British Rail Regrets

- Stephen Morris

British Rail regrets
The delay of the 9.20 train
From New Castle-on-Tyne,
Which was due to arrive
In Bristol at 18.00 hours.
The delay has occurred
Because the train has been derailed
Seven miles north of Leeds,
After being in collision
With an empty passenger train.
So far, only forty-seven
Of the hundred and ten
Bodies have been identified,
Seventeen of these being children.
Will people meeting the train
Please report
To the Station Master's Office,
Which can be found on platform one,
Where they will receive
Further information?
We would like to apologise,
For any inconvenice
Which may have been caused
To other passengers.
The 12.10 train from Manchester
Will be arriving on time.

I Had a Dove

- John Keats

I had a dove and the sweet dove died;
And I have thought it died of  grieving;
O, what could it grieve for?
Its feet were tied,
With a silken thread of my own hand's weaving:
Sweet little red feet! why should you die--
Why should you leave me, sweet bird! why?
You liv'd alone in the forest-tree,
Why, pretty thing! would you not live with me?
I kiss'd you oft and gave you white pease:
Why not live sweetly, as in the green trees?

The Chimney Sweeper

-William Blake

A little black thing in the snow,
Crying 'weep! weep!' in notes of woe!
'Where are thy father and mother? Say!'--
'They are both gone up to the church to pray.

'Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smiled among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

'And because I am happy and dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his priest and kin,
Who make up a heaven of our misery.'

London

-William Blake (1757-1827)

I wandered through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.

She Dwelt Among Untrodden Ways

-William Wordsworth

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mosy tone
Half hidden from the eye!
---Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!