Blue skies

Mary Coleridge (great grand niece of Samuel Taylor Coleridge) is a poet I'm quite fond of; her beautiful poem L'Oiseau Bleu (listen here) was set to music by Charles Villiers Stanford and was recorded by the Oxford Camerata on their cd English Madrigals and Songs. It's a gorgeous song, and I love it so much we used it in our wedding ceremony, a few years ago now.


L'Oiseau Bleu

The lake lay blue below the hill,
O'er it, as I looked, there flew
Across the waters, cold and still,
A bird whose wings were palest blue.

The sky above was blue at last,
The sky beneath me blue in blue,
A moment, ere the bird had passed,
It caught his image as he flew.

Mary Coleridge


There's another Coleridge poem which is quite suitable for bloggers, I think; it's for those days when we wonder if we are talking into a great, dark void...


Winged Words

As darting swallows skim across a pool,
Whose tranquil depths reflect a tranquil sky,
So, o'er the depths of silence, dark and cool,
Our winged words dart playfully,
And seldom break
The quiet surface of the lake,
As they flit by.

Mary Coleridge