Now I've been three days

Now I've been three days
In the place where I am staying,
I've taken up new ways—
Land-owning and flute playing.
There's an orchard ground
Seen, that set me sighing.
Should I give ten pounds,
It is mine for the buying.
With the door set wide,
I could sit there playing,
Send the magic notes
Through the gully straying.
Since the roof is sound
And the trees are growing,
I will give ten pounds,
All my gold bestowing.
Now I've been three days
In the place where I am staying,
I've taken up new ways—
Land-owning and flute playing.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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Machinist Talking

I sit at my machine,
Hour long beside me Vera aged nineteen,
Babbles her sweet and innocent tale of sex.

Her boy, she hopes, will prove
Unlike his father in the act of love,
Twelve children are too many for her taste.

She looks sidelong, blue-eyed
And tells a girlish story of a bride
With the sweet licence of Arabian queens.

Her child, she says, saw light
Minute for minute, nine months from the night
The mother first lay in her lover’s arms.

She says a friend of hers
Is a man’s mistress who gives jewels and furs
But will not have her soft limbs cased in stays.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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This year I have seen autumn with new eyes

This year I have seen autumn with new eyes,
Glimpsed hitherto undreamt of mysteries
In the slow ripening of the town-bred trees;
Horse-chestnut lifting wide hands to the skies;
And silver beech turned gold now winter's near;
And elm, whose leaves like little suns appear
Scattering light — all, all have made me wise
And writ me lectures in earth's loveliness,
Whether they laugh through the grey morning mist,
Or by the loving sun at noon are kissed
Or seek at night the high-swung lamp's caress.
Does autumn such a novel splendour wear
Simply because my love has yellow hair?

poem by Lesbia Harford
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Periodicity

My friend declares
Being woman and virgin she
Takes small account of periodicity
And she is right.
Her days are calmly spent
For her sex-function is irrelevant.
But I whose life
Is monthly broke in twain
Must seek some sort of meaning in my pain.
Women, I say,
Are beautiful in change,
Remote, immortal, like the moon they range.
Or call my pain
A skirmish in the whole
Tremendous conflict between body and soul.
Meaning must lie,
Some beauty surely dwell
In the fierce depths and uttermost pits of hell.
Yet still I seek,
Month after month in vain,

[...] Read more

poem by Lesbia Harford
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The Wife

He's out of work!
I tell myself a change should mean a chance,
And he must look for changes to advance,
And he, of all men, really needs a jerk.
But I hate change.
I like my kitchen with its pans and pots
That shine like new although we've used them lots.
I wouldn't like a kitchen that was strange.
And it's not true
All changes are for better. Some are worse.
A man had rather work, though work's a curse,
Than mope at home with not a thing to do.
No surer thing
Than that he'll get another job. But soon!
Or else I'll have to change. This afternoon
Would be the time, before I sell my ring.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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An Improver

Maisie's been holding down her head all day,
Her little red head. And her pointed chin
Rests on her neck that slips so softly in
The square-cut low-necked darling dress she made
In such a way, since it's high-waisted too,
It lets you guess how fair young breasts begin
Under the gentle pleasant folds of blue.
But on the roof at lunchtime when the sun
Shone warmly and the wind was blowing free
She lifted up her head to let me see
A little rosy mark beneath the chin—
The mark of kisses. If her mother knew
She'd be ashamed, but a girl-friend like me
Made her feel proud to show her kisses to.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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Green and blue

Green and blue
First-named of colours believe these two.
They first of colours by men were seen
This grass colour, tree colour,
Sky colour, sea colour,
Magic-named, mystic-souled, blue and green.
Later came
Small subtle colours like tongues of flame,
Small jewel colours for treasure trove,
Not fruit colour, flower colour,
Cloud colour, shower colour,
But purple, amethyst, violet and mauve.
These remain,
Two broad fair colours for our larger gain
Stretched underfoot or spreading wide on high,
Green beech colour, vine colour,
Gum colour, pine colour,
Blue of the noonday and the moonlit sky.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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Oh, oh Rosalie

Oh, oh Rosalie,
Oh, oh Rosalie,
What would you have of me?
Oh, oh Rosalie.
I have kisses fine,
I have kisses fine.
Will you take kiss of mine?
Oh, oh Rosalie.
I have dreams in store,
I have dreams in store,
Fine spun as lace of yore.
Oh, oh Rosalie.
Many a mighty thought,
Many a mighty thought
By men of old time wrought
Is mine, Rosalie.
I have golden days,
I have golden days,
Green trees, and leafy ways.
Oh, oh Rosalie.

[...] Read more

poem by Lesbia Harford
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He looks in my heart and the image there

He looks in my heart and the image there
Is himself, himself, than himself more fair.
And he thinks of my heart as a mirror clear
To reflect the image I hold most dear.
But my heart is much more like a stream, I think,
Where my lover may come when he needs to drink.
And my heart is a stream that seems asleep
But the tranquil waters run strong and deep;
They reflect the image that seems most fair
But their meaning and purpose are otherwhere.
He may come, my lover, and lie on the brink
And gaze at his image and smile and drink
While the hidden waters run strong and free,
Unheeded, unguessed at, the soul of me.

poem by Lesbia Harford
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A Bronte Legend

They say she was a creature of the moor,
A lover of the angels, silence bound.
She sought no friendships. She was too remote,
Her sister Charlotte found.
I know she nursed her brother till he died,
Although she didn't like him; that she had
Housework and all the ironing to do,
Because her maids were bad.
And in the midst of it she wrote a book.
There could have been small leisure for the moor
Or wandering! She used to mend and sew,
The family was so poor.
Her brother died. But she died just as soon
As she had nursed dear Charlotte through the shock
Of Patrick's death. Contemplative? Well, well!
No Simeon of the Rock!

poem by Lesbia Harford
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