From A Railway Carriage

I love trains and I make the long train journey to and from Yorkshire and Cornwall often. I'm making it today. I also love Robert Louis Stevenson, here's his really good train poem.

From A Railway Carriage

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows, the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away on the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

Robert Louis Stevenson

and whilst we're on the subject-

On the train 2

Mostly the gardens seen from trains, attract our scorn.
We note the mossy patches of an unmown lawn,
a shed just sited so to block the sun,
an untrimmed hedge, an empty rabbit run

Abandoned toys and plastic chairs lie on the grass,
the barbecue has rusted and decayed.
Old plant pots are migrating down the path -
garden jetsam blown too near the rails

Next door has netted ponds and concrete curbs
with daffodils like soldiers on parade,
no weeds or insects daring to disturb
where nature has been neatly put away.

These horticultural horrors make us feel
that when we bring our own garden to mind
we're glad we see, as we go by at speed
the dirty washing on another person's line.

LW2010

What is Pink?

What is Pink?

Pink is the colour of glistening lips,
Pink is the colour of cold finger tips.
Pink is the colour of candy floss you eat,
Pink is the colour of shimmering heat.
Pink is the colour of my rabbit’s ears,
Pink is the colour of fairies’ tears.
Pink is the colour of diamonds bright,
Pink is the colour of a starry night.
Pink is the colour of a bright pink rose,
Pink is the colour of a sea of flamingos.
Pink is the colour of bubble-gum,
Pink is the colour of my sore thumb.
Pink is the colour of a snorting pig,
Pink is the colour inside juicy figs.
Pink is the colour of a teddy bear,
Pink is the colour of a poodle’s fair hair.
Millie Hodgson (aged 9)

'Another Blue Day'

One of my favourite books when I was young was Phyllis Garrard's 'Hilda New Zealand Schoolgirl' I bought the 1960s reprint with my own pocket money, it cost 5/- and it was really thick! The Hilda stories were written in the 1930s and I loved them and read them over and over again. When my parents moved house whilst I was at university, my Mother - not the most sensitive of people - thought she might as well get rid of my childhood books. So Hilda went. I spent years in second hand book shops looking for the familiar pale turquoise binding. Then about ten years ago I found her again. A kind bookshop in Sidney Australia sent her to me.

Re-reading the stories was truly weird. It is true that your brain contains every thing you have ever experienced, I found thankfully that I still loved Hilda, but more than that. I found she had entered my consiousness and never left. Some of the things I say and think are a direct 'lift' from her.

There is one chapter called 'Another Blue Day' - a quote from a Thomas Carlyle poem which became a popular hymn. We often sang it at school, I loved the words and I loved the music. I can give you the words at least.

Today

So here hath been dawning
Another blue day:
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?

Out of Eternity
This new day is born:
In to Eternity
At night will return.

Behold it aforetime
No eye ever did:
So soon it forever
From all eyes is hid.

Here hath been dawning
Another blue day:
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away

Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881

It's very 'Scottish work ethic' just like Carlyle himself. But I never open the curtains on a beautiful morning like today without thinking of it.

Hare

From the stationary train, stopping for a moment
at points, I see a large hare
loping slowly over the iron rails of a frozen field.

Dropping on its haunches, it too pauses,
cleft lip and nose quivering delicately
picking up the faintest trace of musk.

Glancing this way and that, ears pivoting
it crosses the waves and furrows of glinting earth
until a second hare appears, smaller and paler than the first.

Is this an annual tryst I wonder
an old buck and his middle aged mate
this field, this date, this late February?

Together they head off
Leggy and ungainly
towards the cover of the hedge.

Spring quickens. Blood stirs.
Above the frost, the sky a perfect blue.
Below, the ground creaks with longing.

copyright Liz Woods 2010

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Robert Herrick 1591-1674

Narcissus 'Cheerfulness' (2) 13 April 2010

Narcissus 'Cheerfulness' (1) 13 April 2010

Fritillaria meleagris 13 April 2010

Erithronium grandiflorum 13 April 2010

Ther was also a Nonne, a Prioresse, That of her smyling was ful simple and coy; Hir grettest ooth was ne but by sëynt Loy; And she was cleped madame Eglentyne.

Ful wel she song the service divyne. Entuned in hir nose ful semely; And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly, After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe, For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe.

At mete wel y-taught was she with-alle; She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle, Ne wette hir fingres in hir sauce depe. Wel coude she carie a morsel and wel kepe, That no drope ne fille up-on hir brest.

In curteisye was set ful muche hir lest. Hir over tippe wyped she so clene, That in hir coppe was no ferthing sene Of grece, whan she dronken hadde hir draughte. Ful semely after hir mete she raughte, And sikerly she was of greet disport, And ful pleasaunt and amiable of port,

And peyned hir to countrefete chere Of court, and been estatlich of manere, And to bexholden digne of reverence. But, for to speken of hir conscience, She was so charitable and so pitous, She wolde wepe, if that she sawe a mous Caught in a trap, if it were deed or bledde.

Of smale houndes had she, that she fedde With rosted flesh, or milk and wastel-breed. But sore weep she if oon of hem were deed, Or if men smoot it with a yerde smerte: And al was conscience and tendre herte

Ful semely hir wimpel pinched was; Hir nose tretys; her eyen greye as glas; Hir mouth ful smal, and ther-to softe and reed; But sikerly she hadde a fair foreheed; It was almost a spanne brood, I trowe; For, hardily, she was nat undergrowe. Ful fetis was hir cloke, as I was war.

Of smal coral aboute hir arm she bar A peire of bedes, gauded al with grene; And ther-on heng a broche of gold ful shene, On which ther was first write a crowned A, And after,

Amor vincit omnia

Victorian ladies often kept 'commonplace' books where they kept cuttings, poems, thoughts and images. This is mine.