Daily Poetry Readings

Part 327 of a daily series of readings of his favourite poetry by Dr Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary. Today's poem is Break, Break, Break by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
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~ Break, Break, Break by Alfred, Lord Tennyson ~
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

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many thanks.

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Somebody Consoles Me with a Poem Sandor Csoori Can you hear it? Somebody's reading a poem to me over the telephone, he's consoling me for my dead, for myself, he's promising a snowfall on my forehead, snow on our common resting place: on a bed, forests, beyond the skeletons of yesterday's flowers, and healing silence in a gentle cellar, where cut plum-tree logs will burn, blazing, there will be wine on the table, onion and bread, otherworldly light gleaming from a sharp knife, and on the timeless, white cellar wall an ant, separated from its army, marches toward future centuries. Can you hear it? What he says, he says to you as well: with big, black wings don't flap into the night, into mourning, into soot, you're not an angel, nor a condor, you're a sweet country's sole dweller. you're mine even though you're condemned to death! Your bound hair tumbles down every night to my wrists and I turn toward the North Star together with your back- Weapons may stare at us tomorrow, too, our misled country with thistly eyes, we will no longer need your mercy: we've lived everything that is life, everything that is the worry of people who die too early- Look: the promised snow is falling softly already, down to our footprints advancing in pairs. translated from the Hungarian by Len Roberts and Lazlo Vertes