Minstrel's Tales

Stories From a Guitar Case

Poem for the Day - Out of Danger by James Fenton

Posted: 10 2018

Poem for the Day

Heart be kind and sign the release
As the trees their loss approve.
Learn as leaves must learn to fall...
Out of danger, out of love.

What belongs to frost and thaw
Sullen winter will not harm.
What belongs to wind and rain
Is out of danger from the storm.

Jealous passion, cruel need
Betray the heart they feed upon.
But what belongs to earth and death
Is out of danger from the sun.

I was cruel, I was wrong -
Hard to say and hard to know.
You do not belong to me.
You are out of danger now -

Out of danger from the wind,
Out of danger from the wave,
Out of danger from the heart
Falling, falling out of love.

Out of Danger
James Fenton

Poem for the Day - Love by Robert Browning

Posted: 09 2018

Poem for the Day

So, the year's done with
(Love me for ever!)
All March begun with,...
April's endeavour;
May-wreaths that bound me
June needs must sever;
Now snows fall round me,
Quenching June's fever -
(Love me for ever!)

Love
Robert Browning

Haiku for a Sunday Morning #16

Posted: 08 2018

Haiku for a Sunday Morning #16

Whoever you are,
Sometimes risk being foolish
Just to be alive.

Wherever you go,
Always know your heart’s desire,
Always dare to dream.

Whatever you do,
Prepare to sit with your pain,
And sometimes share mine.

Whatever you say,
Never be burdened with lies,
Let the truth prevail.

Bill Adair

Poem for the Day - from Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How Do I Love Thee by Elizabeth Barratt Browning

Posted: 08 2018

Poem for the Day
In my opinion the most beautiful, perfect love poem ever written.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

from Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How Do I Love Thee
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Poem for the Day - A Marriage by R. S. Thomas

Posted: 04 2018

Poem for the Day
A poem that will always be in my top three of favourite poems. Welsh poet and clergyman R S Thomas wrote this beautifully poignant poem after the death of his wife. To refer to a fifty year marriage as 'love's moment' is the most tender tribute to the quality of their relationship. It will break your heart. 

We met
under a shower
of bird-notes.
Fifty years passed,
love's moment
in a world in
servitude to time.
She was young;
I kissed with my eyes
closed and opened
them on her wrinkles.
`Come,' said death,
choosing her as his
partner for
the last dance, And she,
who in life
had done everything
with a bird's grace,
opened her bill now
for the shedding
of one sigh no
heavier than a feather. 

A Marriage 
R S Thomas

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