Street Music
There's a band in the street, there's a band in the street.
It will play you a tune for a penny—
It will play you a tune, you a tune, you a tune,
And you, though you haven't got any,
For the music's free, and the music's bold.
It cannot really be bought and sold.
And the people walk with their heads held high
Whether or not they've a penny.
And the music's there as the bandsmen know,
For the poor though the poor are many.
Oh the music's free and the music's bold.
It cannot really be bought and sold.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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A Prayer To Saint Rosa
When I am so worn out I cannot sleep
And yet I know I have to work next day
Or lose my job, I sometimes have recourse
To one long dead, who listens when I pray.
I ask Saint Rose of Lima for the sleep
She went without, three hundred years ago
When, lying on thorns and heaps of broken sherd,
She talked with God and made a heaven so.
Then speedily that most compassionate Saint
Comes with her gift of deep oblivious hours,
Treasured for centuries in nocturnal space
And heavy with the scent of Lima's flowers.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Most people have a way of making friends
Most people have a way of making friends
That's very queer.
They don't choose whom they like, but anyone
In some way near.
The girl beside them on the factory bench,
The girl next door
Does. If they move then they forget the friend
They had before.
I choose the friends who suit me (one I found
Shut up in jail)—
Some nuns, some clerks, Anne whose beauty was
Frankly for sale.
Of course I cannot see them every day.
That's as Fate sends.
Blind Fate may choose my times for me, but not,
Oh not, my friends.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Noli Me Tangere
We watched the dawn breaking across the sea
While just above us hung the evening star.
The nearer waters took a hint of white
And clouds and waves together massed afar,
Narrowed our morning world of pallid light
Till dawn seemed very close to you and me.
'Nay, dawn, stay farther off. Be Magdalen.
Go back into the distance whence you came.
The Near is meaningless when Far is nought,'
So I; and you. 'Wait but a little then,
And day, whole day, uprising like a flame,
Will show us the far reaches of our thought.'
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Skirt Machinist
I am making great big skirts
For great big women—
Amazons who've fed and slept
Themselves inhuman.
Such long skirts, not less than two
And forty inches.
Thirty round the waist for fear
The webbing pinches.
There must be tremendous tucks
On those round bellies.
Underneath the limbs will shake
Like wine-soft jellies.
I am making such big skirts
And all so heavy,
I can see their wearers at
A lord-mayor's levee.
I, who am so small and weak
I have hardly grown,
Wish the skirts I'm making less
Unlike my own.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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The love I look for
The love I look for
Could not come from you.
My mind is set to fall
At Peterloo.
But you'ld protect me,
I'd be safe with you.
You could but love me
In the olden way,
With gifts of jewels, children,
Time to play,
Be man to woman
In the olden way.
The love that's love has
Other gifts to bring,
A share in weakness, dreams,
And suffering.
These are the only
Gifts I'd have to bring.
The love I look for
Does not come from you.
[...] Read more
poem by Lesbia Harford
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A Sophistical Argument
Great crane o'ertopping the delicate trees
Why do you seem so fair,
Swaying and raising your load with ease
High in the misty air?
You are a wonder of pearl and grey
Lifting strong arms to the sky.
Have you a meaning that's lovely, pray?
Why are you lovely, why?
I have a friend with a theory strange,
Thriftless in unity,
None of my reasons avails to change.
'Beauty is truth,' says she.
Are you all ugliness, Fair-to-the-sense?
You are a symbol drear.
Though I should forfeit mine innocence,
Yet must I hold you dear.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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The Sisters
They used to say
Our mother brought us up like hot-house flowers,
From day to day
Such wondrous cares were ours
Her love inspired.
In truth we grew
Strangely. Unsought, as priestesses might be.
The girls we knew
Found tenderness. But we
Were more desired.
No doubt at all
Our spirits drew the secret souls of men.
They would recall
Old dreams through us; and then
Make dreams their choice.
Creatures of light,
Sun-darkened by the shining of her love,
We knew the plight
Of Sibyls, thus to prove
The incarnate voice.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Work-Girls' Holiday
A lady has a thousand ways
Of doing nothing all her days,
And so she thinks that they're well spent,
She can be idle and content.
But when I have a holiday
I have forgotten how to play.
I could rest idly under trees
When there's some sun or little breeze
Or if the wind should prove too strong
Could lie in bed the whole day long.
But any leisured girl would say
That that was waste of holiday.
Perhaps if I had weeks to spend
In doing nothing without end,
I might learn better how to shirk
And never want to go to work.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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The Moonlit Room
I know a room that's dark in daytime hours;
No sunbeams light it,
Whether in months of gloom or months of flowers,
So people slight it.
Yet in the noon of each succeeding night
The moon shines in it,
Goldenly waking dreamers to delight
For a love's minute.
In a dream light, they sigh and burn and kiss
And fall to slumber
Deeply once more. Thus bliss is piled on bliss
In goodly number.
Praise first is giv'n to sunshine and to rooms
Sunbright, with reason.
Yet a wise man should choose a moonlit room
In his blood's season.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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