THE MAP AND THE CLOCK

A Laureate’s Choice of the Poetry of Britain and Ireland

edited by

Carol Ann Duffy

and

Gillian Clarke

CONTENTS

1. Title Page

2. Preface by CAROL ANN DUFFY

4. I

5. I sing my own true story, tell my travels …

6. (600–1300)

8. CAEDMON Caedmon’s Hymn

9. ANON Song to a Child

10. ANON Jesus and the Sparrows

11. ANON from Beowulf

12. ANEIRIN from The Gododdin

13. BEDE Bede’s Death Song

14. TALIESIN Death Song for Owain ab Urien

15. ANON ‘Birdsong from a willow tree’

16. ANON The Battle of Brunanburh

17. ANON The King of Connacht

18. ANON Wulf

19. ANON ‘Wind fierce to-night’

20. ANON The Wife’s Lament

21. ANON Exile

22. ANON from The Seafarer

23. ANON ‘There’s a lady in these parts’

24. ANON The Wish of Manchán of Liath

25. ANON The Praises of God

26. ANON The End of Clonmacnois

27. ANON Winter Cold

28. ANON Durham

29. ANON Advice to Lovers

30. ANON from Sweeney Astray

31. ANON Writing Out of Doors

32. ANON from The Mabinogi: Rhiannon

33. ANON ‘Derry I cherish ever’

34. ANON I am Taliesin

35. ANON The Heart of the Wood

36. ANON This ae Night

38. II

39. Bring us in good ale …

40. (1300–1500)

42. GEOFFREY CHAUCER from The Parliament of Fowls

43. from The General Prologue

44. from The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

45. DAFYDD AP GWILYM The Seagull

46. The Thrush

47. WILLIAM LANGLAND from Piers Plowman

48. EARL GERALD FITZGERALD In Defence of Women

49. ANON from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

50. from Pearl

51. ROBERT HENRYSON The Prologue

52. The Toad and the Mouse

53. DAFYDD AP EDMWND A Girl’s Hair

54. WILLIAM DUNBAR To a Ladye

55. ANON ‘I sing of a maiden’

56. ANON Shirt of a Lad

57. ANON ‘The silver swan, who living had no note’

58. ANON The Blackbird of Derrycairn

59. ANON ‘Dear, if you change, I’ll never choose again’

60. ANON May Poem

61. ANON The Wife Who Would a Wanton Be

62. ANON Bring Us in Good Ale

64. III

65. Fair rocks, goodly rivers, sweet woods …

66. (1500–1600)

68. ANON ‘Western wind, when wilt thou blow?’

69. ANON The Breach in the Wall

70. ANON This is the House That Jack Built

71. THOMAS WYATT ‘They flee from me that sometime did me seek’

72. ANNE ASKEW The Ballad which Anne Askew Made and Sang when She was in Newgate

73. SIR THOMAS MAITLAND Satyr upon Sir Niel Laing

74. ANNE BACON A— B— on t he learned Bartholo Sylva

75. QUEEN ELIZABETH I The Doubt of Future Foes

76. When I Was Fair and Young

77. JANE SEAGER to Queen Elizabeth

78. ISABELLA WHITNEY A Communication Which the Author Had to London, Before She Made Her Will

79. MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS Verses in Italian and French, written by the Queen of Scots to the Queen of England

80. JAMES, JOHN AND ROBERT WEDDERBURN God send euerie Preist ane wyfe

81. EDMUND SPENSER from The Faerie Queene

82. PHILIP SIDNEY Echo

83. ‘Sweet kiss, thy sweets I fain would sweetly indite’

84. ROBERT GREENE The Description of Sir Geoffrey Chaucer

85. MICHAEL DRAYTON from Poly-Olbion

86. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE The Passionate Shepherd to his Love

87. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE from The Tempest

88. from King John

89. ‘How like a winter hath my absence been’

90. from Antony and Cleopatra

91. from Love’s Labour’s Lost

92. from Henry V

93. from King Richard II

94. THOMAS CAMPION ‘Now winter nights enlarge’

95. ‘There is a garden in her face’

96. BEN JONSON Inviting a Friend to Supper

97. To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr William Shakespeare: And What He Hath Left Us

98. Song to Celia

100. IV

101. Church-bells beyond the stars heard …

102. (1600–1700)

104. JOHN DONNE The Flea

105. The Sun Rising

106. Elegy: To his Mistress Going to Bed

107. ANON Lady Greensleeves

108. LADY MARY WROTH ‘Love like a juggler comes to play his prize’

109. ‘Come, darkest night, becoming sorrow best’

110. ROBERT HERRICK The Argument of His Book

111. Corinna’s Going a-Maying

112. Delight in Disorder

113. Julia in Silks

114. To the Virgins to Make Much of Time

115. GEORGE HERBERT Love

116. Avarice

117. Prayer

118. The Glance

119. ANON The Battle of Inverlochy

120. ANON ‘Like as the damask rose you see’

121. ANON from Life and Death

122. LAOISEACH MAC AN BHAIRD Brothers

123. ANON The Twa Corbies

124. EDMUND WALLER Marriage of the Dwarfs

125. JOHN MILTON from Paradise Lost

126. FRANCIS SEMPILL Maggie Lauder

127. MARY MACLEOD Blue Song

128. ANDREW MARVELL To His Coy Mistress

129. The Mower to the Glow-Worms

130. KATHERINE ASTON To my Daughter Catherine on Ashwednesday 1645, finding her weeping at prayers, because I would not consent to her fasting

131. HENRY VAUGHAN ‘I saw eternity the other night’

132. Son-days

133. The Waterfall

134. Friends Departed

135. HUW MORUS In Praise of a Girl

136. MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE Nature’s Cook

137. MARY CAMERON A Song of Sorrow

138. KATHERINE PHILIPS An Answer to another persuading a Lady to Marriage

139. ANON The Downfall of Charing Cross

140. ANON ‘If all the world were paper’

141. SÉAMAS DALL MAC CUARTA The Drowned Blackbird

143. V

144. Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear …

145. (1700–1800)

147. JONATHAN SWIFT Verses Said to be Written on the Union

148. SARAH FYGE The Liberty

149. AODHÁGAN Ó RATHAILLE A Grey Eye Weeping

150. The Glamoured

151. ELIZABETH SINGER To a very young Gentleman at a Dancing-School

152. JOHN GAY A New Song of New Similes

153. ALEXANDER POPE Ode on Solitude

154. ALEXANDER MACDONALD from Song of Summer

155. MEHETABEL WRIGHT Wedlock: A Satire

156. ANON On Inclosures

157. PEADAR Ó DORNÍN The Mother’s Lament for Her Child

158. JEAN ADAM There’s Nae Luck about the House

159. THOMAS GRAY Satire upon the Heads; or, Never a Barrel the Better Herring

160. CHRISTOPHER SMART from Jubilate Agno

161. ANON On the New Laureate

162. WILLIAM COWPER ‘Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds’

163. The Post-Boy

164. ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD Washing Day

165. ANON Cock Robbin

166. EOGHAN RUA Ó SÚILLEABHÁIN Poet to Blacksmith

167. CHARLOTTE SMITH Written near a port on a dark evening

168. ROBERT FERGUSSON Caller Oysters

169. The Daft-Days

170. PAT O’KELLY The Litany for Doneraile

171. GEORGE CRABBE from Peter Grimes

172. WILLIAM BLAKE The School Boy

173. Holy Thursday

174. A Question Answered

175. MARY ROBINSON The Camp

176. CATHERINE MARIA FANSHAWE A Riddle

177. ROBERT BURNS Mary Morison

178. A Red, Red Rose

179. Ae Fond Kiss

180. Green Grow the Rashes

181. Lament for Culloden

182. JOANNA BAILLIE Hay Making

183. CAROLINE OLIPHANT Will Ye No Come Back Again?

184. The Land o’ the Leal

185. JAMES HOGG Love is like a dizziness

186. The Village of Balmaquhapple

188. VI

189. Silent icicles, quietly shining to the quiet moon …

190. (1800–1850)

192. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

193. from The Prelude

194. Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

195. DOROTHY WORDSWORTH Floating Island

196. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Frost at Midnight

197. A Soliloquy of the full Moon, She being in a Mad Passion –

198. JAMES ORR Written in Winter

199. LORD BYRON ‘She walks in beauty, like the night’

200. ‘So, we’ll go no more a roving’

201. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY England in 1819

202. Ode to the West Wind

203. JOHN CLARE Pleasant Sounds

204. The Moors

205. Summer Evening

206. JANET HAMILTON Oor Location

207. Auld Mither Scotlan’

208. JOHN KEATS ‘This living hand, now warm and capable’

209. A Song about Myself

210. On the Grasshopper and the Cricket

211. ‘Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art’

212. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING Grief

213. When Our Two Souls

214. ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways’

215. Lord Walter’s Wife

216. ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON ‘Come into the garden, Maud’

217. The Charge of the Light Brigade

218. Crossing the Bar

219. EMILY AND CHARLOTTE BRONTË The Visionary

220. ROBERT BROWNING Home-Thoughts, from Abroad

221. Meeting at Night

222. Porphyria’s Lover

224. VII

225. Our days were a joy, and our paths through flowers …

226. (1850–1900)

228. MATTHEW ARNOLD Dover Beach

229. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI A Christmas Carol

230. The Queen of Hearts

231. WILLIAM MCGONAGALL The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay

232. DORA GREENWELL A Scherzo (a Shy Person’s Wishes)

233. JEAN INGELOW Seven Times One: Exultation

234. EDWARD LEAR The Owl and the Pussy-Cat

235. The Akond of Swat

236. LEWIS CARROLL The Walrus and the Carpenter

237. THOMAS HARDY Proud Songsters

238. After a Journey

239. Neutral Tones

240. The Convergence of the Twain

241. GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS Felix Randal

242. God’s Grandeur

243. Hurrahing in Harvest

244. The Sea and the Skylark

245. ‘I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day’

246. ROBERT BRIDGES London Snow

247. On a Dead Child

248. MARION BERNSTEIN Manly Sports

249. ALICE MEYNELL The Lady Poverty

250. ANON ‘She was poor, but she was honest’

251. ANON The Woman of Llyn y Fan’s Call to Her Cattle

252. ANON Sonnet Found in a Deserted Mad-House

253. OSCAR WILDE Symphony in Yellow

254. A. D. GODLEY The Motor Bus

255. DOLLIE RADFORD Soliloquy of a Maiden Aunt

256. A. E. HOUSMAN ‘When first my way to fair I took’

257. ‘Here dead lie we because we did not choose’

258. VIOLET JACOB Tam i’ the Kirk

259. RUDYARD KIPLING The Way Through the Woods

261. VIII

262. All the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire …

263. (1900–1918)

265. W. B. YEATS The Wild Swans at Coole

266. The Song of Wandering Aengus

267. No Second Troy

268. Easter, 1916

269. An Irish Airman Foresees his Death

270. CHARLOTTE MEW The Farmer’s Bride

271. On the Road to the Sea

272. The Trees are Down

273. Rooms

274. HILAIRE BELLOC Ballade of Genuine Concern

275. Hannaker Mill

276. W. H. DAVIES The Villain

277. WALTER DE LA MARE No

278. The Birthnight

279. G. K. CHESTERTON The Rolling English Road

280. E. C. BENTLEY Ballade of Liquid Refreshment

281. EDWARD THOMAS Adlestrop

282. Words

283. What shall I give?

284. Tall Nettles

285. HAROLD MONRO The Nightingale Near the House

286. Overheard on a Saltmarsh

287. MARRIOTT EDGAR The Lion and Albert

288. MARTIN ARMSTRONG Mrs Reece Laughs

289. ANNA WICKHAM The Fired Pot

290. Meditation at Kew

291. SIEGFRIED SASSOON Survivors

292. The General

293. Everyone Sang

294. Falling Asleep

295. ISAAC ROSENBERG August 1914

296. Break of Day in the Trenches

297. ROSE MACAULAY Lunch Hour

298. IVOR GURNEY The Silent One

299. First Time In

300. The Soaking

301. WILFRED OWEN Anthem for Doomed Youth

302. Disabled

303. Dulce et Decorum Est

304. Insensibility

306. IX

307. I think we are in rats’ alley where the dead men lost their bones …

308. (1918–1945)

310. T. S. ELIOT The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

311. from The Waste Land

312. VITA SACKVILLE-WEST Full Moon

313. JAMES JOYCE The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly

314. F. W. HARVEY Ducks

315. JEAN EARLE A Saturday in the ’20s

316. HUGH MACDIARMID The Bonnie Broukit Bairn

317. Back Bedroom

318. MARION ANGUS Mary’s Song

319. The Blue Jacket

320. Alas! Poor Queen

321. IDRIS DAVIES The Bells of Rhymney

322. The Angry Summer

323. SAMUEL BECKETT Cascando

324. D. H. LAWRENCE Piano

325. Innocent England

326. Week-night Service

327. ROBERT WILLIAMS PARRY The Fox

328. FRANCES CORNFORD Childhood

329. To a Fat Lady Seen from a Train

330. HELEN B. CRUICKSHANK The Ponnage Pool

331. EDWIN MUIR The Interrogation

332. The Late Wasp

333. DAVID JONES from In Parenthesis

334. EDITH SITWELL Aubade

335. Still Falls the Rain

336. FRANCIS LEDWIDGE Desire in Spring

337. HERBERT READ To a Conscript of 1940

338. W. H. AUDEN Refugee Blues

339. Night Mail

340. In Memory of W. B. Yeats

341. LOUIS MACNEICE Carrickfergus

342. Soap Suds

343. Snow

344. MALCOLM LOWRY Ghosts in New Houses

345. What the Gardener Said to Mrs Traill

346. He Liked the Dead

347. HENRY REED Lessons of the War

348. ALUN LEWIS In Hospital: Poona (I)

349. All Day it has Rained …

350. The Mountain over Aberdare

351. DAVID GASCOYNE A Wartime Dawn

352. KEITH DOUGLAS Canoe

354. X

355. Hi yih, yippity-yap, merrily I flow …

356. (1945–1970)

358. DYLAN THOMAS Fern Hill

359. Poem on His Birthday

360. In my Craft or Sullen Art

361. SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER Anne Donne

362. ROBERT GRAVES Tilth

363. The Christmas Robin

364. RUTH PITTER An Old Woman Speaks of the Moon

365. Wild Honey

366. D. GWENALLT JONES Sin

367. FRANCES BELLERBY Lovers are Separate

368. Ends Meet

369. J. KITCHENER DAVIES from The Sound of the Wind that is Blowing

370. STEVIE SMITH The River God of the River Mimram in Hertfordshire

371. Correspondence between Mr Harrison in Newcastle and Mr Sholto Peach Harrison in Hull

372. Infelice

373. PATRICK KAVANAGH The Long Garden

374. Epic

375. WALDO WILLIAMS What Is a Man?

376. E. J. SCOVELL Listening to Collared Doves

377. KATHLEEN RAINE Northumbrian Sequence: IV

378. MARGIAD EVANS To my sister Sian

379. ROBERT GARIOCH Brither Worm

380. I’m Neutral

381. Ghaisties

382. LYNETTE ROBERTS Poem From Llanybri

383. Poem

384. ANNE RIDLER For a Child Expected

385. JAMES COPELAND Black Friday

386. BRENDA CHAMBERLAIN Dead ponies

387. SYLVIA PLATH The Bee Meeting

388. Blackberrying

389. ROSEMARY TONKS Addiction to an Old Mattress

390. The Sofas, Fogs and Cinemas

391. CHRISTOPHER LOGUE I Shall Vote Labour

392. ADRIAN HENRI Tonight at Noon

393. ADRIAN MITCHELL Celia, Celia

394. BASIL BUNTING from Briggflatts

396. XI

397. The shadows, the meadows, the lanes, the guildhalls, the carved choirs …

398. (1970–2000)

400. W. S. GRAHAM To My Wife at Midnight

401. Greenock at Night I Find You

402. Loch Thom

403. NORMAN MACCAIG Feeding Ducks

404. Toad

405. Deceptions?

406. R. S. THOMAS The Bright Field

407. The Moon in Lleyn

408. Zero

409. NORMAN NICHOLSON The Elm Decline

410. CHARLES CAUSLEY Eden Rock

411. JOHN HEATH-STUBBS The Green Man’s Last Will and Testament

412. ELMA MITCHELL Thoughts after Ruskin

413. EDWIN MORGAN Midge

414. Sir James Murray

415. Canedolia

416. LESLIE NORRIS Barn Owl

417. Water

418. GEORGE MACKAY BROWN Butter

419. Hamnavoe Market

420. Haddock Fishermen

421. PHILIP LARKIN Money

422. Water

423. Going, Going

424. KAREN GERSHON I Was Not There

425. DANNIE ABSE The Boasts of Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd

426. Epithalamion

427. PATRICIA BEER The Lost Woman

428. ALASTAIR REID Scotland

429. ELIZABETH JENNINGS The Child’s Story

430. My Grandmother

431. A Bird in the House

432. IAN CRICHTON SMITH When I am Reading

433. Owl and Mouse

434. You Are at the Bottom of My Mind

435. FREDA DOWNIE Some Poetry

436. THOM GUNN Hampstead: the Horse Chestnut Trees

437. U. A. FANTHORPE Father in the Railway Buffet

438. TED HUGHES Football at Slack

439. Wind

440. Epiphany

441. ANTHONY CONRAN Elegy for the Welsh Dead, in the Falkland Islands, 1982

442. GEOFFREY HILL from Mercian Hymns

443. SEAMUS HEANEY Punishment

444. The Harvest Bow

445. The Guttural Muse

446. A Keen for the Coins

447. The Blackbird of Glanmore

449. XII

450. if a toktaboot thi trooth lik wanna yoo scruff yi widny thingk it wuz troo …

451. (2000–)

453. JAMES BERRY Englan Voice

454. ROY FISHER The Nation

455. RUTH FAINLIGHT Handbag

456. ANNE STEVENSON Willow Song

457. FLEUR ADCOCK Immigrant

458. BRENDAN KENNELLY Begin

459. MICHAEL LONGLEY River & Fountain

460. DEREK MAHON Dreams of a Summer Night

461. DOUGLAS DUNN Extra Helpings

462. EILÉAN NÍ CHUILLEANÁIN Swineherd

463. AONGHAS MACNEACAIL gaelic is alive

464. HUGO WILLIAMS When I Grow Up

465. DAVID CONSTANTINE New Year Behind the Asylum

466. PAUL DURCAN Tullynoe: Tête-à-Tête in the Parish Priest’s Parlour

467. EAVAN BOLAND The Achill Woman

468. KIT WRIGHT How the Wild South East was Lost

469. TOM LEONARD ‘Unrelated Incidents’ – No. 3

470. WENDY COPE Shakespeare at School

471. LIZ LOCHHEAD Bagpipe Muzak, Glasgow 1990

472. CIARAN CARSON Belfast Confetti

473. DENISE RILEY Poor Snow

474. JOHN AGARD Listen Mr Oxford Don

475. GILLIAN ALLNUTT Alien

476. MEDBH MCGUCKIAN To a Cuckoo at Coolanlough

477. SHEENAGH PUGH I think someone might write an elegy

478. PAUL MULDOON Incantata

479. LINTON KWESI JOHNSON Inglan is a Bitch

480. ROBERT MINHINNICK The Orchids at Cwm y Gaer

481. SEAN O’BRIEN Cousin Coat

482. NUALA NÍ DHOMNAILL Aubade

483. IAN DUHIG From the Irish

484. JO SHAPCOTT Phrase Book

485. IMTIAZ DHARKER I swear

486. MONIZA ALVI Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan

487. PAULA MEEHAN Seed

488. JOHN BURNSIDE The Singer

489. LACHLAN MACKINNON On the Roof of the World

490. JEAN ‘BINTA’ BREEZE The Wife of Bath Speaks in Brixton Market

491. SARAH MAGUIRE From Dublin to Ramallah

492. MAURA DOOLEY The Women of Mumbles Head

493. ROBERT CRAWFORD The Numties

494. PAUL HENRY Song of a Wire Fence

495. JACKIE KAY Pride

496. W. N. HERBERT Mappamundi

497. IFOR AP GLYN Elevation

498. GLYN MAXWELL Flood Before and After

499. KATHLEEN JAMIE Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead

500. LAVINIA GREENLAW Blackwater

501. SIMON ARMITAGE To the Women of the Merrie England Coffee Houses, Huddersfield

502. DON PATERSON A Private Bottling

503. PATIENCE AGBABI The London Eye

504. PAUL FARLEY from The Electric Poly-Olbion

505. DALJIT NAGRA Our Town with the Whole of India!

506. ALICE OSWALD Another Westminster Bridge

507. DERYN REES-JONES Liverpool Blues

508. COLETTE BRYCE And They Call It Lovely Derry

509. SEAN BORODALE 10th February: Queen

510. SINÉAD MORRISSEY In Belfast

511. RACHEL BOAST Already someone’s set their dogs among the swans

512. ZAFFAR KUNIAL Us

514. Acknowledgements

515. Index of Poets and Translators

516. Index of Titles and First Lines

517. About the Editors

518. Copyright

PREFACE

When my editor Matthew Hollis first invited me to assemble an anthology to appear during my time as Poet Laureate, I began to imagine a poetry treasure-hunt using a map and a clock to travel, and time-travel, these islands. As my ideal companion on this scavenging, I chose Gillian Clarke – the National Poet of Wales (2008–16) – who is one of the most fervent advocates of the art I know. Our journey was one of shared enthusiasms in poetry’s loved landscape, lone wanderings off the beaten track to forage, return and share, or an enthralled standing-still to listen to the diverse sounds of poets, past and present, from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. ‘Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises.’

We were clear that the magical properties of our map and clock were not to be used to assert or to reflect a British or Irish canon, but rather that they bestowed a freedom to tour and to celebrate the music, accents, surprises, variousness and fierce independence of poets from the earliest times to our own 21st century, from Anon to the emerging Zaffar Kunial. As on any journey, we spent time visiting great landmarks, but we also made sure to explore the hamlets, the backwaters, the local bars and the wrong side of the tracks – often the places where poets are to be found. It is not the destiny of every poet to outlast their own map and clock, but sometimes, perhaps, one of their poems might. With all our wanderings, foragings and listenings, we tried to find as many delights as we could to cram into our poetry backpacks and smuggle through Customs. Poetry should always be duty-free.

Although the earliest poems of these islands were orally composed, we chose to begin with the earliest acknowledged written poem, ‘Caedmon’s Hymn’, beautifully translated here by Paul Muldoon; and where we intuit that the clock ticks significantly forward for poetry, we indicate this by a brief section marker. There are poets who write across these markers, and our placements may reflect a context or theme as much as a rigid chronology. Some great poets from the past, even the recent past, rightly claim more time from the clock, more space from the map. In the case of living poets, we restricted ourselves to one poem from each, and have taken great pleasure in including as diverse and generous a range of voices as possible within the spirit of this journey.

We would like to thank Ty Nwydd, the Writers’ Centre of Wales, and Adam Horovitz, for hospitality, poem sourcing, and photocopying help in the initial stages of this book, and Bernard O’Donoghue for his wise and generous advice on the early texts. Our warm thanks to Stephen Raw for the textual illustrations.

CAROL ANN DUFFY

Caedmon’s Hymn

Now we must praise to the skies,    the Keeper of the heavenly kingdom,

The might of the Measurer,    all he has in mind,

The work of the Father of Glory,    of all manner of marvel,

Our eternal Master,    the main mover.

It was he who first summoned up,    on our behalf,

Heaven as a roof,    the holy Maker.

Then this middle-earth,    the Watcher over humankind,

Our eternal Master,    would later assign

The precinct of men,    the Lord Almighty.

CAEDMON

translated by Paul Muldoon

Song to a Child

Dinogad’s smock is pied, pied –

Made it out of marten hide.

Whit, whit, whistle along,

Eight slaves with you sing the song.

When your dad went to hunt,

Spear on his shoulder, cudgel in hand,

He called his quick dogs, ‘Giff, you wretch,

Gaff, catch her, catch her, fetch, fetch!’

From a coracle he’d spear

Fish as a lion strikes a deer.

When your dad went to the crag

He brought down roebuck, boar and stag,

Speckled grouse from the mountain tall,

Fish from Derwent waterfall.

Whatever your dad found with his spear,

Boar or wild cat, fox or deer,

Unless it flew, would never get clear.

ANON

translated by Tony Conran

Jesus and the Sparrows

The little lad, five years of age

– Son of the living God –

Blessed twelve puddles he’d just then coaxed

From water and from mud.

Twelve statuettes he made next;

‘Sparrows shall you be named’

He whispered to those perfect shapes

That Sabbath in his game.

‘Who plays with toys this holy day?’

A Jew scowled at the scene

And marched the culprit straight to Joseph

To scold his foster-son.

‘What sort of brat have you brought up

That wastes his sacred time

Scrabbling in mud on the Sabbath Day

To make bird-dolls from slime?’

At that the lad clapped two small hands

And with sweet piping words

Called on the dolls before their eyes

To rise as living birds.

No music ever heard was sweeter

Than the music from his mouth

When he told those birds ‘Fly to your homes

To east and west and south.’

The story spread throughout the land

And is heard down to this day

And all who hear it still can hear

The sparrows’ voices pray.

ANON

translated by Patrick Crotty

from Beowulf

These were hard times, heart-breaking

for the prince of the Shieldings; powerful counsellors,

the highest in the land, would lend advice,

plotting how best the bold defenders

might resist and beat off sudden attacks.

Sometimes at pagan shrines they vowed

offerings to idols, swore oaths

that the killer of souls might come to their aid

and save the people. That was their way,

their heathenish hope; deep in their hearts

they remembered hell. The Almighty Judge

of good deeds and bad, the Lord God,

Head of the Heavens and High King of the World,

was unknown to them. Oh, cursed is he

who in time of trouble has to thrust his soul

in the fire’s embrace, forfeiting help;

he has nowhere to turn. But blessed is he

who after death can approach the Lord

and find friendship in the Father’s embrace.

So that troubled time continued, woe

that never stopped, steady affliction

for Halfdane’s son, too hard an ordeal.

There was panic after dark, people endured

raids in the night, riven by the terror.

When he heard about Grendel, Hygelac’s thane

was on home ground, over in Geatland.

There was no one else like him alive.

In his day, he was the mightiest man on earth,

high-born and powerful. He ordered a boat

that would ply the waves. He announced his plan:

to sail the swan’s road and search out that king,

the famous prince who needed defenders.

Nobody tried to keep him from going,

no elder denied him, dear as he was to them.

Instead, they inspected omens and spurred

his ambition to go, whilst he moved about

like the leader he was, enlisting men,

the best he could find; with fourteen others

the warrior boarded the boat as captain,

a canny pilot along coast and currents.

Time went by, the boat was on water,

in close under the cliffs.

Men climbed eagerly up the gangplank,

sand churned in surf, warriors loaded

a cargo of weapons, shining war-gear

in the vessel’s hold, then heaved out,

away with a will in their wood-wreathed ship.

Over the waves, with the wind behind her

and foam at her neck, she flew like a bird

until her curved prow had covered the distance

and on the following day, at the due hour,

those seafarers sighted land,

sunlit cliffs, sheer crags

and looming headlands, the landfall they sought.

It was the end of their voyage and the Geats vaulted

over the side, out on to the sand,

and moored their ship. There was a clash of mail

and a thresh of gear. They thanked God

for that easy crossing on a calm sea.

When the watchman on the wall, the Shieldings’ lookout

whose job it was to guard the sea-cliffs,

saw shields glittering on the gangplank

and battle-equipment being unloaded

he had to find out who and what

the arrivals were. So he rode to the shore,

this horseman of Hrothgar’s, and challenged them

in formal terms, flourishing his spear:

‘What kind of men are you who arrive

rigged out for combat in coats of mail,

sailing here over the sea-lanes

in your steep-hulled boat? I have been stationed

as lookout on this coast for a long time.

My job is to watch the waves for raiders,

any danger to the Danish shore.

Never before has a force under arms

disembarked so openly – not bothering to ask

if the sentries allowed them safe passage

or the clan had consented. Nor have I seen

a mightier man-at-arms on this earth

than the one standing here: unless I am mistaken,

he is truly noble. This is no mere

hanger-on in a hero’s armour.

So now, before you fare inland

as interlopers, I have to be informed

about who you are and where you hail from.

Outsiders from across the water,

I say it again: the sooner you tell

where you come from and why, the better.’

ANON

translated by Seamus Heaney

from The Gododdin

Men went to Catraeth, keen their war-band.

Pale mead their portion, it was poison.

Three hundred under orders to fight.

And after celebration, silence.

Though they went to churches for shriving,

True is the tale, death confronted them.

*

Men went to Catraeth at dawn:

All their fears had been put to flight.

Three hundred clashed with ten thousand.

They stained their spears ruddy with blood.

He held firm, bravest in battle,

Before Mynyddawg Mwynfawr’s men.

*

Men went to Catraeth at dawn:

Their high spirits lessened their life-spans.

They drank mead, gold and sweet, ensnaring;

For a year the minstrels were merry.

Red their swords, let the blades remain

Uncleansed, white shields and four-sided spearheads,

Before Mynyddawg Mwynfawr’s men.

*

Men went to Catraeth at morn.

He made certain the shame of armies;

They made sure that a bier was needed.

The most savage blades in Christendom,

He contrived, no request for a truce,

A blood-path and death for his foeman.

When he was before Gododdin’s band

Neirthiad’s deeds showed a hero’s bold heart.

*

No cowards could bear the hall’s uproar.

Before battle a battle broke out

Like a fire that rages when kindled.

On Tuesday they donned their dark armour,

On Wednesday, bitter their meeting,

On Thursday, terms were agreed on,

On Friday, dead men without number,

On Saturday, fearless, they worked as one,

On Sunday, crimson blades were their lot,

On Monday, men were seen waist-deep in blood.

After defeat, the Gododdin say,

Before Madawg’s tent on his return

There came but one man in a hundred.

ANEIRIN

translated by Joseph P. Clancy

Bede’s Death Song

Before the journey that awaits us all,

No man becomes so wise that he does not

Need to think out, before his going hence,

What judgment will be given to his soul

After his death, of evil or of good.

BEDE

translated by Richard Hamer

Death Song for Owain ab Urien

God, consider the soul’s need

Of Owain son of Urien!

Rheged’s prince, secret in loam:

No shallow work, to praise him!

A strait grave, a man much praised,

His whetted spear the wings of dawn:

That lord of bright Llwyfenydd,

Where is his peer?

Reaper of enemies; strong of grip;

One kind with his fathers;

Owain, to slay Fflamddwyn,

Thought it no more than sleep.

Sleepeth the wide host of England

With light in their eyes,

And those that had not fled

Were braver than were wise.

Owain dealt them doom

As the wolves devour sheep;

That warrior, bright of harness,

Gave stallions for the bard.

Though he hoarded wealth like a miser,

For his soul’s sake he gave it.

God, consider the soul’s need

Of Owain son of Urien.

TALIESIN

translated by Tony Conran

‘Birdsong from a willow tree’

Birdsong from a willow tree.

Whet-note music, clear, airy;

Inky treble, yellow bill –

Blackbird, practising his scale.

ANON

translated by Seamus Heaney

The Battle of Brunanburh

Æthelstan, the King, ruler of earls

and ring-giver to men, and Prince Eadmund

his brother, earned this year fame everlasting

with the blades of their swords in battle

at Brunanburh; with their well-wrought weapons

both Eadweard’s sons cleaved the linden shields,

cut through the shield-wall; as was only fitting

for men of their lineage, they often carried arms

against some foe in defence of their land,

their treasure, their homes. The enemy perished,

fated Scots and seafarers

fell in the fight; from the hour when that great

constellation the sun, the burning candle

of God eternal, first glides above the earth

until at last that lordly creation

sinks into its bower, the battlefield flowed

with dark blood. Many a warrior lay there,

spreadeagled by spears, many a Norse seafarer

stabbed above his shield and many a weary Scot,

surfeited by war. All day,

in troops together, the West Saxons

pursued those hateful people,

hewed down the fugitives fiercely from behind

with their sharpened swords. The Mercians did not stint

hard handplay to any of the heroes

who, fated to fight, sought this land

with Anlaf, sailed in the ship’s hold

over the surging sea. Five young kings

sprawled on that field of battle,

put to sleep by swords; likewise seven

of Anlaf’s earls and countless in the host,

seafarers and Scots. There, the Norse king

was forced to flee, driven to the ship’s prow

with a small bodyguard; the little ship

scurried out to sea, the king sped

over the dark waves and so saved his life.

Constantine, too, (a man of discretion)

fled north to the comforts of his own country;

deprived of kinsmen and comrades cut down

in the strife, that old warrior

had no reason whatsoever to relish

the swordplay; he left his son

savaged by weapons on that field of slaughter,

a mere boy in battle. That wily, grizzled warrior

had no grounds at all to boast about the fight,

and neither did Anlaf; with their leavings

of an army, they could scarcely exult

that things went their own way

in the thick of battle – at the crash of standards

and the clash of spears, at the conflict of weapons

and struggle of men – when they grappled

on that slaughter-field with Eadweard’s sons.

Then the Norsemen made off in their nailed boats,

sad survivors shamed in battle,

they crossed the deep water from Dingesmere

to the shelter of Dublin, Ireland once more.

Likewise both brothers together,

king and prince, returned to Wessex,

their own country, exulting in war.

They left behind them to devour the corpses,

relish the carrion, the horny-beaked raven

garbed in black, and the grey-coated

eagle (a greedy war-hawk)

with its white tail, and that grey beast,

the wolf in the wood. Never, before this,

were more men in this island slain

by the sword’s edge – as books and aged sages

confirm – since Angles and Saxons sailed here

from the east, sought the Britons over the wide seas,

since those warsmiths hammered the Welsh,

and earls, eager for glory, overran the land.

ANON

translated by Kevin Crossley-Holland

The King of Connacht

‘Have you seen Hugh,

The Connacht king in the field?’

‘All that we saw

Was his shadow under his shield.’

ANON

translated by Frank O’Connor

Wulf

The men of my people will hunt him as game.

They will kill him if he comes with force.

It is different with us.

Wulf is on one shore, I on another,

fast is that island, thickened with fens;

fierce are the men who guard it:

they will kill him if he comes with force.

It is different with us.

It was rainy weather, and I sat down and wept,

and grieved for my Wulf, his far wanderings,

when a battle-quick captain laid me down;

that was peace for a moment, but only a moment.

Wulf, my Wulf, it was wanting you

that made me sick, your never coming,

the unanswered heart, no mere starvation.

Do you hear, Eadwacer? Wulf will carry

our whelp to the woods.

Men easily break what is never bound.

Our song, for one.

ANON

translated by Matthew Hollis

‘Wind fierce to-night’

Wind fierce to-night.

Mane of the sea whipped white.

I am not afraid. No ravening Norse

On course through quiet waters.

ANON

translated by Seamus Heaney

The Wife’s Lament

I sing this poem full of grief.

Full of sorrow about my life.

Ready to say the cruel state

I have endured, early and late,

And never more I will tell

Than now – now that exile

Has fallen to me with all its pain.

My lord had gone, had fled away

Over the sea. The break of day

Found me grieving for a prince

Who had left his people. Then at once

I set out on my journey,

Little more than a refugee,

Lacking a retinue and friends,

With needy means and needy ends.

They plotted together, his kith and kin.

They met in secret, they made a plan

To keep us as far apart, away

From each other, night and day

As ever they could while making sure

I would feel anguish and desire.

My lord and master made his will

Plain to me: He said, be still:

Stay right here, in this place.

And here I am – penniless, friendless,

Lacking him, my heart’s companion

And sad indeed because our union

Suited me so well, so well

And for so long. And yet the real

State of his heart, the actual weakness

Of his mind, the true darkness

Of murderous sin was hidden away.

And yet I well remember the day,

Our singular joy on this earth

When we two vowed that only death

Could separate us. Now I see

Love itself has deserted me:

Love that was so true, so trusted

Is now as if it never existed.

Wherever I go, far or near,

Enmity springs from what is dear.

I was commanded to this grove

Under an oak tree, to this cave –

An ancient cave – and I am filled

With longing here where hedges, wild

With briars, valleys, rolling,

Steep hills make a joyless dwelling.

Often here, the fact of his leaving

Seizes my heart. There are lovers living

On this earth who keep their beds

While I am walking in the woods

Through these caves alone at dawn.

Here I sit. Here I mourn,

Through the summer hours, all my woes,

My exiled state. I can’t compose

My careworn heart nor ease the strife

Of that desire which is my life.

Let a young man be sober, tough

And sunny withal however weighed

Down his soul, however sad.

May his self be its only source.

My lost lord, my lover-felon –

Let him be cast from his land alone

By an icy cliff in a cold storm.

Let his own mind bedevil him

With weariness as the water flows

Far below his makeshift house.

Let my weary friend beside the sea

Suffer his cruel anxiety.

Let him be reminded in this place

Of another dwelling: all its grace,

And all the affliction, all the cost

Of longing for a love that’s lost.

ANON

translated by Eavan Boland

Exile

What happier fortune can one find

Than with the girl who pleased one’s mind

To leave one’s home and friends behind

And sail on the first favouring wind?

ANON

translated by Frank O’Connor

from The Seafarer

I sing my own true story, tell my travels,

How I have often suffered times of hardship

In days of labour, and have undergone

Bitter anxiety, my troubled home

On many a ship has been the heaving waves,

Where grim night-watch has often been my lot

At the ship’s prow as it beat past the cliffs.

Oppressed by cold my feet were bound by frost

In icy bonds, while worries simmered hot

About my heart, and hunger from within

Tore the sea-weary spirit. He who lives

Most easily on land knows not how I

Have spent my winter on the ice-cold sea,

Wretched and anxious on the paths of exile,

Lacking dear friends, hung round by icicles,

While hail flew past in showers. There I heard nothing

But the resounding sea, the ice-cold waves.

Sometimes I made the song of the wild swan

My pleasure, or the gannet’s call, the cry

Of curlews for the missing mirth of men,

The singing gull instead of mead in hall.

Storms beat the rocky cliffs, and icy-winged

The tern replied, the horn-beaked eagle shrieked.

I had no patron there who might have soothed

My desolate spirit. He can little know

Who, proud and flushed with wine, has spent his time

With all the joys of life among the cities

Rather than baleful wanderings, how I,

Weary, have often suffered on the seas.

Night’s shadow darkened, snow came from the north,

Frost bound the ground and hail fell on the earth,

Coldest of corns. And yet the heart’s desires

Incite me now that I myself should go

On towering seas among the salt waves’ play;

And all the time the heartfelt wishes urge

The spirit to venture, that I should go forth

To find the lands of strangers far away.

ANON

translated by Richard Hamer

‘There’s a lady in these parts’

There’ s a lady in these parts

whose name I’m slow to divulge

but she’s known to let off farts

like stones from a catapult

ANON

translated by Maurice Riordan

The Wish of Manchán of Liath

I wish, O son of the Living God, ancient eternal King, for a secret hut in the wilderness that it may be my dwelling.

A very blue shallow well to be beside it, a clear pool for washing away sins through the grace of the Holy Ghost.

A beautiful wood close by around it on every side, for the nurture of many-voiced birds, to shelter and hide it.

Facing the south for warmth, a little stream across its enclosure, a choice ground with abundant bounties which would be good for every plant.

A few sage disciples, I will tell their number, humble and obedient, to pray to the King.

Four threes, three fours, fit for every need, two sixes in the church, both south and north.

Six couples in addition to me myself, praying through the long ages to the King who moves the sun.

A lovely church decked with linen, a dwelling for God of Heaven; then, bright candles over the holy white Scriptures.

One room to go to for the care of the body, without wantonness, without voluptuousness, without meditation of evil.

This is the housekeeping I would undertake, I would choose it without concealing; fragrant fresh leeks, hens, speckled salmon, bees.

