reeds

And away it proceeds,

Through meadow and glade,

In sun and in shade,

And through the wood-shelter,

Among crags in its flurry,

Helter-skelter,

Hurry-scurry.

Here it comes sparkling,

And there it lies darkling;

Now smoking and frothing

Its tumult and wrath in,

Till in this rapid race

On which it is bent,

It reaches the place

Of its steep descent.

The Cataract strong

Then plunges along,

Striking and raging

As if a war waging

Its caverns and rocks among:

Rising and leaping,

Sinking and creeping,

Swelling and sweeping,

Showering and springing,

Flying and flinging,

Writhing and ringing,

Eddying and whisking,

Spouting and frisking,

Turning and twisting,

Around and around