Bits of poetry
"Old friend (for such you have lately grown to be
Since your tranquillities have turned with mine),
Sitting alone, your poems upon my knee,
In hours of contemplative candleshine,
I sometimes think your ghost revisits me
And lives upon my lips from line to line."
"It was the love of life when I was young,
Which lad me out in summer to explore
The daybreak world. A bird's first notes were sung
For childhood standing at the garden door.
That loneliness it was which made me wise
When I looked out and saw
Dark trees against the strangely brightening skies
And learnt the love of earth that is my law.
The love of life is my religion still.
Steadfast through rigorous nights, companioned only
By what I am and what I strive to be, -
I seek no mystery now beyond the hill
And wait no change but to become more lonely,
No freedom till the sleep that sets me free."
"In a moment of the years the sun, like love through tears,
Shone where the rain went by."
"For you must learn, beyond bewildering years,
How little things beloved and held are best.
The windows of the world are blurred with tears,
And troubles come like cloud-banks from the west."
"Like the notes of an old violin,
Thoughts talk to me within
My mind, that shuttered room."
-- All from Siegfried Sassoon.