Libertas01 S.A. at Uno
Come now, satiric Muses, here’s a thing
To set your sweet sardonic wits a-sing –
Come, tune for me your most abrasive string!
When growls the Bear at Who-Would-Cross-His-Path,
We tear our hair and writhe in righteous wrath
And cry “A will to eat the world he hath!”
In London, Paris and New York we talk
(God, how we talk) with fellow nations stalk
His footsteps, this ambitious Brute to balk.
“No Power,” we cry, (especially one so strong)
Has moral right to act against the throng
Defying World Majority. It’s wrong.”
But when the world treads on our favourite corn
We blow a very different sounding horn –
Majorities are mad when Us they scorn!
Though all the world may see a different light
They’re wrong, because (and this should indict)
We are so very sure that we are right.
What chance is here of peace, when every man
Co-operates to get what gain he can
And quits when things go counter to his plan?
“Oaklands” Newlands Avenue
Said Heart
What is this – in love again?
Fie, of fie upon you, heart!
Why, you scarce have healed the pain
From the last well-feathered dart.
Will you never learn your way with
Cupid, that he’s rash to play with?
Foolish heart, to look for sorrow,
Love is fickle, come away.
Heart made answer That’s tomorrow.
This, said heart, this is today!
Sanctuary
For me the truest worship needs no other church than this,
Where Table Mountain lifts her head for Heaven’s tender kiss.
Up here above the stress of life, and all its aching grief
A soul may hold communion with its God and find relief.
To view the things that He has made unmarred by man’s rude hand,
It makes blind eyes to vision, and dull hearts to understand!
This rarer atmosphere effaces all the small, the mean;
Men learn to know right values up here where the world is clean.
The soul has room to stretch its wings up here. Or seeking rest,
I know no place where it can shelter closer to God’s breast.
Sanctuary
Love is not a fort, to be defended
Against all comers to the weary end;
Nor flawed material that must be mended
Constantly lest faulty fibres rend.
Love is a mountain to be climbed, indeed,
Not fearfully but confidently; higher
Than the summit of a dream, or need
Of reassurance; higher than desire.
Love should be a sanctuary where
The heart however bunted can be sure
To find certain refuge from despair,
A shelter where the mind can be secure.
Man today so needs to find release
From life’s pursuers, in a place of peace.
Sanity
Are you not joyful when a fellow mortal
Ascends some pinnacle beyond the reach
Of ordinary men; unlocks some portal
Hitherto fast-barred and through the breach
Reveals new vistas opening to man
Celestial and terrene; or. brings to birth
Some haunting beauty. some − Immortal plan-
Are you not joyful for our common earth?
When we can sip the nectar of the sky −
And if men call it you or I or he
That fills the cup. what matter? You and I
And he are an inseparable we . .
Are one within that vast and ultimate sanity,
The knowledge of the oneness of humanity
Dorothea Spears.
20/3/58
Santa Claus was True
In seeking the truth we lose the true
(Our love of reason often costs us dear)
The true that lies too deep for words, the clue
Behind the symbol, that the heart can hear.
In our mundane impatience we discard
The fairy tale because our hearts are blind.
Because we find interpretation hard
We lose the living truth that lies behind.
Geometry accepts an x and y
But man must clothe his faith in factual word
And fit belief in rigid formulae
That can be proved and seen and touched and heard.
And Christmas catches us with empty hands
Because it is the heart that understands.
21 -12 -1959
Say It With Flowers
They speak with fragrant eloquence
Uncaptured yet by poet’s tongue,
Appealing to a deeper sense
Than any bard has ever sung.
Oh blind! Oh wayward, not to see
In gardens fair or woodland bowers
The messages that wait for thee
Where God is “saying it with flowers!”
Scars
Too often have his words incised
Her heart with their sharp bitterness
Since first she felt, benumbed, surprised,
Their cruel edge. He did not guess
That words could cut so deep, so deep -
And leave such ugly scars to keep.
Dorothea Spears
Science
This is the genie we ourselves have conjured.
We ourselves have rubbed the lamp, evoked
The slave of the lamp with unholy incantations
We cannot revoke.
We have rejected the masters of the magic
Who alone were skilled in the magical lore
That could inspan once more the unspent power
That bids us hurry faster…faster…faster…
Till the genie we summoned to serve us becomes our master.
Airlie Close
Constantia, C.P.
Sea and River
(The Wilderness)
I, for one, am not devotee
Of rolling surf and surging sea:
For here no rest is, day or night;
Only a hopeless, infinite
Expense of power, that evermore
Breaks fruitlessly upon the shore.
Beyond the dune the river flows
Peacefully, and the banks disclose
Fresh beauties at each turn.
Each small wave brings a mute caress
To where the trees, in emerald dress,
Their pretty selves discern
Within the mirrored surface till
The waves grow tired of keeping still
And break the image: then
The vain trees toss their lovely heads;
The reeds sway lightly in their beds:
The river laughs again.
And sometimes, when the sun has set,
The amethystine lights forget
To follow him, and as he dies
Incarnadine the watching skies:
And Nature holds her startled breath
To witness such a glorious death!
Sea Sirens
The arms of a wave are beckoning, beckoning me -
Shall I yield to them? They look so soft, so strong,
And I tire of standing alone the whole day long:
The arms of the waves are beckoning hungrily.
The earth is a laggard lover, the sea
Is bold and dashing, wooing with a song
Of pearls and coral and the gems that throng
His palaces, where I shall mistress be.
He is so great a lover, who could stand
Against his pleading? Ah, not I, not I.
Old earth no longer loves me: he is dumb.
I will not stay with the old hard hearted land:
I bid farewell to the sun, the wind, the sky –
Stretch out your arms, oh Sea -I come! I come!
Sea Soliloquy
I wilt sit at the feet of the Old Man of the Sea
And say to him "Old Man, what have you to say to me?"
I will sit and listen silently the while he speaks
Of that which is unknowable. which each man seeks
And no man finds
In mortal words or mortal minds,
Being uncognizant of that unfathomable tongue
That whispers secrets of creation since the world was young
And waves of civilization beat in thundering surf
Against the deaf ears of the rock, against the yielding roots of turf
Against the eddying wash of swift unstable sand
Carried seaward by the backwash from the land.
Sometimes where silent water shelters deep
In transient tranquil moments there the Old Man seems to sleep.
Deceptive moment . . prologue of the storm
That builds an ever vaster wave to ever vaster form!
From trough to crest it rears the mountain of its height
Embodying a richer colour. deeper song and clearer light
Until eventually − always this is true −
The form explodes in flying spray to build itself anew.
I said "Old Man, what are you trying to say to me?"
And he replied, "What has always been must always be."
Dorothea Spears
Season Encircles Season
Summer is but the memory of Autumn
And Winter is the memory of Spring
As yesterday's your memory and mine,
And what the seasons bring
Is as tomorrow, as a dream's design.