My fill of clothing and of food from the King of good fame, and for me to be sitting for a while praying to God in every place.

ANON

translated by Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson

The Praises of God

How foolish the man

Who does not raise

His voice and praise

With joyful words,

As he alone can,

Heaven’s High King.

To Whom the light birds

With no soul but air,

All day, everywhere

Laudation sing.

ANON

translated by W. H. Auden

The End of Clonmacnois

‘Whence are you, learning’s son?’

‘From Clonmacnois I come

My course of studies done,

I’m off to Swords again.’

‘How are things keeping there?’

‘Oh, things are shaping fair –

Foxes round churchyards bare

Gnawing the guts of men.’

ANON

translated by Frank O’Connor

Winter Cold

Cold, cold, chill tonight is wide Moylurg; the snow is higher than a mountain, the deer cannot get at its food.

Eternal cold! The storm has spread on every side; each sloping furrow is a river and every ford is a full mere.

Each full lake is a great sea and each mere is a full lake; horses cannot get across the ford of Ross, no more can two feet get there.

The fishes of Ireland are roving, there is not a strand where the wave does not dash, there is not a town left in the land, not a bell is heard, no crane calls.

The wolves of Cuan Wood do not get repose or sleep in the lair of wolves; the little wren does n ot find shelter for her nest on the slope of Lon.

Woe to the company of little birds for the keen wind and the cold ice! The blackbird with its dusky back does not find a bank it would like, shelter for its side in the Woods of Cuan.

Snug is our cauldron on its hook, restless the blackbird on Leitir Cró; snow has crushed the wood here, it is difficult to climb up Benn Bó.

The eagle of brown Glen Rye gets affliction from the bitter wind; great is its misery and its suffering, the ice will get into its beak.

It is foolish for you – take heed of it – to rise from quilt and feather bed; there is much ice on every ford; that is why I say ‘Cold!’

ANON

translated by Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson

Durham

Known throughout Britain this noble city.

Its steep slopes and stone buildings

are thought a wonder; weirs contain

its fast river; fish of all kinds

thrive here in the thrusting waters.

A great forest has grown up here,

thickets throng with wild creatures;

deer drowse in the deep dales.

Everyone knows this renowned town

holds the body of blessèd Cuthbert,

also the holy head of Oswald,

lion of England, Eadberch and Eadfrith,

brothers in battle, the bishop Aidan

and here besides the bishop Athelwold,

learnèd Bede and the abbot Basil,

inspiring tutor to Cuthbert in youth

who gladly took his grave instruction.

Together with these tombs in the minster

numerous recognised relics remain

that work wonders, as records say,

where worthy men await Judgment Day.

ANON

translated by Derek Mahon

Advice to Lovers

The way to get on with a girl

Is to drift like a man in a mist,

Happy enough to be caught,

Happy to be dismissed.

Glad to be out of her way,

Glad to rejoin her in bed,

Equally grieved or gay

To learn that she’s living or dead.

ANON

translate d by Frank O’Connor

from Sweeney Astray

The Mournes are cold tonight,

my quarters are desolate:

no milk or honey in this land

of snowdrift and gusting wind.

In a sharp-branched holly tree

I shiver and waste away,

chilled to the bone, camped out

up here on the naked summit.

The pools are ice, frost hardens on me.

Then I shake and break free,

coming alive like a fanned ember

in winds sweeping north from Leinster,

dreaming dreams of autumn days

round Hallowe’en and All Hallows,

longing for my old ground –

the clear waters of Glen Bolcain.

Astray no more then east or west,

blizzards whipping my bare face,

atremble no more in some den,

a starved, pinched, raving madman,

but sheltered in that dappled arbour,

my haven, my winter harbour,

my refuge from the bare heath,

my royal fort, my king’s rath.

Every night I glean and raid

and comb the floor of the oak wood.

My bands work into leaf and rind,

roots, windfalls on the ground,

they rake through matted watercress

and grope among the bog-berries,

cool brooklime, sorrel, damp moss,

wild garlic and raspberries,

apples, hazel-nuts, acorns,

the haws of sharp, jaggy hawthorns,

blackberries, the floating weed,

the whole store of the oak wood.

Keep me here, Christ, far away

from open ground and flat country.

Let me suffer the cold of glens.

I dread the cold of open plains.

ANON

translated by Seamus Heaney

Writing Out of Doors

A wall of forest looms above

and sweetly the blackbird sings;

all the birds make melody

over me and my books and things.

There sings to me the cuckoo

from bush-citadels in grey hood.

God’s doom! May the Lord protect me

writing well, under the great wood.

ANON

translated by James Carney

from The Mabinogi: Rhiannon

It’s little more than a bump in the land, a footnote

in the catalogue of hills, crags and ridges,

felt as an ache in the thighs, the heart’s

flip and gulp, by those heavy

with mutton and wine,

then a subtle sense of arrival, a breeze

scurrying up to attend to you,

the green swell of crown, the fields

gathering below.

They say if you sit on the summit

you’ll see a sight more chilling

than the greys of rain,

or something more brilliant than

lightning’s snazzy gold.

*

From up here, everything is cloud: the grass, forest, corn,

even the rocks, are nuances of weather.

The road’s a white line through the billows.

Pwyll watches with his men as

a figure grows there:

a horse with a lick of sunlight on its back,

a horse with a knight in gilt armour,

a horse with a splash of silk

horsewoman riding,

not so much moving as sharpening.

Will she ever be real?

The boy he sends down

finds the road silent, her back

already dwindling.

*

She is woman and horse. She rides slower than daydreams.

She is what you’ve forgotten, where the time went.

Singleminded as the sun, she rides

always one way, and the air’s

warmed by her passing.

The man he sends after her, the second day,

tries slowing down; she rides slower still

and the road grows between them.

He gallops again –

always she dawdles away from him

till she’s as small as a gnat,

and his horse gasping.

She slips into yesterday

without being now.

*

On the third day he rides himself, on his sleekest horse,

till it’s yeasty with sweat. She is a brushstroke

on the stillness of the facing page,

illuminated in gold

on a green background

and there is always a white space between them.

At last he calls out to her to stop.

There’s a wispy sound, the sense

of a veil lifting,

and they are side-by-side, flank to flank,

He should have asked her sooner –

better for the horse.

They talk in time to the hoofs:

saddle-courtesies.

*

Later he will ask himself how she knew who he was

and why she chose him out of all the princes

who hunt under these lumbering clouds.

Now he is watching her smile

as it comes and goes,

a slip of candlelight seen under a door,

listening to the cluck of laughter

that nestles in the depths of her throat,

hearing himself talk back

in the silences she leaves for him.

Later they will feast and dance

and climb the long stairs.

Later he’ll wonder. Today

there’s wonder enough.

ANON

translated by Matthew Francis

‘Derry I cherish ever’

Derry I cherish ever.

It is calm, it is clear.

Crowds of white angels on their rounds

At every corner.

ANON

translated by Seamus Heaney

I am Taliesin

Taliesin. I sing perfect metre,

Which will last to the end of the world.

My patron is Elphin …

I know why there is an echo in a hollow;

Why silver gleams; why breath is black; why liver is bloody;

Why a cow has horns; why a woman is affectionate;

Why milk is white; why holly is green;

Why a kid is bearded; why the cow-parsnip is hollow;

Why brine is salt; why ale is bitter;

Why the linnet is green and berries red;

Why a cuckoo complains; why it sings;

I know where the cuckoos of summer are in winter.

I know what beasts there are at the bottom of the sea;

How many spears in battle; how many drops in a shower;

Why a river drowned Pharaoh’s people;

Why fishes have scales.

Why a white swan has black feet …

I have been a blue salmon,

I have been a dog, a stag, a roebuck on the mountain,

A stock, a spade, an axe in the hand,

A stallion, a bull, a buck,

I was reaped and placed in an oven;

I fell to the ground when I was being roasted

And a hen swallowed me.

For nine nights was I in her crop.

I have been dead, I have been alive.

I am Taliesin.

ANON

translated by Gwyn Jones

The Heart of the Wood

My hope and my love,

we will go for a while into the wood,

scattering the dew,

where we will see the trout,

we will see the blackbird on its nest;

the deer and the buck calling,

the little bird that is sweetest singing on the branches;

the cuckoo on the top of the fresh green;

and death will never come near us

for ever in the sweet wood.

ANON

translated by Lady Augusta Gregory

This ae Night

This ae night, this ae night,

Everie night and alle,

Fire and salt and candle light

And Christ receive thy sawle!

When thou from here away hast past,

Everie night and alle,

To Whinny moor thou com’st at last,

And Christ receive thy sawle!

If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,

Everie night and alle,

Sit thee down and put them on:

And Christ receive they sawle!

If hosen and shoon thou never gav’t nane

Everie night and alle,

The whins shall prick thee to the bare bane:

And Christ receive thy sawle!

From Whinny moor when thou may’st pass,

Everie night and alle,

To Brig o’Dread thou com’st at last:

And Christ receive thy sawle!

From Brig o’Dread when thou may’st pass

Everie night and alle,

To Purgatory fire thou com’st at last,

And Christ receive thy sawle!

If ever thou gavest meat or drink,

Everie night and alle,

The fire shall never make thee shrink:

And Christ receive thy sawle!

If meat and drink thou ne’er gav’t nane,

Everie night and alle,

The fire will burn thee to the bare bane,

And Christ receive thy sawle!

This ae night, this ae night,

Everie night and alle,

Fire and salt and candle light,

And Christ receive thy sawle!

ANON

from The Parliament of Fowls

I saw a garden, full of blossoming trees,

In a green mead through which a river goes,

Where sweetness everlasting fills the breeze,

Of flowers blue and yellow, white and rose,

And cold wellsprings whose water deathless flows,

Teeming with little fishes quick and light,

With fins of red and scales of silver bright.

On every bough were birds; I heard them sing

With voice angelic in their harmony,

And some were busy hatchlings forth to bring;

The little rabbits came to play nearby,

And further off I then began to spy

The timid roe, the buck, the hart and hind,

Squirrels, and other beasts of gentle kind.

Of stringed instruments playing in accord

I heard the sound so ravishing that day

That God himself, maker of all and Lord,

Might never have heard better, I dare say.

Therewith a wind that scarce could gentler play

Made in the leafage green a murmur soft,

Harmonious with the sound of birds aloft.

And of that place the air so temperate was,

No hurt was known of either heat or cold;

There goodly spices grew, and wholesome grass,

And no man there grew ever sick or old.

Still was there joy above a thousand-fold

More than man’s telling, nor was it ever night,

But day for ever in all people’s sight.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

translated by E. B. Richmond

from The General Prologue

When in April the sweet showers fall

And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all

The veins are bathed in liquor of such power

As brings about the engendering of the flower,

When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath

Exhales an air in every grove and heath

Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun

His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,

And the small fowl are making melody

That sleep away the night with open eye

(So nature pricks them and their heart engages)

Then people long to go on pilgrimages

And palmers long to seek the stranger strands

Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands,

And specially, from every shire’s end

Of England, down to Canterbury they wend

To seek the holy blissful martyr, quick

To give his help to them when they were sick.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

translated by Nevill Coghill

from The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

Now let me turn again to tell my tale;

This blessed widow and her daughters two

Heard all these hens in clamour and halloo

And, rushing to the door at all this shrieking,

They saw the fox towards the covert streaking

And, on his shoulder, Chanticleer stretched flat.

‘Look, look!’ they cried, ‘O mercy, look at that!

Ha! Ha! the fox!’ and after him they ran,

And stick in hand ran many a serving man,

Ran Coll our dog, ran Talbot, Bran and Shaggy,

And with a distaff in her hand ran Maggie,

Ran cow and calf and ran the very hogs

In terror at the barking of the dogs;

The men and women shouted, ran and cursed,

They ran so hard they thought their hearts would burst,

They yelled like fiends in Hell, ducks left the water

Quacking and flapping as on point of slaughter,

Up flew the geese in terror over the trees,

Out of the hive came forth the swarm of bees

So hideous was the noise – God bless us all,

Jack Straw and all his followers in their brawl

Were never half so shrill, for all their noise,

When they were murdering those Flemish boys,

As that day’s hue and cry upon the fox.

They grabbed up trumpets made of brass and box,

Of horn and bone, on which they blew and pooped,

And therewithal they shouted and they whooped

So that it seemed the very heavens would fall.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

translated by Nevill Coghill

The Seagull

Smooth gull on the sea’s lagoon,

White as snow or the white moon,

Sun shard, gauntlet of the sea,

Untroubled is your beauty.

Buoyant you ride the rough tide,

A swift, proud, fish-eating bird.

Come to me, anchored on land,

Sea-lily, come to my hand.

White-robed, whiter than paper,

You’re a sea-nun, sleek and pure.

Wide praise is for you and her;

Circle that castle tower,

Search till you see her, seagull,

Bright as Eigr on that wall.

Take all my pleading to her,

Tell her my life I offer.

Tell her, should she be alone –

Gently with that gentle one –

If she will not take me, I,

Losing her, must surely die.

I completely worship her.

Friends, no man ever loved more –

Taliesin’s nor Merlin’s eye

Saw a woman as lovely.

Copper-curled, curved as Venus,

How beautiful the girl is.

O seagull, but see her face,

Loveliest on the world’s surface,

Then bring me her sweet greeting,

Or my certain death you bring.

DAFYDD AP GWILYM

translated by Leslie Norris

The Thrush

Music of a thrush, clearbright

Lovable language of light,

Heard I under a birchtree

Yesterday, all grace and glee –

Was ever so sweet a thing

Fine-plaited as his whistling?

Matins, he reads the lesson,

A chasuble of plumage on.

His cry from a grove, his brightshout

Over countrysides rings out,

Hill prophet, maker of moods,

Passion’s bright bard of glenwoods.

Every voice of the brookside

Sings he, in his darling pride,

Every sweet-metred love-ode,

Every song and organ mode,

Competing for a truelove,

Every catch for woman’s love.

Preacher and reader of lore,

Sweet and clear, inspired rapture,

Bard of Ovid’s faultless rhyme,

Chief prelate mild of Springtime.

From his birch, where lovers throng,

Author of the wood’s birdsong,

Merrily the glade re-echoes –

Rhymes and metres of love he knows.

He on hazel sings so well

Through cloistered trees (winged angel)

Hardly a bird of Eden

Had by rote remembered then

How to recite what headlong

Passion made him do with song.

DAFYDD AP GWILYM

translated by Tony Conran

from Piers Plowman

In the season of summer    with the sun at its highest

I dressed in my work-clothes    like any poor shepherd,

in the garb of a hermit    but for worldly work

and set off through the country    to find what I’d find.

I met many wonders    and uncommon sights,

till one morning in May    on the hills behind Malvern

I fell sound asleep,    worn out by the walking.

As I lay on the ground,    resting and slumbering,

I’d this marvellous dream    I’ll describe to you now.

I saw all the good    that live in the world

and the bad just as busy,    be certain of that:

loyalty, betrayal,    let-down and cunning –

I saw them all in my sleep:    that’s what I’m saying.

I looked to the East,    in the track of the sun

and saw a great tower –    Truth’s home, I imagined.

Then to the westward    I looked shortly after

and saw a deep valley.    Death lived down there,

I’d no doubt in my mind,    with all evil spirits.

I saw in the middle    between these two points

a beautiful meadow,    thronging with people

of every station,    the poor and the needful

who slaved at their labours    as this hard world requires them.

Some trudged behind ploughs    with no chance of a respite,

sowing and seeding.    They worked without ceasing

to win for the people    what the greedy would waste.

Others grew proud    and dressed up accordingly,

their faces and get-up    a sight for sore eyes.

But many more,    it has to be said,

lived in penance and prayer    for the love of Our Lord,

in the confident hope    of ascending to Heaven.

As monks and nuns    they remained in their cells,

never wishing    to dash round the country

on the lookout for luxuries    to pamper their whims.

Some took to business    and did very well –

at least as we see it –    ‘getting on in the world’.

More had a fine time,    acting the clown

With dancing and singing    and swearing their heads off,

inventing daft stories,    making fools of themselves.

Such people imagine    that work’s a poor option.

*

While I was dreaming,    Nature enlightened me,

Calling my name    and saying to take notice

While she led me on    through all the world’s marvels.

And on this great mountain named Earth,    I imagined,

I was first led away    to find out in practice

How God might be loved    through observing his creatures.

The sun I saw, and the sea, and the sand by the shore;

I saw how the birds    make their nests in the trees;

No man has the skill    to equal the least of them.

Who on earth, then I wondered,    tutored the magpie

To arrange all the sticks    that she lays on to breed?

No joiner, I’m certain,    could make a dome like it.

What kind of a builder    might follow that blueprint?

There were visions besides    that I marvelled at further:

Other bird pairs    that sheltered their eggs

In the deepest seclusion on moor and in marsh, in swamp or on water,

So no-one could find them    but the two of themselves.

Then I looked out to sea    and beyond to the stars.

Such marvels I saw    I can hardly describe them:

Flowers in the wood    of beautiful colours,

And all shining through    the green grass and brown earth.

Some were rank and some scented:    a magical world

That I haven’t the time    or the skill to describe.

There’s provision enough here,    faith has no doubt,

For no life ever given    lacked the means of survival,

An element to live in    and a reason for living.

First the wild worm    lives in wet earth;

The fish lives in water,    the cricket in fire.

The curlew by nature    lives on the air,

So of any bird    its meat is the cleanest.

Animals live    on grass, grain and rootcrops:

This shows that man too    has a natural food

Which is not only bread    but sustained faith and love.

WILLIAM LANGLAND

translated by Bernard O’Donoghue

In Defence of Women

Woe to him who speaks ill of women! it is not right to abuse them. They have not deserved, that I know, all the blame they have always had.

Sweet are their words, exquisite their voice, that sex for which my love is great; woe to him who does not scruple to revile them, woe to him who speaks ill of women!

They do no murder nor treachery, nor any grim or hateful deed, they do no sacrilege to church nor bell; woe to him who speaks ill of women!

Certain it is, there has never been born bishop nor king nor great prophet without fault, but from a woman; woe to him who speaks ill of women!

They are thrall to their own hearts, they love a man slender and sound – it would be long before they would dislike him. Woe to him who speaks ill of women!

An old fat greybeard, they do not desire a tryst with him – dearer to them is a young lad, though poor. Woe to him who speaks ill of women!

EARL GERALD FITZGERALD

translated by Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson

from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

So the morning dawns when man remembers

the day our redeemer was born to die,

and every house on earth is joyful for Lord Jesus.

Their day was no different, being a diary of delights:

banquets and buffets were beautifully cooked

and dutifully served to diners at the dais.

The ancient elder sat highest at the table

with the lord, I believe, in the chair to her left;

the sweeter one and Gawain took seats in the centre

and were first at the feast to dine, then food

was carried around as custom decrees

and served to each man as his status deserved.

There was feasting, there was fun, and such feelings of joy

as could not be conveyed by quick description,

yet to tell it in detail would take too much time.

But I’m aware that Gawain and the beautiful woman

found such comfort and closeness in each other’s company

through warm exchanges of whispered words

and refined conversation free from foulness

that their pleasure surpassed all princely sports

by far.

Beneath the din of drums

men followed their affairs,

and trumpets thrilled and thrummed

as those two tended theirs.

They drank and danced all day and the next

and danced and drank the day after that,

then St John’s Day passed with a gentler joy

as the Christmas feasting came to a close.

Guests were to go in the greyness of dawn,

so they laughed and dined as the dusk darkened,

swaying and swirling to music and song.

Then at last, in the lateness, they upped and left

towards distant parts along different paths.

Gawain offered his goodbyes, but was ushered by his host

to his host’s own chamber and the heat of its chimney,

waylaid by the lord so the lord might thank him

profoundly and profusely for the favour he had shown

in honouring his house at that hallowed season

and lighting every corner of the castle with his character.

‘For as long as I live my life shall be better

that Gawain was my guest at God’s own feast.’

‘By God,’ said Gawain, ‘but the gratitude goes to you.

May the High King of Heaven repay your honour.

Your requests are now this knight’s commands.

I am bound by your bidding, no boon is too high

to say.’

At length his lordship tried

to get his guest to stay.

But proud Gawain replied

he must now make his way.

ANON

translated by Simon Armitage

from Pearl

One thing I know for certain: that she

was peerless, pearl who would have added

light to any prince’s life

however bright with gold. None

could touch the way she shone

in any light, so smooth, so small –

she was a jewel above all others.

So pity me the day I lost her

in this garden where she fell

beneath the grass into the earth.

I stand bereft, struck to the heart

with love and loss. My spotless pearl.

I’ve gazed a hundred times at the place

she left me, grieving for that gift

which swept away all shadow, that face

which was the antidote to sorrow.

And though this watching sears my heart

and wrings the wires of sadness tighter,

still the song this silence sings me

is the sweetest I have heard –

the countless quiet hours in which

her pale face floats before me, mired

in mud and soil, a perfect jewel

spoiled, my spotless pearl.

In the place where such riches lie rotting

a carpet of spices will spring up and spread,

blossoms of blue and white and red

which fire in the full light facing the sun.

Where a pearl is planted deep in the dark

no fruit or flower could ever fade;

all grasscorn grows from dying grain

so new wheat can be carried home.

From goodness other goodness grows:

so beautiful a seed can’t fail

to fruit or spices fail to flower

fed by a precious, spotless pearl.

So I came to this very same spot

in the green of an August garden, height

and heart of summer, at Lammas time

when corn is cut with curving scythes.

And I saw that the little hill where she fell

was a shaded place showered with spices:

pink gillyflower, ginger and purple gromwell,

powdered with peonies scattered like stars.

But more than their loveliness to the eye,

the sweetest fragrance seemed to float

in the air there also – I knew beyond doubt

that’s where she lay, my spotless pearl.

Caught in the chill grasp of grief I stood

in that place clasping my hands, seized

by the grip on my heart of longing and loss.

Though reason told me to be still

I mourned for my poor imprisoned pearl

with all the fury and force of a quarrel.

The comfort of Christ called out to me

but still I wrestled in wilful sorrow.

Then the power and perfume of those flowers

filled up my head and felled me, slipped me

into sudden sleep in the place

where she lay beneath me. My girl.

ANON

translated by Jane Draycott

The Prologue

The fables told by poets in old times

Are by no means all grounded upon truth

Yet their attractive style, their craft and themes

Still make for pleasant listening; and with

Good cause, since they, from the beginning,

Aimed to reprove man’s whole wrong way of living

Under the figure of another thing.

Just as through a hard unyielding ground,

If it is laboured with real diligence,

The flowers will spring and young shoots of green corn,

Wholesome and good for human sustenance,

So sweetly edifying moral lessons

Spring from the well-worked plot of poetry

For those who have ears to hear and eyes to see.

The shell upon the nut, though hard and tough,

Holds the kernel and is still delightful.

Just so there lies a doctrine of great worth

And fruitfulness beneath a made-up fable.

And scholars say it is most profitable

To mix the merry in with graver matter:

It makes the spirit lift and time go quicker.

Furthermore, a bow that’s always bent

Goes weak and gives and loses all its spring.

The same is true of minds always intent

On earnest thought and constant studying.

To alleviate what’s sad by adding something

Cheerful is good; Aesop expressed it thus:

Dulcius arrident seria picta iocis.

Which author’s Latin, masters, by your leave,

Submitting myself here to your correction,

I would convert to mother tongue and prove

Equal to the task of a translation –

Not out of vain presumption of my own,

But at the invitation of a lord

Whose name it is not needful to record.

In homely language and rough turns of speech

I have to write, for always eloquence

And rhetoric remained beyond my reach.

Therefore I humbly pray your reverence

That if you find here through my negligence

Anything much shortened – or protracted –

By your good will and good grace you’ll correct it.

My author in his fables records how

Wild animals spoke sense and understood,

Debated point for point, could argue too,

Propound a syllogism and conclude;

He shows by example and similitude

How often humans in their own behaviour

Resemble the wild animals in nature.

No wonder that a man grows like a beast!

Loving each carnal and each foul delight

Until no shame can hold or halt his lust,

He soon indulges every appetite

Which through repetition and bad habit

Roots in the mind so ineradicably

He is transformed: then bestiality.

This scholar, Aesop, as I have been telling,

Composed in verse of elegance and weight

A coded book, for he was unwilling

That readers high or low should underrate

His art; and first of a cock he wrote,

Hunting for food, that found a brilliant stone.

His is the fable you shall hear anon.

ROBERT HENRYSON

translated by Seamus Heaney

The Toad and the Mouse

Upon a time, as Aesop makes report,

A little mouse came to a riverside.

She couldn’t wade, her mouse-shanks were so short,

She couldn’t swim, she had no horse to ride,

So willy-nilly there she had to bide

And to and fro beside that river deep

She ran and cried with many a piteous peep.

‘Help, help me over,’ cried the poor wee mouse,

‘For love of God, someone, across this stream.’

With that a toad, in water nearby, rose

(For toads by nature nimbly duck and swim),

And showed her head to mount the bank and come

Croaking ashore, then gave her greetings thus:

‘Good morning! And what brings you here, Miss Mouse?’

‘The corn’, she said, ‘in yon field, do you see it?

The ripened oats, the barley, peas and wheat?

I’m hungry and I’d love to get to it

But the water here’s too wide, so here I sit

And on this side get not a thing to eat

But hard nuts that I have to gnaw and bore.

Over beyond, I’d feast on better fare.

‘I have no boat, there is no ferryman,

And if there were, I have no coin to pay.’

‘Sister,’ said toad, ‘would you stop worrying.

Do what I tell you and I shall find a way

Without horse, bridge or boat or any ferry

To get you over safely, never fear –

And not wet once a whisker or a hair.’

‘I greatly wonder’, said the little mouse,

‘How you can, without fin or feather, float.

This river is so deep and dangerous

I think you’d drown as soon as you’d wade out.

Tell me, therefore, what is the gift or secret

You own to bring you over this dark flood?’

And thus in explanation spoke the toad:

‘With my two feet for oars, webbed and broad,

I row the stream,’ she said, ‘and quietly pull,

And though it’s deep and dangerous to wade,

I swim it to and fro at my own will

And cannot sink, because my open gill

Vents and voids the water I breathe in.

So truly, I am not afraid to drown.’

The mouse gazed up into her furrowed face,

Her wrinkled cheeks, her ridged lips like a lid

Hasped shut on her hoarse voice, her hanging brows,

Her lanky wobbly legs and wattled hide;

Then, taken aback, she faced the toad and cried,

‘If I know any physiognomy,

The signs on you are of untruth and envy.

‘For scholars say the main inclination

Of a man’s thought will usually proceed

According to the corporal complexion,

The good or evil prompting in the blood.

A thrawn feature means a nature twisted.

The Latin tag affords a proof of this –

Mores, it says, are mirrored in the face.’

‘No,’ said the toad, ‘that proverb isn’t true,

For what looks good is often a false showing.

The bilberry may have a dreary hue

But will be picked while primrose is left growing.

The face may fail to be the heart’s true token.

Therefore I find this judgement still applies:

‘You shouldn’t judge a man just by his face.’

ROBERT HENRYSON

translated by Seamus Heaney

A Girl’s Hair

Shall I have the girl I love,

The grove of light, my truelove,

With her silk top like a star

And her head’s golden pillar?

Dragon fire lights a doorway,

Three chains, like the Milky Way.

A heaven of hair she’ll set fire

In one bush, like a bonfire.

Broom or great birchtree’s sweetness,

Maelor’s yellow-headed lass,

An angel host, a legion,

Breastplate many links are on,

Pennon of peacock feather,

Tall bush like a golden door,

All this lively-looking hair,

Virtue’s sun, maiden’s fetter,

Were she a goldsmith, we’d guess

Who owned its splendid brightness.

There’s something round her head then

Like summer on Rhiw Felen.

Round her, growing raiment springs,

Tent of the sun, like harpstrings,

Rush peelings, tips of harvest,

Fur upon a pinemart’s chest,

Peahen that wears, from custom,

Head to foot, the hair of broom,

Tough amber, like a twig-chain,

All inwoven, golden grain.

As tall as trees are those locks,

A crown of twigs, new beeswax.

Labour of bees brought ripeness,

Shoots of sunshine from her flesh,

Saffron on herbs of eye-bright,

Gold cherries, stars of the night.

Good was the growing harvest,

Water grasses, golden-tressed.

Pure herbs, with the lye rinsed wet,

Yellow hammer, silk thicket.

Mass of Mary Maudlen’s broom

Round her head, golden besom,

And ruddy, if it’s loosened,

Like a gold gown she has donned.

Her two breasts are overall

Roofed in gold, each a marvel.

Her skull is weighed with tresses,

Flax upon the yellow trees,

And if it’s left unravelled

Was there ever a bush so gold?

That the mark on her be patent

Of faith’s chrism from the font

And this bush hold life’s sunshine,

No bush under sun’s so fine.

DAFYDD AB EDMWND

translated by Tony Conran

To a Ladye

Sweit rois of vertew and of gentilnes,

Delytsum lyllie of everie lustynes,

Richest in bontie and in bewtie cleir,

And everie vertew that is held most deir,

Except onlie that ye ar mercyles.

In to your garthe this day I did persew,

Thair saw I flowris that fresche were of hew;

Baith whyte and reid moist lusty wer to seyne,

And halsum herbis upone stalkis grene;

Yit leif nor flour fynd could I nane of rew.

I dout that Merche, with his caild blastis keyne,

Hes slane this gentill herbe that I of mene,

Whois petewous deithe dois to my hart sic pane

That I wald mak to plant his rute agane,

So confortand his levis unto me bene.

WILLIAM DUNBAR

‘I sing of a maiden’

I sing of a maiden      beyond compare:

King of all kings      she chose to bear.

He came all so still      where his mother was

As dew in April      that falleth on the grass.

He came all so still      to his mother’s bower

As dew in April      that falleth on the flower.

He came all so still      where his mother lay

As dew in April      that falleth on the spray.

Mother and maiden      was never none but she:

Well may such a lady      God’s mother be.

ANON

translated by Seamus Heaney

Shirt of a Lad

As I did the washing one day

Under the bridge at Aberteifi,

And a golden stick to drub it,

And my sweetheart’s shirt beneath it –

A knight came by upon a charger,

Proud and swift and broad of shoulder,

And he asked if I would sell

The shirt of the lad that I loved well.

No, I said, I will not trade –

Not if a hundred pounds were paid;

Not if two hillsides I could keep

Full with wethers and white sheep;

Not if two fields full of oxen

Under yoke were in the bargain;

Not if the herbs of all Llanddewi,

Trodden and pressed, were offered to me –

Not for the likes of that, I’d sell

The shirt of the lad that I love well.

ANON

translated by Tony Conran

‘The silver swan, who living had no note’

The silver swan, who living had no note,

When death approached unlocked her silent throat,

Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,

Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more:

Farewell all joys, O death come close mine eyes,

More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.

ANON

The Blackbird of Derrycairn

Stop, stop and listen for the bough top

Is whistling and the sun is brighter

Than God’s own shadow in the cup now!

Forget the hour-bell. Mournful matins

Will sound, Patric, as well at nightfall.

Faintly through mist of broken water

Fionn heard my melody in Norway.

He found the forest track, he brought back

This beak to gild the branch and tell, there,

Why men must welcome in the daylight.

He loved the breeze that warns the black grouse,

The shout of gillies in the morning

When packs are counted and the swans cloud

Loch Erne, but more than all those voices

My throat rejoicing from the hawthorn.

In little cells behind a cashel,

Patric, no handbell gives a glad sound.

But knowledge is found among the branches.

Listen! That song that shakes my feathers

Will thong the leather of your satchels.

ANON

translated by Austin Clarke

‘Dear, if you change, I’ll never choose again’

Dear, if you change, I’ll never choose again,

Sweet, if you shrink, I’ll never think of love;

Fair, if you fail, I’ll judge all beauty vain,

Wise, if too weak, my wits I’ll never prove.

Dear, sweet, fair, wise; change, shrink nor be not weak,

And on my faith, my faith shall never break.

Earth with her flowers shall sooner heaven adorn,

Heaven her bright stars through earth’s dim globe shall move,

Fire heat shall lose and frosts of flames be born,

Air made to shine as black as hell shall prove:

Earth, heaven, fire, air, the world transformed shall view,

Ere I prove false to faith, or strange to you.

ANON

May Poem

O lusty May, with Flora queen!

The balmy dropis from Phoebus sheen

Preluciand beams before the day:

By that Diana growis green

Through gladness of this lusty May.

Then Esperus, that is so bricht,

Til woful hairtis castis his light,

With bankis that bloomis on every brae;

And schouris are shed forth of their sicht

Through gladness of this lusty May.

Birdis on bewis of every birth,

Rejoicing notis makand their mirth

Richt plesantly upon the spray,

With flourishingis o’er field and firth

Through gladness of this lusty May.

All luvaris that are in care

To their ladies they do repair

In fresh morningis before the day,

And are in mirth ay mair and mair

Through gladness of this lusty May.

ANON

The Wife Who Would a Wanton Be

All night I clatter upon my creed,

Prayand to God that I were dead;

Or else out of this world he were:

Then should I see for some remeid.

Wo worth marriage for evermair!

Ye should hear tell (an he were gane)

That I should be a wanton ane.

To learn the law of lovis layr

In our town like me should be nane.

Wo worth marriage for evermair!

I should put on my russet gown,

My red kirtill, my hose of brown.

And let them see my yellow hair

Under my kerchief hingand down.

Wo worth marriage for evermair!

Lovers both should hear and see,

I should love them that would love me;

Their hearts for me should ne’er be sair:

But aye unweddit should I be.

Wo worth marriage for evermair!

ANON

Bring Us in Good Ale

Bring us in good ale, and bring us in good ale;

For our blessèd Lady sake bring us in good ale!

Bring us in no browne bred, for that is made of brane,

Nor bring us in no white bred, for therein is no gane,

But bring us in good ale!

Bring us in no befe, for there is many bones,

But bring us in good ale, for that goth downe at ones,

And bring us in good ale!

Bring us in no bacon, for that is passing fate,

But bring us in good ale, and gife us enought of that;

And bring us in good ale!

Bring us in no mutton, for that is often lene,

Nor bring us in no tripes, for they be seldom clene,

But bring us in good ale!

Bring us in no egges, for there are many schelles,

But bring us in good ale, and gife us nothing elles;

And bring us in good ale!

Bring us in no butter, for therein are many heres,

Nor bring us in no pigges flesch, for that will make us bores,

But bring us in good ale!

Bring us in no podinges, for therein is all Godes good,

Nor bring us in no venesen, for that is not for our blod;

But bring us in good ale!

Bring us in no capons flesch, for that is ofte dere,

Nor bring us in no dokes flesch, for they slober in the mere,

But bring us in good ale!

ANON

‘Western wind, when wilt thou blow?’

Western wind, when wilt thou blow,

The small rain down can rain?

Christ, if my love were in my arms,

And I in my bed again.

ANON

The Breach in the Wall

Alas, my love, they knocked you down,

Alas, my love, they knocked you down,

Alas, my love, they knocked you down,

In the breach in the wall.

It is a shame I was not there,

It is a shame I was not there,

It is a shame I was not there,

With four men at either hand.

The ale they brought to your wedding,

The ale they brought to your wedding,

The ale they brought to your wedding,

Was drunk at your wake.

I was a bride and a maiden,

A bride and a maiden,

A bride and a maiden

And a widow all at once.

You had no fault to speak of,

You had no fault to speak of,

You had no fault to speak of,

But that you did not betoken a long life.

ANON

translated by Meg Bateman

This is the House That Jack Built

This is the farmer sowing his corn,

That kept the cock that crowed in the morn,

That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,

That married the man all tattered and torn,

That kissed the maid en all forlorn,

That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,

That tossed the dog,

That worried the cat,

That killed the rat,

That ate the malt

That lay in the house that Jack built.

ANON

‘They flee from me that sometime did me seek’

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot stalking in my chamber.

I have seen them gentle tame and meek

That now are wild and do not remember

That sometime they put themselves in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range

Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune, it hath been otherwise

Twenty times better; but once in special,

In thin array after a pleasant guise,

When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,

And she me caught in her arms long and small;

And therewithal sweetly did me kiss,

And softly said, Dear heart, how like you this?

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.

But all is turned thorough my gentleness

Into a strange fashion of forsaking;

And I have leave to go of her goodness

And she also to use newfangleness.

But since that I so kindly am served,

I would fain know what she hath deserved.

THOMAS WYATT

The Ballad which Anne Askew Made and Sang when She was in Newgate

Like as the armed knight

Appointed to the field,

With this world will I fight,

And faith shall be my shield.

Faith is that weapon strong,

Which will not fail at need;

My foes, therefore, among

Therewith will I proceed.

Thou sayst, lord, whoso knock,

To them wilt thou attend,

Undo, therefore, the lock,

And thy strong power send.

More enemies now I have

Than hairs upon my head;

Let them not me deprave,

But fight thou in my stead.

Not oft I used to write

In prose, nor yet in rhyme;

Yet will I show one sight,

That I saw in my time:

I saw a royal throne,

Where Justice should have sit;

But in her stead was one

Of moody, cruel wit.

Absorpt was rightwiseness,

As by the raging flood;

Satan, in his excess,

Sucked up the guiltless blood.

Then thought, I – Jesus, Lord,

When thou shalt judge us all,

Hard is it to record

On these men what will fall!

Yet, Lord, I thee desire,

For that they do to me,

Let them not taste the hire

Of their iniquity.

ANNE ASKEW

Satyr upon Sir Niel Laing

Canker’d, cursed creature, crabbed, corbit kittle,

Buntin-ars’d, beugle-back’d, bodied like a beetle;

Sarie shitten, shell-padock, ill shapen shit,

Kid-bearded gennet, all alike great:

Fiddle-douped, flindrikin, fart of a man,

Wa worth the, wanwordie, wanshapen wran!

SIR THOMAS MAITLAND

A— B— on the learned Bartholo Sylva

By this title, the book declares itself, and the amount of riches that it conceals,

itself trusting in its own name, it shows forth.

It promises the world, it promises the stars: what man

do such names not attact to it?

Heaven does not abhor darkness, nor the world thorns,

For thus each perceives the hand of the maker.

There was first a WOOD, but now, a still lovelier garden, so that you,

whoever you are, may attain the roses at its centre.

ANNE BACON

The Doubt of Future Foes

The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,

And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy;

For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects’ faith doth ebb,

Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web.

But clouds of joys untried do cloak aspiring minds,

Which turn to rain of late repent by changed course of winds.

The top of hope supposed the root upreared shall be,

And fruitless all their grafted guile, as shortly ye shall see.

The dazzled eyes with pride, which great ambition blinds,

Shall be unsealed by worthy wights whose foresight falsehood finds.

The daughter of debate that discord aye doth sow

Shall reap no gain where former rule still peace hath taught to know.

No foreign banished wight shall anchor in this port;

Our realm brooks not seditious sects, let them elsewhere resort.

My rusty sword through rest shall first his edge employ

To poll their tops that seek such change or gape for future joy.

QUEEN ELIZABETH I

When I Was Fair and Young

When I was fair and young, then favour graced me.

Of many was I sought their mistress for to be.

But I did scorn them all and answered them therefore:

Go, go, go, seek some other where; importune me no more.

How many weeping eyes I made to pine in woe,

How many sighing hearts I have not skill to show,

But I the prouder grew and still this spake therefore:

Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.

Then spake fair Venus’ son, that proud victorious boy,

Saying: You dainty dame, for that you be so coy,

I will so pluck your plumes as you shall say no more:

Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.

As soon as he had said, such change grew in my breast

That neither night nor day I could take any rest.

Wherefore I did repent that I had said before:

Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.

