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GREAT THINGS

Sweet cyder is a great thing,
  A great thing to me,
Spinning down to Weymouth town
  By Ridgway thirstily,
And maid and mistress summoning
  Who tend the hostelry:
O cyder is a great thing,
  A great thing to me!

The dance it is a great thing,
  A great thing to me,
With candles lit and partners fit
  For night-long revelry.
And going home when day-dawning
  Peeps pale upon the lea:
O dancing is a great thing,
  A great thing to me!

Love is, yea, a great thing,
  A great thing to me,
When, having drawn across the lawn
  In darkness silently,
A figure flits like one a-wing
  Out from the nearest tree:
O love is, yes, a great thing,
  Aye, greatest thing to me!

Will these be always great things
  Greatest things to me? . . .
Let it befall that one will call
  "Soul, I have need of thee":
What then? Joy-jaunts, impassioned flings,
  Love, and its ecstasy
Will always have been great things,
  Greatest things to me!

-o0o-

THE PINE PLANTERS
(Marty South’s Reverie)

We work here together
In blast and breeze;
He fills the earth in,
    I hold the trees.

    He does not notice
    That what I do
    Keeps me from moving
    And chills me through.

    He has seen one fairer
    I feel by his eye,
    Which skims me as though
    I were not by.

    And since she passed here
    He scarce has known
    But that the woodland
    Holds him alone.

    I have worked here with him
    Since morning shine,
    He busy with his thoughts
    And I with mine.

    I have helped him so many,
    So many days,
    But never win any
    Small word of praise!

    Shall I not sigh to him
    That I work on
    Glad to be nigh to him
    Though hope is gone?

    Nay, though he never
    Knew love like mine,
    I'll bear it ever
    And make no sign!

-o0o-

EPITAPH ON A PESSIMIST

I'm Smith of Stoke, aged sixty-odd,

I've lived without dame

From youth-time on; and would to God

My dad had done the same.

-o0o-

More poems will be added on Friday 3rd May

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