Each season from each season needs must borrow:
Invisible Time is an indivisible thing.
Today comes out of yesterday and merges in tomorrow,
A migrant, homing wing. −
Dorothea Spears
Secret of Autumn
Once again this tautening of tension,
This beautiful troubling season of transition
Old death preparing for the new ascension,
The sequel of fulfillment and fruition.
The glowing vineyard and the passionate berry
Frame in flame their questions and replies;
Breathtakingly, vociferously merry,
Bedecked for their recurring sacrifice.
The clouds betray the tension in the skies,
Tumultuous beauty forming. fading. fleeing;
And small leaves dance to death, impatient, wise −
Strange joy possesses all my shaken being
To sense the secret shared by everything
That Autumn is a guarantee of Spring.
Dorothea Spears
Seeing in Part
This is the tragedy that men discern
A facet of the truth and, overbold,
Assume that God has given them to hold
The flawless jewel. Thenceforth they will spurn
All others' views as spurious, nor turn
The subtle gem until its rays enfold
A world of beauty in an age of gold.
Well, men must suffer if they will not learn.
No mortal has beheld the truth complete.
The Wise Ones recognize their limitations,
Nor seek to break a brother's begging-bowl.
Small men, illusioned, with well-meant conceit
Would force their facet on all men and nations −
And blind us to the iridescent whole.
Dorothea Spears
Self-Deception
Beware, my heart, the faults we fear to face
Within ourselves we tend to seek and find
In others, and upon their shoulders place
The cloak designed and woven in our mind.
Attack is a defence to hide behind.
Fitting the cloak we are ashamed to wear
On other shoulders helps to keep us blind
And comfortable. O cowardly heart, take care!
Airlie Close
Constantia C.P.
September Day
The goblet of this day’s a shining thing
Of silver wrought, and with meticulous care
All patterned with the spirit of the Spring
With intricate tracery of lately bare
And interlacing branches burgeoning
In delicate designs, and here and there
The butterflies of blossom poised on wing
Of gossamer chasing, exquisitely fair.
I hold it in my hand and drink the light
While Nature pauses, silent and afraid
To let it go, because she knows Night
Will tarnish this perfection she has made.
And in the background, deep engraved and high,
The bold line of the mountain cuts the sky.
September in Constantia
This beauty
This inimitable and inevitable now and here!
There are so many windows in this house. and yet
In every window beauty, now and far and near −
Dear God, don't ever let my heart forget
(Should I grow sad or old)
The scenes in which these swift uncertain days are set.
But let my memory hold
Forever hillsides rich with purple and with gold −
And at the bottom of the hill
The Jersey cows against the meadow's green,
That browse beneath the willows delicately venturing
With verdure into Spring
Beside the stream that's marged with lilies' snowy gleam,
And young oak's sheen . . .
And groups of ghostly Gothic poplars, wintered still;
Tall hakea hedges. scarlet tipped,
The lovely eucalyptus with the white bones showing through,
The pines against the mountain, darkly blue.
And sweetpeas coral lipped . . .
And hosts of dappled clouds serene and high
Against a mackerel sky
Dear God, Your cup of beauty must be filled this year
That it has spilled so liberally here!
Dorothea. Spears.
Seven Weeks Poort
Why should we not abide here, you and I?
Quietly…quietly…letting the world go by.
A field to till for food, a limpid stream
To quench our thirst; mountains for aspiration
And quiet drowsing hours for meditation.
Trees for shade and beauty … time to dream…
Some books to feed the mind on – luscious words
And time to savour them: for music – birds
And singing brook, the wind against the trees –
What need have we for anything but these?
I ask myself…why should we fret and strive
And skimp our souls that flesh may richly thrive?
Why can we not abide here, you and I…
Quietly… quietly…while the world goes by?
Shades of Olympus
The ancient rites of ritual sacrifice
Have been debunked. We know the gods
are dead
that blessed the harvest feast and marriage
bed …
Yet Neptune still man’s skill can turn to
cries.
Mythology’s a tale of broken lies…
Endymion’s no more by Diana led…
(He worships money and success instead)
But Mars can still command the earthly
Skies.
Old Cronus does not sleep, whose iron sway
Enforced by multitudes of hireling clocks
Makes all men slaves and in increasing
Flocks
Dictates their lives of love and work and play.
Old Saturn stands invisible and mocks
The mortal mummery of night and day.
Aye…sometimes all the ancient gods arise
And take the arrogant mortals by surprise.
Shall I Refrain?
Shall I refrain from dancing now the earth
Poises perilously, jittery and worn
Before the opening crevasse?
Shall I refrain from birth
Until the present perils pass
Because Death waits for me to be born?
Shall I refrain from singing now the tune is torn
Asunder by the thunder of the bombs?
It’s time for the clock to stop when we have lost
The sense of wonder.
Perhaps the spirit will dance across the cataclysm.
Perhaps the newly-born will outlive death
And find new catechisms
Strong enough to bridge the yawning schisms
When bombs are out of breath.
Veritas
Constantia, C.P.
Short-Cut by Cableway
Uncaged upon the height
Something that lay dormant leaps to life
And laughter spreads its unaccustomed wings
And lifts and sings.
Now and here
I walk unwearied on the cushioned air
And what’s before and after has no care
Nor fret nor fear.
It has befallen you upon some English hill
Where violets are wild and white.
And some yellow too,
To start a lark to rising close beside
Your earthbound feet, when all the world is still.
Except for that brief rapture reaching for the blue
And vanishing from sight
Against the light?
Upon the mountain top my heart’s that bird
That soars and sings. But only I have heard.
6.4.61
Should Head or Heart Speak the Part?
Shall I sing of little things . . .
Shall I tell
Of vibrant wings. Of buds that swell
To burst in such a blaze of white
As fills the days
With prismed light, the flowering peach
Beside the door, where eyes
Can reach its loveliness at morning-rise?
. . . This turf I tread
Patterned with mulberry black and red
Against the green sheen of the grass,
And overhead
Heavy with leaf, the boughs have made.
An overhanging bower of shade
Unwind the spell
Of Spring's perpetual surprise
Unbinding winter-blinded eyes
How well we know
The ancient story
Told by Spring in a gust of glory!
Shall I repeat it?
Shall I sing
Again the ineffable beauty of spring?
. . . Or try to write the thought I find
Crying for light
Behind the mind?
Dorothea Spears
Should I Know?
I wonder, should I know Thee, Lord,
If Thou shouldst come today,
And sit beside my humble board,
And tread the common way.
If Thou shouldst come in human guise
As once Thou camest before –
Oh, should I love Thee, or despise?
Rebuke Thee, or adore?
If Thou shouldst come – how should I know
My Lord, that it was Thee?
