The World Needs Love Just Now

18 Saturday Apr 2015

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I think that the World is in need of some TLC (tender loving care). So from the pen of Christina Rossetti here is a love poem that should gladden all our hearts:

A Birthday

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves, and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

Christina Rossetti

Very best wishes – Denny Bradbury

Sea Poem from Wonderful Emily Dickinson

30 Monday Mar 2015

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Carrying on from my last blog on sea poems. This one resonated with me, (actually nearly all of them do as the sea is in my bones) Emily is with her dog at the beginning of the poem.

I started early, took my dog,
and visited the sea –
The Mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me.

And Frigates in the upper floor
Extended hempen hands –
Presuming me to be a mouse
Aground upon the sands.

But no man moved me till the Tide
Went past my simple shoe,
And past my apron and my belt
And past my bodice too –

And made as he would eat me up
As wholly as a dew
Upon a dandelion’s sleeve –
And then I started too.

And he – he followed close behind –
I felt his silver heel
Upon my ankle – then my shoes
Would overflow with pearl.

Until we met the solid town,
No man he seemed to know –
And bowing with a mighty look
At me, the Sea withdrew.

Emily Dickinson

I would love to have spoken with her about this and discussed her imagery. On second thoughts, perhaps it is better to leave the mystery and just enjoy her poetry.

Very best wishes – Denny Bradbury

Poems Inspired by the Sea

18 Wednesday Mar 2015

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A recent gift of a poetry book full of sea inspired poems has quickly become a favourite. Many of my own poems come to me while I sit on the wind blown southern shore of Dorset. This collection has many fine poems, one that particularly stands out is from the brilliant Robert frost. The more I read it the more I see into it.

Neither Out Far Nor In deep

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull.

The land may vary more;
But whatever the truth may be –
The water comes ashore,
And people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?
Robert Frost

Very best wishes – Denny Bradbury

Another Restless Night

28 Saturday Feb 2015

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All stars and moon are out I see

as sleep evades the restless me;

the day was good, walks by the sea

but now I’m wandering, no bed for me.

Its four in the morning with no one about,

Is nobody there? I’m longing to shout,

it seems so to me as no light do I spy

in any window as far as the eye

can see from my window high on the hill,

even my dog sleeps soundly and still,

he’s into a slumber I long for so deep

that untroubled wonder, restorative sleep;

I look at his paws hanging over his bed

he has no worries as long as he’s fed.

My brain will not stop its whirring this night

So put on the kettle, drink tea ’til its light.

Best wishes to all insomniacs – Denny Bradbury

From Robert Southey to Sappho

20 Friday Feb 2015

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While browsing through an ancient book of Southey’s poems and plays I lighted upon his monodrama – Sappho. This took me to the internet to find some of Sappho’s work as I am not as familiar with her poetry as I would wish to be. She was so highly regarded by the ancient Greeks that Plato thought she should be the tenth Muse.

Part of her Hymn to Aphrodite

Lady of beauty.
Hither come as once before thou camest,
When from afar thou heard’st my voice lamenting,
Heard’st and camest, leaving thy glorious father’s Palace golden,
Yoking thy chariot. Fair the doves that bore thee;
Swift to darksome earth their course directing,
Waving their thick wings from the highest heaven
Down through the ether.


How wonderful to be able to reach out and touch the ancient world through their writing. What will future generations make of us I wonder?

Very best wishes – Denny Bradbury