[Seia Ibanez]

General Discussion Thread 21.03.2025​

G’day, you wonderful soul! I hope you’re waking up to something good, whether it’s the smell of coffee or just the promise of a great day ahead. Speaking of great things, today is World Poetry Day! A day to celebrate the magic of words—the ones that make us laugh, cry, or feel understood in ways we never expected. This poem has been one that stuck with me. My mum read it to me when I was younger:

Footprints in the Sand

One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
'Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You'd walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me.'

He whispered, 'My precious child, I love you and will never leave you
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.'​

It is a very touching poem for me, and I still go over and over most of the time.

So, tell us—what’s your favourite poem, or a line that’s stuck with you over the years? Share them here! But before anything else, here’s our final Word Unscramble of the week:

 

[#Polly#]

There once was a road through the woods
Is there anyone there said the traveller knocking on the moonlit door whilst his horse chomped the grasses of the forests ferny floor.
(Can't remember any more!!)
Think it could be part of a poem by William Blakebut not sure

 

[Mikev]

You can’t beat the good old Australian classic poems by Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson.
‘There was movement at the station…

 

[Lunagazer]

Good morning all,
I have penned some poems over the years. A few come to mind: A short one about growing old, one about Catholicism & one about my youngest’s experiences in Afghanistan (stylised).
Shall I start with growing old?
“ I am in my autumn years now,
My spring & summer passed,
I am quieted by the knowledge earned that all things end…. at last.
That my winter creeps ‘ere closer
Is a fore concluded truth.
Just as once upon a time, I glowed,
endowed in blossomed youth.

I admit it’s one of my first & favourites.

 

[Vespa Girl]

John Masefield was the poet. I always liked this one:

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amythysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

 

[Gunpark]

Clancy of The Overflow by Banjo Patterson.
"and the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting".
Sounds like he was describing Australian Parliament.

 

[Red to Grey]

'My Country' By Dorothea McKellar

 

[Dackleberry]

I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping Plains....................
Dorothea McKeller.

 

[Still Ebby]

'My Country' By Dorothea McKellar

l like ''l Wondered Lonely As A Cloud'' William Wordsworth but there are so many favourites

 

[Suesit]

Man is forever lonely; there can be
No time or circumstance in all his days
To lead him out of loneliness; his ways
Are those of clouds and tides. Not even he
Who seeks the crowded solace of the street
Can find a single comrade there, nor yet
In secret bonds of love can men forget
Their heart's own solitude. Though lips may meet,
And hand touch hand in intimate embrace,
A stranger still abides within the mind
No word can reach, no vision ever find.
A lonely God, enthroned in lonely space,
Fashioned us out of silence as we are, —
As single as a tree, as separate as a star.

 

[Clancieblue]

Mary Called Him ‘Mister’ [poem by Henry Lawson]​

28 June 2013 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This poem by Henry Lawson was published in Verses Popular and Humorous, 1900.]

Mary Called Him ‘Mister’​

They’d parted but a year before — she never thought he’d come,
She stammer’d, blushed, held out her hand, and called him ‘Mister Gum.’
How could he know that all the while she longed to murmur ‘John.’
He called her ‘Miss le Brook,’ and asked how she was getting on.
They’d parted but a year before; they’d loved each other well,
But he’d been to the city, and he came back such a swell.
They longed to meet in fond embrace, they hungered for a kiss —
But Mary called him ‘Mister,’ and the idiot called her ‘Miss.’
He stood and lean’d against the door — a stupid chap was he —
And, when she asked if he’d come in and have a cup of tea,
He looked to left, he looked to right, and then he glanced behind,
And slowly doffed his cabbage-tree, and said he ‘didn’t mind.’
She made a shy apology because the meat was tough,
And then she asked if he was sure his tea was sweet enough;
He stirred the tea and sipped it twice, and answer’d ‘plenty, quite;’
And cut the smallest piece of beef and said that it was ‘right.’
She glanced at him at times and cough’d an awkward little cough;
He stared at anything but her and said, ‘I must be off.’
That evening he went riding north — a sad and lonely ride —
She locked herself inside her room, and there sat down and cried.
They’d parted but a year before, they loved each other well —
But she was such a country girl and he was such a swell;
They longed to meet in fond embrace, they hungered for a kiss —
But Mary called him ‘Mister’ and the idiot called her ‘Miss.

 

[Starry]

The Man from Snowy River and the Man from Iron Bark. My dad read them to me as a young child and I have always remembered them.

 

[Toni Wrinkles]

mine two

 

[BabsL]

Pioneers.​ by Frank Hudson​ (Book: 5th grade Reader)​

We are the Old-world people, Ours were the hearts to dare; But our youth is spent, and our backs are bent, And the snow is in our hair. Back in the early fifties, Dim through the mists of years, By the bush-grown strand of a wild, strange land, We entered - the pioneers. Our axes rang in the woodlands, Where the gaudy bush-birds flew, And we turned the loam of our newfound home, Where the Eucalyptus grew. Housed in the rough log shanty, Camped in the leaking tent, From sea to view of the mountains blue Where the eager diggers went. We wrought with a will unceasing, We moulded, and fashioned, and planned And we fought with the black and we blazed the track That ye might inherit the land. There are your shops and churches, Your cities of stucco and smoke; And the swift trains fly where the wild cat’s cry O’er the sad bush silence broke. Take now the fruit of our labour, Nourish and guard it with care; For our youth is spent, and our backs are bent And the snow is in our hair.​

 

[Paul Gray]

your turn

 

[Wendy]

l like ''l Wondered Lonely As A Cloud'' William Wordsworth but there are so many favourites

That's my favourite too, but I can only ever remember the first verse.

 

[BabsL]

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

– William Wordsworth (1802)

 

[Wendy]

– William Wordsworth (1802)

Thank you, for the other verses too.

 

[Still Ebby]

l like ''l Wondered Lonely As A Cloud'' William Wordsworth but there are so many favourites

For children l think ''The Spider and the Fly '' Mary Howitt is a great poem to arouse a childs interested

 

[Clancieblue]

​

​ Pioneers.​ ​ by Frank Hudson​ (Book: 5th grade Reader)​

​

We are the Old-world people, Ours were the hearts to dare; But our youth is spent, and our backs are bent, And the snow is in our hair. Back in the early fifties, Dim through the mists of years, By the bush-grown strand of a wild, strange land, We entered - the pioneers. Our axes rang in the woodlands, Where the gaudy bush-birds flew, And we turned the loam of our newfound home, Where the Eucalyptus grew. Housed in the rough log shanty, Camped in the leaking tent, From sea to view of the mountains blue Where the eager diggers went. We wrought with a will unceasing, We moulded, and fashioned, and planned And we fought with the black and we blazed the track That ye might inherit the land. There are your shops and churches, Your cities of stucco and smoke; And the swift trains fly where the wild cat’s cry O’er the sad bush silence broke. Take now the fruit of our labour, Nourish and guard it with care; For our youth is spent, and our backs are bent And the snow is in our hair.​

Young people really need to read this poem