Good men two thousand year ago
Were still at Calvary.
While for Thy coming I must pray
I tremble, Lord, lest I
Shouldst meet Thee in the common way
Unknowing, and pass by.
Should I Lose Faith In You
Should I lose faith in you, my friend,
Where faith is deepest set,
The wound would never, never mend.
Nor death itself forget.
Should I lose faith in you, my friend,
My faith in all would go;
And faithless live till life should end-
If faith deceive me so.
Should I lose my faith in you, my friend,
My whole world would collapse,
And lost be all faith earth could lend,
And faith in Heaven perhaps.
Dorothea Graham Botha
The Epworth Press
1925
Silver Day
(The Cape - Early September)
The goblet of this day’s a shining thing
Or silver wrought, and with meticulous care
All patterned with the spirit of the Spring,
With intricate tracery of lately bare
And interlacing branches burgeoning
In delicate designs, and here and there
The butterflies of blossom poise on wing
Of gossamer chasing, exquisitely fair.
I hold it in my hand and drink the light
While Nature pauses, silent and afraid
To let go, because she knows that Night
Will tarnish this perfection she has made.
And in the background, deep engraved and high,
The bold line of the mountain cuts the sky.
Simplicity
I penned a many stanza’d rhyme
To prove my great fidelity.
Unsatisfied, I watched it burn,
And turned again all wearily.
Then happy inspiration came:
In just these simple words I send
The whole of my great constancy
And faith -dear friend, you are my friend!
Dorothea Graham Botha
The Epworth Press
1925
Simplicity
See, I am quiet now
As the bole of a lofty tree.
Quivers each budding bough,
But still is the heart of me.
Sap flows steady and strong
To each uttermost finger twig:
Be winter never so long
The faith of me is big.
Little is it to ask
Of man’s fertility
To grow in his daily task
As simply as a tree;
Drinking the milk of the earth,
Breathing the day, the night,
Bringing beauty to birth;
Seeking - and finding – the Light.
Since Nancy Went
To me the morn brings no sunshine.
The skies go veiled in grey,
And life holds only shadow-
Since Nancy went away.
The flowers of joy have faded;
The birds have taken flight.
With Nancy went the sunshine –
With me remains the night:
The night; and no stars brighten
The darkness of my way.
I’ve lost the road to Heave,
SING, OH HEART!
Sing, Oh Heart, of Love and the Spring,
Of magic and miracle. Sing ! Oh, sing !
For love is born in a breast forlorn,
As a flower that wakes in the jewelled morn !
My heart was bare as the bleak brown earth,
But Spring and Love have bathed
both in mirth !
And bloom blows rife after Winter’s strife—
Oh, the Spring has given the world new life !
Then, carol, Heart, like the birds above,
Of magic and miracle, Spring and Love!
As a floweret born in the jewelled morn,
So Love has bloomed in a breast forlorn !
Singing I Went
Singing I went when the sun was high
And vagabond clouds went scudding by;
Singing I went through the April day
For the beauty that flowered along my way.
Singing I come when the sun is low
Though the song be soft and the steps be slow.
Singing I come through a mist of tears
For beauty still flowers a-down the years.
And when the sun goes sinking fast
And darkness claims its own at last
Hiding each beautiful well-loved sight –
May I go singing into the night.
Sister Aiden
Weep not for her: she has no need of tears.
Is she not greatly privileged to share
The high task of redemption, and to wear
The cross her Master wore till he appears?
But weep for them who from their hates and fears
And from the bitter wood of their despair
Have hewn a cross for her, which they must bear
In pain across the unforgiving years.
Aye, weep for them as she would weep for them,
And those who pass by with averted eyes
But cannot shun their share of burden thus.
From such deep roots does the crucifixion stem –
We cry “Barabbas!” and the saviour dies.
Weep for us, my brother, weep for us!
“Veritas”
Constantia, C.P.
Sisterhood
I met a maid with such a shining face
That I was fane to follow her and find
The way she went to that enchanted place
In which she dwelt, contentment or the mind.
She bore a pitcher of water. As she went
The thirst held their cups for her to fill:
Above each suppliant with love she leant,
And there was water in the pitcher still.
“Sister, Sister…May I come with you
To find fulfilment for the heart?” I said.
She handed me a pitcher, and I knew
And knew the path of service I must tread.
She smiled at me. I took her outstretched hand,
To love, to serve, to share…to understand.
Sleep, The Divider
I am afraid of Sleep.
He carries you so far away from me.
This fragile hold I keep
Is loosed by Slumber and your spirit, free
Wanders at will through doors to which I hold
no key.
I have seen you smile
When Sleep has come to claim his darkened hour
And make you his the while –
So, if a rose has spirit, would the flower smile,
When the Queen of Beauty paused to choose
It for her bower.
And while you sleep I gaze
On your fair body lying here so still,
And wonder what strange ways
Your spirit feet are dancing, on what hill
Of Faery, where fragrances of earth in balm distill.
Sometimes when I awake
Suddenly, as feeling something near,
At unaccountable ache
Catches my heart, imagining I hear
Strange echoes sweet that fill my breast with
a foreboding fear.
Is it that goat-foot god
That lures you from me to the enchanted glade
-With Mercury’s sandals shod,
In the guise of Sleep – to dance in the hawthorn shade
To the tune of his cursed pipes, and their witching serenade?
Once I woke you, just
To bring you back to me from that strange land;
And in your eyes the dust
Of far dreams clung. Sleep caught your eager hand
And coaxed you back again to realms I cannot understand.
Is it because I know
I hold you by so frail a bond that I
am loth to let you go
With soft voiced Sleep? That he, perchance, will try
To win you from me, you who are so fair and so earth-shy?
And oh, I am afraid
That sometime you will wander off too far;
That you will be waylaid
And Sleep will never more is door unbar
Or let you come to me again from that so-distant star!
Sleep
Out of the murky fastnesses of sleep
The I I know up-struggles to the light,
Sottish with slumber, from the stygian keep
Where Morpheus held me prisoner through the night.
In what vile servitude have I been thrilled
These long mysterious hours, at Morpheus’ hest,
Ere unremembering spirit is recalled
To this clay fane where I am lord – or guest?
Night after night the unknown overpowers
This self I know. I sink without a cry
Into oblivion, un-selfed for hours.
What gross indignity is this, that I
Should be reduced to an insensate clod
Of will-less clay, who waking am a god!
“Oaklands”
Newlands Ave, Newlands, C.P
Sleep’s Servitude
Out of the murky fastnesses of sleep
The I I know up-struggles to the light,
Sottish with slumber, from the stygian keep
Where Morpheus held me prisoned through the night.
In what vile servitude have I been thrilled
These long mysterious hours, at Morpheus’ hest,
Ere unremembering spirit is recalled
To this clay fane where I am lord – or guest?
