To Myself / W.S. Merwin

[alwaysashipper.livejournal.com]

Even when I forget you
I go on looking for you
I believe I would know you
I keep remembering you
sometimes long ago but then
other times I am sure you
were here for a moment before
and the air is still alive
around where you were and I
think then I can recognize
you who are always the same
who pretend to be time but
you are not time and who speak
in the words but you are not
what they say you who are not
lost when I do not find you

Fairyland, by Anne Glenny Wilson

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Fairyland

DO you remember that careless band,
Riding o’er meadow and wet sea-sand,
One autumn day, in a mist of sunshine,
Joyously seeking for fairyland?

The wind in the tree-tops was scarcely heard,
The streamlet repeated its one silver word,
And far away, o’er the depths of woodland,
Floated the bell of the parson-bird.

Pale hoar-frost glittered in shady slips,
Where ferns were dipping their finger-tips;
From mossy branches a faint perfume
Breathed o’er honeyed clematis lips.

At last we climbed to the ridge on high.
Ah, crystal vision! Dreamland nigh!
Far, far below us the wide Pacific
Slumbered in azure from sky to sky.

And cloud and shadow across the deep
Wavered, or paused in enchanted sleep,
And eastward the purple-misted islets
Fretted the wave with terrace and steep.

We looked on the tranquil, glassy bay,
On headlands sheeted with dazzling spray,
And the whitening ribs of a wreck forlorn
That for twenty years had wasted away.

All was as calm, and pure, and fair,
It seemed the hour of worship there,
Silent, as where the great North Minster
Rises for ever, a visible prayer.

Then we turned from the murmurous forest-land,
And rode over shingle and silver sand,
For so fair was the earth in the golden autumn,
We sought no farther for Fairyland.

By Anne Glenny Wilson