SILVER
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.
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.
by Walter de la Mare
We were so lucky as children, not only to be blessed by great teachers in a wonderful junior school (now demolished and the site full of flats and offices) but to be taught some things which have last us all our lives. I say us, because I’m sure I was not unique in remembering things we learned then. In secondary school I also had some extraordinarily good teachers of English, and so built a library of remembered and half-remembered poems which I still treasure.
Walter de la Mare was an oft read poet; he had marvellous, wonderful verses for children, and I’m sure he furnished my imagination with a wealth of images. De la Mare was an English poet who was born in 1873 and died in 1956. When I took this photo the other evening, his poem ‘Silver’ sprang automatically into my mind.
Lois Elsden 
Thank you for sharing Walter de la Mare’s poem. It is a very lovely poem with good rhymes, even though the numbers of syllables do not always match.
It seems that you are a lover of moon like me, and I happen to just finished creating a poem at http://soundeagle.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/if-my-name-were-moon-tonight/. By the way, as far as I know, the Chinese just celebrated their moon cake festival on 30 September 2012.
How nice of you to remember with fondness your primary and high school English teachers!
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Moon cake… sounds wonderful! I must find out more.
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Lois, I am glad to inform you that I have added information on the mooncake and the mid-autumn festival near the end of my post at http://soundeagle.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/if-my-name-were-moon-tonight/.
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Oh thank you! on my way top have a look!
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You are welcome, Lois. Greetings from one moon lover to another . . . . May you have a lovely weekend!
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Thank you – and the same to you! All the best!
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Poets. Yum.
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Who’s your favourite Alice? And what did you like as a child that you still like now?
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I love T. S. Eliot and Emily Dickinson–and a lot of the “Moderns.” I loved lullabies, Ogden Nash, and James Whitcomb Riley as a child–and ballads. I suppose I still do! http://alleysbackstreets.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/lullabies-to-epitaphs-poetry-for-life/
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