from Frost at Midnight

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the interspersed vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought!
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Winter

When all the snowy hill
And bare the woods are still;
When snipes are silent in the frozen bogs,
And all the garden garth is whelmed in mire,
Lo, by the hearth, the laughter of the logs -
More fair than roses, lo, the flowers of the fire!
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

The Jumblies

They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,
In a Sieve they went to sea!
And when the Sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried,
'You'll all be drowned!'
They called aloud, 'Our Sieve ain't big,
But we don't care a button! we don't care a fig!
In a Sieve we'll go to sea!'
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve....

They sailed to the Western Sea, they did,
To a land all covered with trees,
And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart,
And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,
And a hive of silvery Bees.
And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws,
And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,
And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,
And no end of Stilton Cheese.
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.

And in twenty years they all came back,
In twenty years or more,
And every one said, 'How tall they've grown!
For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,
And the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
And they drank their health, and gave them a feast
Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast;
And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Low-Anchored Cloud

Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain-head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,
Bear only perfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men's fields!

Henry Thoreau (1817-1862)

The Year's Awakening

How do you know that the pilgrim track
Along the belting zodiac
Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds
Is traced by now to the Fishes' bounds
And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud
Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud,
And never as yet a tinct of spring
Has shown in the Earth's apparelling;
O vespering bird, how do you know,
How do you know?

How do you know, deep underground,
Hid in your bed from sight and sound,
Without a turn in temperature,
With weather life can scarce endure,
That light has won a fraction's strength,
And day put on some moments' length,
Whereof in merest rote will come,
Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb;
O crocus root, how do you know,
How do you know?

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

Going Out

It was a day to transform roads
into rivers. Back home
I took off my plastic mac
and found an inch of rain
trapped in the pocket.
Dabbling my fingers
I hoped that one day
I might bring home an inch of sun.

Peggy Poole (1925-
born on a farm in east Kent in 1925, has enjoyed a long and varied life in poetry. She wrote her first poem when she was six, which was eventually broadcast by the BBC in 1959. This led to thirty years broadcasting on BBC Radio Merseyside, presenting and producing poetry programmes. She is author of three children fiction books; a novella; and, ten poetry collections. She is a former contributor to Writers' News. As a tutor and adjudicator, she ran a Poetry Course at Swanwick, and edited Poetry England Cumbria, Perceptions, Marigolds grow Wild on Platforms, BBC First Heard. She has co-organised Jabberwocky, a monthly Wirral poetry event for 16 years, and is still involved with two monthly Wirral poetry groups.
She lives by herself in a ground floor flat on the shores of the Dee estuary looking across to north Wales. Her companion is with small black dog Pippa. Three daughters and five grandchildren are scattered far and wide. Two more non fiction books are due out in about six months, to be published by Wilton 65 of Windsor. She is a Friend of PitWR.
Going Out (© Midnight Walk and Other Poems Envoi Poets Publication 1986) was an ordinary, but essential, trip to the local shops. And trapped rain in the pocket triggered the thought of never being able to trap sunshine. All very mundane in prose, but in such a short poem it seemed right!" It is often the dull daily details that stimulate delightful poetry rather than a grand emotion.

Seas of the Moon

Seas of the moon
stretch miles across.
Between unweathered peaks
their surfaces
lie flat. No-one can drown
in their soft drifts of ash.
How kind they are
these waterless, white seas,
what dreams they name:
Sea of Clouds; Sea of Nectar; Sea of Peace.

A C Clarke (1942-
born in Scotland. She is a Glasgow-based poet who is an active member of Scottish PEN, has published The Gallery on the Left (Akros 2003), Breathing Each Other In (Blinking Eye Publishers 2005) and Messages of Change (Oversteps Books 2008). Her pamphlet, A Natural Curiosity, inspired by the Anatomy Museum in Glasgow, is due out in the autumn from New Voices Press, and her third full collection, Fr Meslier's Confession, is due out from Oversteps Books early in 2012.
Seas of the Moon was sparked by a photograph of the moon showing the 'seas' clearly and by the wonderfully poetic names given to them by the early astronomers, who did not realise that the moon is waterless.

Winter Walk

We walk together in the soft, new snow
each tree along the towpath like a bride
with sleeves of lace and gifts of mistletoe.

The icy Thames flows past us at low tide
while overhead a flock of geese fly in
towards an island on the other side.

White willows spread their branches, bare and thin
revealing heron nests against the light
as safe as any palace for a king.

No summer day has ever seemed so bright
as this quiet morning, walking here with you.
The simple snowdrop and the blackbird's flight

along this path, bring us the world anew
beside the river on our way to Kew.

Frances White(1950-
grew up near London and graduated from Leicester University with English BA Hons. Frances lives with her husband in south west London and they have three grown up sons. She became an English teacher, and later qualified as a Teacher of the Deaf. She advocates the teaching of creative writing to pupils of all ages and abilities. She began writing poetry in 1992, at Richmond Adult Community College. Her tutor, the late Aeronwy Thomas, invited Frances to join the Words poetry group. They co-authored Away With Words, An Anthology of Poetry, by Aeronwy Thomas, Annie Taylor, Beryl Myers, Frances White (Poetry Monthly Press, 2007). The four Words poets performed selections of their poems at Richmond Theatre as part of the 'Libraries Aloud!' festival 2008; and they were guest poets at Rhythm and Muse.
Frances is active in several poetry groups and takes part in workshops and readings at the Troubadour, the Poetry School, and the Poetry Cafe, in London. Her poems and art work appear in magazines, anthologies and online. She is working towards her first collection. Three of her poems have won first prizes in local competitions; and she received a Highly Commended nomination in the Torbay Open Poetry Competition, 2010. She is now a Friend of PitWR
Winter Walk describes a riverside walk from Richmond Bridge to Kew Gardens after a heavy fall of snow.