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The Runcorn Ferry

On the banks of the Mersey, o'er on Cheshire side,
Lies Runcorn that's best known to fame
By Transporter Bridge as takes folks over t'stream,
Or else brings them back across same.

In days afore Transporter Bridge were put up,
A ferryboat lay in the slip,
And old Ted the boatman would row folks across
At per tuppence per person per trip.

Now Runcorn lay over on one side of stream,
And Widnes on t'other side stood,
And, as nobody wanted to go either place,
Well, the trade wasn't any too good.

One evening, to Ted's superlative surprise,
Three customers came into view:
A Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom it were,
And Albert, their little son, too.

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poem by Marriott Edgar
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Derelict

In younger days, of idleness grown sick,
On this low bank I saw, as in a dream,
The fingers of the leaning willows prick
Long dimples in the slow, reluctant stream.
Watching the pilgrim leaves forsake the stem,
Impatient of the dull familiar cove,
And idle down the tide, I longed like them,
Untrammelled, homeless, free of heart, to rove.

I mind me that of these I noted one
That at the bend a wayward eddy turned
And drifted back, its journey just begun,
The secret of the wider stream unlearned.
It seemed a poor reward for one so bold,
Checked at the start, and beaten back, to find
So stale a death. I did not know, of old,
What seemed so hard could be in truth so kind!

I little thought that on a larger stream
I, too, one day should drift away at will

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poem by Guy Wetmore Carryl from The Garden of Years and Other Poems (1900)
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Poem For The Dedication Of The Fountain At Stratford-On-Avon

PRESENTED BY GEORGE W. CHILDS, OF PHILADELPHIA

WELCOME, thrice welcome is thy silvery gleam,
Thou long-imprisoned stream!
Welcome the tinkle of thy crystal beads
As plashing raindrops to the flowery meads,
As summer's breath to Avon's whispering reeds!
From rock-walled channels, drowned in rayless night,
Leap forth to life and light;
Wake from the darkness of thy troubled dream,
And greet with answering smile the morning's beam!

No purer lymph the white-limbed Naiad knows
Than from thy chalice flows;
Not the bright spring of Afric's sunny shores,
Starry with spangles washed from golden ores,
Nor glassy stream Bandusia's fountain pours,
Nor wave translucent where Sabrina fair
Braids her loose-flowing hair,
Nor the swift current, stainless as it rose

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poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The Virgin's last breath

It is a morning calm and still
On the valley covered in lush green
The sun is creeping over the hill
The lilies of the valley in their full sheen
Scattered around in this picturque scene
Are yellow maringold and blossom white
And wild flowers fighting to be seen
Praising heaven for another daylight

Underneath a tall rainforest tree
Sit i quietly taking inventory
Of a brand new day so gay to see
But there is a hidden history
Six seasons rainfall cannot wash
Nor could six seasons wind sweep
Six years now, i will tell it afresh
For heaven still look down on men and weep

Here, not far, i swear, about six feet
Is the footpath to the village stream

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poem by Okonkwo Osamedua. Allen
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The Woodman’s Daughter

In Gerald's Cottage by the hill,
Old Gerald and his child,
Innocent Maud, dwelt happily;
He toil'd, and she beguiled
The long day at her spinning-wheel,
In the garden now grown wild.
At Gerald's stroke the jay awoke;
Till noon hack follow'd hack,
Before the nearest hill had time
To give its echo back;
And evening mists were in the lane
Ere Gerald's arm grew slack.
Meanwhile, below the scented heaps
Of honeysuckle flower,
That made their simple cottage-porch
A cool, luxurious bower,
Maud sat beside her spinning-wheel,
And spun from hour to hour.
The growing thread thro' her fingers sped;
Round flew the polish'd wheel;

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poem by Coventry Patmore
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Ballad about the soldier

This story is about the soldier, an ordinary guy

who wanted to live, didn't want to die.

He was a good friend, his classmates said,

the things he did were not a regret.

He lived and dreamed, breathed the same air with us,

he was so much naive and it was his plus.

He was the guy of ready sympathy and brave

just and ordinary guy who would never liked to be a slave.

Nobody could deny that he was a bit of a hesitating guy

as he couldn't make his girlfriend a declaration of love,

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poem by Larisa Rzhepishevska
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Going To The Horse Flats

Amazingly active a toothless old man
Hobbled beside me up the canyon, going to Horse Flats, he said,
To see to some hives of bees. It was clear that he lived alone and
craved companionship, yet he talked little
Until we came to a place where the gorge widened, and deer-hunters
had camped on a slip of sand
Beside the stream. They had left the usual rectangle of fired
stones and ashes, also some crumpled
Sheets of a recent newspaper with loud headlines. The old man
rushed at them
And spread them flat, held them his arm's length, squinting
through narrowed eyelids poor trick old eyes learn, to make
Lids act for lens. He read 'Spain Battle. Rebels kill captives. City
bombed Reds kill hostages. Prepare
For war Stalin warns troops.' He trembled and said, 'Please read
me the little printing, I hardly ever
Get to hear news.' He wrung his withered hands while I read;
it was strange in that nearly inhuman wilderness
To see an old hollow-cheeked hermit dancing to the world's
echoes. After I had read he said 'That's enough.

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Underneath the Ice

I was down in the Antarctic
Taking soundings through the ice,
Working with a team of boffins,
Roger Cord and David Rice,
It was bleak out on the frozen scarp
I wore a heated suit,
And had thought to bring the oxygen,
They laughed - ‘The new recruit! '

They were tough as old shoe leather
Had been there since June the first,
And they scorned the winter weather,
Said ‘It's mild, will be soon be worse! '
So we took the caterpillar
Drove on out along the shelf,
There were signs of global warming,
I could see them for myself.

For the shelf had started parting
From the continent of ice,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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By a Norfolk Broad

One hour ago the crimson sun, that seemed so long a-drowning, sank.
The summer day is all but done. Our boat is moored beneath the bank.
I bask in peace, content, replete — my faithful comrade at my feet.

The water-violet shuts its eye; the water-lily petals close;
So in the evening light we lie and dream in undisturbed repose.
How far all petty cares have flown! How calm the fretful world has grown!

We only hear the gentle breeze, in tender sighs and whispers, pass
Through osier beds and alder trees, and rustling flags and bending grass;
The song of blackbird in the hedge, the quack of wild-duck in the sedge.

The distant bark of farmhouse dogs, the piping of a clear-voiced thrush,
The murmurous babble of the frogs, of rippling stream in reed and rush;
The splash of pike and bream that rise to flitting moths and dragon-files.

Far from the haunts of striving men, the toil and moil, the dust and din,
At home, at peace, in this lone fen, with these our dumb and gentler kin;
In Mother Nature's arms at rest, we drink the nectar of her breast.

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poem by Ada Cambridge
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The Boat On The Serchio

Our boat is asleep on Serchio's stream,
Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream,
The helm sways idly, hither and thither;
Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast,
And the oars, and the sails; but ’tis sleeping fast,
Like a beast, unconscious of its tether.

The stars burnt out in the pale blue air,
And the thin white moon lay withering there;
To tower, and cavern, and rift, and tree,
The owl and the bat fled drowsily.
Day had kindled the dewy woods,
And the rocks above and the stream below,
And the vapours in their multitudes,
And the Apennine’s shroud of summer snow,
And clothed with light of aery gold
The mists in their eastern caves uprolled.

Day had awakened all things that be,
The lark and the thrush and the swallow free,

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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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