Night after night the unknown overpowers
This self I know. I sink without a cry
Into oblivion, unselfed for hours.
What gross indignity is this, that I
Should be reduced to an insensate clod
Of will-less clay, who waking am a god?
Sliver Moon
Silver moon, silver moon
Sailing to the West,
I would crave of thee a boon;
Thou wilt see my dear love soon-
Smile upon her rest.
Smile softly on her rest,
And leave a dream of me to linger
In her breast.
Snow
Floating from heaven, in gentle cluster white,
Each flake descends to sleep upon the breast
Of Mother Earth, as black as blackest night,
Until a snowy carpet, soft doth rest.
Downwards it glides, till ne’er a spot remains
Uncovered. Smoky buildings are transformed
To glistening palaces, and man’s dark stains
Are screened, and King murk’s citadel is stormed.
And peace comes with that carpeting of white,
And men walk silent through the City square –
For God’s hand laid it swiftly in the night,
To veil the evil which is rooted there.
So Many Guises Beauty Wears
I have seen Beauty riding in majesty
Over the hills at sunset and at dawn;
Have caught her idling in captivity
Through ordered gardens, over velvet lawn;
Have paused to watch her rioting recklessly
When Autumn tints the mountain side adorn;
In foaming rivers tumbling breathlessly –
So many exquisite guises has she worn!
Alluring, dazzling, captivating, quaint –
And who shall say when she is loveliest,
In wild abandon or in proud restraint?
Not I…I only know I love her best
Where daffodils in mingled sun and shade
Stand nodding in a tranquil English glade.
So You Are Gone
So you are gone.
I did not weep to see you go,
For then I did not even know
That I should miss you so.
My life goes on.
The same old trifles fill the day;
The bright sun shines across my way,
And all the flowers are gay.
There is not one
Unhappy cloud to fret the blue
Of heaven’s content, where songbirds woo,
And earth is singing too.
But there is none
To ease the emptiness of all:
You do not answer when I call;
And spring is turned to fall.
Dorothea Graham Botha
The Epworth Press
1925
Socialist Sonnets
I – The Toilers
My heart is heavy with the hopeless ache
Of those who toil and toil with little gain…
From dawn till dusk, from dawn till dusk, in vain
Desiring respite: multitudes that make
For all their striving but enough to slake
The day’s thirst, to prolong the unasked pain
Of living, wearing heart and flesh and brain
In hopeless servitude until they break;
Day in, day out, for just enough to keep
The wolf at bay – and if they’re out of luck
Not even that. How can they hope to pluck
The flowers of life, who sow what others reap?
Is this, you think, the plan God had in sight
For man when He had finished, that Sixth Night?
II The Office Workers
See, there he sits upon an office stool,
Selling his soul for eight hours every day;
Selling his brains to who has gold to pay,
(For he must live) a mute, inglorious tool
To forge a fortune for a wealthier fool:
And when his brains are blunted, cast away
Upon life’s rubbish heap as useless clay,
His youthful dreams all forfeit. That’s life’s rule.
But now he dreams high dreams, and little knows
They are the price that they must pay who sell
Their poetry to write another’s prose,
Their fullness to replete another’s well.
Unlaureled, empty at last he goes
To his long sleep among the asphodel.
III Contrast
Behind the door I heard a woman’s tears
And paused irresolute, with hand on bell,
Embarrassed by convention’s unusual fears
Of nude emotion in a heart unwell.
I rang then… Powder could not hide the trace
Of hours of weeping. “What is it?” I said
Gently. Anguish crumpled her face.
“It’s just – I’m frightened – and we have no bread…
Jim out of work so long … the doctor’s bill –
And now his firm has changed to monthly pay
Instead of weekly! But how to live until
Month’s end?” …I did not know. But yesterday
I met one woman from her hoard could choose
Four hundred frocks, two hundred pairs of shoes.
Some are Born . . .
Some are born to walk with clowns or kings
And some to soar aloft on strong wings;
And some to seek and love all beautiful things:
The flower hidden, like a fallen star,
In grass men pass, seeking the great and the far,
Missing forever the beauty of things that are . . .
Who deem it sad that such a beautiful day
As this should dawn and die with none to say
“How beautiful!” before it turns away
Some are born to walk with clowns, or kings,
And some to seek the sun on strong wings...
And some to look, and love all beautiful things.
Dorothea Spears
Sometimes When I’m Alone
Sometimes when I’m alone I love to think
Of days and friends that long since have passed by;
Of hours I’ve spent in labour or in play,
E’en though remembrance brings along a sigh.
A sigh lamenting that these hours agone
Can never more be ours again to spend
As we have spent; yet more regrets
So near forgetting one we called a friend.
Dorothea Graham Botha
The Epworth Press
1925
Somewhere between
Somewhere between the two extremes lies the mean;
Somewhere between the valley's depth and the mountain’s height
A level site where ordinary men can stay;
Between the roots and the fruits the beauty of the flowers.
Between the tick and the tock of the pendulum of the clock
Time moves the fingers of the minutes and the hours.
Between tomorrow (that never comes) and yesterday
Today is, always, and it will always be today.
Dorothea Spears
Song for Music
Come when the vineyard is vital with blossom
Come when the Spring is alive with the dew;
Rising the sap to accede to the Summer
Ere it has tasted the wine that is new.
Then I shall dance to your piping, Beloved,
Dance to the tune in my heart of the lark
Springing unbidden from earth into heaven
Into the sunlight that succours the dark . . .
. . The sunlight that succours the dark.
Now it is Autumn, is Autumn, Beloved.
Harvests are gathered. no corn is to reap.
Flowering and fruiting are finished, and Winter
Beckons the vines to the valley of sleep.
Chaff me not, chide me not, oh my Beloved.
Restlessness rests in the Autumn's release.
The rhythm is set for Andante . . . Larghetto . . .
. . . Enchanted, enchanted with peace . . .
. . . Enchanted .. enchanted . . . at peace.
Dorothea Spears
Song of Living
Bow to the beat of it, swing to the surge of it;
Tap with the feet of it. answer the urge of it . . .
Life! It is life, brother, feel it and flow with it,
Riotous, beautiful - go with it, glow with it!
Hesitate not on the brink, on the verge of it;
Drink it and think it and marvel and merge with it.
Life is a harmony; join in the song of it.!
Life is a unity, enter the throng with it.!
Life is a river, a forest - the scope of it
Staggers the heart and the head with the hope of it.
Life is a fire and the water that cools it:
Life is the earth and the air and Who rules it.
Grieve or be gay with it, stay with it, play with it,
Brother. but gratefully go all the way with it.
He who partakes of it most will not boast of it:
He that is one with it, he makes the most of it.
Pain of it, joy of it, load of it, lift of it -
Glory to God for the fabulous gift of it!
