We launch Wales Readathon 2019 with a poem from Wales’ most famous drifter
W.H. Davies in 1913 (by Alvin Langdon Coburn)
Since The Autobiography of a Super-tramp is the official book of Dewithon 19, what better way to launch our month-long reading event than with a poem penned by its author, W.H. Davies.
The verse I have chosen, from Songs of Joy and Others (1911), is one that may be familiar to some of you. ‘Leisure’ is probably Davies’s best-known and most anthologised work, which has been a great favourite of mine since childhood. It warns against the hectic pace of modern life and our inability to connect with nature as once we did – a message we would be wise to heed now more than ever.
I wish you all a carefree and thoroughly fulfilling Dewithon.
Leisure by W.H. Davies
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
