The Moment

Silver

by Walter de la Mare

Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon;

This way, and that, she peers, and sees

Silver fruit upon silver trees;

One by one the casements catch

Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;

Couched in his kennel, like a log,

With paws of silver sleeps the dog;

From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep

Of doves in silver feathered sleep

A harvest mouse goes scampering by,

With silver claws, and silver eye;

And moveless fish in the water gleam,

By silver reeds in a silver stream. 

The Moment 

 by Margaret Atwood

The moment when, after many years

of hard work and a long voyage

you stand in the centre of your room,

house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,

knowing at last how you got there,

and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose

their soft arms from around you,

the birds take back their language,

the cliffs fissure and collapse,

the air moves back from you like a wave

and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.

You were a visitor, time after time

climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.

We never belonged to you.

You never found us.

It was always the other way round. 

On Pain 

by Khalil Gibran

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses 

your understanding. 

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its 

heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. 

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the 

daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem 

less wondrous than your joy; 

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, 

even as you have always accepted the seasons that 

pass over your fields. 

And you would watch with serenity through the 

winters of your grief. 

Much of your pain is self-chosen. 

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within 

you heals your sick self. 

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy 

in silence and tranquillity: 

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by 

the tender hand of the Unseen, 

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has 

been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has 

moistened with His own sacred tears.