Dorothea Spears
Song Of Silence
Many have praised the beauty of Song.
I sing the beauty of Silence, the long
cool fingers of her, that heal
the wearied heart, that steal
across the aching eyelids, leaving peace.
Oh lovely hands, that smooth the crease
of pain from haggard brows, that soothe the deep
red scar of ancient hurts to sleep!
Relaxed, I yield to your caress,
you frail and lovely hands of Quietness.
Song of the Age
No time –
No time –
All rhyme
All rhyme.
Turn, wheels,
Faster, faster –
No man’s
His own master.
All slaves
To sheer speed –
All boasting
One creed;
No faith –
Souls terrene;
One God –
The Machine.
No man’s
His master –
Turn wheels,
Faster, faster.
Song of the Black Sashes
Shall we not mourn, brothers, shall we not mourn,
We who have loved liberty more than life.
To see the charter of our freedom torn
And fed into the fires of racial strife?
Shall we not mourn, brothers, we whose sons
Must face the future handcuffed to the past
And subject to that rigid rule which stuns
The questing mind to impotence at last?
Shall we not mourn, whose home, whose cherished land
Is hedged about with grim unyielding bars
That separate us from the friendly hand.
Forbid us access to familiar stars?
For us and for our children yet unborn −
Should we not mourn, brothers, should we not mourn?
Dorothea Spears
Sonlight
We stand in our own light, our frightened blinded earth.
Out of the blue and black shadow of its night,
Out of the indigo that merges the violet and the blue
Strange hallucinations come to birth
Cloaking their unreality with the dark light,
Blurring indeterminable, the glamorous and the true.
We stand in our own light of mind, hemisphere of mind
Forever shadowed by the untransparent form
The edges of the understanding blur, are undefined
Within our self-created night deceiving shadows run
Grotesquely blending and distorting every norm.
We grope in semi-darkness: the blind still lead the blind
Until we turn and catch the radiance of the risen Son
Dorothea Spears
Sonnet
Thou art not mine, and yet (Dear God, forgive!)
My suffering soul cries out for thee, in vain-
(When hearts are broken why must bodies live
And learn this burning poignancy of pain?)
Thou art so fair- why wast thou made so fair,
Without, within? My body longs for thee:
The frowning Fates, yea, fires of hell I’d dare
To call thee mine-,ah, the height of ecstasy!
Enough : thou art not mine, nor canst thou be.
Another calls thee dear - the right is his,
And I - but one who loves thee hopelessly;
Poor fool, what fruitless fatal folly ‘tis !
I love thee so- but go now whilst thou can,
For I am but an ordinary man.
Sonnet 1
Beware idealism. Oh, beware
The longing for perfection: that’s the bird
That stirs the heart to hope, to hope deferred;
The beckoning bird that treads the ambient air
With golden notes, that man can never snare,
Nor yet forget, that makes his fairest word
Seem colourless beside that cadence heard;
Too loved to lose, too beautiful to bear.
Beware the bird, the song, too high, too fair
That dims the beauty of these present things
And drives the aspiration to despair,
Discrediting the songs the sparrow sings.
Beware the bird too beautiful, too rare –
For mortal men only have mortal wings.
Airlie Close
Constantia C.P.
Sonnet At Sunset
I stand apart in shadow. Tristful night
Hovers above the distant drowsy hills:
The long, warm tongues of gold Autumnal light
Still lap the valley, and rich silence spills
Across the earth. A waxing saffron ball,
The sun glows and swells and slips away
Silently at last, as leaves fall,
Staining with red the golden rim of day.
Ah Love, speak not … break not the golden spell
That thralls a breathless world at beauty’s shrine!
Too soon this splendid loveliness will quell,
But for the moment it is yours and mine
And you and I, immortal, drink the wine
And hold the gold that none can buy or sell.
Sonnet For Cape Dwellers
We grow to used to beauty, Common ways
In which we tread continuously, blind
Our too accustomed eyes to scenes designed
For rapture, and familiar use betrays
Our senses into somnolence. The days
May scintillate with beauty but we find
-Unless italicized and underlined
By Spring 0r Autumn – we unseeing gaze.
As those with too great riches never know
The joy of little things, nor realize
The value of the trifles they despise,
So we, to such rich beauty born, outgrow
Our wonder, taking mountain, sea and skies
And flower and tree for granted as we go.
Sonnet For The Ungifted
There must be those who listen and are still,
Whose lips can touch to life no trilling flute,
Nor fingers set the fiddle strings a-thrill
In throbbing cadences, whose songs are mute.
There must be those who drink of beauty till
Their souls are lifted, though their hands transmute
No pigments into canvases of skill…
The unknown audience of no repute.
As plain and valley complement the hill:
As day to point its fairness needs the night:
As sound needs silence, and as dark needs light –
So beauty craves, its mission to fulfil,
The many who are blessed with gifted sight,
The multitude who listen and are still.
Soroptimist International Friendship day
For some October’s Autumn
For some it’s Spring
But we share the same sun.
What better thing
To say on Friendship Day
Whatever the weather,
Than just “God bless us
Every one!”
And say it altogether.
Cape of Good Hope
South African Sonnet
My lady is no shy and blushing rose,
No gently nurtured innocent to buy
With words. My love is an aloe flower that grows,
Imperious, beneath an open sky,
Unyielding – hidden thorn and scarlet flame –
To master or be mastered. She demands
No less than all a man can give: her name
Will brook no rival, and her cruel hands
Will tear a man’s heart from his breast and throw
The trophy to the vultures circling above
Before she’ll be content to rest and know
Another shares with her his primal love.
And if I win her love she will not free
My heart or soul this side of Eternity.
“Veritas”
Constantia C.P.
Spacescape
The sun and the moon and the stars…
And a little dark planet hurtling round in space
In a elliptical orbit, holding in its embrace
Millions of tiny humans… and Venus and Mars
And Jupiter watching with curious eyes
Them flinging their feeble pebbles through unmoved skies
In that vast Consciousness that holds and is held
Unseen but sensed, enveloped enveloping, still
And in motion, relaxed intense inexorable exorable will
Pervading and pervaded, impelling and impelled…
And on the little dark planet where One who knew once trod
Every tiny human rightly dreaming himself a god.
Veritas
Constantia C.P.
Spain
So old is civilization in this place,
So very old the arts and crafts of men
That meet and merge, diverge and blend again
To set the present pattern of the race.
So rich the cultures that have left their trace
Indelible and deep, with brush and pen
And stone and lineament, in now from then,
To form the features of the Spanish face.
Great loves and hates and beauty, bitter strife.
And deathless laughter and unquenchable tears,
The victor and the vanquished, loss and gain,
Are melted in the crucible of life
To shape from out the inconceivable years
The richly graven chalice that is Spain.
