TS Elliot

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
and along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
and tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
an aimless smile that hovers in the air
and vanishes along the level of the roofs.

“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero

I’ll tell you how the sun rose, -
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
"That must have been the sun!"

But how he set, I know not.
There seemed a purple stile.
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while

Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away.

Emily Dickinson

17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.

And let him that heareth say, Come.

And let him that is athirst come.

And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

Nobody knows this little Rose 

Nobody knows this little Rose —
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it —
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey —
On its breast to lie —
Only a Bird will wonder —
Only a Breeze will sigh —
Ah Little Rose — how easy
For such as thee to die!

by Emily Dickinson

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:
Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not to-day; it froze, and blows, and snows, And you're too curious: fie!
You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.

Or, after all, perhaps there's none:
Suppose there is no secret after all, But only just my fun.
To-day's a nipping day, a biting day;
In which one wants a shaw,

A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:
I cannot ope to every one who taps, And let the draughts come whistling through my hall;
Come bounding and surrounding me, Come buffeting, astounding me,
Nipping and clipping through my wraps and all.
I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows His nose to Russian snows
To be pecked at by every wind that blows?
You would not peck? I thank you for good will, Believe, but leave that truth untested still.

Spring's an expansive time: yet I don't trust
March with its peck of dust,
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers, Nor even May, whose flowers
One frost may wither through the sunless hours.

Perhaps some languid summer day, 
When drowsy birds sing less and less, And golden fruit is ripening to excess, If there's not too much sun nor too much cloud, 
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud, 
Perhaps my secret I may say, 
Or you may guess.

Christina Rossetti (1830-94)

April Rain Song

By Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops

Let the rain sing you a lullaby

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk

The rain makes running pools in the gutter

The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night

And I love the rain.

“…But…to sing,
to dream, to smile, to walk, to be alone, be free,
with a voice that stirs and an eye that still can see!
To cock your hat to one side, when you please
at a yes, a no, to fight, or- make poetry!
To work without a thought of fame or fortune,
on that journey, that you dream of, to the moon!
Never to write a line that’s not your own…”
― Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac

Author and playwright Edmond Rostand (1868-1918) lived at Villa Arnaga in Cambo-Les-Bain.

Frost-locked all the winter,
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,
What shall make their sap ascend
That they may put forth shoots?
Tips of tender green,
Leaf, or blade, or sheath;
Telling of the hidden life
That breaks forth underneath,
Life nursed in its grave by Death.

Blows the thaw-wind pleasantly,
Drips the soaking rain,
By fits looks down the waking sun:
Young grass springs on the plain;
Young leaves clothe early hedgerow trees;
Seeds, and roots, and stones of fruits,
Swollen with sap, put forth their shoots;
Curled-headed ferns sprout in the lane;
Birds sing and pair again.

There is no time like Spring,
When life's alive in everything,
Before new nestlings sing,
Before cleft swallows speed their journey back
Along the trackless track,--
God guides their wing,
He spreads their table that they nothing lack,--
Before the daisy grows a common flower,
Before the sun has power
To scorch the world up in his noontide hour.

There is no time like Spring,
Like Spring that passes by;
There is no life like Spring-life born to die,--
Piercing the sod,
Clothing the uncouth clod,
Hatched in the nest,
Fledged on the windy bough,
Strong on the wing:
There is no time like Spring that passes by,
Now newly born, and now
Hastening to die.

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) is remembered as one of the Pre-Raphaelites – a group of 19th century artists and writers who took inspiration from works of art produced in the Middle Ages. Her brother, the painter Dante Gabriel, was one of the most prominent of this group.

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs 
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice, 
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think 
Of any misery in the sound of the wind, 
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow, 
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Wallace Stevens

I see the
turning of
a leaf dancing
in an autumn sun,
and brilliant
shades of
crimson glowing
when the day
is done.

HAZELMARIE MATTE ELLIOTT