Monday Poetry : Reluctance, By Robert Frost
Kilkenny Landscapes
Nigel Borrington
Reluctance
By Robert Frost
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
Old Houses By Robert Cording
Old Houses
By Robert Cording
Year after year after year
I have come to love slowly
how old houses hold themselves—
before November’s drizzled rain
or the refreshing light of June—
as if they have all come to agree
that, in time, the days are no longer
a matter of suffering or rejoicing.
.
I have come to love
how they take on the color of rain or sun
as they go on keeping their vigil
without need of a sign, awaiting nothing
more than the birds that sing from the eaves,
the seizing cold that sounds the rafters.
Out of the woods , by Gordon Edwards
Out of the Woods
Gordon Edwards
Out of the woods
the trail turns,
the field rises
verdant,
dormant grass
now impetuous,
wet with morning drizzle;
the path narrows,
a bevy of birds
an urgent chorus,
moisture seeps
thru the eyelets
of my shoes
My socks are damp,
the bottom of my jeans
capillaries,
the bark on my
walking stick
peeling away,
a dry stream bed now
gargles;
all is naked,
insistent;
I float
thru morning,
become a lifting fog
The Early Morning Sun
The Early Morning Sun
Colin Kohlsmith
Feb 14, 2010
It’s just so damn beautiful
And indescribable
The feeling that I get
In the early morning sun
Hanging like a golden torch
Shining with such blinding light
The glare reflecting off the lake
On the day that’s just begun
Amid the fluttering leaves the breeze
Feels like life is reaching me
Speaking in a gentle voice
Bringing tears to my eyes
Kissing me upon my face
Soft in love, as if to say
I love you my beloved one
This is your own sunrise
Friday Poetry , When You Are Old By William Butler Yeats
Irish Landscape Photography
Nigel Borrington
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
The Mountain Road – Poem by Enid Derham
Irish Landscapes
West cork Mountains
Nigel Borrington
The Mountain Road
Poem by Enid Derham
Coming down the mountain road
Light of heart and all alone,
I caught from every rill that flowed
A rapture of its own.
Heart and mind sang on together,
Rhymes began to meet and run
In the windy mountain weather
And the winter sun.
Clad in freshest light and sweet
Far and far the city lay
With her suburbs at her feet
Round the laughing bay.
Like an eagle lifted high
Half the radiant world I scanned,
Till the deep unclouded sky
Circled sea and land.
No more was thought a weary load,
Older comforts stirred within,
Coming down the mountain road
The earth and I were kin.
Ulysses By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
The Light Bringer , a Poem by : Jude Kyrie
Irish Landscape
Nigel Borrington
The darkness of forever
a mantle that shrouds the earth
timeless stars cascade the bejeweled heavens
The silent stillness of all time
pervades the night sky
The light bringer in his infinite vigil
stands alone a silent sentry
lighting his planets one by one
Two lovers sleep in the blessed stillness
in cushions of clouds below the moon,
His starlight falls upon them
like a sweet gentle rain
Bestowing upon them
the gifts of his purest light
from the farthest
reaches of his universe.
On the earth below
lovers woo and maidens dream
as they have always been
bathing in its magical mist
The light bringer watches them
he sees the lovers share a kiss
believing they would capture each fleeting moment
preserve it forever in their memories
But their time was as a grain of sand
the deserts of time belong to him
Poems of Remembrance (W. B. Yeats and Robert Laurence Binyon)
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
W. B. Yeats, 1865 – 1939
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
The GreatWar 1914-1918
For the Fallen
Robert Laurence Binyon, by artist William Strang. Laurence Binyon
Poem by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), published in The Times newspaper on 21st September 1914.
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
The Haunted House, by : Dwayne Leon Rankin
Ghost house
Irish landscapes
Nigel Borirngton
This last few days here in Ireland have been very wet and winter feels like it has arrived a little early, most of the Autumn leaves have been blown away from the high overnight winds and the cold nights, We have been left with a very wintry landscape.
