Walter de La Mare
Walter de La Mare
eye water gleam
A harvest mouse goes scampering by, With silver claws and silver eye; And moveless fish in the water gleam, By silver reeds in a silver stream.
four moles blind
All but blind In his chambered hole Gropes for worms The four-clawed Mole.
sky snow soldier
What is the world, O soldiers? It is I, I, this incessant snow, This northern sky.
lying sleep days-gone-by
We wake and whisper awhile, But, the day gone by, Silence and sleep like fields Of amaranth lie.
hands lovely lovely-things
What lovely things Thy hand hath made.
blind
So, blind to Someone I must be.
lying eye darkness
When I lie where shades of darkness Shall no more assail mine eyes.
lonely kings stars
His brow is seamed with line and scar; His cheek is red and dark as wine; The fires as of a Northern star Beneath his cap of sable shine. His right hand, bared of leathern glove, Hangs open like an iron gin, You stoop to see his pulses move, To hear the blood sweep out and in. He looks some king, so solitary In earnest thought he seems to stand, As if across a lonely sea He gazed impatient of the land. Out of the noisy centuries The foolish and the fearful fade; Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes, Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed.
water way pity
It was a pity thoughts always ran the easiest way, like water in old ditches.
fun sleep animal
Hi! handsome hunting man Fire your little gun. Bang! Now the animal is dead and dumb and done. Nevermore to peep again, creep again, leap again, Eat or sleep or drink again. Oh, what fun!
fashion clever perfect
Now that cleverness was the fashion most people were clever - even perfect fools; and cleverness after all was often only a bore: all head and no body
dream song flower
When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, And all her lovelier things even lovelier grow; Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies. When music sounds, out of the water rise Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, Rapt in strange dream burns each enchanted face, With solemn echoing stirs their dwelling-place. When music sounds, all that I was I am Ere to this haunt of brooding dust I came; And from Time's woods break into distant song The swift-winged hours, as I hasten along.
self long
As long as I live I shall always be My Self - and no other, Just me.
dream light may
A lost but happy dream may shed its light upon our waking hours, and the whole day may be infected with the gloom of a dreary or sorrowful one; yet of neither may we be able to recover a trace.