Dec. 24

A roundup of my beloved poems – a few of those countless excerpts that inhabit the library of my mind. There are many others I would add, but they, for now, must remain under cover.

Wake! For the Sun, who scatter’d into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav’n, and strikes
The Sultan’s Turret with a Shaft of Light.

Soon though there will be the Fog
Coming in on little cat feet.
Then sitting on silent haunches,
looking over harbor and city,
Before moving on.

Then let me wander
Lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
To suddenly see a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

All around me is the world,
That amazing world
With its winds, its wide grey skies!
Its mists, that roll and rise!…
Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me – let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

Then there is a sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake
As my horse stops
Between the woods and frozen lake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

And if you listen hard
You can hear Winnie-the-Pooh
Singing as he wanders through the enchanted woods
Sing Ho! For a Bear!
Sing Ho! For a Bear!
In the forest of Real life!

The mouse,
Wee, sleekit, cowerin’, timorous beastie!
Had thought itself safe,
Protected by the clods of earth
As unaware as the louse
Who seeks her dinner
On the gauze and lace
Of a lady’s bonnet.

The Raven pays no heed
Perched on a bust
Above the chamber door.
The only word it utters is
Nevermore.

For it is that time of year
When yellow leaves, or none,
Hang upon the boughs
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang
And I must remember to love that well
Which I must leave ere long.

Yes, it was a brillig day
When the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
And while I loved not the jabberwocky
He peers out relentless
From my mind.

Of names, the Jabberwocky had only one,
But a cat, T.S. Eliot will tell you, must have three
Different names, the ordinary family name,
His own peculiar dignified name,
And then the name only he knows,
His ineffable effable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

There are cats whose name I may not know
As with or without a smile,
He watches
As the Highwayman
Comes
Riding – riding – riding
Up to the old inn-door.
The wind is a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
And the road a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor.
As the Highway comes riding — riding,
Up to the old inn-door.

One thing though is certain, to which the Highwayman bears witness.
– Life flies
And the rest is Lies; for
The Flower that once has blown forever dies.

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it.