Dorothea Spears
Spouse To Spouse
“Here is a brand new day for you,” said Time,
And tossed it on my bed and went his way
Looking back over his shoulder to say as he went
“There will never be another just the same,
You know, whatever name you call it by…
No duplicates…” I knew what time meant.
A day holds life – or death – and earth and sky
And sun or rain and loss or gain and joy
And love and beauty: who am I to distain
So great a gift, whatever it may contain?
Handle it carefully. There will never be
Another exactly the same for you and me.
Airlie Close
Constantia CP
Spring
The blossom-tree lifted empty hands.
And in the morning, lo!
Her empty, hungry, outstretched arms
Were full of blossom snow'.
I, too, will lift my empty hands
To bless the Winter hours
And maybe, some Spring morning, I
Will find them bearing flowers.
Dorothea Spears
Spring
Out of the bitter, North easterly gale,
Out of the cold and the snow
Born of the mist and the sunshine so pale,
Spring is beginning to glow
And the trees are reminded that Death has
Passed by,
As the gentle Spring Zephyr so softly
Doth sigh.
Blackened and bare through the Winter they’ve stood,
Never a leaf to be seen,
Never a movement of life in the wood,
Cruel the Frost King has been –
But the buds are beginning to open again,
And the wild birds are winging o’er moorland and fen.
Fresh with the green of their youthful life,
Leaflets break out from the bud,
Squirrels awake to the world of strife,
Lizards crawl out of their mud –
And the soul of the world is aroused to the chime
When the wild bluebells ring in the sweet summertime.
Spring and Autumn
Of all the year I used to love the Spring
The Best; the magic resurrection time,
When common things touch close on the sublime,
And new life stirs in every vital thing:
When grubs burst forth to multi-coloured wing.
Forsaking their old habitats of slime-
Once it had stirred my heart to ‘raptured rhyme
And flights of fancy such as poets sing.
The Spring, the year’s youngest child is gay
With laughter and delight and youth a-glow;
I used to love her best once, long ago.
And sing of her in restive roundelay.
But now my step more languid is, and slow,
And Autumn better suits my Westward way.
SPRING AT ZEEKOE VLEI
Come with me to a spot I know
No more than a bul-bul’s flight from Town,
When spring has bidden the lilies blow
And covered the meadows with drifted snow
That men call daisies, and necklaced down
On the willing arms of the waiting trees
Showers of golden rosaries,
Threaded with beads as soft as wool,
As gold as the sunlight on the pool.
And in this magic circle of gold
The dear Earth’s arms are overfull,
Are almost fuller than she can hold
Of blue lobelias shining eyed,
And wild nemesias side by side
With golden flowers that men call weeds.
And the Afrikander’s wild sweet scent –
Ah, one would circle a continent
To smell again in an old Cape field,
Modest and humble and half concealed –
All spring’s perfume in one chalice blent!
The throbbing bosom of Mother Earth
Thrills again to the singing mirth
Of mating birds, and in the reeds
Where the Vlei is shadowed and cool and still
The coots and the ducks, with busy bill
Are fashioning nests for their spring time needs.
And in the pastel of morn and eve
The bul-buls shout, and the wood doves grieve,
And the tern, like leaflets that flutter and loop
From some celestial and unseen plane
To the waters surface, then rise and swoop;
In the intricate maze of a ballet troupe
They dip and curtsey, and then are fled
Into the face of the laughing sun –
A flight of silver arrows sped!
The egrets, in low level flight
Westward turn as the shoes of night
Darken the hills, and one by one
She sets the lamps of Heaven alight
In silent beauty. And day is done.
Oh, come with me to a spot I know
When spring is wearing her golden gown!
The meadows are sprinkled with daisy snow
And hosts on hosts of lilies blow,
No more than a bul-buls flight from Town…
And say if there is a spring more fair
Than ours, with the lilies in her hair!
Spring Ecstasy
I am a part of all life … no tall tree,
Nor chattering rivulet, nor daisied hill,
No rocky pinnacle aloof and still,
But bears some kinship to the life of me.
This immemorial Spring’s awakening thrill;
The rising sap, the bursting bud, the will
To beauty and to immortality.
With every heaven-ascending lark I rise;
In every lilac bush my breath is rife;
Yet am I part, too of the lowly sod
And have my portion in the vaulting skies.
I am a drop of the throbbing blood of life
That pulses, glowing, from the heart of God.
Spring is an Individual Thing
To every living thing its own Spring.
For who can say what day- the sap shall rise
Or when a bud shall open sealed eyes.
Or bid a chrysalis become a wing?
The one tree murmurs “Winter . . . no birds sing”.
Another turns in his sleep and scans the skies
And cries “It's Spring!" and eager sap replies
To each his moment of awakening.
For day comes vibrant over valley and hill
Telling the selfsame tale: and who can say
Why one awakes, and another is sleeping still
And who can say why love should blossom gay
In one heart, nor another, as it will . . .
And how, and where, and why: and on what day?
Dorothea Spears
Spring is important
When you come within shouting distance
Of threescore years and ten
Spring becomes important,
For then you never know
How many Springs are left
To bring you daffodils
And spill the vivid vygies
Over the hills and fill
The arms of waiting trees
With blossom, leaf and song
After the long winter . . .
Or if the day will come
When the miracle of Spring
Will call in vain
And the heart remain dumb.
Dorothea Spears
Spring Journey
I have returned from very far away,
From Stellenbosch, along the Faure Road,
And from the distant portals of the day
Through which the wells of beauty overflow;
From realms of bursting bud and tender leaf,
Of golden wattle bloom and daisied earth
And life escaping from a wintry sheath
And meadows redolent with lined mirth…
Beside the borders of eternity
I saw the mountain ranges. Tranquil-browed,
The distant gleam of lapis lazuli,
The radiant glory of the billowing cloud…
Bereft of speech, I could but stare and stare
At life almost too beautiful to bear
“Veritas”
Constantia, C.P.
Spring Oaks
The oaks, in their diaphanous gown, Spring-spun,
Ephemeral, or iridescent sheen,
Are setting traps for the unwary sun
And catching sunbeams in their finger’s green.
They hold them tangles in their finger tips
As if they themselves were sources of the light!
And all day long the verdant sunlight drips
In dappled pools upon the pavement bright.
Within each vernal cage the golden rays
Are prisoned by the leaves the whole day long.
But lest such beauty blind our mortal gaze
They seek the sun again at evensong.
Wherever oaks forgather, hand to hand,
When Spring’s a stripling – there is Fairyland!
Spring Of Home
To-night I feel that I would willing sell
My very birthright for a taste of Spring.
- The Spring of Home, when every living thing
Is finding life anew; the buds that swell
And burst to leaf and blossom, winds that tell
Of flowing sap, and birds that mate and sing
In ecstasy; gay moths on new-found wing-
The Spring of Home, when Earth breaks Winter’s spell!
