Old Soldier's sentiment, Op. 32

The life that a woman's love did give to me,
They say is the life she came woe to see,
That a life's search of ill-begotten wealth,
Better spent was than mine, in long and steady health.
And also, that for a soldier to live long's a sin,
That to lie down early is the proper path of my kin,
That I should follow, and that none would mourn,
That both my virtue and vice have gone down to scorn.
Such talk! Can man listen to it but with grizzled glee,
As for none would he end it, as for none did it begin;
For to talk is to do no injury, to speak so is to whine;
When I hear such talk, I grin long and drink my wine.

Interlude

To lie on my back and float in the air;
To think of wily horror or of wild glee,
And sleep; the minutes between the first
And the second sound of the alarming clock
Are stretched like the hours are to infinity;
Lost in strange and dismaying distance,
Unaware of time or day or of their stance,
I sleep; and the vibrating pulse of music;
Somehow transmutes through arcane means,
Incorporating the alarm in those dreams;
And lo! Puck flees with the faeries and with the dance.

Winter Sonnet, Op. 31

Coil! Coil! Snake in the night,
Winter has come and stolen the light!
Coil! Coil! Snake in the cold,
Sleep and rest till Winter grows old!
Check your dreams and hold your heart;
Hold it tightly in your handless guard;
Shiver and shiver, and a virulent hiss,
Spit out to ward off His alluring kiss!
Dream! Dream! Of forges and of serpent coils,
Dream of heat, and of blood that boils,
And of things of love and things loathsome,
With peaceful dreams Summer sooner comes!

Interlude with William Blake

    William Blake, William
Blake, William Blake, William Blake,
  say it and feel new!

Tyger
Tyger
Burning
Bright!

In
The
Fortresses
Of
The
Night!

/

What
The
Hammer
&
What
The
Chain?

In
What
Furnace
Was
Thy
Brain?

/

Did
Your
Maker
Smile
His
Work
To
See?

Did
He
Who
Made
The
Lamb
Make
Thee?

/

Tyger
Tyger
Burning
Bright!

In
The
Fortresses
Of
The
Night!

Poem by William Blake, Quip by Peter Porter, Typesetting and editing by Sampsa Rapeli