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 Feb 2020 Thorne J McFarlane
jay
A- you're adorable
B- you're the best
C- you're cute
D- you're dear to me
E- you're excellent
F- you're fine ;)
G- you're great
H- hehehe
I- I'm
J- just
k- kidding!
At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An ****** vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies
(Her casement open to the skies)
Irene, with her Destinies!

Oh, lady bright! can it be right—
This window open to the night!
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice-drop—
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully—so fearfully—
Above the closed and fringed lid
’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid,
That, o’er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all-solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep;
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold—
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o’er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals—
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood many an idle stone—
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne’er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.
'Love is all
Unsatisfied
That cannot take the whole
Body and soul';
And that is what Jane said.

'Take the sour
If you take me
I can scoff and lour
And scold for an hour.'
"That's certainly the case,' said he.

'Naked I lay,
The grass my bed;
Naked and hidden away,
That black day';
And that is what Jane said.

'What can be shown?
What true love be?
All could be known or shown
If Time were but gone.'
'That's certainly the case,' said he.
When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I ****** my *** in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.
What do you see, nurse, what's going on?
What are you thinking, when my buzzer turns on? -
desk full of paperwork growing in size?
climbing into bed and closing your eyes?
perhaps you are aching from hours on your feet?
or maybe you're desperate for something to eat?
I'm sure being overworked is something you hate,
but shouldn't you leave that at the hospital gate?
I lay here riddled with cancer, moaning in pain
wondering if you care or if I'm a drain.
I wonder if a kind hand will take mine in care,
or if I will be met with a cold stony glare.
I know you don't have time to sit by me a while,
but would it really be too much to flash me a smile?
When you come with charts and machines to inspect
is it too much to ask that you show me respect?
I know you're all human and that you feel too,
but it isn't my fault you have so much to do.
Please don't excuse yourself with the woes of your day,
I'm scared and I'm hurting as life fades away.
I spent my life teaching with compassion and care,
but this cancer it grips me, I've nothing to spare.
Some of you have the most beautiful of hearts,
but the lottery of care, it tears me apart -
I worry if a smile is the last thing I'll see
or if you'll be looking at your watch, instead of at me.
I'm probably not you're first and I won't be your last,
but I'm the only me, present, future and past.
The life I have lived is fading; death hangs overhead,
Fill my last days with kindness, for soon I'll be dead.
So return to your training, your core values, be aware
are you the nurse with the kind touch or the cold stony glare?
I wrote this poem as I sat watching my uncle finally sleeping in a haze of wonderful pain relieving drugs in a hospital dying of cancer.  This poem was entirely inspired by Crabbit Old Woman and the Nurse's response to Crabbit Old Woman and stands firm that there is no excuse for poor care.
Written 2011
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows and through curtains, call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late schoolboys and sour ‘prentices,
Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices;
Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink
But that I would not lose her sight so long:
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and, tomorrow late, tell me
Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear ‘All here in one bed lay’.

She is all states, and all princes I;
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus;
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.
For this my mother wrapped me warm,
And called me home against the storm,
And coaxed my infant nights to quiet,
And gave me roughage in my diet,
And tucked me in my bed at eight,
And clipped my hair, and marked my weight,
And watched me as I sat and stood:
That I might grow to womanhood
To hear a whistle and drop my wits
And break my heart to clattering bits.
FOR one throb of the artery,
While on that old grey stone I Sat
Under the old wind-broken tree,
I knew that One is animate,
Mankind inanimate fantasy'.
291

How the old Mountains drip with Sunset
How the Hemlocks burn—
How the Dun Brake is draped in Cinder
By the Wizard Sun—

How the old Steeples hand the Scarlet
Till the Ball is full—
Have I the lip of the Flamingo
That I dare to tell?

Then, how the Fire ebbs like Billows—
Touching all the Grass
With a departing—Sapphire—feature—
As a Duchess passed—

How a small Dusk crawls on the Village
Till the Houses blot
And the odd Flambeau, no men carry
Glimmer on the Street—

How it is Night—in Nest and Kennel—
And where was the Wood—
Just a Dome of Abyss is Bowing
Into Solitude—

These are the Visions flitted *****—
Titian—never told—
Domenichino dropped his pencil—
Paralyzed, with Gold—
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