QUEEN ELIZABETH I

To Queen Elizabeth

Lo thus in brief (most sacred Majesty)

I have set down whence all these Sibyls were

What they foretold, or saw, we see, and hear

And profit reap by all their prophesy

Would God I wear a Sibyl to divine

In worthy verse your lasting happiness

Then only I should be characteress

Of that, which worlds with wonder might define

But what need I to wish, when you are such,

Of whose perfections none can write too much.

JANE SEAGER

A Communication Which the Author Had to London, Before She Made Her Will

The time is come, I must depart

from thee, ah famous city;

I never yet to rue my smart,

did find that thou had’st pity.

Wherefore small cause there is, that I

should grieve from thee to go;

But many women foolishly,

like me, and other moe,

Do such a fixèd fancy set,

on those which least deserve,

That long it is ere wit we get

away from them to swerve.

But time with pity oft will tell

to those that will her try,

Whether it best be more to mell,

or utterly defy.

And now hath time me put in mind

of thy great cruelness,

That never once a help would find,

to ease me in distress.

Thou never yet would’st credit give

to board me for a year;

Nor with apparel me relieve,

except thou payèd were.

No, no, thou never did’st me good,

nor ever wilt, I know.

Yet am I in no angry mood,

but will, or ere I go,

In perfect love and charity,

my testament here write,

And leave to thee such treasury,

as I in it recite.

Now stand aside and give me leave

to write my latest will;

And see that none you do deceive

of that I leave them till.

ISABELLA WHITNEY

Verses in Italian and French, written by the Queen of Scots to the Queen of England

A single thought which benefits and harms me

Bitter and sweet alternate endlessly in my heart.

Between hope and fear this thought weighs down on me

So much that peace and rest flee from me

So, dear sister, if this paper reiterates

My pressing desire to see you;

It is because I see in pain and sorrow

The immediate outcome if this request should fail.

I have seen the ship blown by contrary winds

On the high seas, near to the harbour mouth

And the calm turning to troubled water

Likewise [sister] I live in fear and terror

Not on account of you, but because there are times

When Fortune can destroy sail and rigging at once.

MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS

God send euerie Preist ane wyfe

God send euerie Preist ane wyfe.

And euerie Nunne ane man.

That thay mycht leue that haly lyfe

As first the Kirk began

Sanet Peter, quhome nane can reprufe,

His lyfe in Mariage led

All guide Preistis, quhome God did lufe

Thair maryit wyffis had

Greit causis than, I grant, had thay

Fra wyffis to refraine

Bot greiter causis half thay may,

Now wyffis to wed againe

For than suld nocht sa mony hure

Be vp and downe this land:

Nor zit sa mony beggeris pure,

In Kirk and mercat stand

And nocht sa mekle bastard seid,

Throw out this cuntrie sawin:

Nor gude men vncouth fry suld feid,

And all the suitli war knawin

Sen Christis law, and commoun law.

And Doctouris will admit,

That Prestis in that zock suld draw,

Quha dar say contrair it?

JAMES, JOHN AND ROBERT WEDDERBURN

from The Faerie Queene

So forth issued the Seasons of the year;

First lusty Spring, all dight in leaves of flowers

That freshly budded, and new blooms did bear,

In which a thousand birds had built their bowers,

That sweetly sung to call forth paramours;

And in his hand a javelin he did bear,

And on his head (as fit for warlike stoures)

A gilt engraven morion he did wear,

That as some did him love, so others did him fear.

Then came the jolly Summer, being dight

In a thin silken cassock, coloured green,

That was unlined all, to be more light,

And on his head a garland well beseen,

He wore, from which, as he had chauffed been,

The sweat did drop, and in his hand he bore

A bow and shafts, as he in forest green

Had hunted late the libbard or the boar,

And now would bathe his limbs with labour heated sore.

Then came the Autumn, all in yellow clad,

As though he joyed in his plenteous store,

Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad

That he had banished Hunger, which to-fore

Had by the belly oft him pinched sore;

Upon his head a wreath, that was enroll’d

With ears of corn of every sort, he bore,

And in his hand a sickle he did hold,

To reap the ripen’d fruits the which the earth had yold.

Lastly came Winter, clothed all in frieze,

Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill,

Whilst on his hoary beard his breath did freeze,

And the dull drops that from his purpled bill

As from a limbeck did adown distill;

In his right hand a tipped staff he held

With which his feeble steps he stayed still,

For he was faint with cold and weak with eld,

That scarce his loosed limbs he able was to weld.

These, marching; softly, thus in order went,

And after them the Months all riding came;

First sturdy March, with brows full sternly bent,

And armed strongly, rode upon a Ram,

The same which over Hellespontus swam;

Yet in his hand a spade be also hent,

And in a bag all sorts of seeds ysame,

Which on the earth he strewed as he went,

And fill’d her womb with fruitful hope of nourishment.

Next came fresh April, full of lustyhed,

And wanton as a kid, whose horn new buds;

Upon a Bull he rode, the same which led

Europa floating through the Argolic floods;

His horns were gilden all with golden studs.

And garnished with garlands goodly dight

Of all the fairest flowers and freshest buds

Which th’earth brings forth, and wet he seemed in sight

With waves, through which he waded for his love’s delight.

Then came fair May, the fairest maid on ground

Decked all with dainties of her season’s pride,

And throwing flowers out of her lap around;

Upon two brethren’s shoulders she did ride

The Twins of Leda, which on either side

Supported her like to their sovereign queen;

Lord! how all creatures laugh’d when her they spied,

And leaped and danced as they had ravished been!

And Cupid’s self about her fluttered all in green.

And after her came jolly June, arrayed

All in green leaves, as he a player were,

Yet in his time he wrought as well as played

That by his plough-irons might right well appear;

Upon a Crab he rode, that did him bear

With crooked crawling steps an uncouth pace,

And backward yode, as bargemen wont to fare,

Bending their force contrary to their face;

Like that ungracious crew which feigns demurest grace.

Then came hot July, boiling like to fire,

That all his garments he had cast away;

Upon a Lion, raging; yet with ire,

He boldly rode, and made him to obey;

It was the beast that whilome did forray

The Nemæan forest, till th’ Amphytrionide

Him slew, and with his hide did him array;

Behind his back a scythe, and by his side,

Under his belt, he bore a sickle circling wide.

The sixth was August, being rich arrayed

In garment all of gold down to the ground;

Yet rode he not, but led a lovely maid

Forth by the lily hand, the which was crowned

With ears of corn, and full her hand was found;

That was the righteous Virgin, which of old

Lived here on earth, and plenty made abound,

But after wrong was loved, and justice sold,

She left the unrighteous world, and was to heaven extolled.

Next him September marched, eke on foot;

Yet was he heavy laden with the spoil

Of harvest’s riches, which he made his boot,

And him enriched with bounty of the soil;

In his one hand, as fit for harvest’s toil,

He held a knife-hook, and in the other hand

A pair of Weights, with which he did assoyle

Both more and less, where it in doubt did stand,

And equal gave to each, as justice duly scanned.

Then came October, full of merry glee,

For yet his noule was totty of the must,

Which he was treading in the wine-fat’s see,

And of the joyous ale, whose gentle gust

Made him so frolick, and so full of lust;

Upon a dreadful Scorpion he did ride,

The same which, by Diana’s doom unjust,

Slew great Orion; and eke by his side

He had his ploughing-share and coulter ready tied.

Next was November; he full gross and fat,

As fed with lard, and that right well might seem,

For he had been a fatting hogs of late,

That yet his brows with sweat did reek and steem,

And yet the season was full sharp and breem;

In planting eke he took no small delight:

Whereon he rode, not easy was to deem,

For it a dreadful Centaur was in sight,

The seed of Saturn and fair Nais, Chiron hight.

And after him came next the chill December,

Yet he, through merry feasting which he made,

And great boofires, did not the cold remember,

His Saviour’s birth his mind so much did glad;

Upon a shaggy, bearded Goat he rode,

The same wherewith Dan Jove in tender years,

They say, was nourished by the Iæan maid;

And in his hand a broad deep bowl he bears,

Of which he freely drinks a health to all his peers.

Then came old January, wrapped well

In many weeds, to keep the cold away,

Yet did he quake and quiver like to quell,

And blow his nails to warm them if he may,

For they were numb’d with holding all the day

A hatchet keen, with which he felled wood,

And from the trees did lop the needless spray;

Upon a huge great earth-pot steane he stood,

From whose wide mouth there flowed forth the Roman flood.

And lastly came old February, sitting

In an old waggon, for he could not ride,

Drawn of two Fishes, for the season fitting,

Which through the flood before did softly slide

And swim away; yet had he by his side

His plough and harness fit to till the ground,

And tools to prune the trees, before the pride

Of hasting prime did make them burgeon round;

So passed the Twelve Months forth, and their due places found.

EDMUND SPENSER

Echo

Fair rocks, goodly rivers, sweet woods, when shall I see peace? Peace.

Peace! what bars me my tongue? who is it that comes me so nigh? I.

Oh, I do know what guest I have met, it is Echo. ’Tis Echo.

Well met, Echo, approach; then tell me thy will too. I will too.

Echo, what do I get yielding my sprite to my grieves? Grieves.

What medicine may I find for a grief that draws me to death? Death.

O poisonous medicine! what worse to me can be than it? It.

In what state was I then, when I took this deadly disease? Ease.

And what manner a mind which had to that humour a vein? Vain.

Hath not reason enough vehemence the desire to reprove? Prove.

Oft prove I: but what salve, when reason seeks to be gone? One.

Oh, what is it? what is it that may be a salve to my love? Love.

What do lovers seek for, long seeking for to enjoy? Joy.

What be the joys which for to enjoy they went to the pains? Pains.

Then to an earnest love what doth best victory lend? End.

End! but I can never end, Love will not give me leave? Leave.

How be the minds dispos’d that cannot taste thy physick? Sick.

Yet say again thy advice for the evils that I told thee? I told thee.

Doth the infected wretch of his harm the extremity know? No.

But if he know not his harms, what guides hath he whilst he be blind? Blind.

What blind guides can he have that leans to a fancy? A fancy.

Can fancies want eyes, or he fall that steppeth aloft? Oft.

What causes first made these torments on me to light? Light.

Can then a cause be so light that forceth a man to go die? Ay.

Yet tell what light thing I had in me to draw me to die? Eye.

Eyesight made me to yield; but what first pierced to my eyes? Eyes.

Eyes hurters, eyes hurt; but what from them to me falls? Falls.

But when I first did fall, what brought most fall to my heart? Art.

Art I what can be that art that thou dost mean by thy speech? Speech.

What be the fruits of speaking art? what grows by the words? Words.

O, much more than words: those words served more me to bless. Less.

Oh, when shall I be known where most to be known I do long? Long.

Long be thy woes for such news; but how recks she my thoughts? Oughts.

Then, then, what do I gain, since unto her will I do wind? Wind.

Wind, tempests, and storms, yet in end what gives she desire? Ire.

Silly reward! yet among women hath she of virtue the most. Most.

What great name may I give to so heav’nly a woman? A wo-man.

Woe but seems to me joy, that agrees to my thought so. I thought so.

Think so, for of my desirèd bliss it is only the course. Curse.

Curs’d be thyself for cursing that which leads me to joys. Toys.

What be the sweet creatures where lowly demands be not heard? Hard.

What makes them be unkind? speak, for thou hast narrowly pried? Pride.

Whence can pride come there, since springs of beauty be thence? Thence.

Horrible is this blasphemy unto the most holy. O lie.

Thou liest, false Echo! their minds as virtue be just. Just.

Mock’st thou those diamonds which only be matcht by the gods? Odds.

Odds! what an odds is there! since them to the heavens I prefer. Err.

Tell yet again me the names of these fair form’d to do evils? Devils.

Devils! if in hell such devils do abide, to the hell I do go. Go.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

‘Sweet kiss, thy sweets I fain would sweetly indite’

Sweet kiss, thy sweets I fa in would sweetly indite

Which even of sweetness sweetest sweetener art,

Pleasingst consort, where each sense holds a part,

Which, coupling doves, guides Venus’ chariot right;

Best charge and bravest retrait in Cupid’s fight,

A double key which opens to the heart,

Most rich when most his riches it impart;

Nest of young joys, schoolmaster of delight,

Teaching the means at once to take and give;

The friendly fray, where blows both wound and heal,

The pretty death, while each in other live.

Poor hope’s first wealth, hostage of promist weal,

Breakfast of love. But lo, lo, where she is,

Cease we to praise: now pray we for a kiss.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

The Description of Sir Geoffrey Chaucer

His stature was not very tall,

Lean he was, his legs were small,

Hosed within a stock of red,

A buttoned bonnet on his head,

From under which did hang, I ween,

Silver hairs both bright and sheen.

His beard was white, trimmed round,

His countenance blithe and merry found.

A sleeveless jacket large and wide,

With many plights and skirts side,

Of water camlet did he wear;

A whittle by his belt he bare,

His shoes were corned, broad before,

His inkhorn at his side he wore,

And in his hand he bore a book.

Thus did this ancient poet look.

ROBERT GREENE

from Poly-Olbion

When Watling in his words that took but small delight,

Hearing the angry Brook so cruelly to bite;

As one that fain would drive these fancies from his mind,

Quoth he, I’ll tell thee things that suit thy gentler kind.

My Song is of my self, and my three sister Streets,

Which way each of us run, where each his fellow meets,

Since us, his Kingly Ways, Mulmutius first began,

From Sea, again to Sea, that through the Island ran.

Which that in mind to keep posterity might have,

Appointing first our course, this privilege he gave,

That no man might arrest, or debtors goods might seize

In any of us for his military Ways.

And though the Fosse in length exceed me many a mile,

That holds from shore to shore the length of all the Isle,

From where Rich Cornwall points, to the Iberian Seas,

Till colder Cathnes tells the scattered Orcades,

I measuring but the breadth, that is not half his gate;

Yet, for that I am graced with goodly Londons state,

And Tames and Severne both since in my course I cross,

And in much greater trade; am worthier far then Fosse.

But O unhappy chance! through times disastrous lot,

Our other fellow Streets lie utterly forgot:

As Icning, that set out from Yarmouth in the East,

By the Iceni then being generally possessed

Was of that people first termed Icning in her race,

Upon the Chiltern here that did my course embrace:

Into the dropping South and bearing then outright,

Upon the Solent Sea stopped on the Ile-of-Wight.

And Rickneld, forth that raft from Cambria’s farther shore,

Where South-Wales now shoots forth Saint David’s Promontory.

And, on his mid-way near, did me in England meet;

Then in his oblique course the lusty straggling Street

Soon overtook the Fosse; and toward the fall of Tine,

Into the Germane Sea dissolved at his decline.

Here Watling would have ceased, his tale as having told:

But now this Flood that fain the Street in talk would hold,

Those ancient things to hear, which well old Watling knew,

With these enticing words, her fairly forward drew.

Right Noble Street, quoth he, thou hast lived long, gone far,

Much traffic had in peace, much travailed in war;

And in thy larger course surveyed as sundry grounds

(Where I poor Flood am locked within these narrower bounds,

And like my ruined self these ruins only see,

And there remains not one to pity them or me)

On with thy former speech: I pray thee somewhat say.

For, Watling, as thou art a military Way,

Thy story of old Streets likes me so wondrous well,

That of the ancient folk I fain would hear thee tell.

MICHAEL DRAYTON

The Passionate Shepherd to his Love

Come live with me, and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove,

That valleys, groves, hills and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,

Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks

By shallow rivers, to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull,

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy-buds,

With coral clasps and amber studs,

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May-morning,

If these delights thy mind may move;

Then live with me, and be my love.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

from The Tempest

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,

And ye that on the sands with printless foot

Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him

When he comes back; you demi-puppets that

By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make

Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime

Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice

To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,

Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimmed

The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,

And ’twixt the green sea and the azured vault

Set roaring war – to the dread rattling thunder

Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak

With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory

Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up

The pine and cedar; graves at my command

Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let ’em forth

By my so potent art. But this rough magic

I here abjure. And when I have required

Some heavenly music – which even now I do –

To work mine end upon their senses that

This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,

Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,

And deeper than did ever plummet sound

I’ll drown my book.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

from King John

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;

Then have I reason to be fond of grief.

Fare you well. Had you such a loss as I,

I could give better comfort than you do.

I will not keep this form upon my head

When there is such disorder in my wit.

O Lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son,

My life, my joy, my food, my all the world,

My widow-comfort, and my sorrow’s cure!

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

‘How like a winter hath my absence been’

How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen;

What old December’s bareness everywhere!

And yet this time removed was summer’s time,

The teeming autumn big with rich increase,

Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,

Like widowed wombs after their lord’s decease.

Yet this abundant issue seemed to me

But hope of orphans and unfathered fruit,

For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,

And, thou away, the very birds are mute,

Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer

That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

from Antony and Cleopatra

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,

Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;

Purple the sails, and so perfuméd that

The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water which they beat to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,

It beggar’d all description: she did lie

In her pavilion, – cloth-of-gold of tissue, –

O’er-picturing that Venus where we see

The fancy outwork nature: on each side her

Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,

With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem

To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,

And what they undid did.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

from Love’s Labour’s Lost

SPRING

When daisies pied and violets blue,

And lady-smocks, all silver-white,

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

Do paint the meadows with delight,

The cuckoo then on every tree

Mocks married men, for thus sings he:

Cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo – O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear.

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen’s clocks:

When turtles tread, and rooks and daws,

And maidens bleach their summer smocks,

The cuckoo then on every tree

Mocks married men, for thus sings he:

Cuckoo!

Cuckoo, cuckoo – O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear.

WINTER

When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

And Tom bears logs into the hall,

And milk comes frozen home in pail;

When blood is nipped, and ways be foul,

Then nightly sings the staring owl:

Tu-whit, tu-whoo! – a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,

And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,

And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian’s nose looks red and raw;

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,

Then nightly sings the staring owl:

To-who;

Tu-whit, tu-whoo! – a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

from Henry V

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility,

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger.

Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage.

Then lend the eye a terrible aspéct,

Let it pry through the portage of the head

Like the brass cannon, let the brow o’erwhelm it

As fearfully as doth a galléd rock

O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,

Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,

Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit

To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,

Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof,

Fathers that like so many Alexanders

Have in these parts from morn till even fought,

And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.

Dishonour not your mothers; now attest

That those whom you calld fathers did beget you.

Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,

Whose limbs were made in England, show us here

The mettle of your pasture; let us swear

That you are worth your breeding – which I doubt not,

For there is none of you so mean and base

That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot.

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

Cry ‘God for Harry! England and Saint George!’

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

from King Richard II

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war,

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house

Against the envy of less happier lands;

This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,

Feared by their breed and famous by their birth,

Renownèd for their deeds as far from home

For Christian service and true chivalry

As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,

Of the world’s ransom, blessèd Mary’s son;

This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,

Dear for her reputation through the world,

Is now leas’d out – I die pronouncing it –

Like to a tenement, or pelting farm.

England, bound in with the triumphant sea,

Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege

Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,

With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds.

That England, that was wont to conquer others

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

‘Now winter nights enlarge’

Now winter nights enlarge

The number of their hours,

And clouds their storms discharge

Upon the airy towers.

Let now the chimneys blaze,

And cups o’erflow with wine;

Let well-tuned words amaze

With harmony divine.

Now yellow waxen lights

Shall wait on honey Love,

While youthful revels, masks, and courtly sights

Sleep’s leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense

With lovers’ long discourse.

Much speech hath some defence

Though beauty no remorse.

All do not all things well:

Some measures comely tread,

Some knotted riddles tell,

Some poems smoothly read.

The Summer hath his joys,

And Winter his delights.

Though Love and all his pleasures are but toys,

They shorten tedious nights.

THOMAS CAMPION

‘There is a garden in her face’

There is a garden in her face

Where roses and white lilies grow;

A heavenly paradise is that place

Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.

There cherries grow which none may buy,

Till ‘Cherry ripe’ themselves do cry.

Those cherries fairly do enclose

Of orient pearl a double row,

Which when her lovely laughter shows,

They look like rose-buds filled with snow;

Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy,

Till ‘Cherry ripe’ themselves do cry.

Her eyes like angels watch them still,

Her brows like bended bows do stand,

Threatening with piercing frowns to kill

All that attempt with eye or hand

Those sacred cherries to come nigh,

Till ‘Cherry ripe’ themselves do cry.

THOMAS CAMPION

Inviting a Friend to Supper

Tonight, grave sir, both my poor house, and I

Do equally desire your company:

Not that we think us worthy such a guest,

But that your worth will dignify our feast,

With those that come; whose grace may make that seem

Something, which, else, could hope for no esteem.

It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates

The entertainment perfect: not the cates.

Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate,

An olive, capers, or some better salad

Ush’ring the mutton; with a short-legged hen,

If we can get her, full of eggs, and then,

Lemons, and wine for sauce: to these, a cony

Is not to be despaired of, for our money;

And, though fowl, now, be scarce, yet there are clerks,

The sky not falling, think we may have larks.

I’ll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come:

Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some

May yet be there; and godwit, if we can:

Knat, rail, and ruff too. Howsoe’er, my man

Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus,

Livy, or of some better hook to us,

Of which we’ll speak our minds, amidst our meat;

And I’ll profess no verses to repeat:

To this, if aught appear, which I not know of,

That will the pastry, not my paper, show of.

Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will be;

But that, which most doth take my muse, and me,

Is a pure cup of rich canary wine,

Which is the Mermaid’s, now, but shall be mine:

Of which had Horace, or Anacreon tasted,

Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted.

Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring,

Are all but Luther’s beer, to this I sing.

Of this we will sup free, but moderately,

And we will have no Pooly, or Parrot by;

Nor shall our cups make any guilty men:

But, at our parting, we will be, as when

We innocently met. No simple word,

That shall be uttered at our mirthful board,

Shall make us sad next morning: or affright

The liberty, that we’ll enjoy tonight.

BEN JONSON

To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr William Shakespeare: And What He Hath Left Us

To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy name,

Am I thus ample to thy book, and fame:

While I confess thy writings to be such,

As neither man, nor muse, can praise too much.

Tis true, and all men’s suffrage. But these ways

Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise:

For seeliest ignorance on these may light,

Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;

Or blind affection, which doth ne’er advance

The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;

Or crafty malice, might pretend this praise,

And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise.

These are, as some infamous bawd, or whore,

Should praise a matron. What could hurt her more?

But thou art proof against them, and indeed

Above the ill fortune of them, or the need.

I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!

The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!

My Shakespeare, rise; I will not lodge thee by

Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

A little further, to make thee a room:

Thou art a monument, without a tomb,

And art alive still, while thy book doth live,

And we have wits to read, and praise to give.

That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses;

I mean with great, but disproportioned muses:

For, if I thought my judgement were of years,

I should commit thee surely with thy peers,

And tell, how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,

Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe’s mighty line.

And though thou hadst small Latin, and less Greek,

From thence to honour thee, I would not seek

For names; but call forth thundering Aeschylus,

Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordova dead,

To life again, to hear thy buskin tread,

And shake a stage: or, when thy socks were on,

Leave thee alone, for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome

Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.

Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show,

To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.

He was not of an age, but for all time!

And all the muses still were in their prime,

When like Apollo he came forth to warm

Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!

Nature herself was proud of his designs,

And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!

Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,

As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.

The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,

Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;

But antiquated, and deserted lie

As they were not of nature’s family.

Yet must I not give nature all: thy art,

My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.

For though the poet’s matter, nature be,

His art doth give the fashion. And, that he,

Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,

(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat

Upon the muses’ anvil: turn the same,

(And himself with it) that he thinks to frame;

Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn,

For a good poet’s made, as well as bom.

And such wert thou. Look how the father’s face

Lives in his issue, even so, the race

Of Shakespeare’s mind, and manners brightly shines

In his well-turned, and true-filéd lines:

In each of which, he seems to shake a lance,

As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.

Sweet swan of Avon, what a sight it were

To see thee in our waters yet appear,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,

That so did take Eliza, and our James!

But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere

Advanced, and made a constellation there!

Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage,

Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage;

Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night.

And despairs day, but for thy volume’s light .

BEN JONSON

Song to Celia

Drink to me, only, with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I’ll not look for wine.

The thirst, that from the soul doth rise,

Doth ask a drink divine:

But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,

I would not change for thine.

I sent thee, late, a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee,

As giving it a hope, that there

It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe,

And sent’st it back to me:

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

Not of itself, but thee.

BEN JONSON

The Flea

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deny’st me is;

Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be;

Confess it, this cannot be said

A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead,

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pampered swells with one blood made of two,

And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, nay more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;

Though parents grudge, and you, we’are met,

And cloistered in these living walls of jet

Though use make you apt to kill me,

Let not to this, self murder added be,

And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?

In what could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?

Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou

Find’st not thyself, nor me the weaker now;

’Tis true, then learn how false, fears be;

Just so much honour, when thou yield’st to me,

Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

JOHN DONNE

The Sun Rising

Busy old fool, unruly sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late school-boys, and sour prentices,

Go tell court-huntsmen, that the King will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices;

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams, so reverend, and strong

Why shouldst thou think?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,

But that I would not lose her sight so long:

If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,

Whether both th’Indias of spice and mine

Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.

Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,

And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

She’is all states, and all princes, I,

Nothing else is.

Princes do but play us; compared to this,

All honour’s mimic; all wealth alchemy.

Thou sun art half as happy as we,

In that the world’s contracted thus;

Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;

This bed thy centre is, these walls, thy sphere.

JOHN DONNE

Elegy: To his Mistress Going to Bed

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,

Until I labour, I in labour lie.

The foe oft-times having the foe in sight,

Is tired with standing though they never fight.

Off with that girdle, like heaven’s zone glistering,

But a far fairer world encompassing.

Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear,

That th’ eyes of busy fools may be stopped there.

Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime

Tells me from you, that now ’tis your bed time.

Off with that happy busk, which I envy,

That still can be, and still can stand so nigh.

Your gown going off, such beauteous state reveals,

As when from flowery meads th’ hill’s shadow steals.

Off with that wiry coronet and show

The hairy diadem which on you doth grow;

Now off with those shoes, and then safely tread

In this love’s hallowed temple, this soft bed.

In such white robes heaven’s angels used to be

Received by men; thou angel bring’st with thee

A heaven like Mahomet’s paradise; and though

Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know

By this these angels from an evil sprite,

Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright.

License my roving hands, and let them go

Before, behind, between, above, below.

O my America, my new found land,

My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned,

My mine of precious stones, my empery,

How blessed am I in this discovering thee!

To enter in these bonds, is to be free;

Then where my hand is set, my seal shall be.

Full nakedness, all joys are due to thee.

As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be,

To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use

Are like Atlanta’s balls, cast in men’s views,

That when a fool’s eye lighteth on a gem,

His earthly soul may covet theirs, not them.

Like pictures, or like books’ gay coverings made

For laymen, are all women thus arrayed;

Themselves are mystic books, which only we

Whom their imputed grace will dignify

Must see revealed. Then since I may know,

As liberally, as to a midwife, show

Thyself: cast all, yea, this white linen hence,

Here is no penance, much less innocence.

To teach thee, I am naked first, why then

What needst thou have more covering than a man.

JOHN DONNE

Lady Greensleeves

Greensleeves was all my joy,

Greensleeves was my delight:

Greensleeves was my heart of gold,

And who but Lady Greensleeves.

Alas, my love, ye do me wrong,

To cast me off discourteously:

And I have loved you so long,

Delighting in your company.

I have been ready at your hand,

To grant whatever you would crave.

I have both wagered life and land,

Your love and good will for to have.

I bought thee kerchiefs to thy head,

That were wrought fine and gallantly:

I kept thee both at board and bed,

Which cost my purse well favouredly.

I bought thee petticoats of the best,

The cloth so fine as fine might be:

I gave thee jewels for thy chest,

And all this cost I spent on thee.

Thy smock of silk, both fair and white,

With gold embroidered gorgeously:

Thy petticoat of Sendall right:

And thus I bought thee gladly.

Thy girdle of gold so red,

With pearls bedecked sumptuously:

The like no other lasses had,

And yet thou wouldst not love me.

Thy purse and eke thy gay guilt knives,

Thy pincase gallant to the eye:

No better wore the Burgesse wives,

And yet thou wouldst not love me.

Thy crimson stockings all of silk,

With gold all wrought above the knee,

Thy pumps as white as was the milk,

And yet thou wouldst not love me.

Thy gown was of the grossie green,

Thy sleeves of Satin hanging by:

Which made thee be our harvest Queen,

And yet thou wouldst not love me.

Thy garters fringed with the gold,

And silver aglets hanging by,

Which made thee blithe for to behold,

And yet thou wouldst not love me.

My gayest gelding I thee gave,

To ride where ever liked thee,

No lady ever was so brave,

And yet thou wouldst not love me.

My men were clothed all in green,

And they did ever wait on thee:

All this was gallant to be seen,

And yet thou wouldst not love me.

They set thee up, they took thee down,

They served thee with humility,

Thy foot might not once touch the ground,

And yet thou wouldst not love me.

For every morning when thou rose,

I sent thee dainties orderly:

To cheer thy stomach from all woes,

And yet thou wouldst not love me.

Thou couldst desire no earthly thing.

But still thou hadst it readily:

Thy music still to play and sing,

And yet thou wouldst not love me.

And who did pay for all this gear,

That thou didst spend when pleased thee?

Even I that am rejected here,

And thou disdainst to love me.

Well, I wil pray to God on high,

That thou my constancy maist see:

And that yet once before I die,

Thou wilt vouchsafe to love me.

Greensleeves now farewell adieu,

God I pray to prosper thee:

For I am stil thy lover true,

Come once again and love me.

ANON

‘Love like a juggler comes to play his prize’

Love like a juggler comes to play his prize,

And all minds draw his wonders to admire,

To see how cunningly he (wanting eyes)

Can yet deceive the best sight of desire.

The wanton child, how can he fain his fire

So prettily, as none sees his disguise,

How finely do his tricks; while we fools hire

The badge, and office of his tyrannies.

For in the end such juggling he doth make,

As he our hearts instead of eyes doth take;

For men can only by their flights abuse

The sight with nimble, and delightful skill,

But if he play, his gain is our lost will,

Yet childlike we cannot his sports refuse.

LADY MARY WROTH

‘Come, darkest night, becoming sorrow best’

Come, darkest night, becoming sorrow best;

Light, leave thy light, fit for a lightsome soul;

Darkness doth truly suit with me oppressed,

Whom absence’ power doth from mirth control:

The very trees with hanging heads condole

Sweet summer’s parting, and of leaves distressed

In dying colours make a grief-ful roll,

So much, alas, to sorrow are they pressed.

Thus of dead leaves her farewell carpet’s made:

Their fall, their branches, all their mournings prove,

With leafless, naked bodies, whose hues vade

From hopeful green, to wither in their love:

If trees and leaves for absence mourners be,

No marvel that I grieve, who like want see.

LADY MARY WROTH

The Argument of His Book

I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers,

Of April, May, of June, and July flowers;

I sing of may-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,

Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes;

I write of youth, of love, and have access

By these to sing of cleanly wantonness;

I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by piece

Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris;

I sing of times trans-shifting, and I write

How roses first came red, and lilies white;

I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing

The court of Mab, and of the Fairy King;

I write of hell; I sing, and ever shall,

Of heaven, and hope to have it after all.

ROBERT HERRICK

Corinna’s Going a-Maying

Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morn

Upon her wings presents the god unshorn.

See how Aurora throws her fair

Fresh-quilted colours through the air:

Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see

The dew bespangling herb and tree.

Each flower has wept and bow’d toward the east

Above an hour since: yet you not dressed;

Nay! not so much as out of bed?

When all the birds have matins said

And sung their thankful hymns, ’tis sin,

Nay, profanation to keep in,

Whereas a thousand virgins on this day

Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May.

Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen

To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green,

And sweet as Flora. Take no care

For jewels for your gown or hair:

Fear not; the leaves will strew

Gems in abundance upon you:

Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,

Against you come, some orient pearls unwept;

Come and receive them while the light

Hangs on the dew-locks of the night:

And Titan on the eastern hill

Retires himself, or else stands still

Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying:

Few beads are best when once we go a-Maying.

Come, my Corinna, come; and, coming, mark

How each field turns a street, each street a park

Made green and trimmed with trees: see how

Devotion gives each house a bough

Or branch: each porch, each door ere this

An ark, a tabernacle is,

Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove;

As if here were those cooler shades of love.

Can such delights be in the street

And open fields and we not see’t?

Come, we’ll abroad; and let’s obey

The proclamation made for May:

And sin no more, as we have done, by staying;

But, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.

There’s not a budding boy or girl this day

But is got up, and gone to bring in May.

A deal of youth, ere this, is come

Back, and with white-thorn laden home.

Some have despatch’d their cakes and cream

Before that we have left to dream:

And some have wept, and woo’d, and plighted troth,

And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth:

Many a green-gown has been given;

Many a kiss, both odd and even:

Many a glance too has been sent

From out the eye, love’s firmament;

Many a jest told of the keys betraying

This night, and locks pick’d, yet we’re not a-Maying.

Come, let us go while we are in our prime;

And take the harmless folly of the time.

We shall grow old apace, and die

Before we know our liberty.

Our life is short, and our days run

As fast away as does the sun;

And, as a vapour or a drop of rain,

Once lost, can ne’er be found again,

So when or you or I are made

A fable, song, or fleeting shade,

All love, all liking, all delight

Lies drowned with us in endless night.

Then while time serves, and we are but decaying,

Come, my Corinna, come, let’s go a-Maying.

ROBERT HERRICK

Delight in Disorder

A sweet disorder in the dress

Kindles in clothes a wantonness:

A lawn about the shoulders thrown

Into a fine distraction:

An erring lace which here and there

Enthralls the crimson stomacher:

A cuff neglectful, and thereby

Ribbons to flow confusedly:

A winning wave, deserving note,

In the tempestuous petticoat:

A careless shoe-string, in whose tie

I see a wild civility:

Do more bewitch me than when art

Is too precise in every part.

ROBERT HERRICK

Julia in Silks

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,

Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows

The liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see

That brave vibration each way free;

O how that glittering taketh me!

ROBERT HERRICK

To the Virgins to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today,

Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,

The higher he’s a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best, which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times sail succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while you may, go marry:

For having lost but once your prime,

You may for ever tarry.

ROBERT HERRICK

Love

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

If I lacked anything.

‘A guest’, I answered, ‘worthy to be here.’

Love said, ‘You shall be he.’

‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,

I cannot look on thee.’

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

‘Who made the eyes but I?’

‘Truth, Lord, but I have marred them; let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.’

‘And know you not’, says Love, ‘who bore the blame?’

‘My dear, then I will serve.’

‘You must sit down’, says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’

So I did sit and eat.

GEORGE HERBERT

Avarice

Money, thou bane of bliss, and source of woe,

Whence com’st thou, that thou art so fresh and fine?

I know thy parentage is base and low:

Man found thee poor and dirty in a mine.

Surely thou didst so little contribute

To this great kingdom, which thou now hast got,

That he was fain, when thou wert destitute,

To dig thee out of thy dark cave and grot:

Then forcing thee, by fire he made thee bright:

Nay, thou hast got the face of man; for we

Have with our stamp and seal transferred our right:

Thou art the man, and man but dross to thee.

Man calleth thee his wealth, who made thee rich;

And while he digs out thee, falls in the ditch.

GEORGE HERBERT

Prayer

Prayer the Church’s banquet, Angels’ age,

God’s breath in man returning to his birth,

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth;

Engine against th’ Almighty, sinners’ tower,

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

The six-days world-transposing in an hour,

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,

Exalted Manna, gladness of the best,

Heaven in ordinary, man well dressed,

The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,

The land of spices; something understood.

GEORGE HERBERT

The Glance

When first thy sweet and gracious eye

Vouchsafed ev’n in the midst of youth and night

To look upon me, who before did lie

Welt’ring in sin;

I felt a sug’red strange delight,

Passing all cordials made by any art,

Bedew, embalm, and overrun my heart,

And take it in.

Since that time many a bitter storm

My soul hath felt, ev’n able to destroy,

Had the malicious and ill-meaning harm

His swing and sway:

But still thy sweet original joy

Sprung from thine eye, did work within my soul,

And surging griefs, when they grew bold, control,

And got the day.

If thy first glance so powerful be,

A mirth but opened and sealed up again;

What wonders shall we feel, when we shall see

Thy full-eyed love!

When thou shalt look us out of pain,

And one aspect of thine spend in delight

More than a thousand suns disburse in light,

In heav’n above.

GEORGE HERBERT

The Battle of Inverlochy

O, I have been wounded

Na hì ri ri ri hó hò;

O, I have been wounded

Na hì ri ri ri hó hò;

by the day of Inverlochy,

Na hì ri ri ri hó hò;

Bho latha Blàr Inbhir Lòchaidh,

Na hì ri ri ’s ri o ho ró.

from the charge of the grim Irish

who came to Scotland without anything

but what they had on their cloaks;

they added strength to Clan Donald.

They killed my father and my husband,

they struck down my four brothers,

they killed my four young sons

and my nine handsome foster-children;

they slaughtered my great cattle,

and my white sheep they roasted,

they burnt my oats and my barley.

O, I have been anguished by the death

of Duncan of Glen Faochan,

whom all in the land are lamenting

round about Inverary,

women beating their hands, dishevelled.

O, I have been devastated,

for the horsemen of reins and bridles

who fell with his men in the battle;

the Earl of Argyll took to the water

and let that blow fall on his kin!

ANON

‘Like as the damask rose you see’

Like as the damask rose you see,

Or like the blossom on the tree,

Or like the dainty flower of May,

Or like the morning to the day,

Or like the sun, or like the shade,

Or like the gourd which Jonas had –

Even such is man, whose thread is spun,

Drawn out, and cut, and so is done.

The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,

The flower fades, the morning hasteth,

The sun sets, the shadow flies,

The gourd consumes; and man he dies.

Like to the grass that’s newly sprung,

Or like a tale that’s new begun,

Or like the bird that’s here to-day,

Or like the pearléd dew of May,

Or like an hour, or like a span,

Or like the singing of a swan –

Even such is man, who lives by breath,

Is here, now there: so life, and death.

The grass withers, the tale is ended,

The bird is flown, the dew’s ascended,

The hour is short, the span not long,

The swan’s near death; man’s life is done.

Like to the bubble in the brook,

Or, in a glass, much like a look,

Or like a shuttle in weaver’s hand,

Or like a writing on the sand,

Or like a thought, or like a dream,

Or like the gliding of the stream –

Even such is man, who lives by breath,

Is here, now there: so life, and death.

The bubble’s cut, the look’s forgot,

The shuttle’s flung, the writing’s blot,

The thought is past, the dream is gone,

The water glides; man’s life is done.

Like to an arrow from the bow,

Or like swift course of watery flow,

Or like the time ’twixt flood and ebb,

Or like the spider’s tender web,

Or like a race, or like a goal,

Or like the dealing of a dole –

Even such is man, whose brittle state

Is always subject unto fate.

The arrow’s shot, the flood soon spent,

The time no time, the web soon rent,

The race soon run, the goal soon won,

The dole soon dealt; man’s life first done.

Like to the lightning from the sky,

Or like a post that quick doth hie,

Or like a quaver in short song,

Or like a journey three days long,

Or like the snow when summer’s come,

Or like the pear, or like the plum –

Even such is man, who heaps up sorrow,

Lives but this day and dies to-morrow.

The lightning’s past, the post must go,

The song is short, the journey’s so,

The pear doth rot, the plum doth fall,

The snow dissolves, and so must all.

ANON

from Life and Death

Thus fared I through a frith . where flowers were many,

Bright boughs in the bank . breathéd full sweet.

The red railing roses . the richest of flowers,

Laid broad on their banks . with their bright leaves;

And a river that was rich . ran over the green,

With still stirring streams . that streamed full bright

Over the glittering ground . As I there glode,

Methought, it lengthened my life . to look on the banks!

Then, among the fair flowers . I settled me to sit

Under a huge hawthorn . that hoar was of blossoms.

I bent my back to the bole . and blenched to the streams.

