Poems in my heart

Crossing the bar

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar, 
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,    
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep 
Turns again home!

Twilight and evening bell,    
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,    
When I embark;

For though from out our bourn of Time and Place    
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
When I have crost the bar.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

This poem is immediately evocative for me
of one of my oldest friends who
unexpectedly died in 2009.
This poem was read at his funeral
and will always remind me of him
and how lucky I was, after almost
25 years,to meet him again
before he died.


He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W B Yeats

I have a special place in my heart for this poem.  The last two
lines were quoted on a written note left on my son's grave by
a young girl who had a fledgling relationship with him,
maybe unrequited I don't know, just before he was tragically
killed aged 17.  She carried him in her heart for many years and
obviously grieved for what might have been. I hope she has
gone on to find love.