Walter de La Mare
Walter de La Mare
blow brain firsts
God has mercifully ordered that the human brain works slowly; first the blow, hours afterwards the bruise.
eye water gleam
A harvest mouse goes scampering by, With silver claws and silver eye; And moveless fish in the water gleam, By silver reeds in a silver stream.
lonely kings stars
His brow is seamed with line and scar; His cheek is red and dark as wine; The fires as of a Northern star Beneath his cap of sable shine. His right hand, bared of leathern glove, Hangs open like an iron gin, You stoop to see his pulses move, To hear the blood sweep out and in. He looks some king, so solitary In earnest thought he seems to stand, As if across a lonely sea He gazed impatient of the land. Out of the noisy centuries The foolish and the fearful fade; Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes, Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed.
hands lovely lovely-things
What lovely things Thy hand hath made.
yesterday poor stuck
Do diddle di do, Poor Jim Jay Got stuck fast In Yesterday.
country west remember
But beauty vanishes; beauty passes; However rare rare it be; And when I crumble, who will remember This lady of the West Country?
light swans sorrow
For beauty with sorrow Is a burden hard to be borne: The evening light on the foam, and the swans, there; That music, remote, forlorn.
fashion clever perfect
Now that cleverness was the fashion most people were clever - even perfect fools; and cleverness after all was often only a bore: all head and no body
flower men rose
Oh, no man knows Through what wild centuries Roves back the rose.
summer lying cat
The sandy cat by the Farmer's chair Mews at his knee for dainty fare; Old Rover in his moss-greened house Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse. In the dewy fields the cattle lie Chewing the cud 'neath a fading sky; Dobbin at manger pulls his hay: Gone is another summer's day.
sky snow soldier
What is the world, O soldiers? It is I, I, this incessant snow, This northern sky.
four moles blind
All but blind In his chambered hole Gropes for worms The four-clawed Mole.
horse coats red
Three jolly huntsmen, In coats of red, Rode their horses Up to bed.
lovely looks slumber
Look thy last on all things lovely, Every hour