Thus pressed I on apace . under the green hawthorn,

For breme of the birds . and breath of the flowers,

And what for watching and waking . and wandering about,

In my seat, where I sat. I sayéd asleep.

Lying edgelong on the ground . left all myself,

Deep dreams and dright . drove me to heart.

Methought, walking that I was . in a wood strong,

Upon a great mountain . where moors were large,

That I might see on every side . seventeen miles,

Both of woods and wastes . and walléd towns,

Comely castles and clear . with carven towers,

Parks and palaces . and pastures full many,

All the world full of wealth . viewly to behold.

I sat me down softly . and said these words,

‘I will not kyre out of kith . before I know more!’

And I waited me about . wonders to know.

And it fairly befell . so fair me bethought,

I saw on the south side . a seemly sight

Of comely knights full keen . and knights full noble,

Princes in the press . proudly attired,

Dukes that were doughry . and many dear earls,

Squires and swains . that swarmed full thick,

There was neither hill nor holt . nor haunt there beside,

But it was planted full of people . the plain and the rough

There, over that host . eastward I looked

Into a boolish bank . the brightest of others,

That shimmered and shone . as the sheer heaven,

Through the light of a Lady . that longéd therein.

She came cheering full comely . with company noble,

Upon clear clothes . were all of clear gold,

Laid broad upon the bent . with broiders full rich,

Before that Fair on the field . where she forth passed.

She was brighter of her blee . than was the bright sun!

Her rudd redder than the rose . that on the rise hangeth!

Meekly smiling with her mouth . and merry in her looks,

Ever laughing for love . as she like would;

And, as she came by the banks . the boughs, each one,

They louted to that Lady . and laid forth their branches.

Blossoms and burgeons . breathéd full sweet,

Flowers flourished in the frith . where she forth stepped,

And the grass, that was grey . greened belive.

ANON

Brothers

You who opt for English ways

And crop your curls, your crowning glory,

You, my handsome specimen,

Are no true son of Donncha’s.

If you were, you would not switch

To modes in favour with the English;

You, the flower of Fódla’s land,

Would never end up barbered.

A full head of long, fair hair

Is not for you; it is your brother

Who scorns the foreigners’ close cut.

The pair of you are opposites.

Eoghan Bán won’t ape their ways,

Eoghan beloved of noble ladies

Is enemy to English fads

And lives beyond the pale of fashion.

Eoghan Bán is not like you.

Breeches aren’t a thing he values.

A clout will do him for a cloak.

Leggings he won’t wear, nor greatcoat.

He hates the thought of jewelled spurs

Flashing on his feet and footwear,

And stockings of the English sort,

And being all prinked up and whiskered.

He’s Donncha’s true son, for sure.

He won’t be seen with a rapier

Angled like an awl, out arseways,

As he swanks it to the meeting place.

Sashes worked with threads of gold

And high stiff collars out of Holland

Are not for him, nor satin scarves

That sweep the ground, nor gold rings even.

He has no conceit in feather beds,

Would rather stretch himself on rushes,

Dwell in a bothy than a bawn,

And make the branch his battlement.

Horsemen in the mouth of a glen,

A savage dash, kernes skirmishing –

This man is in his element

Taking on the foreigner.

But you are not like Eoghan Bán.

You’re a laughing stock on stepping stones

With your dainty foot: a sad disgrace,

You who opt for English ways.

LAOISEACH MAC AN BHAIRD

translated by Seamus Heaney

The Twa Corbies

As I was walking all alane

I heard twa corbies making a mane;

The tane unto the t’other say,

‘Where sall we gang and dine to-day?’

‘– In behint yon auld fail dyke,

I wot there lies a new-slain knight;

And naebody kens that he lies there.

But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

‘His hound is to the hunting gane,

His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame.

His lady’s ta’en another mate,

So we may mak our dinner sweet.

‘Ye’ll sit on his white hause-bane,

And I’ll pick out his bonnie blue een;

Wi’ ae lock o’ his gowden hair

We’ll theek our nest when it grows bare.

‘Mony a one for him makes mane,

But nane sall ken where he is gane;

O’er his white banes, when they are bare,

The wind sall blaw for evermair.’

ANON

Marriage of the Dwarfs

Design or Chance makes others wive.

But Nature did this match contrive:

Eve might as well have Adam fled,

As she denied her little bed

To him, for whom Heaven seem’d to frame

And measure out this only dame.

Thrice happy is that humble pair,

Beneath the level of all care!

Over whose heads those arrows fly

Of sad distrust and jealousy;

Secured in as high extreme,

As if the world held none but them.

To him the fairest nymphs do show

Like moving mountains top’d with snow;

And every man a Polypheme

Does to his Galatea seem:

None may presume her faith to prove;

He proffers death that proffers love.

Ah, Chloris! that kind Nature thus

From all the world had sever’d us;

Creating for ourselves us two,

As Love has me for only you!

EDMUND WALLER

from Paradise Lost

Sweet is the breath of Morn; her rising sweet,

With charm of earliest birds: pleasant the sun,

When first on this delightful land he spreads

His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,

Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth

After soft showers; and sweet the coming on

Of grateful Evening mild; then silent Night,

With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,

And these the gems of Heaven, her starry train:

But neither breath of Morn when she ascends

With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun

On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,

Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers;

Nor grateful Evening mild; nor silent Night,

With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,

Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet.

JOHN MILTON

Maggie Lauder

Wha wadna be in love

Wi’ bonnie Maggie Lauder?

A piper met her gaun to Fife

And spier’d what was’t they ca’d her

Richt scornfully she answered him.

Begone, you hallanshaker!

Jog on your gate, you bladderskate!

My name is Maggie Lauder.

Maggie! quoth he; and by my bags,

I’m fidgin’ fain to see thee!

Sit doun by me, my bonnie bird;

In troth I winna steer thee;

For I’m a piper to my trade;

My name is Rob the Ranter;

The lasses loup as they were daft,

When I blaw up my chanter.

Piper, quo Meg, hae ye your bags,

Or is your drone in order?

If ye be Rob, I’ve heard o’ you;

Live you upo’ the Border?

The lasses a’, baith far and near,

Have heard o’ Rob the Ranter;

I’ll shake my foot wi’ richt gude will,

Gif ye’ll blaw up your chanter.

Then to his bags he flew wi’ speed:

About the drone he twisted:

Meg up and wallop’d ower the green;

For brawly could she frisk it!

Weel done! quo he. Play up! quo she.

Weel bobb’d! quo Rob the Ranter;

It’s worth my while to play, indeed,

When I hae sic a dancer!

Weel hae ye play’d your part! quo Meg;

Your cheeks are like the crimson!

There’s nane in Scotland plays sae weel,

Sin’ we lost Habbie Simson.

I’ve lived in Fife, baith maid and wife,

This ten years and a quarter:

Gin ye should come to Anster Fair,

Spier ye for Maggie Lauder.

FRANCIS SEMPILL

Blue Song

made by Mary, daughter of Red Alasdair,

soon after she was left in Scarba

Hóireann o

Hoireann o

I am sad

since a week ago

Left on this island,

no grass, no shelter

If I could

I’d get back home,

Making the journey

rightaway

To Ullinish

of white-hoofed cattle

Where I grew up,

a little girl

Breast-fed there

by soft palmed women

In the house of brown-haired Flora

Lachlan’s daughter

Milkmaid

among the cows

of Roderick Mor

MacLeod of th e banners,

I have been happy

in his great house,

living it up

on the dancefloor,

fiddle music

making me sleepy,

pibroch

my dawn chorus

Hóireann ó ho bhì ó.

Ro hóireann ó o hao o

Say hullo for me

to Dunvegan

MARY MACLEOD

transated by Robert Crawford

To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, Lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Should’st rubies find: I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the Flood:

And you should if you please refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires, and more slow.

A hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze.

Two hundred to adore each breast:

But thirty thousand to the rest.

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, Lady, you deserve this state;

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time’s winged chariot hurrying near:

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song: then worms shall try

That long preserved virginity:

And your quaint honour turn to dust;

And into ashes all my lust.

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none I think do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may;

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour,

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength, and all

Our sweetness, up into one ball:

And tear our pleasures with rough strife,

Thorough the iron gates of life.

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

ANDREW MARVELL

The Mower to the Glow-Worms

Ye living lamps, by whose dear light

The nightingale does sit so l ate,

And studying all the summer night,

Her matchless songs does meditate;

Ye country comets, that portend

No war, nor prince’s funeral,

Shining unto no higher end

Then to presage the grass’s fall;

Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame

To wandering mowers shows the way,

That in the night have lost their aim,

And after foolish fires do stray;

Your courteous lights in vain you waste,

Since Juliana here is come,

For she my mind hath so displaced

That I shall never find my home.

ANDREW MARVELL

To my Daughter Catherine on Ashwednesday 1645, finding her weeping at prayers, because I would not consent to her fasting

My dearest, you may pray now it is Lent,

But ought not fast: nor have you to repent,

Since then in all you’ve thought, or said or done,

No motes appear though sifted by the sun.

Lent made for penance, then to you may be,

Since you are innocent, a jubily.

If not for others then, why don’t you spare

Those tears which for yourself prophaned are.

Hymns of thanksgiving and of joy befit

Such a triumphant virtue, and for it

Not to rejoice, were as preposterous ill,

As in your vices to be merry still.

But if you reply, ’Tis fit you sigh and grone,

Since you have made my miseries your own;

You feel my faults as yours, so them lament,

And expiate those sins I should repent.

O cease this sorrow doubly now my due,

First for my self, but more for love of you.

I’ll undertake what justice can exact

By any penance, if you will retract

Those sorrows you usurp, which do procure

A pain I only cannot well endure.

KATHERINE ASTON

‘I saw eternity the other night’

I saw eternity the other night

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,

All calm, as it was bright;

And round beneath it, time in hours, days, years,

Driven by the spheres

Like a vast shadow moved, in. which the world

And all her train were hurled.

HENRY VAUGHAN

Son-days

I

Bright shadows of true rest! some shoots of bliss,

Heaven once a week;

The next world’s gladness prepossessed in this;

A day to seek

Eternity in time; the steps by which

We climb above all ages; lamps that light

Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich,

And full redemption of the whole week’s flight.

II

The pulleys unto headlong man; time’s bower;

The narrow way;

Transplanted Paradise; God’s walking hour;

The cool o’the day;

The creatures’ Jubilee; God’s parle with dust;

Heaven here; man on those hills of myrrh, and flowers;

Angels descending; the returns of trust;

A gleam of glory, after six-days-showers.

III

The Church’s love-feasts; time’s prerogative,

And interest

Deducted from the whole; the combs, and hive,

And home of rest.

The milky way chalked out with suns; a clue

That guides through erring hours; and in full story

A taste of Heaven on earth; the pledge, and cue

Of a full feast; and the out courts of glory.

HENRY VAUGHAN

The Waterfall

With what deep murmurs through time’s silent stealth

Doth thy transparent, cool, and watery wealth

Here flowing fall,

And chide and call,

As if his liquid loose retinue stayed

Lingering, and were of this steep place afraid,

The common pass

Where, clear as glass,

All must descend

Not to an end;

But quickened by this deep and rocky grave,

Rise to a longer course more bright and brave.

Dear stream! dear bank, where often I

Have sat, and pleased my pensive eye,

Why, since each drop of thy quick store

Runs thither, whence it flowed before,

Should poor souls fear a shade or night,

Who came, sure, from a sea of light?

Or since those drops are all sent back

So sure to thee, that none doth lack,

Why should trail flesh doubt any more

That what God takes, he’ll not restore?

O useful Element and clear!

My sacred wash and cleanser here,

My first consigner unto those

Fountains of life, where the Lamb goes,

What sublime truths, and wholesome themes

Lodge in thy mystical, deep streams!

Such as dull man can never find,

Unless that Spirit lead his mind,

Which first upon thy face did move,

And hatched all with his quickening love.

As this loud brook’s incessant fall

In streaming rings restagnates all,

Which reach by course the bank, and then

Are no more seen, just so pass men.

O my invisible estate,

My glorious liberty, still late!

Thou art the channel my soul seeks,

Not this with cataracts and creeks.

HENRY VAUGHAN

Friends Departed

They are all gone into the world of light!

And I alone sit ling’ring here;

Their very memory is fair and bright,

And my sad thoughts doth clear.

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,

Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest

After the sun’s remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,

Whose light doth trample on my days:

My days, which are at best but dull and hoary.

Mere glimmerings and decays.

O holy Hope! and high Humility,

High as the heavens above!

These are your walks, and you have showed them me,

To kindle my cold love.

Dear, beauteous Death! the jewel of the Just,

Shining nowhere, but in the dark;

What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,

Could man outlook that mark!

He that hath found some fledged bird’s nest may know,

At first sight, if the bird be flown;

But what fair well or grove he sings in now,

That is to him unknown.

And yet as Angels in some brighter dreams

Call to the soul, when man doth sleep:

So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,

And into glory peep.

If a star were confined into a tomb,

Her captive flames must needs burn there;

But when the hand that locked her up gives room,

She’ll shine through all the sphere.

O Father of eternal life, and all

Created glories under Thee!

Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall

Into true liberty.

Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill

My perspective still as they pass:

Or else remove me hence unto that hill,

Where I shall need no glass.

HENRY VAUGHAN

In Praise of a Girl

Slip of loveliness, slim, seemly,

freshly fashioned, modest maiden, star serene,

sage and queenly, gracious, granting heart;

paragon, look upon

this grave song, growing sign

that I pine, my constant moon.

No beauty clear so dear I’ll hold,

not till I’m old, foam of the sea,

loveliest lily of the land,

soft of hand, white-breasted, brisk, bright, flower-created;

who’d not be charmed whose blood is warmed?

Moon of my nature, it was you

I viewed in my desire,

because your brow is like the snow,

able, notable, gifted, gay, flawless,

laughing, skilful, peerless pearl of girls.

If from all lands girls came in bands

and from a tree one could see

that sweet society of all loveliest ones,

the paragons of town and country,

dazzling, shapely, stately, fair, I declare,

Moon of Wales, your loveliness prevails.

Your praise and glory, peerless girl,

now impel me to applaud

your sweet looks, your subtle tongue,

dawn-sweet dearest, purest, prettiest, many-beautied,

unpolluted and reputed spotless rose,

there’s none to make comparison,

wave sparkling in the darkling,

with your parabling of sweet peace,

piece of goodness, fond enchantress, blithesome dove,

lucent, laughing, blameless slip of love.

From love’s curse who’ll be my nurse?

Will you listen, light of dawn, to my dole?

Deal me charity, slip of beauty;

if I win not your good will

it will kill me, girl of worth; under earth

there’s sad dearth of space for a person, in that prison;

low there my share of ash and loam.

That’s my legacy from your beauty

unless, daybreak, for my sake

my love-ache you’ll relieve, grant reprieve,

properly gentle, fluent, generous girl.

Cure my illness, dawn of sweetness,

shapely, lissom lass;

and bestow, for my woe,

a sweet lotion; maiden, listen

and endorse whilst I rehearse this true verse.

My sweetly woven, only chosen,

if my triumph makes you mine only,

life will be fine, flesh of the lily.

On this journey, soft of parley,

you’ll find endless perfect heaven, morn and even,

swift mirth and soft ease on this earth:

I’m the most faithful man yet made,

eggshell maid, still to you.

Where you dwell it will be well

for me to love, luscious, lively slip, so sprightly,

following freely your trim tread;

in spire of all, I expect

to be your fellow, fine of eyebrow;

it’s my aim, in God’s good name,

nights and days in faithful ways to live

always in the solace of your love.

O, it’s bitter, beauteous girl,

a true body can’t escape from its sickness;

cruel harshness that I suffer for your sake!

You shall see, rarity,

who adores you ceaselessly; pity me,

cherish me charitably.

If kindly you’ll my days extend

and send ending to my pain,

you shall be gloried till I’m buried:

come, to greet me, set me free, let there not be

open hurting of my diligent, good heart.

O, take my part in this story

of my weary, st ark lament;

don’t augment my suffering,

ease my unsparing, gloomy faring,

my sweet darling, with swift loving.

HUW MORUS

translated by Gwyn Williams

Nature’s Cook

Death is the cook of nature, and we find

Creatures drest several ways to please her mind;

Some Death doth roast with fevers burning hot,

And some he boils with dropsies in a pot;

Some are consumed for jelly by degrees,

And some with ulcers, gravy out to squeeze;

Some, as with herbs, he stuffs with gouts and pains,

Others for tender meat he hangs in chains;

Some in the sea he pickles up to keep,

Others he, as soused brawn, in wine doth steep;

Some flesh and bones he with the Pox chops small,

And doth a French fricassee make withall;

Some on grid-irons of calentures are broiled,

And some are trodden down, and so quite spoiled:

But some are baked, when smothered they do die,

Some meat he doth by hectick fevers fry;

In sweat sometimes he stews with savory smell,

An hodge-podge of diseases he likes well;

Some brains he dresseth with apoplexy,

Or fawce of megrims, swimming plenteously;

And tongues he dries with smoak from stomachs ill,

Which, as the second course he sends up still;

Throats he doth cut, blood puddings for to make,

And puts them in the guts, which cholicks rack;

Some hunted are by him for deer, that’s red,

And some as stall-fed oxen knocked o’th’ head;

Some singed and scald for bacon, seem most rare,

When with salt rheum and phlegm they powdered are.

MARGARET CAVENDISH,

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE

A Song of Sorrow

O Robertson of Inverawe,

You take the road as a stranger;

Though Mary Cameron lies in front,

Young did I lose any interest in you.

God, it is I who am undone,

Going to lie with another man,

With my own man behind the house,

Hunter of the brown stags and hinds.

Darling of the men of the Dale,

You took me out of the house of plague,

Where my father and mother lay,

My dear sister and five brothers.

Darling of all men under the sun,

You built me a house in the spreading woods,

Joyful there my lying down and rising,

No wonder that – for I was new-wed.

MARY CAMERON

An Answer to another persuading a Lady to Marriage

Forbear, bold youth, all’s Heaven here,

And what you do aver,

To others, courtship may appear,

’Tis sacriledge to her.

She is a publick deity,

And were’t not very odd

She should depose her self to be

A petty household god?

First make the sun in private shine,

And bid the world adieu,

That so he may his beams confine

In complement to you.

But if of that you do despair,

Think how you did amiss,

To strive to fix her beams which are

More bright and large than this.

KATHERINE PHILIPS

The Downfall of Charing Cross

Undone, undone the lawyers are,

They wander about the towne,

Nor can find the way to Westminster,

Now Charing-cross is downe:

At the end of the Strand, they make a stand,

Swearing they are at a loss,

And chaffing say, that’s not the way,

They must go by Charing-cross.

The parliament to vote it down

Conceived it very fitting,

For fear it should fall, and kill them all,

In the house, as they were sitting.

They were told, god-wot, it had a plot,

Which made them so hard-hearted,

To give command, it should not stand,

But be taken down and carted.

But neither man, woman, nor child,

Will say, I’m confident,

They ever heard it speak one word

Against the parliament.

An informer swore, it letters bore,

Or else it had been freed;

I’ll take, in troth, my Bible oath,

It could neither write, nor read.

The committee said, that verily

To popery it was bent;

For ought I know, it might be so,

For to church it never went.

What with excise, and such device,

The kingdom doth begin

To think you’ll leave them ne’er a cross,

Without doors nor within.

Methinks the common-council should

Of it have taken pity,

’Cause, good old cross, it always stood

So firmly to the city.

Since crosses you so much disdain,

Faith, if I were as you,

For fear the king should rule again,

I’d pull down Tiburn too.

ANON

‘If all the world were paper’

If all the world were paper,

And all the sea were inke;

And all the trees were bread and cheese,

What should we do for drinke?

If all the world were sand ’o,

Oh, then what should we lack ’o;

If as they say there were no clay,

How should we make tobacco?

If all our vessels ran ’a,

If none but had a crack ’a;

If Spanish apes eat all the grapes,

What should we do for sack ‘a?

If fryers had no bald pates,

Nor nuns had no dark cloysters,

If all the seas were beans and pease,

What should we do for oysters?

If there had been no projects,

Nor none that did great wrongs;

If fidlers shall turne players all,

What should we doe for songs?

If all things were eternall,

And nothing their end bringing;

If this should be, then how should we

Here make an end of singing?

ANON

The Drowned Blackbird

Lovely daughter of Conn O’Neill,

You are in shock. Sleep a long sleep.

After the loss of what was dearest,

Don’t let your people hear you weep.

The song of the quick-quick flitting bird

Has fled, sweet girl, left you forlorn.

Always what’s dearest is endangered

So bear up now, no beating of hands.

Instead of keens and beating hands

Be silent, girl, as dew in air.

Lovely daughter of Conn O’Neill,

The bird is dead, don’t shed a rear.

Child of that high-born kingly Ulster line,

Show what you’re made of, don’t let yourself go wild

Even though the loveliest bird in the leaf-and-branch scrim

Is drowned, washed white in whitewash: water and lime.

SÉAMAS DALL MAC CUARTA

translated by Seamus Heaney

Verses Said to be Written on the Union

The Queen has lately lost a part

Of her entirely English heart,

For want of which by way of botch,

She pieced it up again with Scotch.

Blessed revolution, which creates

Divided hearts, united states.

See how the double nation lies;

Like a rich coat with skirts of frieze:

As if a man in making posies

Should bundle thistles up with roses.

Whoever yet a union saw

Of kingdoms, without faith or law.

Henceforward let no statesman dare,

A kingdom to a ship compare;

Lest he should call our commonweal,

A vessel with a double keel:

Which just like ours, new rigged and manned,

And got about a league from land,

By change of wind to leeward side

The pilot knew not how to guide

So tossing faction will o’erwhelm

Out crazy double-bottomed realm.

JONATHAN SWIFT

The Liberty

Shall I be one of those obsequious fools

That square their lives by Custom’s scanty rules?

Condemned forever to the puny curse

Of precepts taught at boarding-school or nurse,

That all the business of my life must be

Foolish, dull, trifling formality?

Confined to a strict magic complaisance

And round a circle of nice visits dance,

Nor for my life beyond the chalk advance?

The devil Censure stands to guard the same;

One step awry, he tears my venturous fame,

So when my friends, in a facetious vein

With mirth and wit a while can entertain,

Though ne’er so pleasant, yet I must not stay,

If a commanding clock bids me away,

But with a sudden start, as in a fright,

‘I must be gone indeed! ’Tis after eight!’

Sure these restraints with such regret we bear

That dreaded Censure can’t be more severe,

Which has no terror if we did not fear,

But let the bugbear timorous infants fright.

I’ll not be scared from innocent delight.

Whatever is not vicious I dare do.

I’ll never to the idol Custom bow

Unless it suits with my own humour too.

Some boast their fetters of formality,

Fancy they ornamental bracelets be;

I’m sure they’re gyves and manacles to me.

To their dull, fulsome rules I’ll not be tied,

For all the flattery that exalts their pride.

My sex forbids I should my silence break;

I lose my jest, ’cause women must not speak.

Mysteries must not be with my search profaned;

My closet not with books but sweetmeats crammed,

A little china to advance the show,

My prayerbook and Seven Champions or so.

My pen, if ever used, employed must be

In lofty themes of useful housewifery,

Transcribing old receipts of cookery,

And what is necessary among the rest,

Good cures for agues and a cancered breast,

But I can’t here write my probatum est.

My daring pen will bolder sallies make

And, like myself, an unchecked freedom take,

Not chained to the nice order of my sex,

And with restraints my wishing soul perplex.

I’ll blush at sin, and not what some call shame,

Secure my virtue, slight precarious fame.

This courage speaks me brave. ’Tis surely worse

To keep those rules which privately we curse,

And I’ll appeal to all the formal saints

With what reluctance they endure restraints.

SARAH FYGE

A Grey Eye Weeping

That my old bitter heart was pierced in this black doom,

That foreign devils have made our land a tomb,

That the sun that was Munster’s glory has gone down

Has made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown.

That royal Cashel is bare of house and guest,

That Brian’s turreted home is the otter’s nest,

That the kings of the land have neither land nor crown

Has made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown.

Garnish away in the west with its master banned,

Hamburg the refuge of him who has lost his land,

An old grey eye, weeping for lost renown,

Have made me a beggar before you, Valentine Brown.

AODHÁGAN Ó RATHAILLE

translated by Frank O’Connor

The Glamoured

Brightening brightness, alone on the road, she appears,

Crystalline crystal and sparkle of blue in green eyes,

Sweetness of sweetness in her unembittered young voice

And a high colour dawning behind the pearl of her face.

Ringlets and ringlets, a curl in every tress

Of her fair hair trailing and brushing the dew on the grass;

And a gem from her birthplace far in the high universe

Outglittering glass and gracing the groove of her breasts.

News that was secret she whispered to soothe her aloneness,

News of one due to return and reclaim his true place,

News of the ruin of those who had cast him in darkness,

News that was awesome, too awesome to utter in verse.

My head got lighter and lighter but still approached her,

Enthralled by her thraldom, helplessly held and bewildered,

Choking and calling Christ’s name: then she fled in a shimmer

To Leachra Fort where only the glamoured can enter.

I hurtled and hurled myself madly following after

Over keshes and marshes and mosses and treacherous moors

And arrived at that stronghold unsure about how I had got there,

That earthwork of earth the orders of magic once reared.

A gang of thick louts were shouting loud insults and jeering

And a curly-haired coven in fits of sniggers and sneers:

Next thing I was taken and cruelly shackled in fetters

As the breasts of the maiden were groped by a thick-witted boor.

I tried then as hard as I could to make her hear truth,

How wrong she was to be linked to that lazarous swine

When the pride of the pure Scottish stock, a prince of the blood,

Was ardent and eager to wed her and make her his bride.

When she heard me, she started to weep, but pride was the cause

Of those tears that came wetting her cheeks and shone in her eyes;

Then she sent me a guard to guide me out of the fortress,

Who’d appeared to me, lone on the road, a brightening brightness.

*

Calamity, shock, collapse, heartbreak and grief

To think of her sweetness, her beauty, her mildness, her life

Defiled at the hands of a hornmaster sprung from riff-raff,

And no hope of redress till the lions ride back on the wave.

AODHÁGAN Ó RATHAILLE

translated by Seamus Heaney

To a very young Gentleman at a Dancing-School

So when the Queen of Love rose from the seas,

Divinely fair in such a blest amaze,

The enamoured watery deities did gaze,

As we when charming Flammin did surprise,

More heavenly bright, our whole seraglio’s eyes,

And not a nymph her wonder could disguise,

Whilst with a lovely pride the graceful boy

Passed all the ladies, like a sultan, by,

Only he looked more absolute and coy.

When with a haughty air he did advance

To lead out some transported she to dance,

He gave his hand as carelessly as chance,

Attended with a universal sigh.

On her each beauty cast a jealous eye

And quite fell out with guiltless destiny.

ELIZABETH SINGER

A New Song of New Similes

My passion is as mustard strong;

I sit all sober sad;

Drunk as a piper all day long,

Or like a March-hare mad.

Round as a hoop the bumpers flow;

I drink, yet can’t forget her;

For, though as drunk as David’s sow,

I love her still the better.

Pert as a pear-monger I’d be,

If Molly were but kind;

Cool as a cucumber could see

The rest of womankind.

Like a stuck pig I gaping stare,

And eye her o’er and o’er;

Lean as a rake with sighs and care,

Sleek as a mouse before.

Plump as a partridge was I known,

And soft as silk my skin,

My cheeks as fat as butter grown;

But as a groat now thin!

I, melancholy as a cat,

And kept awake to weep;

But she, insensible of that,

Sound as a top can sleep.

Hard is her heart as flint or stone,

She laughs to see me pale;

And merry as a grig is grown,

And brisk as bottled ale.

The God of Love at her approach

Is busy as a bee;

Hearts, sound as any bell or roach,

Are smit and sigh like me.

Ay me! as thick as hops or hail,

The fine men crowd about her;

But soon as dead as a door nail

Shall I be, if without her.

Straight as my leg her shape appears,

O were we join’d together!

My heart would be scot-free from cares,

And lighter than a feather.

As fine as fivepence is her mien,

No drum was ever tighter;

Her glance is as the razor keen,

And not the sun is brighter.

As soft as pap her kisses are,

Methinks I taste them yet;

Brown as a berry is her hair,

Her eyes as black as jet:

As smooth as glass, as white as curds,

Her pretty hand invites;

Sharp as a needle are her words;

Her wit, like pepper, bites:

Brisk as a body-louse she trips,

Clean as a penny drest;

Sweet as a rose her breath and lips,

Round as the globe her breast.

Full as an egg was I with glee;

And happy as a king.

Good Lord! how all men envy’d me!

She lov’d like any thing.

But, false as hell! she, like the wind,

Chang’d, as her sex must do;

Though seeming as the turtle kind,

And like the gospel true.

If I and Molly could agree,

Let who would take Peru!

Great as an emperor should I be,

And richer than a Jew.

Till you grow tender as a chick,

I’m dull as any post;

Let us, like burs, together stick,

And warm as any toast.

You’ll know me truer than a dye;

And wish me better speed;

Flat as a flounder when I lie,

And as a herring dead.

Sure as a gun, she’ll drop a tear,

And sigh, perhaps, and wish,

When I am rotten as a pear,

And mute as any fish.

JOHN GAY

Ode on Solitude

Happy the man, whose wish and care

A few paternal acres bound,

Content to breathe his native air,

In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,

Whose flocks supply him with attire,

Whose trees in summer yield him shade,

In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcernedly find

Hours, days, and years slide soft away,

In health of body, peace of mind,

Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease,

Together mixed; sweet recreation;

And innocence, which most does please,

With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;

Thus unlamented let me die;

Steal from the world, and not a stone

Tell where I lie.

ALEXANDER POPE

from Song of Summer

to the air ‘Through the Wood Laddie’

Month of plants and of honey,

warm, with grasses and shoots,

month of buds and of leafage,

rushes, flowers that are lovely,

wasps, bees and berries,

mellow mists, heavy dews,

like spangles of diamonds,

a sparkling cover for earth.

*

Lithe brisk fresh-water salmon,

lively, leaping the stones;

bunched, white-bellied, scaly,

fin-tail-flashing, red spot;

speckled skin’s brilliant hue

lit with flashes of silver;

with curved gob at the ready,

catching insects with guile.

May, with soft showers and sunshine,

meadows, grass-fields I love,

milky, whey-white and creamy,

frothing, whisked up in pails,

time for crowdie and milk-curds,

time for firkins and kits,

lambs, goat-kids and roe-deer,

bucks, a rich time for flocks.

ALEXANDER MACDONALD

translated by Derick Thomson

Wedlock: A Satire

Thou tyrant, whom I will not name,

Whom Heaven and Hell alike disclaim,

Abhorred and shunned, for different ends,

By angels, Jesuits, beasts and fiends,

What terms to curse thee shall I find,

Thou plague peculiar to mankind?

Oh may my verse excel in spite

The wiliest, wittiest imps of night!

Then lend me for a while your rage,

You maidens old and matrons sage,

So may my terms in railing seem

As vile and hateful as my theme.

Eternal foe to soft desires,

Inflamer of forbidden fires,

Thou source of discord, pain and care,

Thou sure forerunner of despair,

Thou scorpion with a double face,

Thou lawful plague of human race,

Thou bane of freedom, ease and mirth,

Thou deep damnation upon earth,

Thou serpent which the angels fly,

Thou monster whom the beasts defy,

Whom wily Jesuits sneer at too,

And Satan, let him have his due,

Was never so confirmed a dunce

To risk damnation more than once.

That wretch, if such a wretch there be,

Who hopes for happiness from thee,

May search successfully as well

For truth in whores and ease in Hell.

MEHETABEL WRIGHT

On Inclosures

’Tis bad enough in man or woman

To steal a goose from off a common;

But surely he’s without excuse

Who steals the common from the goose.

ANON

The Mother’s Lament for Her Child

When they came looking for trouble I bared my body

Hoping to appeal to them. Child of the branches,

You smiled at your mother and then at your enemies

And chuckled before they wrenched you from my arms.

When the spear pierced your chest I registered the pain

And watched my own blood spurting. Suicidal now

I struggled with them, happy to die in the skirmish

And lie with you and our friends in unmarked graves.

They tied me to a tree and forced me to witness

Your death-throes, child of the tree of my heart and lungs,

Child of my crucifixion tree, child of the branches,

And then they stuck your screams on the end of a pike.

PEADAR Ó DOIRNÍN

translated by Michael Longley

There’s Nae Luck about the House

And are ye sure the news is true?

And are ye sure he’s weel?

Is this a time to think o’ wark?

Ye Jauds, fling by your wheel.

Is this a time to think o’ wark,

When Colin’s at the door?

Rax me my cloak, I’ll to the quay,

And see him come ashore.

For there’s nae luck about the house,

There’s nae luck at a’

There’s little pleasure in the house,

When our gudeman’s awa’.

And gie to me my bigonet,

My bishop-satin gown;

For I maun tell the baillie’s wife

That Colin’s come to town.

My turkey slippers maun gae on.

My hose o’ pearl blue;

It’s a’ to please my ain gudeman,

For he’s’ baith leal and true.

Rise up and mak a dean fireside,

Put on the muckle pot;

Gle little Kate her Sunday gown

And Jock his button coat;

And mak their shoon as black as slaes,

Their hose as white as snaw;

It’s a’ to please my ain gudeman.

For he’s been lang awa’.

Since Colin’s weel, I’m weel content,

I hae nae mair to crave;

Could I but live to mak him blest,

I’m blest aboon the lave;

And will I see his face again?

And will I hear him speak?

I’m downricht dizzy wi’ the thocht,

In troth I’m like to greet.

There’s twa fat hens upo’ the bauk,

They’ve fed this month and mair,

Mak haste and thraw their necks about,

That Colin weel may fare;

And spread the table neat and clean,

Gar ilka thing look braw;

For wha can tell how Colin fared

When he was far awa’?

Sae true his heart, sae smooth his speech,

His breath like caller air;

His very foot has music in’t

As he comes up the stair,

And will I see his face again?

And will I hear him speak?

I’m downricht dizzy wi’ the thocht,

In troth I’m like to greet

For there’s nae luck about the house,

There’s nae luck at a’

There’s little pleasure in the house,

When our gudeman’s awa’.

JEAN ADAM

Satire upon the Heads; or, Never a Barrel the Better Herring

O Cambridge, attend

To the Satire I’ve pen’d

On the Heads of thy Houses,

Thou Seat of the Muses!

Know the Master of Jesus

Does hugely displease us;

The Master of Maudlin

In the same dirt is dawdling;

The Master of Sidney

Is of the same kidney;

The Master of Trinity

To him bears affinity;

As the Master of Keys

Is as like as two pease,

So the Master of Queen’s

Is as like as two beans;

The Master of King’s

Copies them in all things;

The Master of Catherine

Takes them all for his pattern;

The Master of Clare

Hits them all to a hair;

The Master of Christ

By the rest is enticed;

But the Master of Emmanuel

Follows them like a spaniel;

The Master of Benet

Is of the like tenet;

The Master of Pembroke

Has from them his system took;

The Master of Peter’s

Has all the same features;

The Master of St John’s

Like the rest of the Dons.

P.S. – As to Trinity Hall

We say nothing at all.

THOMAS GRAY

from Jubilate Agno

For the doubling of flowers is the improvement of the gardners talent.

For the flowers are great blessings.

For the Lord made a Nosegay in the meadow with his disciples and preached upon the lily.

For the angels of God took it out of his hand and carried it to the Height.

For a man cannot have publick spirit, who is void of private benevolence.

For there is no Height in which there are not flowers.

For flowers have great virtues for all the senses.

For the flower glorifies God and the root parries the adversary.

For the flowers have their angels even the words of God’s Creation.

For the warp and woof of flowers are worked by perpetual moving spirits.

For flowers are good both for the living and the dead.

For there is a language of flowers.

For there is a sound reasoning upon all flowers.

For elegant phrases are nothing but flowers.

For flowers are peculiarly the poetry of Christ.

For flowers are medicinal.

For flowers are musical in ocular harmony.

For the right names of flowers are yet in heaven. God make gard’ners better nomenclators.

For the Poorman’s nosegay is an introduction to a Prince.

CHRISTOPHER SMART

On the New Laureate

In merry old England, it once was a rule,

The king had his poet, as well as his fool;

And now we’re so frugal, I’d have you to know it,

That Cibber may serve both for fool and for poet.

ANON

‘Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds’

Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds

Exhilarate the spirit, and restore

The tone of languid nature. Mighty winds

That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood

Of ancient growth, make music not unlike

The dash of ocean on his winding shore,

And lull the spirit while they fill the mind,

Unnumbered branches waving in the blast,

And all their leaves fast fluttering, all at once

Nor less composure waits upon the roar

Of distant floods, or on the softer voice

Of neighbouring fountain, or of rills that slip

Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall

Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length

In matted grass, that with a livelier green

Betrays the secret of their silent course.

Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds,

But animated nature sweeter still

To soothe and satisfy the human ear.

Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one

The livelong night: nor these alone whose notes

Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain,

But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime

In still repeated circles, screaming loud,

The jay, the pie, and even the boding owl

That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.

Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh,

Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns

And only there, please highly for their sake.

WILLIAM COWPER

The Post-Boy

Hark! ’tis the twanging horn o’er yonder bridge,

That with its wearisome but needful length

Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon

Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright; –

He comes, the herald of a noisy world,

With spatter’d boots, strapp’d waist, and frozen locks;

News from all nations lumb’ring at his back.

True to his charge, the close-pack’d load behind,

Yet careless what he brings, his one concern

Is to conduct it to the destin’d inn:

And, having dropp’d th’ expected bag, pass on.

He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,

Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief

Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some;

To him indiff’rent whether grief or joy.

Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,

Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet

With tears, that trickled down the writer’s cheeks

Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,

Or charg’d with am’rous sighs of absent swains,

Or nymphs responsive, equally affect

His horse and him, unconscious of them all.

But oh th’ important budget! usher’d in

With such heart-shaking music, who can say

What are its tidings? have our troops awak’d?

Or do they still, as if with opium drugg’d,

Snore to the murmurs of th’ Atlantic wave?

Is India free? and does she wear her plum’d

And jewell’d turban with a smile of peace,

Or do we grind her still? The grand debate,

The popular harangue, the tart reply,

The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit,

And the loud laugh – I long to know them all;

I burn to set th’ imprison’d wranglers free,

And give them voice and utt’rance once again.

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,

Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,

And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn

Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,

That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,

So let us welcome peaceful ev’ning in.

WILLIAM COWPER

Washing Day

The Muses are turned gossips; they have lost

The buskined step, and clear high-sounding phrase,

Language of gods. Come, then, domestic Muse,

In slip-shod measure loosely prattling on,

Of farm or orchard, pleasant curds and cream,

Or droning flies, or shoes lost in the mire

By little whimpering boy, with rueful face –

Come, Muse, and sing the dreaded washing day.

Ye who beneath the yoke of wedlock bend,

With bowed soul, full well ye ken the day

Which week, smooth sliding after week, brings on

Too soon; for to that day nor peace belongs,

Nor comfort; ere the first grey streak of dawn,

The red-armed washers come and chase repose.

Nor pleasant smile, nor quaint device of mirth,

Ere visited that day; the very cat,

From the wet kitchen scared, and reeking hearth,

Visits the parlour, an unwonted guest.

The silent breakfast meal is soon despatched,

Uninterrupted, save by anxious looks

Cast at the louring, if sky should lour.

From that last evil, oh preserve us, heavens!

For should the skies pour down, adieu to all

Remains of quiet; then expect to hear

Of sad disasters – dirt and gravel stains

Hard to efface, and loaded lines at once

Snapped short, and linen-horse by dog thrown down,

And all the petty miseries of life.

Saints have been calm while stretched upon the rack,

And Montezuma smiled on burning coals;

But never yet did housewife notable

Greet with a smile a rainy washing day.

