The Rose

Deep into the rose glistens the transient dew!
I gaze into its damask shade,
And, mid the whorl of petals, I view
A sunlit forest glade.

In depth of rose, how I peer deep,
Beholding a vision there,
Where pearl-plumed birds warble and cheep,
And settle in date-brown hair.

Beloved, this rose Elysium is,
Its incense, lorn, Love's fragrant sigh;
Fondly I bend its heart to kiss
Where glistening memories die.

The Sanctuary

A little green plot

Athwart the polyglot:

A leafy place

In a London square,

And the song of a thrush,

At evening there,

Is a joy the town equals not.

Around anxious haste

After pleasure and gain;

Manpower run to waste

In want, error and pain:

But serenely breathes Nature,

Perennially, free,

In this island sanctuary

Of flower, bird and tree

Sighs

" Be serious!" "I'll try!" I said,
And with right spartan sombre decked my face,
And felt deep sadness to my very core,
I racked my heart and mind about problems of the Race.

To be most grave and pensive is manlike, the world says,
And bluffs your fellows to thinking you're wrapped in mighty sense:
I stalked about, and well assumed a truly mournful gaze;
Refused to smile, and met each jest as a low and vain pretence.

But as I mingled with the crowd, I saw a fellow with a similar look,
As though his founts of life were sapped, and he a withered root.
Straight changed at once my broody heart,
capriciously it began to dance:
One glance at him, and lo, behold,
My sides with laughter shook.

O! The concern sat in his eye,
As though the role of endless space
Upon his single thought relied,
And all his steps had hell in trace.

I laughed until I almost burst;
My sides all ached, helpless I was:
That such a petty self had durst
Look black at Cosmos infinite.

Other soaps are available . . .

Visits to Grandad’s house in Arnside had their very unique aromas. . . There were several really, but the main ones were the smell of a particular brand of soap in the bathroom; ‘Imperial Leather’, other soaps are available. This smell permeated the bathroom. When we were children I can remember wondering; when we arrived to do our routine run around, to establish if all was the same as when we last left it; if the bar of pre-mentioned soap would be new, or the paper red, gold & black label would be about ready to fall off in amidst the soapy lather. Soapy lather was right; the Cumbrian soft water meant you didn’t really have to work the soap like at home in the hard water area of the West Midlands! Talking of water, it was quite a trick not to scald yourself with the exceptionally hot water. You could also ‘smell’ the heat in that bathroom; this coupled with the viciously hot towel rail made for a possibly perilous time as children, amidst the frequent “don’t touch that” and “run the cold water first”. If I so much as gain a whiff of that soap now, I’ll be back to Arnside in that bathroom . .

Wheels

Living so near to Blists Hill, I love the industrial revolution reference in this poem:
Blists Hill Victorian Town 

A molten-mouthed dragon, when I was a lad,
Out of its flaming belly spat me this ingot,
'Mid the whirr of conveyor-belts, the clang of steam hammers,
The screech of drills, the scrawtch of the millers:
"While yet there is time, learn, boy, from the steel,
Wherever or what, thrums wheel within wheel."

The leviathans, labouring through fluming seas,
To the throb of the engines, the menace me told;
Their shuddering flanks screamed the dictum to me,
As, tempestuously driven, they staggered and rolled:
"Would you know the secret of our forging keels?
Behold, child, and marvel, at our wheels within wheels."


Thund'ring and thrusting through smoke-sated fog,
An impetuous train the augury shrieked;
Plunging and snorting, like a frenzied god,
Ravenous for distance, it clamoured and belched:
"If warning you'd have in your utmost speed,
Remember, when and wherever, that, wheels within wheels,
Are tightly keyed!"


In the depth of the night, when the elements warred,
O'er the roar of ravine and the crash of the shard,
Of the down-tumbling sky in a vortex reel,
Valkyries, riding, the law hallooed to me:
"Know now, and forever, turns wheel within wheel!"


As I sat alone, in reverie rapt,
A spider came ticking an ominous lay:
When weary of seeking him, I resignedly sat,
 To endure him in patience, he tic-tic-a-tacked:
"If ought there to be, human you hold fondly dear,
Hark! Wheels within wheels. Be guarded, and hear!"