The time of resurrection – aye, the Spring!
That calls to life so many sleeping things
Of which it has been said, “Behold, they die.”
Spring is so potent, mayhap it might bring
To my dead heart new life, and hope that sings,
And so might I awaken – even I!
Spring Tenderness
There is a tenderness behind the Spring
That hurts the heart and haunts the edge of the mind
Like something unfulfilled, something designed
To be remembered, but forgot . . . a wing
Unspread, that might have lifted . . . or a ring
Of words unsaid, ungifted, unrefined
Unmanifest. If only I could find
What haunts the heart in Spring. I'd know a thing,
A thing I have forgot, or never known -
The secret pain of beauty and of birth.
Why beauty hurts and bounty harbours dearth.
Could I recall that half-remembered tone
That frees the flower in the seed, the sword in the stone,
I’d sense the yearning of Spring returning to earth.
Dorothea Spears
SPRING’S MIRACLE.
I
thought I had forgotten : but as Spring
Awakes the winter-slumb’ring daffodils.
And snows white daisies over all the hills,
While in the woods fresh frondling fingers cling
Like infant fingers, and the pine-trees fling
Their sweet strong scent that all the forest fills.
And all the soul of Nature lives and thrills
Responsive to the song the south winds sing.
So now the miracle of Spring awakes
The winter-slumb’ring thoughts within my breast:
With all the poignant beauty of the new
Regeneration, with a sweet that aches.
Ineffable and sad; renewed by rest,
The Spring revives the last year’s dreams—and you.
Spring's unrest
Spring is not a handmaid of content
But rather a hungry henchman of unrest
Calling the unrepentant to repent
And underlining an uncompleted quest.
Spring is a ringing challenge, a taunt, a dare,
Stirring the sap and bidding the bud increase.
Spring is a fire in the blood, an urge in the air.
Spring is a bringer of beauty, but not of peace.
Life is aware of the wonder under the flower
And bud and leaf, of the energy undeterred
By earth resistance, the stirring of the power
Of the word spoken in Spring and loudly heard.
Content is lent for harvest, a finished thing;
But life has need of courage to cope with Spring.
Dorothea Spears
Spring Is A Time To Loiter
Now must I loiter on the road to Town.
A different note is sounding in the breeze:
A gentler hand is smoothing Winter’s frown,
And brave new pennants flutter in the trees.
For Spring is stealing back and scattering
Her treasures for discerning eyes to find;
And listening ears can hear the pattering
Of delicate feet upon the road behind.
O Eye, discerning be! And Listen Ear!
Shy Spring has such a little time to stay
And comes to visit only once a year …
So I must loiter on my Townward way
Lest I should miss some lovely, transient thing
That Summer snatches from the hand of Spring.
Starlings
They say –
(It may be so)
When starlings come to stay
All others go.
At Zeekoe Vlei
I only know
My starlings nest all day,
Yet hosts of birds fly to and fro
Till all the air is gay
With feathered folk at play:
And when Jan Groentjie flames low
The starlings run away!
“Oaklands”
Newlands Ave
Newlands, C.P.
Stored sunshine
See how the sunlight spills across
that patch of earth
beneath the naked plane,
and fills the startled sight
with golden mirth.
I lift glad eyes to scan
the leaden skies and find
no shaft of sun
that could endow such light.
At last I understand -
Lord, this sunlight's stored
and second hand, and wills
to flood this ground again
from daffodils!
Dorothea Spears
STRANGE PERIL
Shall
I protect my bodies in a shell
Of armoured love imperviously wrought
To parry all the barbs of poisoned thought
And all intangible attacks repel?
Or
should I go unarmed, as knowing well
The spirit’s power for immunizing aught
That harms the spirit—thus I have been taught;
Resist not, but accept, absorb, dispel?
Deflected
darts can find another mark
And wound the sender or attack some other
Vulnerable to their deadly kiss.
But
darts destroyed strike no man in the dark.
Infect at last no unprotected brother . . .
Is my young magic strong enough for this?
Stripling Spring
Unwilling winter abdicates
In favour of a stripling spring;
Birds wedded only yesterday
Can find no bridal songs to sing.
I am not ready for the spring,
Content in winter’s arms to be,
Bleak comfort taking from the thought
That spring’s not ready for me!
Stripped
Sometimes the cloaks of make-believe man wears
To shield him from the verities are blown
Asunder by some mighty wind that bares
His unaccustomed torso to bone.
Sometimes a sudden lightning flash reveals
The undiscovered contours of the plain
That ordinary night and day conceals
And nothing can ever be the same again.
A single blinding moment of truth can blast
A lifetime’s woven wishful fabric away
And topple the edifices of the past
And bare the shivering unadorned clay.
But it is from such naked moments of ruth
That man can rise and clothe himself in truth.
Airlie Close
Constantia. C.P.
Subversion
I say Christ came to lay the one foundation
On which to build God’s Kingdom on the earth;
The corner stone for an enduring nation,
The fundamental Law of final birth:
- To Love Thy God With Heart and Soul and Mind,
Thy Neighbour as Thyself – by this alone
Can any civilisation hope to find
Enduring life… upon this corner stone.
With dogma and with creed we overlay
The simple truth, and forfeit our salvation;
With multiplicity of laws betray,
And sell His unity for separation.
And, blind and deaf of indisputable reason,
Men commit again the ultimate treason.
Veritas
Constantia C.P.
Summer’s End
Now, when the first frail leaves are slowly drifting
Lightly, lightly down from the dreaming trees;
Now, with the last of Summer’s roses lifting
Fragrant lips to the kiss of the listless breeze,
While thirsty flowers droop lovely heads, appealing
Vainly to the mute uncertain skies,
And silent footed mists return, instealing
At eventide, and the first bird homeward flies:
Though peace be scored in every dreaming valley
Some subtle change of tempo in each day,
Although procrastinating Summer daily,
Proclaims that Winter is upon his way.
So some crescendo in my own pulse beating
Gives warning that life’s summer, too, is fleeting.
Sunday After Christmas
The day began with a rainbow in the mist
That hid the mountain yet I did not guess,
Selecting blossoms from the blue rain-kissed
Hydrangeas, what it held of happiness −
A meeting with old friends along the way
A summer's day where sun and shadow blend
To turn the drive along the fairest Bay
To blue delight. and peace at journey's end.
And then, replete with turkey, talk and sleep,
A shady gorge, deep pools, a waterfall,
A wealth of trees and, given them to keep
A flame of disas on the mountain wall . . .