But grant the welkin fair, require not thou

Who callest thyself, perchance, the master there,

Or study swept, or nicely dusted coat,

Or usual ’tendence; ask not, indiscreet,

Thy stockings mended, though the yawning rents

Gape wide as Erebus; nor hope to find

Some snug recess impervious. Shouldst thou try

The ’customed garden walks, thine eye shall rue

The budding fragrance of thy tender shrubs,

Myrtle or rose, all crushed beneath the weight

Of coarse-checked apron, with impatient hand

Twitched off when showers impend; or crossing lines

Shall mar thy musings, as the wet cold sheet

Flaps in thy face abrupt. Woe to the friend

Whose evil stars have urged him forth to claim

On such a day the hospitable rites;

Looks blank at best, and stinted courtesy

Shall he receive; vainly he feeds his hopes

With dinner of roast chicken, savoury pie,

Or tart or pudding; pudding he nor tart

That day shall eat; nor, though the husband try –

Mending what can’t be helped – to kindle mirth

From cheer deficient, shall his consort’s brow

Clear up propitious; the unlucky guest

In silence dines, and early slinks away.

I well remember, when a child, the awe

This day struck into me; for then the maids,

I scarce knew why, looked cross, and drove me from them;

Nor soft caress could I obtain, nor hope

Usual indulgencies; jelly or creams,

Relic of costly suppers, and set by

For me their petted one; or buttered toast,

When butter was forbid; or thrilling tale

Of ghost, or witch, or murder. So I went

And sheltered me beside the parlour fire;

There my dear grandmother, eldest of forms,

Tended the little ones, and watched from harm;

Anxiously fond, though oft her spectacles

With elfin cunning hid, and oft the pins

Drawn from her ravelled stocking, might have soured

One less indulgent.

At intervals my mother’s voice was heard,

Urging dispatch; briskly the work went on,

All hands employed to wash, to rinse, to wring,

Or fold, and starch, and clap, and iron, and plait.

Then would I sit me down, and ponder much

Why washings were; sometimes through hollow hole

Of pipe amused we blew, and sent aloft

The floating bubbles; little dreaming then

To see, Montgolfier, thy silken ball

Ride buoyant through the clouds, so near approach

The sports of children and the toils of men.

Earth, air, and sky, and ocean hath its bubbles,

And verse is one of them – this most of all.

ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD

Cock Robbin

Who did kill Cock Robbin?

I, said the Sparrow,

With my bow and Arrow,

And I did kill Cock Robbin.

Who did see him die?

I, said the Fly,

With my little Eye,

And I did see him die.

And who did catch his blood?

I, said the Beetle,

With my little Dish,

And I did catch his blood.

And who did make his shroud?

I, said the Fish,

With my little Needle,

And I did make his shroud.

Who’ll dig his grave?

I, said the Owl,

With my pick and shovel,

I’ll dig his grave.

Who’ll be the parson?

I, said the Rook,

With my little book,

I’ll be the parson.

Who’ll be the clerk?

I, said the Lark,

If it’s not in the dark,

I’ll be the clerk.

Who’ll carry the link?

I, said the Linnet,

I’ll fetch it in a minute,

I’ll carry the link.

Who’ll be chief mourner?

I, said the Dove,

I mourn for my love,

I’ll be chief mourner.

Who’ll carry the coffin?

I, said the Kite,

If it’s not through the night,

I’ll carry the coffin.

Who’ll bear the pall?

We, said the Wren,

Both the cock and the hen,

We’ll bear the pall.

Who’ll sing a psalm?

I, said the Thrush,

As she sat on a bush,

I’ll sing a psalm.

Who’ll toll the bell?

I, said the Bull,

Because I can pull,

I’ll toll the bell.

All the birds of the air

Fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,

When they heard the bell toll

For poor Cock Robbin.

ANON

Poet to Blacksmith

Seamus, make me a side-arm to take on the earth,

A suitable tool for digging and grubbing the ground,

Lightsome and pleasant to lean on or cut with or lift,

Tastily finished and trim and right for the hand.

No trace of the hammer to show on the sheen of the blade,

The thing to have purchase and spring and be fit for the strain,

The shaft to be socketed in dead true and dead straight,

And I’ll work with the gang till I drop and never complain.

The plate and the edge of it not to be wrinkly or crooked –

I see it well shaped from the anvil and sharp from the file;

The grain of the wood and the line of the shaft nicely fitted,

And best thing of all, the ring of it, sweet as a bell.

EOGHAN RUA Ó SÚILLEABHÁIN

translated by Seamus Heaney

Written near a port on a dark evening

Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore,

Night on the ocean settles, dark and mute,

Save where is heard the repercussive roar

Of drowsy billows, on the rugged foot

Of rocks remote; or still more distant tone

Of seamen in the anchored bark that tell

The watch relieved; or one deep voice alone

Singing the hour, and bidding ‘Strike the bell.’

All is black shadow, but the lucid line

Marked by the light surf on the level sand,

Or where afar the ship-lights faintly shine

Like wandering fairy fires, that oft on land

Mislead the pilgrim – such the dubious ray

That wavering reason lends, in life’s long darkling way.

CHARLOTTE SMITH

Caller Oysters

Happy the man who, free from care and strife,

In silken or the leathern purse retains

A splendid shilling. He nor hears with pain

New oysters cry’d, nor sighs for cheerful ale.

– PHILLIPS

Of a’ the waters that can hobble

A fishin yole or salmon coble,

And can reward the fishers trouble,

Or south or north,

There’s nane sae spacious and sae noble

As Firth o’ Forth.

In her the skate and codlin sail.

The eil fou souple wags her tall,

Wi’ herrin, fleuk, and mackerel.

And whitens dainty;

Their spindle-shanks the labsters trail,

Wi’ partans plenty.

Auld Reikie’s sons blyth faces wear.

September’s merry month is near.

That brings in Neptune’s caller chere.

New oysters fresh:

The halesomest and nicest gear

Of fish or flesh.

O! then we needna gie a plack

For dand’ring mountebank or quack.

Wha o’ their drogs sae bauldly crack,

And spred sic notions.

As gar their feckless patient tak

Their stinkin potions.

Come prie, frail man! for gin thou art sick.

The oyster Is a rare cathartic.

As ever doctor patient gart lick

To cure his ails:

Whether you hae the head or heart-ake.

It ay prevails

Ye tiplers, open a, your poses,

Ye wha are faush’d wi’ plouky noses,

Fling owr your craig sufficient doses,

You’ll thole a hunder,

To fleg awa’ your simmer roses,

And naething under.

Whan big as burns the gutters rin,

Gin ye hae catcht a droukit skin,

To Luckie Middlemist’s loup in

And sit fu snug

O’er oysters and a dram o’ gin,

Or haddock lug.

When auld Saunt Giles, at aught o’clock,

Gars merchant lowns their chopies lock,

There we adjourn wi’ hearty fock

To birle our bodies,

And get wharewi’ to crack our joke,

And clear our noddles.

Whan Phœbus did his windocks steek,

How aften at that ingle cheek

Did I my frosty fingers beek.

And taste gude fare?

I trow there was nae hame to seek

Whan steghin there.

While glakit fools, o’er rife o’ cash,

Pamper their weyms wi’ fousom trash.

I think a chiel may gayly pass:

He’s no ill boden

That gusts his gabb wi’ oyster sauce,

And hen weel soden.

At Musselbrough, and eke Newhaven,

The fisher wives will get top livin,

When lads gang out on Sunday’s even

To treat their joes,

And tak of fat pandours a prieven,

Or mussel brose:

Than sometimes ’ere they flit their doup,

They’ll ablins a’ their siller coup

For liquor clear frae cutty stoup,

To weet their wizen,

And swallow o’er a dainty soup,

For fear they gizzen.

A’ ye wha canna stand sae sicker,

Whan twice you’ve toom’d the big ars’d bicker,

Mix caller oysters wi’ your liquor,

And I’m your debtor,

If greedy priest or drouthy vicar

Will thole it better.

ROBERT FERGUSSON

The Daft-Days

Now mirk December’s dowie face

Glours our the rigs wi’ sour grimace,

While, thro’ his minimum of space,

The bleer-ey’d sun,

Wi’ blinkin light and stealing pace,

His race doth run.

From naked groves nae birdie sings,

To shepherd’s pipe nae hillock rings,

The breeze nae od’rous flavour brings

From Borean cave,

And dwyning nature droops her wings,

Wi’ visage grave.

Mankind but scanty pleasure glean

Frae snawy hill or barren plain,

Whan Winter, ’midst his nipping train,

Wi’ frozen spear,

Sends drift owr a’ his bleak domain,

And guides the weir.

Auld Reikie! thou’rt the canty hole,

A bield for mony caldrife soul,

Wha snugly at thine ingle loll,

Baith warm and couth;

While round they gar the bicker roll

To weet their mouth.

When merry Yule-day comes, I trow

You’ll scantlins find a hungry mou’;

Sma’ are our cares, our stamacks fou

O’ gusty gear,

And kickshaws, strangers to our view,

Sin Fairn-year.

Ye browster wives, now busk ye bra,

And fling your sorrows far awa’;

Then come and gies the tither blaw

Of reaming ale,

Mair precious than the well of Spa,

Our hearts to heal.

Then, tho’ at odds wi’ a’ the warl’,

Amang oursells we’ll never quarrel;

Tho’ Discord gie a canker’d snarl

To spoil our glee,

As lang’s there’s pith into the barrel

We’ll drink and ‘gree.

Fidlers, your pins in temper fix,

And roset weel your fiddle-sticks,

But banish vile Italian tricks

From out your quorum:

Nor fortes wi’ pianos mix,

Gie’s Tulloch Gorum.

For nought can cheer the heart sae weil

As can a canty Highland reel,

It even vivifies the heel

To skip and dance:

Lifeless is he wha canna feel

Its influence.

Let mirth abound, let social cheer

Invest the dawning of the year;

Let blithesome innocence appear

To crown our joy,

Nor envy wi’ sarcastic sneer

Our bliss destroy.

And thou, great god of Aqua Vitae!

Wha sways the empire of this city,

When fou we’re sometimes capernoity,

Be thou prepar’d

To hedge us frae that black banditti,

The City-Guard.

ROBERT FERGUSSON

The Litany for Doneraile

Alas! how dismal is my Tale,

I lost my Watch in Doneraile.

My Dublin Watch, my Chain and Seal,

Pilfered at once in Doneraile.

May Fire and Brimstone never fail

To fall in Showers on Doneraile.

May all the leading Fiends assail

The thieving Town of Doneraile.

As Light’ning’s Flash across the vale,

So down to Hell with Doneraile.

The fate of Pompey at Pharsale,

Be that the Curse for Doneraile.

May Beef or Mutton, Lamb or Veal,

Be never found in Doneraile,

But Garlic Soup and scurvy Cale

Be still the food for Doneraile,

And forward as the creeping Snail

Th’Industry be of Doneraile.

May Heav’n a chosen Curse entail

On rigid, rotten Doneraile.

May Sun and Moon for ever fail

To beam their lights on Doneraile.

May every pestilential Gale

Blast that cursed spot called Doneraile.

May no Cuckoo, Thrush or Quail,

Be ever heard in Doneraile.

May Patriots, Kings, and Commonweal

Despise and harass Doneraile.

May every Post, Gazette and Mail,

Sad Tidings bring of Doneraile.

May loudest Thunders ring a Peal

To blind and deafen Doneraile.

May vengeance fall at head and tail

From North to South at Doneraile.

May Profit light and tardy Sale

Still damp the Trade of Doneraile.

May Egypt’s plagues at once prevail

To thin the Knaves at Doneraile.

May Frost and Snow, and Sleet and Hail

Benumb each joint in Doneraile.

May Wolves and Bloodhounds trace and trail

The cursed Crew of Doneraile.

May Oscar with his fiery Flail

To Atoms thresh all Doneraile.

May every Mischief fresh and stale

Abide henceforth in Doneraile.

May all from Belfast to Kinsale

Scoff, curse, and damn you, Doneraile.

May neither Flour nor Oatmeal

Be found or known in Doneraile.

May Want and Woe each Joy curtail

That e’er was known in Doneraile.

May not one Coffin want a Nail

That wraps a Rogue in Doneraile.

May all the Sons of Granuwale

Blush at the thieves of Doneraile.

May Mischief big as Norway Whale

O’erwhelm the Knaves of Doneraile.

May Curses wholesale and retail

Pour with full force on Doneraile.

May every Transport wont to Sail

A Convict bring from Doneraile.

May every Churn and milking Pail

Fall dry to staves in Doneraile.

May Cold and Hunger still congeal

The stagnant Blood of Doneraile.

May every Hour new Woes reveal

That Hell reserves for Doneraile.

May every chosen Ill prevail

O’er all the Imps of Doneraile.

May not one Wish or Prayer avail

To soothe the Woes of Doneraile.

May th’Inquisition straight impale

The Rapparees of Doneraile.

May Curse of Sodom now prevail

And sink to Ashes Doneraile.

May Charon’s Boat triumphant sail

Completely manned from Doneraile;

And may grim Pluto’s inner Jail

Forever groan with Doneraile;

And may my Couplets never fail

To find new Curses for Doneraile!

PAT O’KELLY

from Peter Grimes

Old Peter Grimes made Fishing his employ,

His Wife he cabin’d with him and his Boy,

And seem’d that Life laborious to enjoy:

To Town came quiet Peter with his Fish,

And had of all a civil word and wish.

He left his Trade upon the Sabbath-Day,

And took young Peter in his hand to pray;

But soon the stubborn Boy from care broke loose,

At first refus’d, then added his abuse:

His Father’s Love he scorn’d, his Power defied,

But being drunk, wept sorely when he died.

Yes! then he wept, and to his Mind there came

Much of his Conduct, and he felt the Shame, –

How he had oft the good Old Man revil’d,

And never paid the Duty of a Child:

How, when the Father in his Bible read,

He in contempt and anger left the Shed:

‘It is the Word of Life,’ the Parent cried;

– ‘This is the Life itself,’ the Boy replied;

And while Old Peter in amazement stood,

Gave the hot Spirit to his boiling Blood: –

How he, with Oath and furious Speech, began

To prove his Freedom and assert the Man;

And when the Parent check’d his impious Rage,

How he had curs’d the Tyranny of Age, –

Nay, once had dealt the sacrilegious Blow

On his bare Head and laid his Parent low:

The Father groan’d – ‘If thou art old,’ said he,

‘And hast a Son – thou wilt remember me:

Thy Mother left me in an happy Time,

Thou kill’dst not her – Heav’n spares the double Crime.’

On an Inn-settle, in his maudlin Grief,

This he revolv’d and drank for his Relief.

Now liv’d the Youth in freedom, but debarr’d

From constant Pleasure, and he thought it hard;

Hard that he could not every Wish obey,

But must awhile relinquish Ale and Play;

Hard! that he could not to his Cards attend,

But must acquire the Money he would spend.

With greedy eye he look’d on all he saw,

He knew not Justice, and he laugh’d at Law;

On all he mark’d, he stretch’d his ready Hand;

He fish’d by Water and he filch’d by Land:

Oft in the Night has Peter dropt his Oar,

Fled from his Boat and sought for Prey on shore;

Oft up the Hedge-row glided, on his Back

Bearing the Orchard’s Produce in a Sack,

Or Farm-yard Load, tugg’d fiercely from the Stack;

And as these Wrongs to greater numbers rose,

The more he look’d on all Men as his Foes.

GEORGE CRABBE

The School Boy

I love to rise in a summer morn

When the birds sing on every tree;

The distant huntsman winds his horn,

And the sky-lark sings with me.

O! what sweet company.

But to go to school in a summer morn,

O! it drives all joy away;

Under a cruel eye outworn,

The little ones spend the day

In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit,

And spend many an anxious hour,

Nor in my book can I take delight,

Nor sit in learning’s bower,

Worn thro’ with the dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy

Sit in a cage and sing?

How can a child, when fears annoy,

But droop his tender wing,

And forget his youthful spring?

O! father and mother, if buds are nip’d

And blossoms blown away,

And if the tender plants are strip’d

Of their joy in the springing day,

By sorrow and care’s dismay,

How shall the summer arise in joy,

Or the summer fruits appear?

Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,

Or bless the mellowing year.

When the blasts of winter appear?

WILLIAM BLAKE

Holy Thursday

Is this a holy thing to see,

In a rich and fruitful land,

Babes reducd to misery,

Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?

Can it be a song of joy?

And so many children poor?

It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,

And their fields and bleak & bare,

And their ways are fill’d with thorns;

It is eternal winter there.

For where-e’er the sun does shine,

And where-e’er the rain does fall,

Babe can never hunger there,

Nor poverty the mind appall.

WILLIAM BLAKE

A Question Answered

What is it men in women do require?

The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

What is it women do in men require?

The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

WILLIAM BLAKE

The Camp

Tents, marquees, and baggage-waggons;

Suttling-houses, beer in flagons;

Drums and trumpets, singing, firing;

Girls seducing, beaux admiring;

Country lasses gay and smiling,

City lads their hearts beguiling;

Dusty roads, and horses frisky,

Many an Eton Boy in whisky;

Tax’d carts full of farmers’ daughters;

Brutes condemn’d, and man who slaughters!

Public-houses, booths, and castles,

Belles of fashion, serving vassals;

Lordly gen’rals fiercely staring,

Weary soldiers, sighing, swearing!

Petit-maitres always dressing,

In the glass themselves caressing;

Perfum’d, painted, patch’d, and blooming

Ladies – manly airs assuming!

Dowagers of fifty, simp’ring,

Misses for their lovers whimp’ring;

Husbands drill’d to household tameness;

Dames heart sick of wedded sameness.

Princes setting girls a-madding,

Wives for ever fond of gadding;

Princesses with lovely faces,

Beauteous children of the Graces!

Britain’s pride and virtue’s treasure,

Fair and gracious beyond measure!

Aid-de-camps and youthful pages,

Prudes and vestals of all ages!

Old coquets and matrons surly,

Sounds of distant hurly-burly!

Mingled voices, uncouth singing,

Carts full laden, forage bringing;

Sociables and horses weary,

Houses warm, and dresses airy;

Loads of fatten’d poultry; pleasure

Serv’d (to nobles) without measure;

Doxies, who the waggons follow;

Beer, for thirsty hinds to swallow;

Washerwomen, fruit-girls cheerful,

Ancient ladies – chaste and fearful!!

Tradesmen, leaving shops, and seeming

More of war than profit dreaming;

Martial sounds and braying asses,

Noise, that ev’ry noise surpasses!

All confusion, din, and riot,

Nothing clean – and nothing quiet.

MARY ROBINSON

A Riddle

’Twas i n heaven pronounced, and ’twas muttered in hell

And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell:

On the confines of earth ’twas permitted to rest,

And the depths of the ocean its presence confest;

’Twill be found in the sphere when ’tis riven asunder,

Be seen in the lightning, and heard in the thunder.

’Twas allotted to man with his earliest breath,

Attends at his birth, and awaits him in death,

Presides o’er his happiness, honour, and health,

Is the prop of his house, and the end of his wealth.

In the heaps of the miser ’tis hoarded with care,

But is sure to be lost on his prodigal heir.

It begins every hope, every wish it must bound,

With the husbandman toils, and with monarchs is crown’d.

Without it the soldier, the seaman may roam,

But wo to the wretch who expels it from home!

In the whispers of conscience its voice will be found,

Nor e’en in the whirlwind of passion be drown’d.

’Twill not soften the heart; but though deaf be the ear,

It will make it acutely and instandy hear.

Yet in shade let it rest like a delicate flower,

Ah breathe on it softly – it dies in an hour.

CATHERINE MARIA FANSHAWE

Mary Morison

O Mary, at thy window be,

It is the wish’d, the trysted hour;

Those smiles and glances let me see,

That make the miser’s treasure poor:

How blythly wad I bide the stoure,

A weary slave frae sun to sun;

Could I the rich reward secure,

The lovely Mary Morison.

Yestreen when to the trembling string

The dance gaed thro’ the lighted ha’,

To thee my fancy took its wing,

I sat, but neither heard nor saw:

Tho’ this was fair, and that was braw,

And yon the toast of a’ the town,

I sigh’d, and said amang them a’,

‘Ye are na Mary Morison.’

O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace,

Wha for thy sake wad gladly die!

Or canst thou break that heart of his,

Whase only faut is loving thee.

If love for love thou wilt na gie,

At least be pity to me shown;

A thought ungentle canna be

The thought o’ Mary Morison.

ROBERT BURNS

A Red, Red Rose

My luve is like a red, red rose,

That’s newly sprung in June:

My luve is like the melodie,

That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,

So deep in luve am I,

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun!

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only luve,

And fare-thee-weel a while!

And I will come again, my luve,

Tho’ it were ten-thousand mile.

ROBERT BURNS

Ae Fond Kiss

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;

Ae farewell and then forever!

Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,

Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.

Who shall say that fortune grieves him

While the star of hope she leaves him?

Me, nae chearfu’ twinkle lights me;

Dark despair around benights me.

I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy,

Naething could resist my Nancy:

But to see her, was to love her;

Love but her, and love for ever.

Had we never lov’d sae kindly,

Had we never lov’d sae blindly,

Never met – or never parted,

We had ne’er been broken-hearted.

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!

Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!

Thine be ilka joy and treasure,

Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;

Ae fareweel, Alas! for ever!

Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,

Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.

ROBERT BURNS

Green Grow the Rashes

Green grow the rashes, O;

Green grow the rashes, O;

The sweetest hours that e’er I spend,

Are spent amang the lasses, O

There’s nought but care on ev’ry han’,

In ev’ry hour that passes, O:

What signifies the life o’ man,

An’ ’twere na for the lasses, O?

Green grow, etc.

The warly race may riches chase,

An’ riches still may fly them, O;

An’ tho’ at last they catch them fast,

Their hearts can ne’er enjoy them, O.

But gie me a canny hour at e’en

My arms about my Dearie, O;

An’ warly cares, an’ warly men,

May a’ gae tapsalteerie, O!

For you sae douse, ye sneer at this,

Ye’re nought but senseless asses, O:

The wisest Man the warl’ saw,

He dearly lov’d the lasses, O.

Auld Nature swears, the lovely Dears

Her noblest work she classes, O:

Her prentice han’ she try’d on man,

An’ then she made the lasses, O.

ROBERT BURNS

Lament for Culloden

The lovely lass o’ Inverness,

Nae joy nor pleasure can she see;

For e’en and morn she cries, Alas!

And aye the saut tear blins her ee:

Drumossie moor – Drumossie day –

A waefu’ day it was to me!

For there I lost my father dear.

My father dear, and brethren three.

Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay,

Their graves are growing green to see;

And by them lies the dearest lad

That ever blest a woman’s ee!

Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord,

A bluidy man I trow thou be:

For mony a heart thou hast made sair

That ne’er did wrang to thine or thee.

ROBERT BURNS

Hay Making

Upon the grass no longer hangs the dew;

Forth hies the mower, with his glittering scythe,

In snowy shirt bedight, and all unbraced,

He moves athwart the mead with sidling bend.

And lays the grass in many a swathey line:

In every field, in every lawn and meadow,

The rousing voice of industry is heard;

The haycock rises, and the frequent rake

Sweeps on the fragrant hay in heavy wreaths.

The old and young, the weak and strong, are there,

And, as they can, help on the cheerful work.

The father jeers his awkward half-grown lad,

Who trails his tawdry armful o’er the field,

Nor does he fear the jeering to repay.

The village oracle, and simple maid,

Jest in their turns and raise the ready laugh;

All are companions in the general glee;

Authority, hard-favoured, frowns not there.

Some, more advanced, raise up the lofty rick,

Whilst on its top doth stand the parish toast.

In loose attire, and swelling ruddy cheek.

With taunts and harmless mockery she receives

The tossed-up heaps from fork of simple youth,

Who, staring on her, takes his arm away,

While half the load falls back upon himself.

Loud is her laugh, her voice is heard afar:

The mower busied on the distant lawn,

The carter trudging on his dusty way,

The shrill sound know, their bonnets toss in air,

And roar across the field to catch her notice:

She waves her arm to them, and shakes her head,

And then renews her work with double spirit.

Thus do they jest and laugh away their toil

Till the bright sun, now past his middle course,

Shoots down his fiercest beams which none may brave.

The stoutest arm feels listless, and the swart

And brawny-shouldered clown begins to fail,

But to the weary, lo! there comes relief!

A troop of welcome children o’er the lawn

With slow and wary steps approach: some bear

In baskets oaten cakes or barley scones,

And gusty cheese and stoups of milk or whey.

Beneath the branches of a spreading tree,

Or by the shady side of the tall rick,

They spread their homely fare, and seated round,

Taste every pleasure that a feast can give.

JOANNA BAILLIE

Will Ye No Come Back Again?

Bonnie Charlie’s now awa,

Safely owre the friendly main:

Mony a heart will break in iwa.

Should he ne’er come back again?

Will ye no come back again?

Will ye no come back again?

Better lo’ed ye canna be,

Will ye no come back again?

Ye trusted in your Heiland men,

They trusted you, dear Charlie;

They kent you hiding in the glen.

You cleedin was but barely.

Will ye no, etc.

English bribes were a’ in vain.

An’ e’en tho’ pulrer we may be

Siller canna buy the heart

That beats aye for thine and three.

We watched thee in the gloaming hour.

We watched thee in the morning grey;

Tho’ thirty thousand pounds they’d gie.

Oh there is nane that wed betray.

Sweet’s the laverock’s note and lang,

Lifting wildly up the glen;

But aye to me he sings ae sang,

Will ye no come back again?

Will ye no come back again?

Will ye no come back again?

Better lo’ed ye canna

Will ye no come back again?

CAROLINE OLIPHANT

The Land o’ the Leal

I’m wearin’ awa’, John,

Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John,

I’m wearin’ awa’

To the land o’ the leal.

There’s nae sorrow there, John,

There’s neither cauld nor care, John,

The day’s aye fair

In the land o’ the leal.

Our bonnie bairn’s there, John,

She was baith gude and fair, John,

And oh! we grudged her sair

To the land o’ the leal.

But sorrow’s sel’ wears past, John,

And joy’s a-comin’ fast, John,

The joy that’s aye to last,

In the land o’ the leal.

Sae dear’s that joy was bought, John,

Sae free the battle fought, John,

That sinfu’ man e’er brought

To the land o’ the leal.

Oh! dry your glist’ning e’e, John,

My saul langs to be free, John,

And angels beckon me

To the land o’ the leal.

Oh! haud ye leal and true, John,

Your day it’s wearin’ through, John,

And I’ll welcome you

To the land o’ the leal.

Now fare-ye-weel, my ain John,

This warld’s cares are vain, John,

We’ll meet, and we’ll be fain,

In the land o’ the leal.

CAROLINE OLIPHANT

Love is like a dizziness

O, love, love, love!

Love is like a dizziness;

It winna let a puir body

Gang about his biziness!

JAMES HOGG

The Village of Balmaquhapple

D’ye ken the big village of Balmaquhapple,

The great muckle village of Balmaquhapple?

’Tis steep’d in iniquity up to the thrapple,

An’ what’s to become o’ poor Balmaquhapple?

Fling a’ aff your bannets, an’ kneel for your life, fo’ks,

And pray to St Andrew, the god o’ the Fife fo’ks;

Gar a’ the hills yout wi’ sheer vociferation,

And thus you may cry on sic needfu’ occasion:

‘O, blessed St Andrew, if e’er ye could pity fo’k,

Men fo’k or women fo’k, country or city fo’k,

Come for this aince wi’ the auld thief to grapple,

An’ save the great village of Balmaquhapple

Frae drinking an’ leeing, an’ flyting an’ swearing,

An’ sins that ye wad be affrontit at hearing,

An’ cheating an’ stealing; O, grant them redemption,

All save an’ except the few after to mention:

‘There’s Johnny the elder, wha hopes ne’er to need ye,

Sae pawkie, sae holy, sae gruff, an’ sae greedy;

Wha prays every hour as the wayfarer passes,

But aye at a hole where he watches the lasses;

He’s cheated a thousand, an’ e’en to this day yet,

Can cheat a young lass, or they’re leears that say it

Then gie him his gate; he’s sae slee an’ sae civil,

Perhaps in the end he may wheedle the devil.

‘There’s Cappie the cobbler, an’ Tammie the tinman,

An’ Dickie the brewer, an’ Peter the skinman,

An’ Geordie our deacon, for want of a better,

An’ Bess, wha delights in the sins that beset her.

O, worthy St Andrew, we canna compel ye,

But ye ken as well as a body can tell ye,

If these gang to heaven, we’ll a’ be sae shockit,

Your garret o’ blue will but thinly be stockit.

‘But for a’ the rest, for the women’s sake, save them,

Their bodies at least, an’ their sauls, if they have them;

But it puzzles Jock Lesly, an’ sma’ it avails,

If they dwell in their stamocks, their heads, or their tails;

An’ save, without word of confession auricular,

The clerk’s bonny daughters, an’ Bell in particular,

For ye ken that their beauty’s the pride an’ the staple

Of the great wicked village of Balmaquhapple!’

JAMES HOGG

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

from The Prelude

O pleasant exercise of hope and joy!

For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood

Upon our side, us who were strong in love!

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very Heaven! O times,

In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways

Of custom, law, and statute, took at once

The attraction of a country in romance!

When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights

When most intent on making of herself

A prime enchantress – to assist the work,

Which then was going forward in her name!

Not favoured spots alone, but the whole Earth,

The beauty wore of promise – that which sets

(As at some moments might not be unfelt

Among the bowers of Paradise itself)

The budding rose above the rose full blown.

What temper at the prospect did not wake

To happiness unthought of? The inert

Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!

They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,

The play-fellows of fancy, who had made

All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength

Their ministers, – who in lordly wise had stirred

Among the grandest objects of the sense,

And dealt with whatsoever they found there

As if they had within some lurking right

To wield it; – they, too, who of gentle mood

Had watched all gentle motions, and to these

Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild,

And in the region of their peaceful selves; –

Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty

Did both find, helpers to their hearts’ desire,

And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish, –

Were called upon to exercise their skill,

Not in Utopia, – subterranean fields, –

Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where!

But in the very world, which is the world

Of all of us, – the place where, in the end,

We find our happiness, or not at all!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

On revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur. – Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

’Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone.

These beauteous forms

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye;

But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind,

With tranquil restoration: – feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man’s life.

His little, nameless, unremembered acts

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened: – that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on, –

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul:

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things.

If this

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft

In darkness and amid the many shapes

Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,

Have hung upon the bearings of my heart –

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods,

How often has my spirit turned to thee!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Floating Island

Harmonious powers with nature work

On sky, earth, river, lake and sea

Sunshine and cloud, whirlwind and breeze,

All in one duteous task agree.

Once did I see a slip of earth

By throbbing waves long undermined,

Loosed from its hold – how, no one knew,

But all might see it float, obedient to the wind,

Might see it from the mossy shore

Dissevered, float upon the lake,

Float with its crest of trees adorned

On which the warbling birds their pastime take.

Food, shelter, safety, there they find;

There berries ripen, flowerets bloom;

There insects live their lives – and die:

A peopled world it is, in size a tiny room.

And thus through many seasons’ space

This little island may survive,

But nature (though we mark her not)

Will take away, may cease to give.

Perchance when you are wandering forth

Upon some vacant sunny day

Without an object, hope, or fear,

Thither your eyes may turn – the isle is passed away,

Buried beneath the glittering lake,

Its place no longer to be found.

Yet the lost fragments shall remain

To fertilise some other ground.

DOROTHY WORDSWORTH

Frost at Midnight

The Frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind. The owlet’s cry

Came loud – and hark, again! loud as before.

The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,

Have left me to that solitude, which suits

Abstruser musings: save that at my side

My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.

’Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs

And vexes meditation with its strange

And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,

This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,

With all the numberless goings-on of life,

Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame

Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;

Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,

Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.

Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature

Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,

Making it a companionable form,

Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit

By its own moods interprets, every where

Echo or mirror seeking of itself,

And makes a toy of Thought.

But O! how oft,

How oft, at school, with most believing mind,

Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,

To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft

With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt

Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,

Whose bells, the poor man’s only music, rang

From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,

So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me

With a wild pleasure, falling on mine car

Most like articulate sounds of things to come!

So gazed I, till the soothing things I dreamt,

Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!

And so I brooded all the following morn,

Awed by the stern preceptor’s face, mine eye

Fixed with mock study on my swimming book:

Save if the door half opened, and I snatched

A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,

For still I hoped to see the stranger’s face,

Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,

My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,

Whose gentle breathings, heard in thus deep calm,

Fill up the interspersed vacancies

And momentary pauses of the thought!

My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart

With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,

And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,

And in far other scenes! For I was reared

In the great city, pent ’mid cloisters dim,

And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.

But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze

By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags

Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,

Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores

And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear

The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible

Of that eternal language, which thy God

Utters, who from eternity doth teach

Himself in all, and all things in himself.

Great universal Teacher! he shall mould

Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

Whether the summer clothe the general earth

With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall

Heard only in the trances of the blast,

Or if the secret ministry of frost

Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

A Soliloquy of the full Moon, She being in a Mad Passion –

Now as Heaven is my Lot, they’re the Pests of the Nation!

Wherever they can come

With clankum and blankum

’Tis all Botheration, & Hell & Damnation,

With fun, jeering

Conjuring

Sky-staring,

Loungering,

And still to the tune of Transmogrification –

Those muttering

Spluttering

Ventriloquogusty

Poets

With no Hats

Or Hats that are rusty.

They’re my Torment and Curse

And harass me worse

And bait me and bay me, far sorer I vow

Than the Screech of the Owl

Or the witch-wolf’s long howl,

Or sheep-killing Butcher-dog’s inward Bow wow

For me they all spite – an unfortunate Wight.

And the very first moment that I came to Light

A Rascal call’d Voss the more to his scandal,

Turn’d me into a sickle with never a handle.

A Night or two after a worse Rogue there came,

The head of the Gang, one Wordsworth by name –

‘Ho! What’s in the wind?’ ’Tis the voice of a Wizzard!

I saw him look at me most terribly blue!

He was hunting for witch-rhymes from great A to Izzard,

And soon as he’d found them made no more ado

But chang’d me at once to a little Canoe.

From this strange Enchantment uncharm’d by degrees

I began to take courage & hop’d for some Ease,

When one Coleridge, a Raff of the self-same Banditti

Passed by – & intending no doubt to be witty,

Because I’d th’ ill-fortune his taste to displease,

He turn’d up his nose,

And in pitiful Prose

Made me into the half of a small Cheshire Cheese.

Well, a night or two past – it was wind, rain & hail –

And I ventur’d abroad in a thick Cloak & veil –

But the very first Evening he saw me again

The last mentioned Ruffian popp’d out of his Den –

I was resting a moment on the bare edge of Naddle

I fancy the sight of me turn’d his Brains addle –

For what was I now?

A complete Barley-mow

And when I climb’d higher he made a long leg,

And chang’d me at once to an Ostrich’s Egg –

But now Heaven be praised in contempt of the Loon,

I am I myself I, the jolly full Moon.

Yet my heart is still fluttering –

For I heard the Rogue muttering –

He was hulking and skulking at the skirt of a Wood

When lightly & brightly on tip-toe I stood

On the long level Line of a motionless Cloud

And ho! what a Skittle-ground! quoth he aloud

And wish’d from his heart nine-pins to see

In brightness & size just proportion’d to me.

So I fear’d from my soul,

That he’d make me a Bowl,

But in spite of his spite

This was more than his might

And still Heaven be prais’d! in contempt of the Loon

I am I myself I, the jolly full Moon.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Written in Winter

The green warl’s awa, but the white ane can charm them

What skait on the burn, or wi’ settin’ dogs rin:

The hind’s dinlin’ han’s, numb’t wi’ snaw-baws, to warm them,

He claps on his hard sides, whase doublets are thin.

How dark the hail show’r mak’s yon vale, aince sae pleasing!

How laigh stoops the bush that’s ower-burden’t wi’ drift!

The icicles dreep at the half-thow’t house-easin’,

When blunt the sun beams frae the verge o’ the lift.

JAMES ORR

‘She walks in beauty, like the night’

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

LORD BYRON

‘So, we’ll go no more a roving’

So, we’ll go no more a roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,

Yet we’ll go no more a roving

By the light of the moon.

LORD BYRON

England in 1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, –

Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow

Through public scorn, – mud from a muddy spring, –

Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,

But leech-like to their fainting country cling,

Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, –

A people starved and stabbed in the unfilled field, –

An army, which liberticide and prey

Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, –

Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;

Religion Christless, Godless – a book sealed;

A Senate, – Tune’s worst statute unrepealed, –

Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may

Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Ode to the West Wind

I

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,

Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wingéd seeds, where they lie cold and low,

Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow

Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill

(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)

With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;

Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

II

Thou on whose stream, ’mid the steep sky’s commotion,

Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,

Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread

On the blue surface of thine airy surge.

Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge

Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night

Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,

Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere

Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: oh, hear!

III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay

Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers

Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou

For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below

The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear

The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,

And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!

IV

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free

Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even

I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed

Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed

One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

What if my leaves are falling like its own!

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!

And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Pleasant Sounds

The rustling of leaves under the feet in woods and under hedges. The crumping of cat-ice and snow down wood rides, narrow lanes and every street causeways. Rustling through a wood, or rather rushing while the wind halloos in the oak tops like thunder. The rustles of birds’ wings startled from their nests, or flying unseen into the bushes.

The whizzing of larger birds overhead in a wood, such as crows, puddocks, buzzards etc.

The trample of robust wood larks on the brown leaves, and the patter of squirrels on the green moss. The fall of an acorn on the ground, the pattering of nuts on the hazel branches ere they fall from ripeness. The flirt of the ground-lark’s wing from the stubbles, how sweet such pictures on dewy mornings when the dew flashes from its brown feathers.

JOHN CLARE

The Moors

Far spread the moory ground, a level scene

Bespread with rush and one eternal green

That never felt the rage of blundering plough

Though centuries wreathed spring’s blossoms on its brow,

Still meeting plains that stretched them far away

In unchecked shadows of green, brown and grey.

Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene

Nor fence of ownership crept in between

To hide the prospect of the following eye –

Its only bondage was the circling sky.

One mighty flat undwarfed by bush and tree

Spread its faint shadow of immensity

And lost itself, which seemed to eke its bounds,

In the blue mist the horizon’s edge surrounds.

Now this sweet vision of my boyish hours,

Free as spring clouds and wild as summer flowers,

Is faded all – a hope that blossomed free,

And hath been once, no more shall ever be.

Enclosure came and trampled on the grave

Of labour’s rights and left the poor a slave,

And memory’s pride, ere want to wealth did bow,

Is both the shadow and the substance now.

The sheep and cows were free to range as then

Where change might prompt, nor felt the bonds of men:

Cows went and came with evening, morn and night

To the wild pasture as their common right,

And sheep unfolded with the rising sun

Heard the swains shout and felt their freedom won,

Tracked the red fallow field and heath and plain,

Then met the brook and drank and roamed again –

The brook that dribbled on as clear as glass

Beneath the roots they hid among the grass –

While the glad shepherd traced their tracks along,

Free as the lark and happy as her song.

But now all’s fled and flats of many a dye

That seemed to lengthen with the following eye,

Moors losing from the sight, far, smooth and blea,

Where swopt the plover in its pleasure free,

Are vanished now with commons wild and gay

As poets’ visions of life’s early day.

Mulberry bushes where the boy would run

To fill his hands with fruit are grubbed and done,

And hedgerow briars – flower-lovers overjoyed

Came and got flower pots – these are all destroyed,

And sky-bound moors in mangled garbs are left

Like mighty giants of their limbs bereft.

Fence now meets fence in owners’ little bounds

Of field and meadow, large as garden grounds,

In little parcels little minds to please

With men and flocks imprisoned, ill at ease.

