G.M. Hopkins' "Peace"

PEACE

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I’ll not play hypocrite
To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure Peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house
He Comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
He comes to brood and sit.

G.M. Hopkins' "Kingfishers"

Kingfishers

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Philip Larkin's "Solar"

Solar

Suspended lion face
Spilling at the centre
Of an unfurnished sky
How still you stand,
And how unaided
Single stalkless flower
You pour unrecompensed.

The eye sees you
Simplified by distance
Into an origin,
Your petalled head of flames
Continuously exploding.
Heat is the echo of your
Gold.

Coined there among
Lonely horizontals
You exist openly.
Our needs hourly
Climb and return like angels.
Unclosing like a hand,
You give for ever.

Wendell Berry's "The Dance"

The Dance

I would have each couple turn,

join and unjoin, be lost

in the greater turning

of other couples, woven

in the circle of the dance,

the song of long time flowing

over them, so they may return,

turn again in to themselves

out of desire greater than their own

belonging to all, to each,

to the dance, and to the song

that moves them through the night.

What is fidelity?  To what

does it hold?  The point

of departure, or the turning road

that is departure and absence

and the way home?  What we are

and what were once

are far estranged.  For those

who would not change, time

is infidelity.  But we are married

until death, and are betrothed

to change.  By silence, so,

I learn my song.  I earn

my sunny fields by absence, once

and to come.  And I love you

as I love the dance that brings you

out of the multitude

in which you come and go.

Love changes, and in change is true.

Mary Oliver's "The Poet Dreams of the Mountain"

The Poet Dreams of the Mountain

Sometimes I grow weary of the days with all their fits and starts.
I want to climb some old grey mountain, slowly, taking
the rest of my life to do it, resting often, sleeping
under the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks.
I want to see how many stars are still in the sky
that we have smothered for years now, forgiving it all,
and peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.
All that urgency!  Not what the earth is about!
How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only.
I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts.
In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall.

G.M. Hopkins' "Hope Holds to Christ the Mind’s Own Mirror Out"

HOPE holds to Christ the mind’s own mirror out
To take His lovely likeness more and more.
It will not well, so she would bring about
An ever brighter burnish than before
And turns to wash it from her welling eyes	5
And breathes the blots off all with sighs on sighs.
Her glass is blest but she as good as blind
Holds till hand aches and wonders what is there;
Her glass drinks light, she darkles down behind,
All of her glorious gainings unaware.	10
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   . I told you that she turned her mirror dim
Betweenwhiles, but she sees herself not Him.

Caroline Bird's "Trouble Came to the Turnip"

Trouble Came to the Turnip

When trouble came to the village,
I put my love in the cabbage-cart
and we rode, wrapped in cabbage,
to the capital.
When trouble came to the capital,
I put my love in the sewage pipe,
and we swam, wrapped in sewage,
to the sea.
When trouble came to the sea,
I put my love inside a fish
and we flitted, wrapped in fish,
to the island.
When trouble came to the island,
I put my love on a pirate ship
and we squirmed, wrapped in pirate,
to the nunnery.
When trouble came to the nunnery,
I put my love inside a prayer book
and we repented, wrapped in prayer,
to the prison.
When trouble came to the prison,
I put my love on a spoon
and we balanced, wrapped in mirror,
to the soup.
When trouble came to the soup,
I put my love inside a stranger
and we gritted, wrapped in a mouth
to the madhouse.
When trouble came to the madhouse,
I put my love on a feather
and we flapped, wrapped in a feather,
to the fair.
When trouble came to the fair,
I put my love inside a rat,
and we plagued, wrapped in rat,
to the village.
When trouble came to the village,
I put my love in the turnip-lorry
and we sneaked, wrapped in turnip,
a hurried kiss.