Walking around Ireland at this time of year brings many great views and for some reason during these months I always feel drawn towards the old houses that still fill our local landscape. These old places are so full of memories and the atmosphere of long passed people and their lives.
Of course this is the also the perfect time of year for some evening ghost story’s, told around a fire while the rain hits the windows and the wind echoes all around your house !!!!
The Haunted House
Dwayne Leon Rankin, USA
Upon the hill, the house there stood,
Dark and left forlorn.
With vines that covered there the walls,
All seen full of thorn.
Surrounded by a gated fence,
No other entrance shown.
Dead leaves covered all the ground,
With weeds there overgrown.
Paint all pealed and windows cracked,
With shutters cov’ring all,
No noise from it was ever heard,
Not even birds sweet call.
Three full stories ‘gainst the sky,
Cheerless there and cold.
No one lived there was the word,
In stories that were told.
Tall old trees kept all in shadows,
Tangled bushes bare.
All dead and ugly there to see,
They say it once was fair.
Once it was a wondrous place,
Full of love and light,
Until one ev’ning came that call,
To give those round a fright.
A family lived there many years,
A husband and his wife.
With two small children of their own,
Living there a happy life.
But then one dark and dreary eve,
A scream rang out from there.
Terrible was that hideous sound,
Full of deep despair.
No one knew from whence it came,
That frightful mad’ning sound.
When they checked up in that house,
Not a soul was found.
No sign of that family seen,
Who lived there in that house.
Not a living thing was found,
Not even there a mouse,
All quiet there the house now stands,
No lights nor sound there heard.
Only there the rustling winds,
Nothing there occurred.
But for once a year there brought,
The same self night each year.
A lone sad waling sound would ring,
Out there loud and clear.
They used to check it out each time,
But nothing there was found.
The doors still locked with windows shut,
With nothing there around.
That house remains there all alone,
Haunted there they say.
Just sitting in all disrepair,
Empty to this day.
Monday Poetry : Light Between The Trees, By – Henry Van Dyke
Irish Landscapes
Nigel Borrington
Light Between The Trees
Author: Henry Van Dyke
Long, long, long the trail
Through the brooding forest-gloom,
Down the shadowy, lonely vale
Into silence, like a room
Where the light of life has fled,
And the jealous curtains close
Round the passionless repose
Of the silent dead.
Plod, plod, plod away,
Step by step in mouldering moss;
Thick branches bar the day
Over languid streams that cross
Softly, slowly, with a sound
Like a smothered weeping,
In their aimless creeping
Through enchanted ground.
“Yield, yield, yield thy quest,”
Whispers through the woodland deep;
“Come to me and be at rest;
I am slumber, I am sleep.”
Then the weary feet would fail,
But the never-daunted will
Urges “Forward, forward still!
Press along the trail!”
Breast, breast, breast the slope
See, the path is growing steep.
Hark! a little song of hope
Where the stream begins to leap.
Though the forest, far and wide,
Still shuts out the bending blue,
We shall finally win through,
Cross the long divide.
On, on, on we tramp!
Will the journey never end?
Over yonder lies the camp;
Welcome waits us there, my friend.
Can we reach it ere the night?
Upward, upward, never fear!
Look, the summit must be near;
See the line of light!
Red, red, red the shine
Of the splendour in the west,
Nigel Borrington 
Happy Thanks giving to everyone …….
Have a great Thanks giving!!
Personally I am most grateful this year for all the changes I have had time to notice in the landscape that surrounds our home here in Ireland 🙂 🙂
– Carol L. Riser, Autumn
“When the trees their summer splendour
Change to raiment red and gold,
When the summer moon turns mellow,
And the nights are getting cold;
When the squirrels hide their acorns,
And the woodchucks disappear;
Then we know that it is autumn,
Loveliest season of the year.”
Irish Landscape Gallery
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November 26, 2015 | Categories: Comment, Landscape, Poetry Gallery | Tags: Autumn, Carol L. Riser, Irish landscape photography, Nigel Borrington, Thanksgiving | 4 Comments