weather

Along the wind-swept platform, pinched and white,
The travellers stand in pools of wintry light,
Offering themselves to morn’s long, slanting arrows.
The train’s due; porters trundle laden barrows.
The train steams in, volleying resplendent clouds
Of sun-blown vapour. Hither and about,
Scared people hurry, storming the doors in crowds.
The officials seem to waken with a shout,
Resolved to hoist and plunder; some to the vans
Leap; others rumble the milk in gleaming cans.
Boys, indolent-eyed, from baskets leaning back,

Oh! the balloon, the great balloon!
It left Vauxhall one Monday at noon,
And every one said we should hear of it soon
With news from Aleppo or Scanderoon.
But very soon after, folks changed their tune:
'The netting had burst -- the silk -- the shalloon;
It had met with a trade-wind -- a deuced monsoon --
It was blown out to sea -- it was blown to the moon --
They ought to have put off their journey till June;
Sure none but a donkey, a goose, or baboon,
Would go up, in November, in any balloon!'

'Tis Christmas weather, and a country house
Receives us: rooms are full: we can but get
An attic-crib. Such lovers will not fret
At that, it is half-said. The great carouse
Knocks hard upon the midnight's hollow door,
But when I knock at hers, I see the pit.
Why did I come here in that dullard fit?
I enter, and lie couched upon the floor.
Passing, I caught the coverlet's quick beat:--
Come, Shame, burn to my soul! and Pride, and Pain--
Foul demons that have tortured me, enchain!

Love, we have heard together
The North Sea sing his tune,
And felt the wind's wild feather
Brush past our cheeks at noon,
And seen the cloudy weather
Made wondrous with the moon.

Where loveliness is rarest,
`Tis also prized the most:
The moonlight shone her fairest
Along that level coast
Where sands and dunes the barest,
Of beauty seldom boast,

Far from that bleak and rude land
An exile I remain
Fixed in a fair and good land,
A valley and a plain
Rich in fat fields and woodland,

Two little creatures
with faces the size of
a pair of pennies
are clasping each other
"Ah do not leave me"
One says to the other
in the high monkey -
cage in the beast shop
there are no people
to gape at them now
for people are loth
peer in the dimness
have they not builded
streets and playhouses
sky sign and bars
to lose the lonlieness
shaking the hearts
of the two little monkeys
Yes,but who watches
the penny small faces
can hear the voices

There's a drip of honeysuckle in the deep green lane;
There's old Martin jogging homeward on his worn old wain;
There are cherry petals falling, and a cuckoo calling, calling,
And a score of larks (God bless 'em) . . . but it's all pain, pain.
For you see I am not really there at all, not at all;
For you see I'm in the trenches where the crump-crumps fall;
And the bits o' shells are screaming and it's only blessed dreaming
That in fancy I am seeming back in old Saint Pol.

Oh I've thought of it so often since I've come down here;

Now warm with ministerial ire,
Fierce sallied forth our loyal 'Squire,
And on his striding steps attends
His desperate clan of Tory friends.
When sudden met his wrathful eye
A pole ascending through the sky,
Which numerous throngs of whiggish race
Were raising in the market-place.
Not higher school-boy's kites aspire,
Or royal mast, or country spire;
Like spears at Brobdignagian tilting,
Or Satan's walking-staff in Milton.
And on its top, the flag unfurl'd
Waved triumph o'er the gazing world,

Six years we've lived in Mexico,
And now it's time to go.
We're headed back to Washington,
Where winter brings the snow.

The winters here are warmer though;
In Juarez it was dry.
Sonora baked in sunlight,
Under blue and open sky.

But, if we wanted weather,
We would not have made a bet
That New Laredo was a place
To be so drippy wet.

Aside from weather, there are
Many things to talk about:
That we have learned your 'espanol, '
We don't think there's a doubt.

(He speaks, but to himself, being aware how it is with her)
Think not I have not heard.
Well-fanged the double word
And well-directed flew.

I felt it. Down my side
Innocent as oil I see the ugly venom slide:
Poison enough to stiffen us both, and all our friends;
But I am not pierced, so there the mischief ends.

There is more to be said: I see it coiling;
The impact will be pain.
Yet coil; yet strike again.
You cannot riddle the stout mail I wove
Long since, of wit and love.

Every old man I see
Reminds me of my father
When he had fallen in love with death
One time when sheaves were gathered.

That man I saw in Gardner Street
Stumbled on the kerb was one,
He stared at me half-eyed,
I might have been his son.

And I remember the musician
Faltering over his fiddle
In Bayswater, London,
He too set me the riddle.

Every old man I see
In October-coloured weather
Seems to say to me:
"I was once your father."