― حافظ, The Gift /Our Sun.

“The Earth would die if the sun stopped kissing her.”

Hafiz, or Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi, a 14th-century Persian mystic and poet.

The eye it cannot choose but see

We cannot bid the ear be still

The redbreast sings from the tall larch

All servants of thy will.

The weed that creeps along the humblest ground

nurtured by twisted roots beneath the clay,

mourns when one kindly growth retires

yet you grant another light of day.

You rule the pomp of light and shade

with all that issues from your glorious fount,

You regulate the motion of our dreams

would that we might sometimes take account.

Ocean and earth compete for your regard,

Your timid day, mingling with the night

stakes claim to favourite child

yet each must in its turn melt from your sight.

Calm as water when the wind is gone your gaze,

no need have you of conscience or to pray,

But gently guide age to his alloted nook

while nurturing fresh blossoms, March or May.

Against or with our wanton will or wish

Our bodies can but feel what they can see

as far south as the south goes or north

and east and west or up or down with thee.

It is a heart, a hard heart that keeps till June

the iron shards of December's ice,

Much it grieves to see what man has made of man,

Robs his brother of a grain of rice.

You season my fireside with heat and friendly chat

of wilderness and wood, blank ocean and mere sky,

If you might doze for forty days of Lent

Forever we would vanish from your quiet eye.

(for Turquoise, friend of Blue)

Your Time is Over.

Lie quiet in your churchyard bed,

For you the stream of fiction ceased to flow

How often joy and sorrow can be wed,

Action is transitory, quick march or slow.

For you the voice of melody was mute

Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,

Yet through the darkness gracious openings shoot

to space of open day in Heavens park.

Where light and shade repose and music dwells,

A musical but melancholy chime

the last voice which you heard, the peal of bells,

Silent are the ticking hands of time.

Like glow worms of a summers night

Love's radiance is shadows' loss,

No sound, or ghost of sound, for him or flight

Whose guardian carries but the silent cross.

Behold how fast the churchyard fills,

Yet the only voice which you can hear

is common between banks, by turning mills,

One way ferryman, river murmuring near.

(from 'the White Doe of Rylstone)

The Artist and the Art.

Now that the snows must melt and herbs revive
and rainbow shows aloft its hidden gold,

palette, brush and paint must come alive
in new magnificence vying with the old.

Seeking the bold achievement where he will

with truths holy lamp, source of bright and deep,
spreading dark and light with brush and quill
colours in silence with unfettered sweep.

Spared by fire and blood and turning sands

from death, the memory of the brave and wise,
nor injured more by touch of meddling hands
yet glorious art the power of time defies.

And all forbidden seeds must shed their pods

or enslave whole nations on their native soil
weakness of the great, folly of the gods
must be avoided; purest pigment, holy oil.

A spot of golden sunshine fixed in space

or softly stealing into modest shade,
The drooping mind of absence can erase
names once heard and prayers no longer prayed.

And gallery's sumptuous doors spread wide at morn,

with heart and mind the charmed spectator spies
under soft cerulean sky an ear of corn,
by night bare floors see portraits of the skies.

( from a memorials of a tour in Italy ) 

Ramble at Evening.(from the Cuckoo at Laverna)

Although invisible as Echo's self

often I've heard the nightingale and thrush,

Far off and faint and melting into air,

Cooling throats, sweet dew from hawthorn bush.

From vale to hill, flower after flower has blown

blending within a common English grove,

Embellishing the ground that gave them birth,

savouring earth born joys, sampling her treasure trove.

By unsought means for gracious purposes,

where spring her richest blossoms did display,

and every shape of nature is sustained

strange and familiar, might beguile the day.

Divine affections as with beast and bird

so pure, so fraught with knowledge and delight,

Till dusk descending upon hill and vale

summons the moon, pale candle of the night.

Fear and Faith

A potent wand does sorrow wield,

repentance is a tender sprite,

But if by chance your faith should fail

regard the crescent moon so bright.

Whose voice can stop the nimble clouds

or eye can see the wind?

Which ear can hear the silent song,

whose touch has never sinned?

Whether among the winds we strive

that cuts along the hawthorn fence

in savage wildness, winter's ice,

We must rely on future tense.

The crab, the scorpion and the bull

along with scattered stars,

hidden behind mercury

the red haired face of mars.

Temptation lurks among all words

while white dust sleeps along the lane,

Darklings among the boughs and leaves

account for the crimson stain.

Paths of wickedness and woe,

the noise of danger in your ears,

Some ugly witchcraft might be about,

Perhaps the music of the spheres.

Yet man's heart is a holy place

among the lovely shades of things

Not given to sadness or to gloom,

regal as palaces and kings.

And nature still will find a way

to bring us back to God

by ferry of a flying horse,

no ghost more softly ever trod.

(from Wordsworth's Peter Bell)

My Place.

( from Wordsworth's 'poems on the naming of places')

Close to the spot where with my rod and line

angling beside the margin of the lake,

Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance

a bed of water in the woods did wake.

The spot was made by nature for herself,

this glade of water and this one green field,

And if a man should plant his cottage near

a cloistered place, of refuge, shade and shield.

In that perennial shade of unencumbered floor

a single beech tree grew and on the fork

a thrush's nest conspicuously built,

Sentry on a tranquil spot, a solitary stork.

From the remotest outskirts of the grove

a few sheep, stragglers from some mountain flock

sought protection from the nipping blast

in playgrounds of their youth, on footloose rock.

Full many an hour here did I lose,

Well worn the track, unwearied and alone,

Muttering the verses which I muttered first

on blooming heath, my couch and mine alone.

Shifting Seasons. (Wordsworth)

The voice of waters which winter had supplied

from all living things went circling,

From budding groves to steps of June,

From greening; herald of purpling.

The stream sent sallies of glad sound

that vied with song of linnet and thrush ,

Heard in the bosom of the birch,

Echoed in every bush.

The yew, the holly and the bright green thorn

send forth the hue of common pleasure,

Even the shepherd's dog made song,

Unlikely herald of summer leisure.

In the confusion of my heart ,

Alive to all and forgetting all,

Beast and bird, lamb and foal,

Splashing in nature's waterfall.

Still, spring impregnates summer

and summer delivers in Fall,

Winter buries all forbidden fruit,

Season, once more, lays out her stall.

{from 'To Joanna}