The evening plumed an angel in the sky
With outstretched arms . . . How rich, how rich am I
3/12/59 Dorothea Spears
Sunset
The daintiest, paintiest powder-puffs,
Of pink, from a cloak of blue,
And a paling, trailing wisp of scarf
In an airier, fairier hue,
The angels dropped at the gates of heaven
(I saw them!) as they went through.
Sunset : Groot Constantia
(From the Governor looks back)
Surely, if there be such a thing as peace
Upon this turning, vastly troubled sphere –
Surely, if there be such a thing as rest
On this inconstant earth, it should be here.
The molten sun of waning afternoon
Is mellowed by approaching eventide.
The sweeping shadows of the oaks grow long
Upon the umber ground; and on the wide
White gable’s face are pencilled lines of shade:
The vineyard wall is rich with shadows pied.
Constantia’s guardian mountain soon will screen
The homestead from the sun’s warm glances,
Throwing a broadened silhouette across the vale,
Bringing cool relief to vineyards growing
In verdant ranks; while on the distant sea
And glistening sand the sun will still be glowing,
And on the further mountains, drowsing pink
Against a pastel-pink Veridian sky.
This is the hour when Simon loves to walk
Beneath his trees, to watch the slow day die:
Or, sitting on the broad flagged stoep, to dream
Of days to come, and of the days gone by;
To watch the shadows creep along the land.
Incarnadined, the distant mountains blaze
In splendour, setting fire to sea and sand,
While all Creation stands in mute amaze
Until, the mighty conflagration done,
They fade into the all-enfolding haze
And darkness seals the eager eyes of day.
The full moon, rising, etches the far-off hills
And floods the world with her ethereal light;
Even the voice of the doves complaining stills.
The Cape is gathering beneath the wings of night
And peace of God the sleeping valley fills.
Epilogue
… So Simon dreams alone …yet not alone.
Across the years the shadowy figures troop
To join him, while the tender wings of night
About the dreaming homestead softly droop,
And hover o’er the Star of Van der Stel
Embedded in the stonework of the stoep.
A shaft of light across the half-door falls
And on the broad mosaic pattern drips
From slave-lit lamps, and Simon, seeing, nods.
“Of nectar and of gall the same mouth sips,
For life is made of light and shade and now
The Star of Van dee Stel is in eclipse.
But when the unborn days shall come to light
These vines will speak for me; these oaks will tell
That I have loved this land with all my heart;
That I have served her faithfully and well.
Another generation shall arise
Whose sons will bless the name of Van der Stel.”
No alien sound the peaceful silence mars:
The lights are snuffed, encroaching shadow steeps
The homestead, shutters closed and dropped the bars.
The mountain her eternal vigil keeps:
The velvet night is tremulous with stars…
In dreaming beauty Groot Constantia sleeps.
Superannuate
So many songs I've sung, so many songs,
Sitting by myself in the sunshine
Or mingling in the streets with the throngs.
So many tears I've dried, so many tears,
Sitting by myself in the twilight
Or comforting the children of their fears.
So many dreams I've had, so many dreams,
Sitting by myself in the sunrise
Or following another's distant gleams.
So much of thought I've found, so much of thought,
Sitting by myself in the starlight
Or − weighing all the morals men have taught. −
How much of truth have I? How much of truth,
Sitting by myself in the sunset
Gleaning teaching age and questing youth?
But this I know − I've had my share of beauty,
Walking by myself in the − silence
Or treading with mankind the way of duty.
So let the setting sun go down, go down,
Sitting by myself in the open
Or walking with my friends in the town,
Dorothea Spears
Surprise Sonnet
(In Hospital)
Here was silence; here an interlude
That's unfamiliar . . . tryst with stranger hours
That chart a depth of deeper solitude
And nebulously touch mysterious powers.
Emerging through this limitless serene −
Your messages. your gifts, your gracious flowers
Were woven through the subtly changing scenes
And touched to living beauty pain-edged bowers.
The colours of the rainbow . . . all the scent
Of all the blossoms found a rich release
And drifted in and out of that content
Wherein I floated in a dream of peace.
. . . As if I caught the thought of countless friends
Who shaped their wills to fashion happy ends.
Dorothea Spears
30/5/59
Surprised by Joy.
To-day the tethered bird within me sings and soars like a lark above these pavements gray
That floor the heavens and ceil the earth,
Today There is an urgent lifting of the wings
That carries me above the clouds and brings
Myself into the orbit of the gay
Unceasing sun, a weeping world away
From earthly overcast and shadowed things.
If you unwittingly have walked some hill
And suddenly have stirred a lark to rise
And vanish into song against the skies
From just beside your feet when all was still -
Then you will know - how a burst of song can fill
Your universe with jubilant replies.
Dorothea Spears
Swan Song of the Oaks
They say the swan sings once, the one song
Of such surpassing beauty that the ear
On which it falls forevermore shall hear
That haunting melody a whole life long.
The music of the Autumn is bright and strong:
As the little death of winter draws near
In haunting melody year after year
The oak trees sing their golden swan song.
It stirs the heart with such a wild delight
That happiness is half akin to sorrow
Matching the magic of the wooded hill −
Because it knows the swan, and death, and night
And Spring − and that the Winter comes tomorrow,
And that the swan sings once and then is still.
Dorothea Spears
SWEET NARCISSI, ENGLISH VIOLETS.
Take
them away. The fragrance is too fraught
With poignant memory to bring me aught
But pain. There are so many flowers in bloom—
Why did you choose these two whose fond perfume
Brings back so sorely that I would forget—
The dear old days, with all the old regret?
What
strange Fate made you pick these, to your pain,
To resurrect that olden love again ?
I scarce had thought of it within the year,
(So soon can one surrender sorrows dear.)
And
you—my heart had nearly come to care
As you desired, until these flowers so fair
Brought vivid life to those near-dead regrets
Ah, sweet narcissi, English violets!
Sweet Peace To Every Heart This Night
Sweet peace to every heart this night
The angel choirs still sing
The star still leads with guiding light,
The wise men to their king,
And every heart where love has birth
May hear the message still
Of “Peace on earth! Sweet peace on earth
To all men of good will!”
Though loud the sounds of discord roll
And doubt engenders fear
‘Tis only Hate makes deaf the soul:
And the wise men still can hear
In every heart where love has birth
The promise echoes still
Sweet peace on earth! Sweet peace on earth
To all men of good will!”
Symbol
So he has been a carpenter, to fashion
The everlasting cross, and sign His name.
The instrument of unity and passion
He shaped and bore and wore, and so became.
The mortal and immortal forces ply
The vertical and horizontal spars
Uniting, where they cross, the earth and sky.
The weeping women and the singing stars.
"And I, if I be lifted up," He said,
"Draw all men unto Me." Oh, not in vain
His craft! The lightning played about His head,
The separating veil was rent in twain.
And He became the Cross. the brooch to bind
The earth and heaven, God of humankind.
Dorothea Spears