Each little path that led its pleasant way

As sweet as morning leading night astray,

Where little flowers bloomed round, a varied host,

That Travel felt delighted to be lost

Nor grudged the steps that he had ta’en as vain

When right roads traced his journey’s end again;

Nay on a broken tree he’d sit awhile

To see the moors and fields and meadows smile,

Sometimes with cowslips smothered – then all white

With daisies – then the summer’s splendid sight

Of corn fields crimson o’er, the ‘headache’ bloomed

Like splendid armies for the battle plumed;

He gazed upon them with wild fancy’s eye

As fallen landscapes from an evening sky.

These paths are stopped – the rude philistine’s thrall

Is laid upon them and destroyed them all.

Each little tyrant with his little sign

Shows where man claims, earth glows no more divine.

On paths to freedom and to childhood dear

A board sticks up to notice ‘no road here’

And on the tree with ivy overhung

The hated sign by vulgar taste is hung

As though the very birds should learn to know

When they go there they must no further go.

Thus, with the poor, scared freedom bade good-bye

And much they feel it in the smothered sigh,

And birds and trees and flowers without a name

All sighed when lawless law’s enclosure came,

And dreams of plunder in such rebel schemes

Have found too truly that they were but dreams.

JOHN CLARE

Summer Evening

The frog, half fearful, jumps across the path,

And little mouse that leaves its hole at eve

Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath;

My rustling steps awhile their joys deceive,

Till past – and then the cricket sings more strong

And grasshoppers in merry moods still wear

The short night wean’ with their fretting song.

Up from behind the mole-hill jumps die hare,

Cheat of his chosen bed, and from the bank

The yellow-hammer flutters in short fears

From off its nest hid in the grasses rank,

And drops again when no more noise it hears.

Thus nature’s human link and endless thrall,

Proud man, still seems the enemy of all.

JOHN CLARE

Oor Location

A hunner funnels bleezin’, reekin’,

Coal an’ ironstane, charrin’, smeekin’;

Navvies, miners, keepers, fillers,

Puddlers, rollers, iron millers;

Reestit, reekit, raggit laddies,

Firemen, enginemen, an’ Paddies;

Boatmen, banksmen, rough an’ rattlin’,

Bout the wecht wi’ colliers battlin’,

Sweatin’, swearin’, fechtin’, drinkin’;

Change-house bells an’ gill-stoups clinkin’;

Police – ready men and willin’ –

Aye at han’ whan stoups are fillin’;

Clerks an’ counter-loupers plenty,

Wi’ trim moustache and whiskers dainty –

Chaps that winna staun at trifles!

Min’ ye, they can han’le rifles!

’Bout the wives in oor location –

An’ the lassies’ botheration –

Some are decent, some are dandies,

An’ a gey wheen drucken randies;

Aye to neebors’ houses sailin’,

Greetin’ bairns ahint them trailin’,

Gaun for nouther bread nor butter,

Juist to drink an’ rin the cutter!

0 the dreadfu’ curse o’ drinkin’!

Men are ill, but, tae my thinkin’,

Leukin’ through the drucken fock,

There’s a Jenny for ilka Jock.

Oh the dool an’ desolation,

An’ the havock in the nation

Wrocht by dirty, drucken wives!

Oh hoo mony bairnies lives

Lost ilk year through their neglec’!

Like a millstane roun’ the neck

O’ the struggling toilin’ masses

Hing drucken wives an’ wanton lassies.

To see sae mony unwed mithers

Is sure a shame that taps a’ ithers.

An’ noo I’m fairly set a-gaun;

On baith the whisky-shop and pawn

I’ll speak my min’ – and what for no?

Frae whence cums misery, want, an’ wo

The ruin, crime, disgrace, an’ shame

That quenches a’ the lichts o’ hame?

Ye needna speer, the feck ot’s drawn

Oot o’ the change-hoose an’ the pawn.

Sin an’ Death, as poets tell,

On ilk side the doors o’ hell

Wait to haurl mortals in;

Death gets a’ that’s catcht by sin:

There are doors where Death an’ Sin

Draw their tens o’ thoosan’s in;

Thick an’ thrang we see them gaun,

First the dram-shop, then the pawn;

Owre a’ kin’s o’ ruination,

Drink’s the King in oor location!

JANET HAMILTON

Auld Mither Scotlan’

Na, na, I wunna pairt wi’ that,

I downa gi’e it up;

O’ Scotlan’s hamely mither tongue

I canna quat the grup.

It’s bedded in my very he’rt,

Ye needna rive an’ rug;

It’s in my e’e an’ on my tongue,

An’ singin’ in my lug.

O leeze me on the Scottish lass,

Fresh frae her muirlan’ hame,

Wi’ gowden or wi’ coal-black hair,

Row’d up wi’ bucklin’-kame;

Or wavin’ roun’ her snawy broo,

Sae bonnie, braid, an’ brent,

Gaun barefit wi’ her kiltit coat,

Blythe singin’ ower the bent.

I heard her sing ‘Auld Robin Gray’,

An’ ‘Yarrow’s dowie den’ –

O’ Flodden, an’ oor forest flouris

Cut doon by Englishmen;

My saul was fir’d, my he’rt was fu’,

The tear was in my e’e:

Let ither lan’s hae ither sangs –

Auld Scotlan’s sangs for me.

JANET HAMILTON

‘This living hand, now warm and capable’

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again,

And thou be conscience-calm’d – see here it is –

I hold it towards you.

JOHN KEATS

A Song about Myself

I

There was a naughty boy

A naughty boy was he,

He would not stop at home,

He could not quiet be –

He took

In his Knapsack

A Book

Full of vowels

And a shirt

With some towels –

A slight cap

For a night cap –

A hair brush,

Comb ditto,

New Stockings

For old ones

Would split O!

This Knapsack

Tight at’s back

He rivetted close

And followed his Nose

To the North,

To the North,

And followed his Nose

To the North.

II

There was a naughty boy

And a naughty boy was he,

For nothing would he do

But scribble poetry –

He took

An ink stand

In his hand

And a pen

Big as ten

In the other.

And away

In a Pother

He ran

To the mountains

And fountains

And ghostes

And Postes

And witches

And ditches

And wrote

In his coat

When the weather

Was cool,

Fear of gout

And without

When the weather

Was warm –

Och the charm

When we choose

To follow one’s nose

To the north

To the north,

To follow one’s nose

To the north!

III

There was a naughty boy

And a naughty boy was he,

He kept little fishes

In washing tubs three

In spite

Of the might

Of the Maid

Nor afraid

Of his Granny-good –

He often would

Hurly burly

Get up early

And go

By hook or crook

To the brook

And bring home

Miller’s thumb,

Tittlebat

Not over fat,

Minnows small

As the stall

Of a glove,

Not above

The size

Of a nice

Little Baby’s

Little fingers –

O he made

’Twas his trade

Of fish a pretty Kettle

A Kettle –

A Kettle

Of fish a pretty Kettle

A Kettle!

IV

There was a naughty Boy,

And a naughty Boy was he,

He ran away to Scotland

The people for to see –

Then he found

That the ground

Was as hard,

That a yard

Was as long,

That a song

Was as merry,

That a cherry

Was as red –

That lead

Was as weighty,

That fourscore

Was as eighty,

That a door

Was as wooden

As in England –

So he stood in his shoes

And he wondered,

He wondered,

He stood in his

Shoes and he wondered.

JOHN KEATS

On the Grasshopper and the Cricket

The poetry of earth is never dead:

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;

That is the Grasshopper’s – he takes the lead

In summer luxury, – he has never done

With his delights; for when tired out with fun

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.

The poetry of earth is ceasing never:

On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills

The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,

And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,

The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

JOHN KEATS

‘Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art’

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art –

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores.

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors –

No – yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever – or else swoon to death.

JOHN KEATS

Grief

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;

That only men incredulous of despair

Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air

Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access

Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness

In souls, as countries, lieth silent-bare

Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare

Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express

Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death:

Most like a monumental statue set

In everlasting watch and moveless woe,

Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.

Touch it: the marble eyelids are not wet;

If it could weep, it could arise and go.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

When Our Two Souls

When our two souls stand up erect and strong,

Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,

Until the lengthening wings break into fire

At either curved point, – what bitter wrong

Can the earth do to us, that we should not long

Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,

The angels would press on us, and aspire

To drop some golden orb of perfect song

Into our deep dear silence. Let us stay

Rather on earth. Beloved, where the unfit

Contrarious moods of men recoil away

And isolate pure spirits, and permit

A place to stand and love in for a day,

With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways’

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, – I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

Lord Walter’s Wife

‘But why do you go?’ said the lady, while both sate under the yew,

And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue.

‘Because I fear you,’ he answered; – ‘because you are far too fair,

And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your gold-coloured hair.’

‘Oh, that,’ she said, ‘is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone,

And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun.’

‘Yet farewell so,’ he answered; – ‘the sunstroke ‘s fatal at times.

I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the limes.’

‘O, that,’ she said, ‘is no reason. You smell a rose through a fence:

If two should smell it, what matter? who grumbles, and where’s the pretence?’

‘But I,’ he replied, ‘have promised another, when love was free,

To love her alone, alone, who alone and afar loves me.’

‘Why, that,’ she said, ‘is no reason. Love’s always free, I am told.

Will you vow to be safe from the headache on Tuesday, and think it will hold?’

‘But you,’ he replied, ‘have a daughter, a young little child, who was laid

In your lap to be pure; so I leave you: the angels would make me afraid.’

‘O, that,’ she said, ‘is no reason. The angels keep out of the way;

And Dora, the child, observes nothing, although you should please me and stay.’

At which he rose up in his anger, – ‘Why, now, you no longer are fair!

Why, now, you no longer are fatal, but ugly and hateful, I swear.’

At which she laughed out in her scorn, – ‘These men! O, these men overnice,

Who are shocked if a colour not virtuous is frankly put on by a vice.’

Her eyes blazed upon him – ‘And you! You bring us your vices so near

That we smell them! you think in our presence a thought ’t would defame us to hear!

‘What reason had you, and what right, – I appeal to your soul from my life, –

To find me too fair as a woman? Why, sir, I am pure, and a wife.

‘Is the day-star too fair up above you? It burns you not. Dare you imply

I brushed you more close than the star does, when Walter had set me as high?

‘If a man finds a woman too fair, he means simply adapted too much

To uses unlawful and fatal. The praise! – shall I thank you for such?

‘Too fair? – not unless you misuse us! and surely if, once in a while,

You attain to it, straightway you call us no longer too fair, but too vile.

‘A moment, – I pray your attention! – I have a poor word in my head

I must utter, though womanly custom would set it down better unsaid.

‘You grew, sir, pale to impertinence, once when I showed you a ring.

You kissed my fan when I dropped it. No matter! I’ve broken the thing.

‘You did me the honour, perhaps, to be moved at my side now and then

In the senses, – a vice, I have heard, which is common to beasts and some men

‘Love’s a virtue for heroes! – as white as the snow on high hills,

And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and fulfils.

‘I love my Walter profoundly, – you, Maude, though you faltered a week,

For the sake of … what was it? an eyebrow? or, less still, a mole on a cheek?

‘And since, when all’s said, you’re too noble to stoop to the frivolous cant

About crimes irresistible, virtues that swindle, betray, and supplant,

‘I determined to prove to yourself that, whate’er you might dream or avow

By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of me than you have now.

‘There! Look me full in the face! – in the face. Understand, if you can,

That the eyes of such women as I am are clean as the palm of a man.

‘Drop his hand, you insult him. Avoid us for fear we should cost you a scar, –

You take us for harlots, I tell you, and not for the women we are.

‘You wrong me: but then I consider … there’s Walter! And so at the end,

I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me, in the hand of a friend.

‘Have I hurt you indeed? We are quits then. Nay, friend of my Walter, be mine!

Come, Dora, my darling, my angel, and help me to ask him to dine.’

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

‘Come into the garden, Maud’

Come into the garden, Maud,

For the black bat, night, has flown,

Come into the garden, Maud,

I am here at the gate alone;

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,

And the musk of the rose is blown.

For a breeze of morning moves,

And the planet of Love is on high,

Beginning to faint in the light that she loves

On a bed of daffodil sky,

To faint in the light of the sun she loves,

To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard

The flute, violin, bassoon;

All night has the casement jessamine stirred

To the dancers dancing in tune;

Till a silence fell with the waking bird,

And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily, ‘There is but one

With whom she has heart to be gay.

When will the dancers leave her alone?

She is weary of dance and play.’

Now half to the setting moon are gone,

And half to the rising day;

Low on the sand and loud on the stone

The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose, ‘The brief night goes

In babble and revel and wine.

O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,

For one that will never be thine?

But mine, but mine,’ so I sware to the rose,

‘For ever and ever, mine.’

And the soul of the rose went into my blood,

As the music clashed in the hall;

And long by the garden lake I stood,

For I heard your rivulet fall

From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,

Our wood, that is dearer than all;

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet

That whenever a March-wind sighs

He sets the jewel-print of your feet

In violets blue as your eyes,

To the woody hollows in which we meet

And the valleys of Paradise.

The slender acacia would not shake

One long milk-bloom on the tree;

The white lake-blossom fell into the lake

As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;

But the rose was awake all night for your sake,

Knowing your promise to me;

The lilies and roses were all awake,

They sighed for the dawn and thee.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,

Come hither, the dances are done,

In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,

Queen lily and rose in one;

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,

To the flowers, and be their sun.

There has fallen a splendid tear

From the passion-flower at the gate.

She is coming, my dove, my dear;

She is coming, my life, my fate;

The red rose cries, ‘She is near, she is near;’

And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late;’

The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear;’

And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’

She is coming, my own, my sweet;

Were it ever so airy a tread,

My heart would hear her and beat,

Were it earth in an earthy bed;

My dust would hear her and beat,

Had I lain for a century dead;

Would start and tremble under her feet,

And blossom in purple and red.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Half a league, half a league,

Half league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!’ he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’

Was there a man dismay’d?

Not tho’ the soldier knew

Some one had blunder’d:

Their’s not to make reply,

Their’s not to reason why,

Their’s but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,

Flash’d as they turn’d in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

All the world wonder’d:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right thro’ the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reel’d from the sabre-stroke

Shatter’d and sunder’d.

Then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro’ the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wonder’d.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Crossing the Bar

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

The Visionary

Silent is the house: all are laid asleep:

One alone looks out o’er the snow-wreaths deep,

Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze

That whirls the wildering drift, and bends the groaning trees.

Cheerful is the hearth, soft the matted floor;

Not one shivering gust creeps through pane or door;

The little lamp burns straight, its rays shoot strong and far:

I trim it well, to be the wanderer’s guiding-star.

Frown, my haughty sire! chide, my angry dame;

Set your slaves to spy; threaten me with shame:

But neither sire nor dame, nor prying serf shall know,

What angel nightly tracks that waste of frozen snow.

What I love shall come like visitant of air,

Safe in secret power from lurking human snare;

What loves me, no word of mine shall e’er betray,

Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay.

EMILY AND CHARLOTTE BRONTË

Home-Thoughts, from Abroad

Oh, to be in England

Now that April’s there,

And whoever wakes in England

Sees, some morning, unaware,

That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough

In England – now!

And after April, when May follows,

And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!

Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge

Leans to the field and scatters on the clover

Blossoms and dewdrops – at the bent spray’s edge –

That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,

Lest you should think he never could recapture

The first fine careless rapture!

And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,

All will be gay when noontide wakes anew

The buttercups, the little children’s dower

– Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

ROBERT BROWNING

Meeting at Night

The grey sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon large and low;

And the startled little waves that leap

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed in the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, thro’ its joys and fears,

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

ROBERT BROWNING

Porphyria’s Lover

The rain set early in to-night.

The sullen wind was soon awake,

It tore the elm-tops down for spite,

And did its worst to vex the lake:

I listened with heart fit to break.

When glided in Porphyria; straight

She shut the cold out and the storm,

And kneeled and made the cheerless grate

Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;

Which done, she rose, and from her form

Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,

And laid her soiled gloves by, untied

Her hat and let the damp hair fall.

And, last, she sat down by my side

And called me. When no voice replied,

She put my arm about her waist.

And made her smooth white shoulder bare

And all her yellow hair displaced.

And stooping, made my cheek lie there

And spread, o’er all, her yellow hair,

Murmuring how she loved me – she

Too weak, for all her heart’s endeavour,

To set its struggling passion free

From pride, and vainer ties dissever,

And give herself to me for ever.

But passion sometimes would prevail,

Nor could to-night’s gay feast restrain

A sudden thought of one so pale

For love of her, and all in Vain:

So, she was come through wind and rain.

Be sure I looked up at her eyes

Happy and proud; at last I knew

Porphyria worshipped me; surprise

Made my heart swell, and still it grew

While I debated what to do.

That moment she was mine, mine, fair,

Perfectly pure and good: I found

A thing to do, and all her hair

In one long yellow string I wound

Three times her little throat around,

And strangled her. No pain felt she;

I am quite sure she felt no pain.

As a shut bud that holds the bee,

I warily oped her lids: again

Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.

And I untightened next the tress

About her neck; her cheek once more

Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss.

I propped her head up as before.

Only, this time my shoulder bore

Her head, which droops upon it still;

The smiling rosy little head,

So glad it has its utmost will.

That all it scorned at once is fled,

And I, its love, am gained instead!

Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how

Her darling one wish would be heard.

And thus we sit together now,

And all night long we have not stirred,

And yet God has not said a word!

ROBERT BROWNING

Dover Beach

The sea is calm to-night.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; – on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanch’d land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægæan, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

MATTHEW ARNOLD

A Christmas Carol

In the bleak mid-winter

Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,

Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,

Snow on snow,

In the bleak mid-winter

Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him

Nor earth sustain;

Heaven and earth shall flee away

When He comes to reign:

In the bleak mid-winter

A stable-place sufficed

The Lord God Almighty

Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him whom cherubim

Worship night and day,

A breastful of milk

And a mangerful of hay;

Enough for Him whom angels

Fall down before,

The ox and ass and camel

Which adore.

Angels and archangels

May have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim

Throng’d the air,

But only His mother

In her maiden bliss

Worshipped the Beloved

With a kiss.

What can I give Him,

Poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd

I would bring a lamb,

If I were a wise man

I would do my part, –

Yet what I can I give Him,

Give my heart.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

The Queen of Hearts

How comes it, Flora, that, whenever we

Play cards together, you invariably,

However the pack parts,

Still hold the Queen of Hearts?

I’ve scanned you with a scrutinising gaze,

Resolved to fathom these your secret ways:

But, sift them as I will,

Your ways are secret still.

I cut and shuffle; shuffle, cut, again;

But all my cutting, shuffling, proves in vain:

Vain hope, vain forethought too;

That Queen still falls to you.

I dropped her once, prepense; but, ere the deal

Was dealt, your instinct seemed her loss to feel:

‘There should be one card more,’

You said, and searched the floor.

I cheated once; I made a private notch

In Heart-Queen’s back, and kept a lynx-eyed watch;

Yet such another back

Deceived me in the pack:

The Queen of Clubs assumed by arts unknown

An imitative dint that seemed my own;

This notch, not of my doing,

Misled me to my ruin.

It baffles me to puzzle out the clue,

Which must be skill, or craft, or luck in you:

Unless, indeed, it be

Natural affinity.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!

With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array,

And your central girders, which seem to the eye

To be almost towering to the sky.

The greatest wonder of the day,

And a great beautification to the River Tay,

Most beautiful to be seen,

Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!

That has caused the Emperor of Brazil to leave

His home far away, incognito in his dress,

And view thee ere he passed along en route to Inverness.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!

The longest of the present day

That has ever crossed o’er a tidal river stream,

Most gigantic to be seen,

Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!

Which will cause great rejoicing on the opening day,

And hundreds of people will come from far away,

Also the Queen, most gorgeous to be seen,

Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!

And prosperity to Provost Cox, who has given

Thirty thousand pounds and upwards away

In helping to erect the Bridge of the Tay,

Most handsome to be seen,

Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!

I hope that God will protect all passengers

By night and by day,

And that no accident will befall them while crossing

The Bridge of the Silvery Tay,

For that would be most awful to be seen

Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!

And prosperity to Messrs Bouche and Grothe,

The famous engineers of the present day,

Who have succeeded in erecting the Railway

Bridge of the Silvery Tay,

Which stands unequalled to be seen

Near by Dundee and the Magdalen Green.

WILLIAM MCGONAGALL

A Scherzo (a Shy Person’s Wishes)

With the wasp at the innermost heart of a peach,

On a sunny wall out of tip-toe reach,

With the trout in the darkest summer pool,

With the fern-seed clinging behind its cool

Smooth frond, in the chink of an aged tree,

In the woodbine’s horn with the drunken bee,

With the mouse in its nest in a furrow old,

With the chrysalis wrapt in its gauzy fold;

With things that are hidden, and safe, and bold,

With things that are timid, and shy, and free,

Wishing to be;

With the nut in its shell, with the seed in its pod,

With the corn as it sprouts in the kindly clod,

Far down where the secret of beauty shows

In the bulb of the tulip, before it blows;

With things that are rooted, and firm, and deep,

Quiet to lie, and dreamless to sleep;

With things that are chainless, and tameless, and proud,

With the fire in the jagged thunder-cloud,

With the wind in its sleep, with the wind in its waking,

With the drops that go to the rainbow’s making,

Wishing to be with the light leaves shaking,

Or stones on some desolate highway breaking;

Far up on the lulls, where no foot surprises

The dew as it falls, or the dust as it rises;

To be couched with the beast in its torrid lair,

Or drifting on ice with the polar bear,

With the weaver at work at his quiet loom;

Anywhere, anywhere, out of this room!

DORA GREENWELL

Seven Times One: Exultation

There’s no dew left on the daisies and clover,

There’s no rain left in heaven:

I’ve said my ‘seven times’ over and over,

Seven times one are seven.

I am old, so old, I can write a letter;

My birthday lessons are done;

The lambs play always, they know no better;

They are only one times one.

O moon! in the night I have seen you sailing

And shining so round and low;

You were bright! ah bright! but your light is failing –

You are nothing now but a bow.

You moon, have you done something wrong in heaven

That God has hidden your face?

I hope if you have you will soon be forgiven,

And shine again in your place.

O velvet bee, you’re a dusty fellow,

You’ve powdered your legs with gold!

O brave marsh marybuds, rich and yellow,

Give me your money to hold!

O columbine, open your folded wrapper,

Where two twin turtle-doves dwell!

O cuckoopint, toll me the purple clapper

That hangs in your clear green bell!

And show me your nest with the young ones in it;

I will not steal them away;

I am old! you may trust me, linnet, linnet –

I am seven times one today.

JEAN INGELOW

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat.

They took some honey, and plenty of money,

Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

And sang to a small guitar,

‘O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are,

You are,

You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!’

Pussy said to the Owl, ‘You elegant fowl!

How charmingly sweet you sing!

O let us be married! too long we have tarried:

But what shall we do for a ring?’

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the Bong-Tree grows,

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood,

With a ring at the end of his nose,

His nose,

His nose,

With a ring at the end of his nose.

‘Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

Your ring?’ Said the Piggy, ‘I will.’

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dinèd on mince, and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon,

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

EDWARD LEAR

The Akond of Swat

Who or why, or which, or what,

Is the Akond of SWAT?

Is he tall or short, or dark or fair?

Does he sit on a stool or a sofa or chair,     or SQUAT,

The Akond of Swat?

Is he wise or foolish, young or old?

Does he drink his soup and his coffee cold,     or HOT,

The Akond of Swat?

Does he sing or whistle, jabber or talk,

And when riding abroad does he gallop or walk,     or TROT,

The Akond of Swat?

Does he wear a turban, a fez, or a hat?

Does he sleep on a mattress, a bed, or a mat,     or a COT,

The Akond of Swat?

When he writes a copy in round-hand size,

Does he cross his T’s and finish his I’s     with a DOT,

The Akond of Swat?

Can he write a letter concisely clear

Without a speck or a smudge or smear     or BLOT,

The Akond of Swat?

Do his people like him extremely well?

Or do they, whenever they can, rebel,     or PLOT,

At the Akond of Swat?

If he catches them then, either old or young,

Does he have them chopped in pieces or hung,     or SHOT,

The Akond of Swat?

Do his people prig in the lanes or park?

Or even at times, when days are dark,     GAROTTE?

O the Akond of Swat?

Does he study the wants of his own dominion?

Or doesn’t he care for public opinion     a JOT,

The Akond of Swat?

To amuse his mind do his people show him

Pictures,     or any one’s last new poem,     or WHAT,

For the Akond of Swat?

At night if he suddenly screams and wakes,

Do they bring him only a few small cakes,     or a LOT,

For the Akond of Swat?

Does he live on turnips, tea, or tripe?

Does he like his shawl to be marked with a stripe,     or a DOT,

The Akond of Swat?

Does he like to he on his back in a boat

Like the lady who lived in that isle remote,     SHALLOTT,

The Akond of Swat?

Is he quiet,     or always making a fuss?

Is his steward a Swiss or a Swede or a Russ,     or a SCOT,

The Akond of Swat?

Does he like to sit by the calm blue wave?

Or to sleep and snore in a dark green cave,     or a GROTT,

The Akond of Swat?

Does he drink small beer from a silver jug?

Or a bowl? or a glass? or a cup? or a mug?     or a POT,

The Akond of Swat?

Does he beat his wife with a gold-topped pipe,

When she lets the gooseberries grow too ripe,     or ROT,

The Akond of Swat?

Does he wear a white tie when he dines with friends,

And tie it neat in a bow with ends,     or a KNOT,

The Akond of Swat?

Does he like new cream, and hate mince-pies?

When he looks at the sun does he wink his eyes,     or NOT,

The Akond of Swat?

Does he teach his subjects to roast and bake?

Does he sail about on an inland lake, in     a YACHT,

The Akond of Swat?

Some one, or nobody, knows I wot

Who or which or why or what

Is the Akond of Swat!

EDWARD LEAR

The Walrus and the Carpenter

The sun was shining on the sea,

Shining with all his might:

He did his very best to make

The billows smooth and bright –

And this was odd, because it was

The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,

Because she thought the sun

Had got no business to be there

After the day was done –

‘It’s very rude of him,’ she said,

‘To come and spoil the fun.’

The sea was wet as wet could be,

The sands were dry as dry.

You could not see a cloud, because

No cloud was in the sky:

No birds were flying overhead –

There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter

Were walking close at hand;

They wept like anything to see

Such quantities of sand:

‘If this were only cleared away,’

They said, ‘it would be grand.’

‘If seven maids with seven mops

Swept it for half a year,

Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said,

‘That they could get it clear?’

‘I doubt it,’ said the Carpenter,

And shed a bitter tear.

‘O Oysters, come and walk with us!’

The Walrus did beseech.

‘A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,

Along the briny beach:

We cannot do with more than four,

To give a hand to each.’

The eldest Oyster looked at him,

But never a word he said:

The eldest Oyster winked his eye,

And shook his heavy head –

Meaning to say he did not choose

To leave the oyster-bed.

But four young Oysters hurried up,

All eager for the treat;

Their coats were brushed, their face s washed,

Their shoes were clean and neat –

And this was odd, because, you know,

They hadn’t any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,

And yet another four;

And thick and fast they came at last,

And more, and more, and more –

All hopping through the frothy waves,

And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter

Walked on a mile or so,

And then they rested on a rock

Conveniently low:

And all the little Oysters stood

And waited in a row.

‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,

‘To talk of many things:

Of shoes – and ships – and sealing-wax –

Of cabbages – and kings –

And why the sea is boiling hot –

And whether pigs have wings.’

‘But wait a bit,’ the Oysters cried,

‘Before we have our chat;

For some of us are out of breath,

And all of us are fat!’

‘No hurry!’ said the Carpenter.

They thanked him much for that.

‘A loaf of bread,’ the Walrus said,

‘Is what we chiefly need:

Pepper and vinegar besides

Are very good indeed –

Now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,

We can begin to feed.’

‘But not on us!’ the Oysters cried,

Turning a little blue.

‘After such kindness, that would be

A dismal thing to do!’

‘The night is fine,’ the Walrus said.

‘Do you admire the view?

‘It was so kind of you to come!

And you are very nice!’

The Carpenter said nothing but

‘Cut us another slice:

I wish you were not quite so deaf –

I’ve had to ask you twice!’

‘It seems a shame,’ the Walrus said,

‘To play them such a trick,

After we’ve brought them out so far,

And made them trot so quick!’

The Carpenter said nothing but

‘The butter’s spread too thick!’

‘I weep for you,’ the Walrus said:

‘I deeply sympathise.’

With sobs and tears he sorted out

Those of the largest size,

Holding his pocket-handkerchief

Before his streaming eyes.

‘O Oysters,’ said the Carpenter,

‘You’ve had a pleasant run!

Shall we be trotting home again?’

But answer came there none –

And this was scarcely odd, because

They’d eaten every one.

LEWIS CARROLL

Proud Songsters

The thrushes sing as the sun is going,

And the finches whistle in ones and pairs,

And as it gets dark loud nightingales

In bushes

Pipe, as they can when April wears,

As if all Time were theirs.

These are brand-new birds of twelve-months’ growing,

Which a year ago, or less than twain,

No finches were, nor nightingales,

Nor thrushes,

But only particles of grain,

And earth, and air, and rain.

THOMAS HARDY

After a Journey

Hereto I come to view a voiceless ghost;

Whither, O whither will its whim now draw me?

Up the cliff, down, till I’m lonely, lost,

And the unseen waters’ ejaculations awe me.

Where you will next be there’s no knowing,

Facing round about me everywhere,

With your nut-coloured hair,

And grey eyes, and rose-flush coming and going.

Yes: I have re-entered your olden haunts at last;

Through the years, through the dead scenes I have tracked you;

What have you now found to say of our past –

Scanned across the dark space wherein I have lacked you?

Summer gave us sweets, but autumn wrought division?

Things were not lastly as firstly well

With us twain, you tell?

But all’s closed now, despite Time’s derision.

I see what you are doing: you are leading me on

To spots we knew when we haunted here together,

The waterfall, above which the mist-bow shone

At the then fair hour in the then fair weather,

And the cave just under, with a voice still so hollow

That it seems to call out to me from forty years ago,

When you were all aglow,

And not the thin ghost that I now frailly follow!

Ignorant of what there is flitting here to see,

The waked birds preen and the seals flop lazily,

Soon you will have, Dear, to vanish from me,

For the stars close their shutters and the dawn whitens hazily.

Trust me, I mind not, though Life lours,

The bringing me here; nay, bring me here again!

I am just the same as when

Our days were a joy, and our paths through flowers.

THOMAS HARDY

Neutral Tones

We stood by a pond that winter day,

And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,

And a few leaves lay on the starving sod;

– They had fallen from an ash, and were grey.

Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove

Over tedious riddles of years ago;

And some words played between us to and fro

On which lost the more by our love.

The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing

Alive enough to have strength to die;

And a grin of bitterness swept thereby

Like an ominous bird a-wing …

Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,

And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me

Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree

And a pond edged with greyish leaves.

THOMAS HARDY

The Convergence of the Twain

Lines on the loss of the Titanic

I

In a solitude of the sea

Deep from human vanity,

And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

II

Steel chambers, late the pyres

Of her salamandrine fires,

Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III

Over the mirrors meant

To glass the opulent

The sea-worm crawls – grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV

Jewels in joy designed

To ravish the sensuous mind

Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V

Dim moon-eyed fishes near

Gaze at the gilded gear

And query: ‘What does this vaingloriousness down here?’ …

VI

Well: while was fashioning

This creature of cleaving wing,

The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII

Prepared a sinister mate

For her – so gaily great –

A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

VIII

And as the smart ship grew

In stature, grace, and hue,

In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

IX

Alien they seemed to be:

No morttal eye could see

The intimate welding of their later history,

X

Or sign that they were bent

By paths coincident

On being anon twin halves of one august event,

XI

Till the Spinner of the Years

Said ‘Now!’ And each one hears,

And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

THOMAS HARDY

Felix Randal

Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then? my duty all ended,

Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome

Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it and some

Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?

Sickness broke him. Impatient, he cursed at first, but mended

Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some

Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom

Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended!

This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears.

My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,

Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal;

How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,

When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,

Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

Hurrahing in Harvest

Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise

Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour

Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier

Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?

I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,

Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;

And éyes, héart, what looks, what lips yet gave you a

Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?

And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder

Majestic – as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!

These things, these things were here and but the beholder

Wanting: which two when they once meet,

The heart rears wings bold and bolder

And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

The Sea and the Skylark

On ear and ear two noises too old to end

Trench – right, the tide that ramps against the shore;

With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar,

Frequenting there while moon shall wear and wend.

Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend,

His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinèd score

In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour

And pelt music, till none’s to spill nor spend.

How these two shame this shallow and frail town!

How ring right out our sordid turbid time,

Being pure! We, life’s pride and cared-for crown,

Have lost that cheer and charm of earth’s past prime:

Our make and making break, are breaking, down

To man’s last dust, drain fast towards man’s first slime.

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

‘I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day’

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.

What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent

This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!

And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.

With witness I speak this. But where I say

Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament

Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent

To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree

Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;

Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.

Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see

The lost are like this, and their scourge to be

As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

London Snow

When men were all asleep the snow came flying,

In large white flakes falling on the city brown,

Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,

Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;

Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;

Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:

Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;

Hiding difference, making unevenness even,

Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.

All night it fell, and when full inches seven

It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,

The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;

And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness

Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:

The eye marvelled – marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;

The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;

No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,

And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.

Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,

They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze

Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;

Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;

Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder,

‘O look at the trees!’ they cried, ‘O look at the trees!’

With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,

Following along the white deserted way,

A country company long dispersed asunder:

When now already the sun, in pale display

Standing by Paul’s high dome, spread forth below

His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.

For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;

And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,

Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:

But even for them awhile no cares encumber

Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,

The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber

At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.

ROBERT BRIDGES

On a Dead Child

Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee,

With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!

Though cold and stark and bare,

The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee

Thy mother’s treasure wert thou; – alas! no longer

To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be

Thy father’s pride; – ah, he

Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger,

To me, as I move thee now in the last duty,

Dost thou with a turn or gesture anon respond;

Startling my fancy fond

With a chance attitude of the head, a freak of beauty.

Thy hand clasps, as ’twas wont, my finger, and holds it:

But the grasp is the clasp of Death, heartbreaking and stiff;

Yet feels to my hand as if

’Twas still thy will, thy pleasure and trust that enfolds it.

So I lay thee there, thy sunken eyelids closing, –

Go lie thou there in thy coffin, thy last little bed! –

Propping thy wise, sad head,

Thy firm, pale hands across thy chest disposing.

So quiet! doth the change content thee? – Death, whither hath he taken thee?

To a world, do I think, that rights the disaster of this?

The vision of which I miss,

Who weep for the body, and wish but to warm thee and awaken thee?

Ah! little at best can all our hopes avail us

To lift this sorrow, or cheer us, when in the dark,

Unwilling, alone we embark,

And the things we have seen and have known and have heard of, fail us.

ROBERT BRIDGES

Manly Sports

How brave is the hunter who nobly will dare

On horseback to follow the small timid hare;

Oh! ye soldiers who fall in defence of your flag,

What are you to the hero who brings down the stag?

Bright eyes glance admiring, soft hearts give their loves

To the knight who shoots best in ‘the tourney of doves’;

Nothing else with such slaughtering feats can compare,

To win manly applause, or the smiles of the fair.

A cheer for fox-hunting! Come all who can dare

Track this dangerous animal down to its lair;

’Tis first trapped, then set free for the huntsmen to follow

With horses and hounds, and with heartstirring halloo!

The brave knights on the moor when the grouse are a-drive,

Slay so many, you’d think, there’d be none left alive;

Oh! the desperate daring of slaughtering grouse,

Can only be matched in a real slaughterhouse.

The angler finds true Anglo-Saxon delight,

In trapping small fish, who so foolishly bite,

He enjoys the wild terror of creatures so weak,

And what manlier pleasures can any one seek?

MARION BERNSTEIN

The Lady Poverty

The Lady Poverty was fair:

But she has lost her looks of late,

With change of times and change of air.

Ah slattern! she neglects her hair,

Her gown, her shoes; she keeps no state

As once when her pure feet were bare.

Or – almost worse, if worse can be –

She scolds in parlours, dusts and trims,

Watches and counts. Oh, is this she

Whom Francis met, whose step was free,

Who with Obedience carolled hymns,

In Umbria walked with Chastity?

Where is her ladyhood? Not here,

Not among modern kinds of men;

But in the stony fields, where clear

Through the thin trees the skies appear,

In delicate spate soil and fen,

And slender landscape and austere.

ALICE MEYNELL

‘She was poor, but she was honest’

She was poor, but she was honest,

Victim of the squire’s whim:

First he loved her, then he left her,

And she lost her honest name.

Then she ran away to London,

For to hide her grief and shame;

There she met another squire,

And she lost her name again.

See her riding in her carriage,

In the Park and all so gay:

All the nibs and nobby persons

Come to pass the time of day.

See the little old-world village

Where her aged parents live,

Drinking the champagne she sends them;

But they never can forgive.

In the rich man’s arms she flutters,

Like a bird with broken wing:

First he loved her, then he left her,

And she hasn’t got a ring.

See him in the splendid mansion,

Entertaining with the best,

While the girl that he has ruined,

Entertains a sordid guest.

See him in the House of Commons,

Making laws to put down crime,

While the victim of his passions

Trails her way through mud and slime.

Standing on the bridge at midnight,

She says; ‘Farewell, blighted Love.’

There’s a scream, a splash – Good Heavens!

What is she a-doing of?

Then they drag her from the river,

Water from her clothes they wrang,

For they thought that she was drownded;

But the corpse got up and sang:

‘It’s the same the whole world over;

It’s the poor that gets the blame,

It’s the rich that gets the pleasure.

Isn’t it a blooming shame?’

ANON

The Woman of Llyn y Fan’s Call to Her Cattle

Spotted cow that’s light and freckled,

Dotted cow with white bespeckled,

Mottled cow so brightly deckled

Plod homewards now.

Kerry sheep long held in fold,

Merry sheep dong-belled with gold,

Fairy sheep song-spelled of old,

Drift homewards now.

Goat on high that’s dry of coat,

Goat with eye so sly to note,

Goat whose cry is wry in throat,

Skip homewards now.

Horses tall and gay and bobtailed,

Horses small and bay and lobtailed,

Horses all, though grey and hobnailed,

Clop homewards now.

ANON

translated by Gwyn Jones

Sonnet Found in a Deserted Mad-House

Oh that my soul a marrow-bone might seize!

For the old egg of my desire is broken,

Spilled is the pearly white and spilled the yolk, and

As the mild melancholy contents grease

My path the shorn lamb baas like bumblebees.

Time’s trashy purse is as a taken token

Or like a thrilling recitation, spoken

By mournful mouths filled full of mirth and cheese.

And yet, why should I clasp the earthful urn?

Or find the frittered fig that felt the fast?

Or choose to chase the cheese around the churn?

Or swallow any pill from out the past?

Ah, no Love, not while your hot kisses burn

Like a potato riding on the blast.

ANON

Symphony in Yellow

An omnibus across the bridge

Crawls like a yellow butterfly,

And, here and there, a passer-by

Shows like a little restless midge.

Big barges full of yellow hay

Are moored against the shadowy wharf,

And, like a yellow silken scarf,

The thick fog hangs along the quay.

The yellow leaves begin to fade

And flutter from the Temple elms,

And at my feet the pale green Thames

Lies like a rod of rippled jade.

OSCAR WILDE

The Motor Bus

What is this that roareth thus?

Can it be a Motor Bus?

Yes, the swell and hideous hum

Indicat Motorem Bum!

Implet in the Corn and High

Terror me Motoris Bi:

Bo Motori clamitabo

Ne Motore caeder a Bo –

Dative be or Ablative

So thou only let us live:

Whither shall thy victims flee?

Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!

Thus I sang; and still anigh

Came in hordes Motores Bi,

Et complebat omne forum

Copia Motorum Borum.

How shall wretches live like us

Cincti Bis Motoribus?

Domine, defende nos

Contra nos Motores Bos!

A. D. GODLEY

Soliloquy of a Maiden Aunt

The ladies bow, and partners set,

And turn around and pirouette

And trip the Lancers.

But no one seeks my ample chair,

Or asks me with persuasive air

To join the dancers.

They greet me, as I sit alone

Upon my solitary throne,

And pass politely.

Yet mine could keep the measured beat,

As surely as the youngest feet,

And tread as lightly.

No other maiden had my skill,

In our old homestead on the hill –

That merry May-time

When Allan closed the flagging ball,

And danced with me before them all,

Until the day-time.

Again I laugh, and step alone,

And curtsey low as on my own

His strong hand closes.

But Allan now seeks staid delight,

His son there, brought my niece to-night

These early roses.

Time orders well, we have our Spring,

Our songs, and may-flower gathering,

Our love and laughter.

And children chatter all the while,

And leap the brook and climb the stile

And follow after.

And yet – the step of Allan’s son,

Is not as light as was the one

That went before it.

And that old lace, I think, falls down

Less softly on Priscilla’s gown

Than when I wore it.

DOLLIE RADFORD

‘When first my way to fair I took’

When first my way to fair I took

Few pence in purse had I,

And long I used to stand and look

At things I could not buy.

Now times are altered: if I care

To buy a thing, I can;

The pence are here and here’s the fair,

But where’s the lost young man?

– To think that two and two are four

And neither five nor three

The heart of man has long been sore

And long ’tis like to be.

A. E. HOUSMAN

‘Here dead lie we because we did not choose’

Here dead lie we because we did not choose

To live and shame the land from which we sprung.

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;

But young men think it is, and we were young.

A. E. HOUSMAN

Tam i’ the Kirk

O Jean, my Jean, when the bell ca’s the congregation

Owre valley an’ hill wi’ the ding frae its iron mou’,

When a’body’s thochts is set on his ain salvation,

Mine’s set on you.

There’s a reid rose lies on the Buik o’ the Word ’afore ye

That was growin’ braw on its bush at the keek o’ day,

But the lad that pu’d yon flower i’ the mornin’s glory,

He canna pray.

He canna pray; but there’s nane i’ the kirk will heed him

Whaur he sits sae still his lane at the side o’ the wa’,

For nane but the reid rose kens what my lassie gied him –

It an’ us twa!

He canna sing for the sang that his ain he’rt raises,

He canna see for the mist that’s afore his e’en,

And a voice drouns the hale o’ the psalms an’ the paraphrases,

Cryin’ ‘Jean! Jean! Jean!’

VIOLET JACOB

The Way Through the Woods

They shut the road through the woods

Seventy years ago.

Weather and rain have undone it again,

And now you would never know

There was once a road through the woods

Before they planted the trees.

It is underneath the coppice and heath,

And the thin anemones.

Only the keeper sees

That, where the ring-dove broods,

And the badgers roll at ease,

There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods

Of a summer evening late,

When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools

Where the otter whistles his mate

(They fear not men in the woods,

Because they see so few)

You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet

And the swish of a skirt in the dew,

Steadily cantering through

The misty solitudes,

As though they perfectly knew

The old lost road through the woods….

But there is no road through the woods.

RUDYARD KIPLING

The Wild Swans at Coole

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,

Under the October twilight the water

Mirrors a still sky;

Upon the brimming water among the stones

Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

Since I first made my count;

I saw, before I had well finished,

All suddenly mount

And scatter wheeling in great broken rings

Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

And now my heart is sore.

All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,

The first time on this shore,

The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,

They paddle in the cold

Companionable streams or climb the air;

Their hearts have not grown old;

Passion or conquest, wander where they will,

Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,

Mysterious, beautiful;

Among what rushes will they build,

By what lake’s edge or pool

Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away?

W. B. YEATS

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire aflame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And some one called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

W. B. YEATS

No Second Troy

Why should I blame her that she filled my days

With misery, or that she would of late

Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,

Or hurled the little streets upon the great,

Had they but courage equal to desire?

What could have made her peaceful with a mind

That nobleness made simple as a fire,

With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind

That is not natural in an age like this,

Being high and solitary and most stern?

Why, what could she have done, being what she is?

Was there another Troy for her to burn?

W. B. YEATS

Easter, 1916

I have met them at close of day

Coming with vivid faces

From counter or desk among grey

Eighteenth-century houses.

I have passed with a nod of the head

Or polite meaningless words,

Or have lingered awhile and said

Polite meaningless words,

And thought before I had done

Of a mocking tale or a gibe

To please a companion

Around the fire at the club,

Being certain that they and I

But lived where motley is worn:

All changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

That woman’s days were spent

In ignorant good-will,

Her nights in argument

Until her voice grew shrill.

What voice more sweet than hers

When, young and beautiful,

She rode to harriers?

This man had kept a school

And rode our wingèd horse;

This other his helper and friend

Was coming into his force;

He might have won fame in the end,

So sensitive his nature seemed,

So daring and sweet his thought.

This other man I had dreamed

A drunken, vainglorious lout.

He had done most bitter wrong

To some who are near my heart,

Yet I number him in the song;

He, too, has resigned his part

In the casual comedy;

He, too, has been changed in his turn,

Transformed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone

Through summer and winter seem

Enchanted to a stone

To trouble the living stream.

The horse that comes from the road,

The rider, the birds that range

From cloud to tumbling cloud,

Minute by minute they change;

A shadow of cloud on the stream

Changes minute by minute;

A horse-hoof slides on the brim,

And a horse plashes within it;

The long-legged moor-hens dive,

And hens to moor-cocks call;

Minute by minute they live:

The stone’s in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice?

That is Heaven’s part, our part

To murmur name upon name,

As a mother names her child

When sleep at last has come

On limbs that had run wild.

What is it but nightfall?

No, no, not night but death;

Was it needless death after all?

For England may keep faith

For all that is done and said.

We know their dream; enough

To know they dreamed and are dead;

And what if excess of love

Bewildered them till they died?

I write it out in a verse –

MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

W. B. YEATS

An Irish Airman Foresees his Death

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate,

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

W. B. YEATS

The Farmer’s Bride

Three Summers since I chose a maid,

Too young maybe – but more’s to do

At harvest-time than bide and woo.

When us was wed she turned afraid

Of love and me and all things human;

Like the shut of a winter’s day.

Her smile went out, and ’twasn’t a woman –

More like a little frightened fay.

One night, in the Fall, she runned away.

‘Out ’mong the sheep, her be,’ they said,

’Should properly have been abed;

But sure enough she wasn’t there

Lying awake with her wide brown stare.

So over seven-acre field and up-along across the down

We chased her, flying like a hare

Before our lanterns. To Church-Town

All in a shiver and a scare

We caught her, fetched her home at last

And turned the key upon her, fast.

She does the work about the house

As well as most, but like a mouse:

Happy enough to chat and play

With birds and rabbits and such as they,

So long as men-folk keep away.

‘Not near, not near!’ her eyes beseech

When one of us comes within reach.

The women say that beasts in stall

Look round like children at her call.

I’ve hardly heard her speak at all.

Shy as a leveret, swift as he,

Straight and slight as a young larch tree,

Sweet as the first wild violets, she,

To her wild self. But what to me?

The short days shorten and the oaks are brown,

The blue smoke rises to the low grey sky,

One leaf in the still air falls slowly down,

A magpie’s spotted feathers lie

On the black earth spread white with rime,

The berries redden up to Christmas-time.

What’s Christmas-time without there be

Some other in the house than we!

She sleeps up in the attic there

Alone, poor maid. ’Tis but a stair

Betwixt us. Oh! my God! the down,

The soft young down of her, the brown,

The brown of her – her eyes, her hair, her hair!

CHARLOTTE MEW

On the Road to the Sea

We passed each other, turned and stopped for half an hour, then went our way,

I who make other women smile did not make you –

But no man can move mountains in a day.

So this hard thing is yet to do.

But first I want your life: – before I die I want to see

The world that lies behind the strangeness of your eyes,

There is nothing gay or green there for my gathering, it may be,

Yet on brown fields there lies

A haunting purple bloom: is there not something in grey skies

And in grey sea?

I want what world there is behind your eyes,

I want your life and you will not give it me.

Now, if I look, I see you walking down the years,

Young, and through August fields – a face, a thought, a

swinging dream perched on a stile –;

I would have liked (so vile we are!) to have taught you tears

But most to have made you smile.

To-day is not enough or yesterday: God sees it all –

Your length on sunny lawns, the wakeful rainy nights –; tell me –; (how vain to ask),

but it is not a question – just a call –;

Show me then, only your notched inches climbing up the garden wall,

I like you best when you are small.

Is this a stupid thing to say

Not having spent with you one day?

No matter; I shall never touch your hair

Or hear the little tick behind your breast,

Still it is there,

And as a flying bird

Brushes the branches where it may not rest

I have brushed your hand and heard

The child in you: I like that best

So small, so dark, so sweet; and were you also then too grave and wise?

Always I think. Then put your far off little hand in mine;

– Oh! let it rest;

I will not stare into the early world beyond the opening eyes,

Or vex or scare what I love best.

But I want your life before mine bleeds away –

Here – not in heavenly hereafters – soon, –

I want your smile this very afternoon,

(The last of all my vices, pleasant people used to say,

I wanted and I sometimes got – the Moon!)

You know, at dusk, the last bird’s cry,

And round the house the flap of the bat’s low flight,

Trees that go black against the sky

And then – how soon the night!

No shadow of you on any bright road again,

And at the darkening end of this – what voice? whose kiss? As if you’d say!

It is not I who have walked with you, it will not be I who take away

Peace, peace, my little handful of the gleaner’s grain

From your reaped fields at the shut of day.

Peace! Would you not rather die

Reeling, – with all the cannons at your ear?

So, at least, would I,

And I may not be here

To-night, to-morrow morning or next year.

Still I will let you keep your life a little while,

See dear?

I have made you smile.

CHARLOTTE MEW

The Trees are Down

– and he cried with a loud voice:

Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees –

– Revelation

They are cutting down the great plane-trees at the end of the gardens.

For days there has been the grate of the saw, the swish of the branches as they fall,

The crash of the trunks, the rustle of trodden leaves,

With the ‘Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas,’ the loud common talk, the loud common laughs of the men, above it all.

I remember one evening of a long past Spring

Turning in at a gate, getting out of a cart, and finding a large dead rat in the mud of the drive.

I remember thinking: alive or dead, a rat was a god-forsaken thing,

But at least, in May, that even a rat should be alive.

The week’s work here is as good as done. There is just one bough

On the roped bole, in the fine grey rain,

Green and high

And lonely against the sky.

(Down now! –)

And but for that,

If an old dead rat

Did once, for a moment, unmake the Spring, I might never have thought of him again.

It is not for a moment the Spring is unmade to-day;

These were great trees, it was in them from root to stem:

When the men with the Whoops’ and the ‘Whoas’ have carted the whole of the whispering loveliness away

Half the Spring, for me, will have gone with them.

It is going now, and my heart has been struck with the hearts of the planes;

Half my life it has beat with these, in the sun, in the rains,

In the March wind, the May breeze,

In the great gales that came over to them across the roofs from the great seas.

There was only a quiet rain when they were dying;

They must have heard the sparrows flying,

And the small creeping creatures in the earth where they were lying –

But I, all day, I heard an angel crying:

‘Hurt not the trees.’

CHARLOTTE MEW

Rooms

I remember rooms that have had their part

In the steady slowing down of the heart.

The room in Paris, the room at Geneva,

The little damp room with the seaweed smell,

And that ceaseless maddening sound of the tide –

Rooms where for good or for ill – things died.

But there is the room where we two lie dead,

Though every morning we seem to wake and might just as well seem to sleep again

As we shall somewhere in the other quieter, dustier bed

Out there in the sun – in the rain.

CHARLOTTE MEW

Ballade of Genuine Concern

A child at Brighton has been left to drown;

A railway train has jumped the line at Crewe;

I haven’t got the change for half a crown;

I can’t imagine what on earth to do …

Three bisons have stampeded from the Zoo,

A German fleet has anchored in the Clyde;

By God the wretched country’s up the flue!

– The ice is breaking up on every side.

What! Further news? Rhodesian stocks are down?

England, my England, can the news be true?

Cannot the Duke be got to come to town?

Or will not Mr Hooper pull us through?

And now the Bank is stopping payment, too,

The chief cashier has cut his throat and died,

And Scotland Yard has failed to find a clue:

– The ice is breaking up on every side.

A raging mob inflamed by Charley Brown

Is tearing up the rails at Waterloo;

They’ve hanged the Chancellor in wig and gown,

The Speaker, and the Chief Inspector, too!

Police! Police! Is this the road to Kew?

I can’t keep up: my garter’s come untied:

I shall be murdered by the savage crew.

– The ice is breaking up on every side.

ENVOI

Prince of the Empire, Prince of Timbuctoo

Prince eight feet round and nearly four feet wide,

Do try to run a little faster, do –

– The ice is breaking up on every side.

HILAIRE BELLOC

Hannaker Mill

Sally is gone that was so kindly,

Sally is gone from Hannaker Hill.

And the briar grows ever since then so blindly

And ever since then the clapper is still,

And the sweeps have fallen from Hannaker Mill.

Hannaker Hill is in desolation:

Ruin a-top and a field unploughed.

And Spirits that call on a falling nation,

Spirits that loved her calling aloud:

Spirits abroad in a windy cloud.

Spirits that call and no one answers;

Hannaker’s down and England’s done.

Wind and thistle for pipe and dancers,

And never a ploughman under the sun:

Never a ploughman. Never a one.

HILAIRE BELLOC

The Villain

While joy gave clouds the light of stars,

That beamed where’er they looked;

And calves and lambs had tottering knees,

Excited, while they sucked;

While every bird enjoyed his song,

Without one thought of harm or wrong –

I turned my head and saw the wind,

Not far from where I stood,

Dragging the corn by her golden hair,

Into a dark and lonely wood.

W. H. DAVIES

No

A drear, wind-weary afternoon,

Drenched with rain was the autumn air;

As weary, too, though not of the wind,

I fell asleep in my chair.

Lost in that slumber I dreamed a dream

And out of its strangeness in stealth awoke;

No longer alone. Though who was near

I opened not eyes to look;

But stayed for a while in half-heavenly joy,

Half-earthly grief; nor moved:

More conscious, perhaps, than – had she been there –

Of whom, – and how much, – I loved.

WALTER DE LA MARE

The Birthnight

Dearest, it was a night

That in its darkness rocked Orion’s stars;

A sighing wind ran faintly white

Along the willows, and the cedar boughs

Laid their wide hands in stealthy peace across

The starry silence of their antique moss:

No sound save rushing air

Cold, yet all sweet with Spring,

And in thy mother’s arms, couched weeping there,

Thou, lovely thing.

WALTER DE LA MARE

The Rolling English Road

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,

And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;

A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread

The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,

And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;

But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed

To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,

Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,

The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run

Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?

The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,

But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.

God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear

The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,

Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,

But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,

And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;

For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,

Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

G. K. CHESTERTON

Ballade of Liquid Refreshment

Last night we started with some dry vermouth;

Some ancient sherry with a golden glow;

Then many flagons of the soul of fruit

Such as Burgundian vineyards only grow;

A bottle each of port was not de trop;

And then old brandy till the east was pink

– But talking makes me hoarse as any crow.

Excuse me while I go and have a drink.

Some talk of Alexander: some impute

Absorbency to Mirabeau-Tonneau;

Some say that General Grant and King Canute,

Falstaff and Pitt and Edgar Allan Poe,

Prince Charlie, Carteret, Hans Breitmann – so

The list goes on – they say that these could clink

The can, and take their liquor – A propos!

Excuse me while I go and have a drink.

Spirit of all that lives, from God to brute,

Spirit of love and life, of sun and snow,

Spirit of leaf and limb, of race and root,

How wonderfully art thou prison’d! Lo!

I quaff the cup, I feel the magic flow,

And Superman succeeds to Missing Link,

(I say, ‘I quaff’; but am I quaffing? No!

Excuse me while I go and have a drink.)

ENVOI

Hullo there, Prince! Is that you down below

Kicking and frying by the brimstone brink?

Well, well! It had to come some time, you know.

Excuse me while I go and have a drink.

E. C. BENTLEY

Adlestrop

Yes. I remember Adlestrop –

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express-train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.

N o one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop – only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

EDWARD THOMAS

Words

Out of us all

That make rhymes,

Will you choose

Sometimes –

As the winds use

A crack in a wall

Or a drain,

Their joy or their pain

To whistle through –

Choose me,

You English words?

I know you:

You are light as dreams,

Tough as oak,

Precious as gold,

As poppies and corn,

Or an old cloak:

Sweet as our birds

To the ear,

As the burnet rose

In the heat

Of Midsummer:

Strange as the races

Of dead and unborn:

Strange and sweet

Equally,

And familiar,

To the eye,

As the dearest faces

That a man knows,

And as lost homes are:

But though older far

Than oldest yew, –

As our hills are, old. –

Worn new

Again and again:

Young as our streams

After rain:

And as dear

As the earth which you prove

That we love.

Make me content

With some sweetness

From Wales

Whose nightingales

Have no wings, –

From Wiltshire and Kent

And Herefordshire,

And the villages there, –

From the names, and the things

No less.

Let me sometimes dance

With you,

Or climb

Or stand perchance

In ecstasy,

Fixed and free

In a rhyme,

As poets do.

EDWARD THOMAS

What shall I give?

What shall I give my daughter the younger

More than will keep her from cold and hunger?

I shall not give her anything.

If she shared South Weald and Havering,

Their acres, the two brooks running between,

Paine’s Brook and Weald Brook,

With pewit, woodpecker, swan, and rook,

She would be no richer than the queen

Who once on a time sat in Havering Bower

Alone, with the shadows, pleasure and power.

She could do no more with Samarcand,

Or the mountains of a mountain land

And its far white house above cottages

Like Venus above the Pleiades.

Her small hands I would not cumber

With so many acres and their lumber,

But leave her Steep and her own world

And her spectacled self with hair uncurled,

Wanting a thousand little things

That time without contentment brings.

EDWARD THOMAS

Tall Nettles

Tall nettles cover up, as they have done

These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough

Long worn out, and the roller made of stone:

Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.

This corner of the farmyard I like most:

As well as any bloom upon a flower

I like the dust on the nettles, never lost

Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.

EDWARD THOMAS

The Nightingale Near the House

Here is the soundless cypress on the lawn:

It listens, listens. Taller trees beyond

Listen. The moon at the unruffled pond

Stares. And you sing, you sing.

That star-enchanted song falls through the air

From lawn to lawn down terraces of sound,

Darts in white arrows on the shadowed ground;

While all the night you sing.

My dreams are flowers to which you are a bee,

As all night long I listen, and my brain

Receives your song, then loses it again

In moonlight on the lawn.

Now is your voice a marble high and white,

Then like a mist on fields of paradise;

Now is a raging fire, then is like ice,

Then breaks, and it is dawn.

HAROLD MONRO

Overheard on a Saltmarsh

Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?

Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?

Give them me.

No.

Give them me. Give them me.

No.

Then I will howl all night in the reeds,

Lie in the mud and howl for them.

Goblin, why do you love them so?

They are better than stars or water,

Better than voices of winds that sing,

Better than any man’s fair daughter,

Your green glass beads on a silver ring.

Hush, I stole them out of the moon.

Give me your beads, I want them.

No.

I will howl in a deep lagoon

For your green glass beads, I love them so.

Give them me. Give them.

No.

HAROLD MONRO

The Lion and Albert

There’s a famous seaside place called Blackpool,

That’s noted for fresh air and fun,

And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom

Went there with young Albert, their son.

A grand little lad was young Albert,

All dressed in his best; quite a swell

With a stick with an ’orse’s ’ead ’andle,

The finest that Woolworth’s could sell.

They didn’t think much to the Ocean:

The waves, they was fiddlin’ and small,

There was no wrecks and nobody drownded,

Fact, nothing to laugh at at all.

So, seeking for further amusement,

They paid and went into the Zoo,

Where they’d Lions and Tigers and Camels,

And old ale and sandwiches too.

There were one great big Lion called Wallace;

His nose were all covered with scars –

He lay in a somnolent posture,

With the side of his face on the bars.

Now Albert had heard about Lions,

How they was ferocious and wild –

To see Wallace lying so peaceful,

Well, it didn’t seem right to the child.

So straightway the brave little feller,

Not showing a morsel of fear,

Took his stick with it’s ’orse’s ’ead ’andle

… And pushed it in Wallace’s ear.

You could see that the Lion didn’t like it,

For giving a kind of a roll,

He pulled Albert inside the cage with ’im,

And swallowed the little lad ’ole.

Then Pa, who had seen the occurence,

And didn’t know what to do next,

Said ‘Mother! Yon Lion’s ’et Albert’,

And Mother said, ‘Well I am vexed!’

Then Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom –

Quite rightly, when all’s said and done –

Complained to the Animal Keeper,

That the Lion had eaten their son.

The keeper was quite nice about it;

He said ‘What a nasty mishap.

Are you sure that it’s your boy he’s eaten?’

Pa said ‘Am I sure? There’s his cap!’

The manager had to be sent for.

He came and he said ‘What’s to do?’

Pa said ‘Yon Lion’s ’et Albert,

And ’im in his Sunday clothes, too.’

The Mother said, ‘Right’s right, young feller;

I think it’s a shame and a sin,

For a lion to go and eat Albert,

And after we’ve paid to come in.’

The manager wanted no trouble,

He took out his purse right away,

Saying ‘How much to settle the matter?’

And Pa said ‘What do you usually pay?’

But Mother had turned a bit awkward

When she thought where her Albert had gone.

She said ‘No! someone’s got to be summonsed’ –

So that was decided upon.

Then off they went to the P’lice Station,

In front of the Magistrate chap;

They told ’im what happened to Albert,

And proved it by showing his cap.

The Magistrate gave his opinion

That no one was really to blame

And he said that he hoped the Ramsbottoms

Would have further sons to their name.

At that Mother got proper blazing,

‘And thank you, sir, kindly,’ said she.

‘What waste all our lives raising children

To feed ruddy Lions? Not me!’

MARRIOTT EDGAR

Mrs Reece Laughs

Laughter, with us, is no great undertaking,

A sudden wave that breaks and dies in breaking.

Laughter with Mrs Reece is much less simple:

It germinates, it spreads, dimple by dimple,

From small beginnings, things of easy girth,

To formidable redundancies of mirth.

Clusters of subterranean chuckles rise

And presently the circles of her eyes

Close into slits and all the woman heaves

As a great elm with all its mounds of leaves

Wallows before the storm. From hidden sources

A mustering of blind volcanic forces

Takes her and shakes her till she sobs and gapes.

Then all that load of bottled mirth escapes

In one wild crow, a lifting of huge hands,

And creaking stays, and visage that expands

In scarlet ridge and furrow. Thence collapse,

A hanging head, a feeble hand that flaps

An apron-end to stir an air and waft

A steaming face. And Mrs Reece has laughed.

MARTIN ARMSTRONG

The Fired Pot

In our town, people live in rows.

The only irregular thing in a street is the steeple,

And where that points to, God only knows,

And not the poor disciplined people!

And I have watched the women growing old,

Passionate about pins, and pence, and soap,

Till the heart within my wedded breast grew cold,

And I lost hope.

But a young soldier came to our town,

He spoke his mind most candidly.

He asked me quickly to lie down,

And that was very good for me.

For though I gave him no embrace –

Remembering my duty –

He altered the expression of my face,

And gave me back my beauty.

ANNA WICKHAM

Meditation at Kew

Alas! for all the pretty women who marry dull men,

Go into the suburbs and never come out again,

Who lose their pretty faces, and dim their pretty eyes,

Because no one has skill or courage to organise.

What do these pretty women suffer when they marry?

They bear a boy who is like Uncle Harry,

A girl, who is like Aunt Eliza, and not new.

These old dull races must breed true.

I would enclose a common in the sun,

And let the young wives out to laugh and run;

I would steal their dull clothes and go away,

And leave the pretty naked things to play.

Then I would make a contract with hard Fate

That they see all the men in the world and choose a mate,

And I would summon all the pipers in the town

That they dance with Love at a feast, and dance him down.

From the gay unions of choice

We’d have a race of splendid beauty, and of thrilling voice.

The World whips frank gay love with rods,

But frankly gaily shall be got the gods.

ANNA WICKHAM

Survivors

No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and strain

Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.

Of course they’re ‘longing to go out again,’ –

These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.

They’ll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed

Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died, –

Their dreams that drip with murder; and they’ll be proud

Of glorious war that shatter’d all their pride …

Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;

Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

SIEGFRIED SASSOON

The General

‘Good-morning; good-morning!’ the General said

When we met him last week on our way to the line.

Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead,

And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.

‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to jack

As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

.   .   .

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

SIEGFRIED SASSOON

Everyone Sang

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;

And I was filled with such delight

As prisoned birds must find in freedom,

Winging wildly across the white

Orchards and dark-green fields; on – on –

and out of sight.

Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted;

And beauty came like the setting sun:

My heart was shaken with tears; and horror

Drifted away … O, but Everyone

Was a bird; and the song was wordless;

the singing will never be done.

SIEGFRIED SASSOON

Falling Asleep

Voices moving about in the quiet house:

Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors:

Everyone yawning. Only the clocks are alert.

Out in the night there’s autumn-smelling gloom

Crowded with whispering trees; across the park

A hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells:

And I know that the clouds are moving across the moon;

The low, red, rising moon. Now herons call

And wrangle by their pool; and hooting owls

Sail from the wood above pale stooks of oats.

Waiting for sleep, I drift from thoughts like these;

And where to-day was dream-like, build my dreams.

Music … there was a bright white room below,

And someone singing a song about a soldier,

One hour, two hours ago: and soon the song

Will be ‘last night’; but now the beauty swings

Across my brain, ghost of remembered chords

Which still can make such radiance in my dream

That I can watch the marching of my soldiers,

And count their faces; faces; sunlit faces.

Falling asleep … the herons, and the hounds …

September in the darkness; and the world

I’ve known; all fading past me into peace.

SIEGFRIED SASSOON

August 1914

What in our lives is burnt

In the fire of this?

The heart’s dear granary?

The much we shall miss?

Three lives hath one life –

Iron, honey, gold.

The gold, the honey gone –

Left is the hard and cold.

Iron are our lives

Molten right through our youth.

A burnt space through ripe fields,

A fair mouth’s broken tooth.

ISAAC ROSENBERG

Break of Day in the Trenches

The darkness crumbles away –

It is the same old druid Time as ever.

Only a live thing leaps my hand –

A queer sardonic rat –

As I pull the parapet’s poppy

To stick behind my ear.

Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew

Your cosmopolitan sympathies

(And God knows what antipathies).

Now you have touched this English hand

You will do the same to a German –

Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure

To cross the sleeping green between.

It seems you inwardly grin as you pass

Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes

Less chanced than you for life,

Bonds to the whims of murder,

Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,

The torn fields of France.

What do you see in our eyes

At the shrieking iron and flame

Hurled through still heavens?

What quaver – what heart aghast?

Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins

Drop, and are ever dropping;

But mine in my ear is safe,

Just a little white with the dust.

ISAAC ROSENBERG

Lunch Hour

Withdrawn for a little space from the confusion

Of pulled potatoes littered on broken earth,

We lay in the shadowed ditch, a peaceful circle

Of food, drink, smoke, and mirth.

The smell of the ditch was hot and sweet, and heavy

With poppy flowers, and tangled with nettle-weed.

In the grass a cricket chirped his eternal question,

Like a thin tune on a reed.

Blue tobacco-smoke drifted and curled about us;

Its eddying wove for us a mystic screen.

The field and its littered trenches dropped, and shimmered

In the clear gulf between

Real and dream; the gulf where shadowless silence

Dwells and beauty is strange, and thin, and far,

And the world is quiet and flat, as pictures woven

On old tapestries are.

So we lay and laughed in the breathless noon-tide.

Your laughter, and your faces, burnt with the sun,

Were as far and as near as heaven, and as mystic….

And the lunch hour was done.

Stiffly we stooped again in the sun-baked trenches,

And flung the lifted potatoes into pails.

And the earth stood out once more in relief and shadow,

Wholesome, like fairy-tales.

ROSE MACAULAY

The Silent One

Who died on the wires, and hung there, one of two –

Who for his hours of life had chattered through

Infinite lovely chatter of Bucks accent:

Yet faced unbroken wires; stepped over, and went

A noble fool, faithful to his stripes – and ended.

But I weak, hungry, and willing only for the chance

Of line – to fight in the line, lay down under unbroken

Wires, and saw the flashes and kept unshaken,

Till the politest voice – a finicking accent, said:

‘Do you think you might crawl through there: there’s a hole.’

Darkness, shot at: I smiled, as politely replied –

‘I’m afraid not. Sir.’ There was no hole no way to be seen

Nothing but chance of death, after tearing of clothes.

Kept flat, and watched the darkness, hearing bullets whizzing –

And thought of music – and swore deep heart’s deep oaths

(Polite to God) and retreated and came on again,

Again retreated – and a second time faced the screen.

IVOR GURNEY

First Time In

After the dread tales and red yarns of the Line

Anything might have come to us; but the divine

Afterglow brought us up to a Welsh colony

Hiding in sandbag ditches, whispering consolatory

Soft foreign things. Then we were taken in

To low huts candle-lit, shaded close by slitten

Oilsheets, and there but boys gave us kind welcome,

So that we looked out as from the edge of home,

Sang us Welsh things, and changed all former notions

To human hopeful things. And the next day’s guns

Nor any Line-pangs ever quite could blot out

That strangely beautiful entry to war’s rout;

Candles they gave us, precious and shared over-rations –

Ulysses found little more in his wanderings without doubt.

‘David of the White Rock’, the ‘Slumber Song’ so soft, and that

Beautiful tune to which roguish words by Welsh pit boys

Are sung – but never more beautiful than here under the guns’ noise.

IVOR GURNEY

The Soaking

The rain has come, and the earth must be very glad

Of its moisture, and the made roads, all dust clad;

It lets a veil down on the lucent dark,

And not of any bright ground thing shows its spark.

Tomorrow’s grey morning will show cowparsley,

Hung all with shining drops, and the river will be

Duller because of the all soddenness of things,

Till the skylark breaks his reluctance, hangs shaking, and sings.

IVOR GURNEY

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing bells for those who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

WILFRED OWEN

Disabled

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,

And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,

Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park

Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,

Voices of play and pleasure after day,

Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

*

About this time Town used to swing so gay

When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,

And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,

– In the old times, before he threw away his knees.

Now he will never feel again how slim

Girls’ waists are, or how warm their subtle hands.

All of them touch him like some queer disease.

*

There was an artist silly for his face,

For it was younger than his youth, last year,

Now, he is old; his back will never brace;

He’s lost his colour very far from here,

Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,

And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race

And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.

One time he liked a bloodsmear down his leg,

After the matches, carried shoulder-high.

It was after football, when he’d drunk a peg,

He thought he’d better join. – He wonders why.

Someone had said he’d look a god in kilts,

That’s why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,

Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts

He asked to join. He didn’t have to beg;

Smiling they wrote his lie: aged nineteen years.

Germans he scarcely thought of; all their guilt

And Austria’s, did not move him. And no fears

Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts

For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;

And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;

Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.

And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.

*

Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.

Only a solemn man who brought him fruits

Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.

*

Now, he will spend a few sick years in institutes,

And do what things the rules consider wise,

And take whatever pity they may dole.

Tonight he noticed how the women’s eyes

Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.

How cold and late it is! Why don’t they come

And put him into bed? Why don’t they come?

WILFRED OWEN

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime …

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria more.

WILFRED OWEN

Insensibility

I

Happy are men who yet before they are killed

Can let their veins run cold.

Whom no compassion fleers

Or makes their feet

Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.

The front line withers,

But they are troops who fade, not flowers

For poets’ tearful fooling:

Men, gaps for filling:

Losses who might have fought

Longer; but no one bothers.

II

And some cease feeling

Even themselves or for themselves.

Dullness best solves

The tease and doubt of shelling,

And Chance’s strange arithmetic

Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.

They keep no check on armies’ decimation.

III

Happy are these who lose imagination:

They have enough to carry with ammunition.

Their spirit drags no pack,

Their old wounds save with cold can not more ache.

Having seen all things red,

Their eyes are rid

Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.

And terror’s first constriction over,

Their hearts remain small-drawn.

Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle

Now long since ironed,

Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned.

IV

Happy the soldier home, with not a notion

How somewhere, every dawn, some men attack,

And many sighs are drained.

Happy the lad whose mind was never trained:

His days are worth forgetting more than not.

He sings along the march

Which we march taciturn, because of dusk,

The long, forlorn, relentless trend

From larger day to huger night.

V

We wise, who with a thought besmirch

Blood over all our soul,

How should we see our task

But through his blunt and lashless eyes?

Alive, he is not vital overmuch;

Dying, not mortal overmuch;

Nor sad, nor proud,

Nor curious at all.

He cannot tell

Old men’s placidity from his.

VI

But cursed are dullards whom no cannon stuns,

That they should be as stones;

Wretched are they, and mean

With paucity that never was simplicity.

By choice they made themselves immune

To pity and whatever moans in man

Before the last sea and the hapless stars;

Whatever mourns when many leave these shores;

Whatever shares

The eternal reciprocity of tears.

WILFRED OWEN

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S’io credessi che mia risposta fosse

a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

questa fiamma staria senza più scosse.

Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo

non tornò vivo alcun, s’i’ odo il vero,

senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question …

Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair –

(They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin –

(They will say: But how his arms and legs are thin!’)

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all –

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all –

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all –

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

.   .   .   .   .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

.   .   .   .   .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep … tired … or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet – and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it towards some overwhelming question,

To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’ –

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all.’

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor –

And this, and so much more? –

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

‘That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all.’

.   .   .   .   .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous –

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

T. S. ELIOT

from The Waste Land

A GAME OF CHESS

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,

Glowed on the marble, where the glass

Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines

From which a golden Cupidon peeped out

(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)

Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra

Reflecting light upon the table as

The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,

From satin cases poured in rich profusion.

In vials of ivory and coloured glass

Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,

Unguent, powdered, or liquid – troubled, confused

And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air

That freshened from the window, these ascended

In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,

Flung their smoke into the laquearia,

Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.

Huge sea-wood fed with copper

Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,

In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.

Above the antique mantel was displayed

As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene

The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king

So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale

Filled all the desert with inviolable voice

And still she cried, and still the world pursues,

‘Jug Jug’ to dirty ears.

And other withered stumps of time

Were told upon the walls; staring forms

Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.

Footsteps shuffled on the stair.

Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair

Spread out in fiery points

Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.

‘My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.

‘Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.

‘What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?

‘I never know what you are thinking. Think.’

I think we are in rats’ alley

Where the dead men lost their bones.

‘What is that noise?’

The wind under the door.

‘What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?’

Nothing again nothing.

‘Do

‘You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember

‘Nothing?’

I remember

Those are pearls that were his eyes.

‘Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?’

But

O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag –

It’s so elegant

So intelligent

‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?

‘I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street

‘With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?

‘What shall we ever do?’

The hot water at ten.

And if it rains, a closed car at four.

And we shall play a game of chess,

(The ivory men make company between us)

Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.

When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said –

I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself,

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

Now Albert’s coming back, make yourself a bit smart.

He’ll want to know what you done with that money he gave you

To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.

You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,

He said, I swear, I can’t bear to look at you.

And no more can’t I, I said, and think of poor Albert,

He’s been in the army four years, he wants a good time,

And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.

Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said.

Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

If you don’t like it you can get on with it, I said.

Others can pick and choose if you can’t.

But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling.

You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.

(And her only thirty-one.)

I can’t help it, she said, pulling a long face,

It’s them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.

(She’s had five already, and nearly died of young George.)

The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same.

You are a proper fool, I said.

Well, if Albert won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,

What you get married for if you don’t want children?

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,

And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot –

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME

Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.

Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.

Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

T. S. ELIOT

Full Moon

She was wearing coral taffeta trousers

Someone had bought her from Isfahan,

And the little gold coat with pomegranate blossoms,

And the coral-hafted feather fan,

But she ran down a Kentish lane in the moonlight,

And skipped in the pool of moon as she ran.

She cared not a rap for all the big planets,

For Betelgeuse or Aldebaran,

And all the big planets cared nothing for her,

That small impertinent charlatan,

As she climbed on a Kentish stile in the moonlight,

And laughed at the sky through the sticks of her fan.

VITA SACKVILLE-WEST

The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly

Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty

How he fell with a roll and a rumble

And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple

By the butt of the Magazine Wall,

(Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,

Hump, helmet and all?

He was one time our King of the Castle

Now he’s kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.

And from Green street he’ll be sent by order of His Worship

To the penal jail of Mountjoy

(Chorus) To the jail of Mountjoy!

Jail him and joy.

He was fafafather of all schemes for to bother us

Slow coaches and immaculate contraceptives for the populace,

Mare’s milk for the sick, seven dry Sundays a week,

Openair love and religion’s reform,

(Chorus) And religious reform,

Hideous in form.

Arrah, why, says you, couldn’t he manage it?

I’ll go bail, my fine dairyman darling,

Like the bumping bull of the Cassidys

All your butter is in your horns.

(Chorus) His butter is in his horns.

Butter his horns!

(Repeat) Hurrah there, Hosty, frosty Hosty, change that shirt on ye,

Rhyme the rann, the king of all ranns!

Balbaccio, balbuccio!

We had chaw chaw chops, chairs, chewing gum, the chickenpox and china chambers

Universally provided by this soffsoaping salesman.

Small wonder He’ll Cheat E’erawan our local lads nicknamed him

When Chimpden first took the floor

(Chorus) With his bucketshop store

Down Bargainweg, Lower.

So snug he was in his hotel premises sumptuous

But soon we’ll bonfire all his trash, tricks and trumpery

And ’tis short till sheriff Clancy’ll be winding up his unlimited company

With the bailiff’s bom at the door,

(Chorus) Bimbam at the door.

Then he’ll bum no more.

Sweet bad luck on the waves washed to our island

The hooker of that hammerfast viking

And Gall’s curse on the day when Eblana bay

Saw his black and tan man-o’-war.

(Chorus) Saw his man-o’-war

On the harbour bar.

Where from? roars Poolbeg. Cookingha’pence, he bawls

Donnez-moi scampitle, wick an wipin’fampiny

Fingal Mac Oscar Onesine Bargearse Boniface

Thok’s min gammelhole Norveegickers moniker

Og as ay are at gammelhore Norveegickers cod.

(Chorus) A Norwegian camel old cod.

He is, begod.

Lift it, Hosty, lift it, ye devil ye! up with the rann, the rhyming rann!

It was during some fresh water garden pumping

Or, according to the Nursing Mirror, while admiring the monkeys

That our heavyweight heathen Humpharey

Made bold a maid to woo

(Chorus) Woohoo, what’ll she doo!

The general lost her maidenloo!

He ought to blush for himself, the old hayheaded philosopher,

For to go and shove himself that way on top of her.

Begob, he’s the crux of the catalogue

Of our antediluvial zoo,

(Chorus) Messrs. Billing and Coo.

Noah’s larks, good as noo.

He was joulting by Wellinton’s monument

Our rotorious hippopopotamuns

When some bugger let down the backtrap of the omnibus

And he caught his death of fusiliers

(Chorus) With his rent in his rears.

Give him six years.

’Tis sore pity for his innocent poor children

But look out for his missus legitimate!

When that frew gets a grip of old Earwicker

Won’t there be earwigs on the green?

(Chorus) Big earwigs on the green,

The largest ever you seen.

