Water, Water, Everywhere

Today, 3 October, is National Poetry Day in the UK. This countrywide celebration of poetry has taken place since 1994. It is intended to bring poetry out onto the streets and into everyone’s lives. There will be plenty of events to help get everyone involved, including such things as poets writing on the London Underground.

Since 1999, the Day has had a theme. This year the theme is water, inspired by Coleridge’s mariner’s famous cry: “Water, water, everywhere”. The theme is not intended to be prescriptive, but to spark inspiration.

I have decided to accept the prompt; here are a couple of water-themed poems with matching photos.

With a water-lily
by Henrik Ibsen

See, dear, what thy lover brings;
‘Tis the flower with the white wings.
Buoyed upon the quiet stream
In the spring it lay adream. Homelike to bestow this guest,
Lodge it, dear one, in thy breast;
There its leaves the secret keep
Of a wave both still and deep. Child, beware the tarn-fed stream;
Danger, danger, there to dream!
Though the sprite pretends to sleep,
And above the lilies peep. Child, thy bosom is the stream;
Danger, danger, there to dream!
Though above the lilies peep,
And the sprite pretends to sleep

Water lilies in the Okavango Delta

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All Day I Hear the Noise of Waters
by James Joyce

All day I hear the noise of waters
Making moan,
Sad as the sea-bird is when, going
Forth alone,
He hears the winds cry to the water’s
Monotone. The grey winds, the cold winds are blowing
Where I go.
I hear the noise of many waters
Far below.
All day, all night, I hear them flowing
To and fro.