Suffoclose! Shikespower! Seudodanto! Anonymoses!

Then we’ll have a free trade Gaels’ band and mass meeting

For to sod the brave son of Scandiknavery.

And we’ll bury him down in Oxmanstown

Along with the devil and Danes,

(Chorus) With the deaf and dumb Danes,

And all their remains.

And not all the king’s men nor his horses

Will resurrect his corpus

For there’s no true spell in Connacht or hell

(bis) That’s able to raise a Cain.

JAMES JOYCE

Ducks

I

From troubles of the world

I turn to ducks,

Beautiful comical things

Sleeping or curled

Their heads beneath white wings

By water cool,

Or finding curious things

To eat in various mucks

Beneath the pool,

Tails uppermost, or waddling

Sailor-like on the shores

Of ponds, or paddling

– Left! right! – with fanlike feet

Which are for steady oars

When they (white galleys) float

Each bird a boat

Rippling at will the sweet

Wide waterway …

When night is fallen you creep

Upstairs, but drakes and dillies

Nest with pale water-stars,

Moonbeams and shadow bars,

And water-lilies:

Fearful too much to sleep

Since they’ve no locks

To click against the teeth

Of weasel and fox.

And warm beneath

Are eggs of cloudy green

Whence hungry rats and lean

Would stealthily suck

New life, but for the mien,

The bold ferocious mien

Of the mother-duck.

II

Yes, ducks are valiant things

On nests of twigs and straws,

And ducks are soothy things

And lovely on the lake

When that the sunlight draws

Thereon their pictures dim

In colours cool.

And when beneath the pool

They dabble, and when they swim

And make their rippling rings,

O ducks are beautiful things!

But ducks are comical things: –

As comical as you.

Quack!

They waddle round, they do.

They eat all sorts of things,

And then they quack.

By barn and stable and stack

They wander at their will,

But if you go too near

They look at you through black

Small topaz-tinted eyes

And wish you ill.

Triangular and clear

They leave their curious track

In mud at the water’s edge,

And there amid the sedge

And slime they gobble and peer

Saying ‘Quack! quack!’

III

When God had finished the stars and whirl of coloured suns

He turned His mind from big things to fashion little ones,

Beautiful tiny things (like daisies) He made, and then

He made the comical ones in case the minds of men

Should stiffen and become

Dull, humourless and glum:

And so forgetful of their Maker be

As to take even themselves – quite seriously.

Caterpillars and cats are lively and excellent puns:

All God’s jokes are good – even the practical ones!

And as for the duck, I think God must have smiled a bit

Seeing those bright eyes blink on the day He fashioned it.

And He’s probably laughing still at the sound that came out of its bill!

F. W. HARVEY

A Saturday in the ’20s

The child came to the dark library,

Afraid. Feeling the darkness of the men

Sitting so silently – not reading –

On the tilted chairs.

The steps to go in were loaded with darkness.

Men stood hinged on their heavy arms

A smell of cloth-pudding boiling on a winter day –

The child knew this smell

Damp caps over embittered minds, they smell the same.

Men’s gear stricken, like the ancient smoke

Above the table. No one was smoking.

Yet there it hung.

Then the lame man stumped with his keys.

Opening cases,

Muttering. What was a child doing here,

Among darkened men? Wanting locked books?

The child snatched and fled

While the books bloomed in a fire between the covers,

Waiting to burst for her – Saturday’s great new rose.

The men lolled silent, holding their empty hands

On their dark knees. She was afraid.

Yet above fear, she wanted their books

That they did not read.

What the dark men wanted

She was too young and well cared for to understand.

JEAN EARLE

The Bonnie Broukit Bairn

For Peggy

Mars is braw in crammasy,

Venus in a green silk goun,

The auld mune shak’s her gowden feathers,

Their starry talk’s a wheen o’ blethers,

Nane for thee a thochtie sparin’,

Earth, thou bonnie broukit bairn!

– But greet, an’ in your tears ye’ll droun

The haill clanjamfrie!

HUGH MACDIARMID

Back Bedroom

The dirty licht that through the winnock seeps

Into this unkempt room has glozed strange sichts;

Heaven like a Peepin’ Tam ’twixt chimley-pots

Keeks i’ the drab fore-nichts.

The folk that hed it last – the selfsame bed –

Were a great hulkin’ cairter an’ his bride.

She deed i’ child-birth – on this verra spot

Whaur we’ll lie side by side.

An’ everything’s deid-grey except oor een.

Wi’ wee waugh jokes we strip an’ intae bed …

An’ suddenly oor een sing oot like stars

An’ a’ oor misery’s shed.

What tho’ the auld dour licht is undeceived?

What tho’ a callous morn oure shairly comes?

For a wee while we ken but een like stars,

An’ oor herts gaen’ like drums.

Mony’s the dreich back bedroom whaur the same

Sad little miracle tak’s place ilk’ nicht,

An’ orra shapes o’ sickly-hued mankind

Cheenge into forms o’ licht.

HUGH MACDIARMID

Mary’s Song

I wad ha’e gi’en him my lips tae kiss,

Had I been his, had I been his;

Barley breid and elder wine,

Had I been his as he is mine.

The wanderin’ bee it seeks the rose;

Tae the lochan’s bosom the burnie goes;

The grey bird cries at evenin’s fa’,

‘My luve, my fair one, come awa’,

My beloved sall ha’e this he’rt tae break,

Reid, reid wine and the barley cake,

A he’rt tae break, and a mou’ tae kiss,

Tho’ he be nae mine, as I am his.

MARION ANGUS

The Blue Jacket

When there comes a flower to the stingless nettle,

To the hazel bushes, bees,

I think I can see my little sister

Rocking herself by the hazel trees.

Rocking her arms for very pleasure

That every leaf so sweet can smell,

And that she has on her the warm blue jacket

Of mine, she liked so well.

Oh to win near you, little sister!

To hear your soft lips say –

‘I’ll never tak’ up wi’ lads or lovers,

But a baby I maun hae.

‘A baby in a cradle rocking,

Like a nut, in a hazel shell,

And a new blue jacket, like this o’ Annie’s,

It sets me aye sae well.’

MARION ANGUS

Alas! Poor Queen

She was skilled in music and the dance

And the old arts of love

At the court of the poisoned rose

And the perfumed glove,

And gave her beautiful hand

To the pale Dauphin

A triple crown to win –

And she loved little dogs

And parrots

And red-legged partridges

And the golden fishes of the Duc de Guise

And a pigeon with a blue ruff

She had from Monsieur d’Elbœuf.

Master John Knox was no friend to her;

She spoke him soft and kind,

Her honeyed words were Satan’s lure

The unwary soul to bind

‘Good sir, doth a lissome shape

And a comely face

Offend your God His Grace

Whose Wisdom maketh these

Golden fishes of the Duc de Guise?’

She rode through Liddesdale with a song;

‘Ye streams sae wondrous strang,

Oh, mak’ me a wrack as I come back

But spare me as I gang,’

While a hill-bird cried and cried

Like a spirit lost

By the grey storm-wind tost.

Consider the way she had to go.

Think of the hungry snare,

The net she herself had woven,

Aware or unaware,

Of the dancing feet grown still,

The blinded eyes –

Queens should be cold and wise,

And she loved little things,

Parrots

And red-legged partridges

And the golden fishes of the Duc de Guise

And the pigeon with the blue ruff

She had from Monsieur d’Elbœuf.

MARION ANGUS

The Bells of Rhymney

O what can you give me?

Say the sad bells of Rhymney.

Is there hope for the future?

Cry the brown bells of Merthyr.

Who made the mineowner?

Say the black bells of Rhondda.

And who robbed the miner?

Cry the grim bells of Blaina.

They will plunder willy-nilly,

Say the bells of Caerphilly.

They have fangs, they have teeth

Shout the loud bells of Neath.

To the south, things are sullen,

Say the pink bells of Brecon.

Even God is uneasy,

Say the moist bells of Swansea.

Put the vandals in court

Cry the bells of Newport.

All would be well if – if – if –

Say the green bells of Cardiff.

Why so worried, sisters, why

Sing the silver bells of Wye.

IDRIS DAVIES

The Angry Summer

Mrs Evans fach, you want butter again.

How will you pay for it now, little woman

With your husband out on strike, and full

Of the fiery language? Ay, I know him,

His head is full of fire and brimstone

And a lot of palaver about communism,

And me, little Dan the grocer

Depending so much on private enterprise.

What, depending on the miners and their

Money too? O yes, in a way, Mrs Evans,

Yes, in a way I do, mind you.

Come tomorrow, little woman, and I’ll tell you then

What I have decided overnight,

Go home now and tell that rash red husband of yours

That your grocer cannot afford to go on strike

Or what would happen to the butter from Carmarthen?

Good day for now, Mrs Evans fach.

IDRIS DAVIES

Cascando

I

why not merely the despaired of

occasion of

wordshed

is it not better abort than be barren

the hours after you are gone are so leaden

they will always start dragging too soon

the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want

bringing up the bones the old loves

sockets filled once with eyes like yours

all always is it better too soon than never

the black want splashing their faces

saying again nine days never floated the loved

nor nine months

nor nine lives

II

saying again

if you do not teach me I shall not learn

saying again there is a last

even of last times

last times of begging

last times of loving

of knowing not knowing pretending

a last even of last times of saying

if you do not love me I shall not be loved

if I do not love you I shall not love

the churn of stale words in the heart again

love love love thud of the old plunger

pestling the unalterable

whey of words

terrified again

of not loving

of loving and not you

of being loved and not by you

of knowing not knowing pretending

pretending

I and all the others that will love you

if they love you

III

unless they love you

SAMUEL BECKETT

Piano

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;

Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see

A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings

And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song

Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong

To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside

And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour

With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour

Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Innocent England

Oh what a pity, Oh! don’t you agree

that figs aren’t found in the land of the free!

Fig-trees don’t grow in my native land;

there’s never a fig-leaf near at hand

when you want one; so I did without;

and that is what the row’s about.

Virginal, pure policemen came

and hid their faces for very shame,

while they carried the shameless things away

to gaol, to be hid from the light of day.

And Mr Mead, that old, old lily

said: ‘Gross! coarse! hideous!’ – and I, like a silly

thought he meant the faces of the police-court officials,

and how right he was, and I signed my initials

to confirm what he said: but alas, he meant

my pictures, and on the proceedings went.

The upshot was, my pictures must burn

that English artists might finally learn

when they painted a nude, to put a cache sexe on,

a cache sexe, a cache sexe, or else begone!

A fig-leaf; or, if you cannot find it

a wreath of mist, with nothing behind it.

A wreath of mist is the usual thing

in the north, to hide where the turtles sing.

Though they never sing, they never sing,

don’t you dare to suggest such a thing

or Mr Mead will be after you.

– But what a pity I never knew

A wreath of English mist would do

as a cache sexe! I’d have put a whole fog.

But once and forever barks the old dog,

so my pictures are in prison, instead of in the Zoo.

D. H. LAWRENCE

Week-night Service

The five old bells

Are hurrying and eagerly calling.

Imploring, protesting

They know, but clamorously falling

Into gabbling incoherence, never resting,

Like spattering showers from a bursten sky-rocket dropping

In splashes of sound, endlessly, never stopping.

The silver moon

That somebody has spun so high

To settle the question, yes or no, has caught

In the net of the night’s balloon,

And sits with a smooth bland smile up there in the sky

Smiling at naught,

Unless the winking star that keeps her company

Makes little jests at the bells’ insanity,

As if he knew aught!

The patient Night

Sits indifferent, hugged in her rags,

She neither knows nor cares

Why the old church sobs and brags;

The light distresses her eyes, and tears

Her old blue cloak, as she crouches and covers her face,

Smiling, perhaps, if we knew it, at the bells’ loud clattering disgrace.

The wise old trees

Drop their leaves with a faint, sharp hiss of contempt,

While a car at the end of the street goes by with a laugh;

As by degrees

The poor bells cease, and the Night is exempt,

And the stars can chaff

The ironic moon at their ease, while the dim old church

Is peopled with shadows and sounds and ghosts that lurch

In its cenotaph.

D. H. LAWRENCE

The Fox

A hundred yards from the peak, while the bells

Of the churches on the slopes called to prayer

And the unspent sun of marvellous July

Called to the mountain, – it was then,

On unfelt feet and and with silent stride,

He paced his rare wonders before us.

We did not move, we did not breathe,

A moment paralysed; like a trinity in stone

We stood, while in untroubled midstep

He paused in surprise, and above

His single hesitant step the two steady flames

Of his eyes held us.

Then, without haste or fear,

He slipped his russet coat over the ridge;

It happened, it ended, like a shooting star.

ROBERT WILLIAMS PARRY

translated by Barry Tobin

Childhood

I used to think that grown-up people chose

To have stiff backs and wrinkles round their nose,

And veins like small fat snakes on either hand,

On purpose to be grand.

Till through the banisters I watched one day

My great-aunt Etty’s friend who was going away,

And how her onyx beads had come unstrung.

I saw her grope to find them as they rolled;

And then I knew that she was helplessly old,

As I was helplessly young.

FRANCES CORNFORD

To a Fat Lady Seen from a Train

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

O fat white woman whom nobody loves,

Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

When the grass is soft as the breast of doves

And shivering-sweet to the touch?

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

FRANCES CORNFORD

The Ponnage Pool

… Sing

Some simple silly sang

O’ willows or o’ mimulus

A river’s banks alang

– HUGH MACDIARMID

I mind o’ the Ponnage Pule,

The reid brae risin’,

Morphie Lade.

An’ the saumon that louped the dam,

A tree i’ Martin’s Den

Wi’ names carved on it;

But I ken na wha I am.

Ane o’ the names was mine,

An’ still I own it.

Naething it kens

O’ a’ that mak’s up me.

Less I ken o’ mysel’

Than the saumon wherefore

It rins up Esk frae the sea.

I am the deep o’ the pule,

The fish, the fisher,

The river in spate,

The brune of the far peat-moss,

The shingle bricht wi’ the flooer

O’ the yallow mim’lus,

The martin fleein’ across.

I mind o’ the Ponnage Pule

On a shinin’ mornin’,

The saumon fishers

Nettin’ the bonny brutes –

I’ the slithery dark o’ the boddom

O’ Charon’s Coble

Ae day I’ll faddom my doobts.

HELEN B. CRUICKSHANK

The Interrogation

We could have crossed the road but hesitated,

And then came the patrol;

The leader conscientious and intent,

The men surly, indifferent.

While we stood by and waited

The interrogation began. He says the whole

Must come out now, who, what we are,

Where we have come from, with what purpose, whose

Country or camp we plot for or betray.

Question on question.

We have stood and answered through the standing day

And watched across the road beyond the hedge

The careless lovers in pairs go by,

Hand linked in hand, wandering another star,

So near we could shout to them. We cannot choose

Answer or action here,

Though still the careless lovers saunter by

And the thoughtless field is near.

We are on the very edge,

Endurance almost done,

And still the interrogation is going on.

EDWIN MUIR

The Late Wasp

You that through all the dying summer

Came every morning to our breakfast table,

A lonely bachelor mummer,

And fed on the marmalade

So deeply, all your strength was scarcely able

To prise you from the sweet pit you had made, –

You and the earth have now grown older,

And your blue thoroughfares have felt a change;

They have grown colder;

And it is strange

How the familiar avenues of the air

Crumble now, crumble; the good air will not hold,

All cracked and perished with the cold;

And down you dive through nothing and through despair.

EDWIN MUIR

from In Parenthesis

It’s difficult with the weight of the rifle.

Leave it – under the oak.

Leave it for a salvage-bloke

let it lie bruised for a monument

dispense the authenticated fragments to the faithful.

It’s the thunder-besom for us

it’s the bright bough borne

it’s the tensioned yew for a Genoese jammed arbalest and a

scarlet square for a mounted mareschal, it’s that county-mob

back to back. Majuba mountain and Mons Cherubim and

spreaded mats for Sydney Street East, and come to Bisley for a

Silver Dish. It’s R.S.M. O’Grady says, it’s the soldier’s best

friend if you care for the working parts and let us be ’aving

those springs released smartly in Company billets on wet

forenoons and clickerty-click and one up the spout and you

men must really cultivate the habit of treating this weapon with

the very greatest care and there should be a healthy rivalry

among you – it should be a matter of very proper pride and

Marry it man! Marry it!

Cherish her, she’s your very own.

Coax it man coax it – it’s delicately and ingeniously made

– it’s an instrument of precision – it costs us tax-payers, money

– I want you men to remember that.

Fondle it like a granny – talk to it – consider it as you would a

friend – and when you ground these arms she’s not a rooky’s

gas-pipe for greenhorns to tarnish.

You’ve known her hot and cold.

You would choose her from among many.

You know her by her bias, and by her exact error at 300, and

by the deep scar at the small, by the fair flaw in the grain,

above the lower sling-swivel – but leave it under the oak.

DAVID JONES

Aubade

Jane, Jane,

Tall as a crane,

The morning light creaks down again;

Comb your cockscomb-ragged hair,

Jane, Jane, come down the stair.

Each dull blunt wooden stalactite

Of rain creaks, hardened by the light,

Sounding like an overtone

From some lonely world unknown.

But the creaking empty light

Will never harden into sight,

Will never penetrate your brain

With overtones like the blunt rain.

The light would show (if it could harder.)

Eternities of kitchen garden,

Cockscomb flowers that none will pluck

And wooden flowers that ‘gin to cluck.

In the kitchen you must light

Flames as staring, red and white,

As carrots or as turnips, shining

Where the cold dawn light lies whining.

Cockscomb hair on the cold wind

Hang limp, turns the milk’s weak mind…

Jane, Jane,

Tall as a crane,

The morning light creaks down again!

EDITH SITWELL

Still Falls the Rain

The Raids, 1940. Night and Dawn

Still falls the Rain –

Dark as the world of man, black as our loss –

Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails

Upon the Cross.

Still falls the Rain

With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat

In the Potter’s Field, and the sound of the impious feet

On the Tomb:

Still falls the Rain

In the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human brain

Nurtures its greed, that worm with the brow of Cain.

Still falls the Rain –

At the feet of the Starved Man hung upon the Cross.

Christ that each day, each night, nails there, have mercy on us –

On Dives and on Lazarus:

Under the Rain the sore and the gold are as one.

Still falls the Rain –

Still falls the Blood from the Starved Man’s wounded Side:

He bears in His Heart all wounds, – those of the light that died,

The last faint spark

In the self-murdered heart, the wounds of the sad uncomprehending dark,

The wounds of the baited bear, –

The blind and weeping bear whom the keepers beat

On his helpless flesh … the tears of the hunted hare.

Still falls the Rain –

Then – O lle leape up to my God: who pulles me doune –

See, see where Christ’s blood streames in the firmament:

It flows from the Brow we nailed upon the tree

Deep to the dying, to the thirsting heart

That holds the fires of the world, – dark-smirched with pain

As Caesar’s laurel crown.

Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man

Was once a child who among beasts has lain –

‘Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee.’

EDITH SITWELL

Desire in Spring

I love the cradle songs the mothers sing

In lonely places when the twilight drops,

The slow endearing melodies that bring

Sleep to the weeping lids; and, when she stops,

I love the roadside birds upon the tops

Of dusty hedges in a world of Spring.

And when the sunny rain drips from the edge

Of midday wind, and meadows lean one way,

And a long whisper passes thro’ the sedge,

Beside the broken water let me stay,

While these old airs upon my memory play,

And silent changes colour up the hedge.

FRANCIS LEDWIDGE

To a Conscript of 1940

Qui n’a pas une fois désespéré del’honneur, ne sera jamais un héros.

– GEORGES BERNANOS

A soldier passed me in the freshly fallen snow,

His footsteps muffled, his face unearthly grey;

And my heart gave a sudden leap

As I gazed on a ghost of five-and-twenty years ago.

I shouted ‘Halt!’ and my voice had the old accustom’d ring

And he obeyed it as it was obeyed

In the shrouded days when I too was one

Of an army of young men marching

Into the unknown. He turned towards me and I said:

‘I am one of those who went before you

Five-and-twenty years ago: one of the many who never returned,

Of the many who returned and yet were dead.

We went where you are going, into the rain and the mud;

We fought as you will fight

With death and darkness and despair;

We gave what you will give – our brains and our blood.

We think we gave in vain. The world was not renewed.

There was hope in the homestead and anger in die sheets,

But the old world was restored and we returned

To the dreary field and workshop, and the immemorial feud

Of rich and poor. Our victory was our defeat.

Power was retained where power had been misused

And youth was left to sweep away

The ashes that the fires had strewn beneath our feet.

But one thing we learned: there is no glory in the dead

Until the soldier wears a badge of tarnish’d braid;

There are heroes who have heard the valley and have seen

The glitter of a garland round their head.

Theirs is the hollow victory. They are deceived.

But you, my brother and my ghost, if you can go

Knowing that there is no reward, no certain use

In all your sacrifice, then honour is reprieved.

To fight without hope is to fight with grace,

The self reconstructed, the false heart is repaired.’

Then I turned with a smile, and he answered my salute

As he stood against the fretted hedge which was like white lace.

HERBERT READ

Refugee Blues

Say this city has ten million souls,

Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:

Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,

Look in the atlas and you’ll find it there:

We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,

Every spring it blossoms anew:

Old passports can’t do that, my dear, old passports can’t do that.

The consul banged the table and said,

‘If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead’:

But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;

Asked me politely to return next year:

But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;

‘If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread’:

He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me,

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;

It was Hitler over Europe, saying, ‘They must die’:

O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,

Saw a door opened and a cat let in:

But they weren’t German Jews, my dear, but they weren’t German Jews.

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay.

Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:

Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;

They had no politicians and sang at their ease:

They weren’t the human race, my dear, they weren’t the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,

A thousand windows and a thousand doors:

Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;

Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:

Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

W. H. AUDEN

Night Mail

Commentary for a G.P.O. Film

I

This is the Night Mail crossing the Border,

Bringing the cheque and the postal order,

Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,

The shop at the corner, the girl next door.

Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:

The gradient’s against her, but she’s on time.

Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder,

Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,

Snorting noisily, she passes

Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,

Stare from bushes at her blank-faced coaches.

Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course;

They slumber on with paws across.

In the farm she passes no one wakes,

But a jug in a bedroom gently shakes.

II

Dawn freshens. Her climb is done.

Down towards Glasgow she descends,

Towards the steam tugs yelping down a glade of cranes,

Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces

Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.

All Scotland waits for her:

In dark glens, beside pale-green lochs,

Men long for news.

III

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,

Letters of joy from girl and boy,

Receipted bills and invitations

To inspect new stock or to visit relations,

And applications for situations,

And timid lovers’ declarations,

And gossip, gossip from all the nations,

News circumstantial, news financial,

Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,

Letters with faces scrawled on the margin,

Letters from uncles, cousins and aunts,

Letters to Scotland from the South of France,

Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands,

Written on paper of every hue,

The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,

The chatty, the catty, the boring, the adoring,

The cold and official and the heart’s outpouring,

Clever, stupid, short and long,

The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

IV

Thousands are still asleep,

Dreaming of terrifying monsters

Or a friendly tea beside the band in Cranston’s or Crawford’s:

Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,

Asleep in granite Aberdeen,

They continue their dreams,

But shall wake soon and hope for letters,

And none will hear the postman’s knock

Without a quickening of the heart.

For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

W. H. AUDEN

In Memory of W. B. Yeats

I

He disappeared in the dead of winter:

The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,

And snow disfigured the public statues;

The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Far from his illness

The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,

The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;

By mourning tongues

The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,

An afternoon of nurses and rumours;

The provinces of his body revolted,

The squares of his mind were empty,

Silence invaded the suburbs,

The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities

And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,

To find his happiness in another kind of wood

And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.

The words of a dead man

Are modified in the guts of the living.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow

When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,

And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,

And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,

A few thousand will think of this day

As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

II

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:

The parish of rich women, physical decay,

Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,

For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives

In the valley of its making where executives

Would never want to tamper, flows on south

From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,

Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,

A way of happening, a mouth.

III

Earth, receive an honoured guest:

William Yeats is laid to rest.

Let the Irish vessel lie

Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark

All the dogs of Europe bark,

And the living nations wait,

Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace

Stares from every human face,

And the seas of pity lie

Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right

To the bottom of the night,

With your unconstraining voice

Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse

Make a vineyard of the curse,

Sing of human unsuccess

In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart

Let the healing fountain start,

In the prison of his days

Teach the free man how to praise.

W. H. AUDEN

Carrickfergus

I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries

To the hooting of lost sirens and the clang of trams:

Thence to Smoky Carrick in County Antrim

Where the bottle-neck harbour collects the mud which jams

The little boats beneath the Norman castle,

The pier shining with lumps of crystal salt;

The Scotch Quarter was a line of residential houses

But the Irish Quarter was a slum for the blind and halt.

The brook ran yellow from the factory stinking of chlorine,

The yarn-mill called its funeral cry at noon;

Our lights looked over the lough to the lights of Bangor

Under the peacock aura of a drowning moon.

The Norman walled this town against the country

To stop his ears to the yelping of his slave

And built a church in the form of a cross but denoting

The list of Christ on the cross in the angle of the nave.

I was the rector’s son, born to the anglican order,

Banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor;

The Chichesters knelt in marble at the end of a transept

With ruffs about their necks, their portion sure.

The war came and a huge camp of soldiers

Grew from the ground in sight of our house with long

Dummies hanging from gibbets for bayonet practice

And the sentry’s challenge echoing all day long;

A Yorkshire terrier ran in and out by the gate-lodge

Barred to civilians, yapping as if taking affront:

Marching at ease and singing ‘Who Killed Cock Robin?’

The troops went out by the lodge and off to the Front.

The steamer was camouflaged that took me to England –

Sweat and khaki in the Carlisle train;

I thought that the war would last for ever and sugar

Be always rationed and that never again

Would the weekly papers not have photos of sandbags

And my governess not make bandages from moss

And people not have maps above the fireplace

With flags on pins moving across and across –

Across the hawthorn hedge the noise of bugles,

Flares across the night,

Somewhere on the lough was a prison ship for Germans,

A cage across their sight.

I went to school in Dorset, the world of parents

Contracted into a puppet world of sons

Far from the mill girls, the smell of porter, the salt-mines

And the soldiers with their guns.

LOUIS MACNEICE

Soap Suds

This brand of soap has the same smell as once in the big

House he visited when he was eight: the walls of the bathroom open

To reveal a lawn where a great yellow ball rolls back through a hoop

To rest at the head of a mallet held in the hands of a child.

And these were the joys of that house: a tower with a telescope;

Two great faded globes, one of the earth, one of the stars;

A stuffed black dog in the hall; a walled garden with bees;

A rabbit warren; a rockery; a vine under glass; the sea.

To which he has now returned. The day of course is fine

And a grown-up voice cries Play! The mallet slowly swings,

Then crack, a great gong booms from the dog-dark hall and the ball

Skims forward through the hoop and then through the next and then

Through hoops where no hoops were and each dissolves in turn

And the grass has grown head-high and an angry voice cries Play!

But the ball is lost and the mallet slipped long since from the hands

Under the running tap that are not the hands of a child.

LOUIS MACNEICE

Snow

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was

Spawning snow and pink roses against it

Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:

World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,

Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion

A tangerine and spit the pips and feel

The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world

Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –

On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands –

There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

LOUIS MACNEICE

Ghosts in New Houses

There’s something dreadful about ghosts in new houses:

Ghosts in old houses are bad enough:

But ghosts in new houses are terrible.

The very newness of these new desolate houses

Would be terrible enough without the ghosts.

But the ghosts are new too.

Blue girls in blue blouses

And people at their Sunday roasts

In broad daylight, within these new houses

On streets where men are sweeping broken glass.

MALCOLM LOWRY

What the Gardener Said to Mrs Traill

– And now they turn poor poetry outdoors.

But in the olden time it was not so,

For it was once the language of man’s woe,

And, through the tongues of prophets, of God’s laws,

And, through the tongues of angels, of that cause

For which great souls have burned, and dwarf oaks grow.

I, who am friend to love-lies-bleeding, know

A healing in that name, and for these shores.

But now they use hard words for simple things,

For the wild flowers, and the flowers of the lake.

Gayfeather, blazing star, are words that move

Few today, yet have more than a seed’s wings.

If ever sinful man like me can speak

With God who humbly calls such names with love.

MALCOLM LOWRY

He Liked the Dead

As the poor end of each dead day drew near

he tried to count the things which he held dear.

No Rupert Brooke and no great lover, he

remembered little of simplicity:

his soul had never been empty of fear

and he would sell it thrice now for a tarot of beer.

He seemed to have known no love, to have valued dread

above all human feelings. He liked the dead.

The grass was not green not even grass to him;

nor was sun, sun; rose, rose; smoke, smoke; limb, limb.

MALCOLM LOWRY

Lessons of the War

To Alan Michell

Vixi duellis nuper idoneus

Et militavi non sine gloria

I. NAMING OF PARTS

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,

We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,

We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,

To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica

Glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens,

And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this

Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,

When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,

Which in your case you have not got. The branches

Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,

Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released

With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me

See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy

If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms

Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see

Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this

Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it

Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this

Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards

The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:

They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy

If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,

And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,

Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom

Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,

For to-day we have naming of parts.

II. JUDGING DISTANCES

Not only how far away, but the way that you say it

Is very important. Perhaps you may never get

The knack of judging a distance, but at least you know

How to report on a landscape: the central sector,

The right of arc and that, which we had last Tuesday,

And at least you know

That maps are of time, not place, so far as the army

Happens to be concerned – the reason being,

Is one which need not delay us. Again, you know

There are three kinds of tree, three only, the fir and the poplar,

And those which have bushy tops to; and lastly

That things only seem to be things.

A barn is not called a bam, to put it more plainly,

Or a field in the distance, where sheep may be safely grazing.

You must never be over-sure. You must say, when reporting:

At five o’clock in the central sector is a dozen

Of what appear to be animals; whatever you do,

Don’t call the bleeders sheep.

I am sure that’s quite clear; and suppose, for the sake of example,

The one at the end, asleep, endeavours to tell us

What he sees over there to the west, and how far away,

After first having come to attention. There to the west,

On the fields of summer the sun and the shadows bestow

Vestments of purple and gold.

The still white dwellings are like a mirage in the heat,

And under the swaying elms a man and a woman

Lie gently together. Which is, perhaps, only to say

That there is a row of houses to the left of arc,

And that under some poplars a pair of what appear to be humans

Appear to be loving.

Well that, for an answer, is what we might rightly call

Moderately satisfactory only, the reason being,

Is that two things have been omitted, and those are important.

The human beings, now: in what direction are they,

And how far away, would you say? And do not forget

There may be dead ground in between.

There may be dead ground in between; and I may not have got

The knack of judging a distance; I will only venture

A guess that perhaps between me and the apparent lovers,

(Who, incidentally, appear by now to have finished,)

At seven o’clock from the houses, is roughly a distance

Of about one year and a half.

HENRY REED

In Hospital: Poona (I)

Last night I did not fight for sleep

But lay awake from midnight while the world

Turned its slow features to the moving deep

Of darkness, till I knew that you were furled,

Beloved, in the same dark watch as I

And sixty degrees of longitude beside

Vanished as though a swan in ecstasy

Had spanned the distance from your sleeping side.

And like to swan or moon the whole of Wales

Glided within the parish of my care:

I saw the green tide leap on Cardigan,

Your red yacht riding like a legend there.

And the great mountains Dafydd and Llewelyn,

Plynlimmon, Cader Idris and Eryri

Threshing the darkness back from head and fin,

And also the small nameless mining valley

Whose slopes are scratched with streets and sprawling graves

Dark in the lap of firwoods and great boulders

Where you lay waiting, listening to the waves

My hot hands touched your white despondent shoulders

And then ten thousand miles of daylight grew

Between us, and I heard the wild daws crake

In India’s starving throat; whereat I knew

That Time upon the heart can break

But love survives the venom of the snake.

ALUN LEWIS

All Day it has Rained …

All day it has rained, and we on the edge of the moors

Have sprawled in our bell-tents, moody and dull as boors,

Groundsheets and blankets spread on the muddy ground

And from the first grey wakening we have found

No refuge from the skirmishing fine rain

And the wind that made the canvas heave and flap

And the taut wet guy-ropes ravel out and snap.

All day the rain has glided, wave and mist and dream,

Drenching the gorse and heather, a gossamer stream

Too light to stir the acorns that suddenly

Snatched from their cups by the wild south-westerly

Pattered against the tent and our upturned dreaming faces.

And we stretched out, unbuttoning our braces,

Smoking a Woodbine, darning dirty socks,

Reading the Sunday papers – I saw a fox

And mentioned it in the note I scribbled home; –

And we talked of girls, and dropping bombs on Rome,

And thought of the quiet dead and the loud celebrities

Exhorting us to slaughter, and the herded refugees;

– Yet thought softly, morosely of them, and as indifferently

As of ourselves or those whom we

For years have loved, and will again

Tomorrow maybe love; but now it is the rain

Possesses us entirely, the twilight and the rain.

And I can remember nothing dearer or more to my heart

Than the children I watched in the woods on Saturday

Shaking down burning chestnuts for the schoolyard’s merry play,

Or the shaggy patient dog who followed me

By Sheet and Steep and up the wooded scree

To the Shoulder O’ Mutton where Edward Thomas brooded long

On death and beauty – till a bullet stopped his song.

ALUN LEWIS

The Mountain over Aberdare

From this high quarried ledge I see

The place for which the Quakers once

Collected clothes, my father’s home,

Our stubborn bankrupt village sprawled

In jaded dusk beneath its nameless hills;

The drab streets strung across the cwm,

Derelict workings, tips of slag

The gospellers and gamblers use

And children scrutting for the coal

That winter dole cannot purvey;

Allotments where the collier digs

While engines hack the coal within his brain;

Grey Hebron in a rigid cramp,

White cheap-jack cinema, the church

Stretched like a sow beside the stream;

And mourners in their Sunday best

Holding a tiny funeral, singing hymns

That drift insidious as the rain

Which rises from the steaming fields

And swathes about the skyline crags

Till all the upland gorse is drenched

And all the creaking mountain gates

Drip brittle tears of crystal peace;

And in a curtained parlour women hug

Huge grief, and anger against God.

But now the dusk, more charitable than Quakers,

Veils the cracked cottages with drifting may

And rubs the hard day off the slate.

The colliers squatting on the ashtip

Listen to one who holds them still with tales,

While that white frock that floats down the dark alley

Looks just like Christ; and in the lane

The clink of coins among the gamblers

Suggests the thirty pieces of silver.

I watch the clouded years

Rune the rough foreheads of these moody hills,

This wet evening, in a lost age.

ALUN LEWIS

A Wartime Dawn

Dulled by the slow glare of the yellow bulb,

As far from sleep still as at any hour

Since distant midnight; with a hollow skull

In which white vapours seem to reel

Among limp muddles of old thought; till eyes

Collapse into themselves like clams in mud …

Hand paws the wall to reach the chilly switch;

Then nerve-shot darkness gradually shakes

Throughout the room. Lie still … Limbs twitch;

Relapse to immobility’s faint ache. And time

A while relaxes; space turns wholly black.

But deep in the velvet crater of the ear

A chip of sound abruptly irritates.

A second, a third chirp; and then another far

Emphatic trill and chirrup shrills in answer; notes

From all directions round pluck at the strings

Of hearing with frail finely-sharpened claws.

And in an instant, every wakened bird

Across surrounding miles of air

Outside, is sowing like a scintillating sand

Its throat’s incessantly replenished store

Of tuneless singsong, timeless, aimless, blind.

Draw now with prickling hand the curtains back;

Unpin the blackout-cloth; let in

Grim crack-of-dawn’s first glimmer through the glass.

All’s yet half sunk in Yesterday’s stale death,

Obscurely still beneath a moist-tinged blank

Sky like the inside of a deaf mute’s mouth …

Nearest within the window’s sight, ash-pale

Against a cinder coloured wall, the white

Pearblossom hovers like a stare; rain-wet

The further housetops weakly shine; and there,

Beyond, hangs flaccidly a lone barrage-balloon.

An incommunicable desolation weighs

Like depths of stagnant water on this break of day. –

Long meditation without thought. – Until a breeze

From some pure Nowhere straying, stirs

A pang of poignant odour from the earth, an unheard sigh

Pregnant with sap’s sweet tang and raw soil’s fine

Aroma, smell of stone, and acrid breath

Of gravel puddles. While the brooding green

Of nearby gardens’ grass and trees, and quiet flat

Blue leaves, the distant lilac mirages, are made

Clear by increasing daylight, and intensified.

Now head sinks into pillows in retreat

Before this morning’s hovering advance;

(Behind loose lids, in sleep’s warm porch, half hears

White hollow clink of bottles, – dragging crunch

Of milk-cart wheels, – and presently a snatch

Of windy whistling as the newsboy’s bike winds near.

Distributing to neighbour’s peaceful steps

Reports of last-night’s battles); at last sleeps.

While early guns on Norway’s bitter coast

Where faceless troops are landing, renew fire:

And one more day of War starts everywhere.

DAVID GASCOYNE

Canoe

Well, I am thinking this may be my last

summer, but cannot lose even a part of

pleasure in the old-fashioned art of

idleness. I cannot stand aghast

at whatever doom hovers in the background;

while grass and buildings and the somnolent river,

who know they are allowed to last for ever,

exchange between them the whole subdued sound

of this hot time. What sudden fearful fate

can deter my shade wandering next year

from a return? Whistle and I will hear

and come another evening, when this boat

travels with you alone towards Iffley:

as you lie looking up for thunder again,

this cool touch does not betoken rain;

it is my spirit that kisses your mouth lightly.

KEITH DOUGLAS

Fern Hill

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs

About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,

The night above the dingle starry,

Time let me hail and climb

Golden in the heydays of his eyes,

And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns

And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves

Trail with daisies and barley

Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns

About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,

In the sun that is young once only,

Time let me play and be

Golden in the mercy of his means,

And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves

Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,

And the sabbath rang slowly

In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay

Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air

And playing, lovely and watery

And fire green as grass.

And nightly under the simple stars

As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,

All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the night-jars

Flying with the ricks, and the horses

Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white

With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all

Shining, it was Adam and maiden,

The sky gathered again

And the sun grew round that very day.

So it must have been after the birth of the simple light

In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm

Out of the whinnying green stable

On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house

Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,

In the sun born over and over,

I ran my heedless ways,

My wishes raced through the house high hay

And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows

In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs

Before the children green and golden

Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me

Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,

In the moon that is always rising,

Nor that riding to sleep

I should hear him fly with the high fields

And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,

Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

DYLAN THOMAS

Poem on His Birthday

In the mustardseed sun,

By full tilt river and switchback sea

Where the cormorants scud,

In his house on stilts high among beaks

And palavers of birds

This sandgrain day in the bent bay’s grave

He celebrates and spurns

His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age;

Herons spire and spear.

Under and round him go

Flounders, gulls, on their cold, dying trails,

Doing what they are told,

Curlews aloud in the congered waves

Work at their ways to death,

And the rhymer in the long tongued room,

Who tolls his birthday bell,

Toils towards the ambush of his wounds;

Herons, steeple stemmed, bless.

In the thistledown fall,

He sings towards anguish; finches fly

In the claw tracks of hawks

On a seizing sky; small fishes glide

Through wynds and shells of drowned

Ship towns to pastures of otters. He

In his slant, racking house

And the hewn coils of his trade perceives

Herons walk in their shroud,

The livelong river’s robe

Of minnows wreathing around their prayer;

And far at sea he knows,

Who slaves to his crouched, eternal end

Under a serpent cloud,

Dolphins dive in their turnturtle dust,

The rippled seals streak down

To kill and their own tide daubing blood

Slides good in the sleek mouth.

In a cavernous, swung

Wave’s silence, wept white angelus knells.

Thirty-five bells sing struck

On skull and scar where his loves lie wrecked.

Steered by the falling stars.

And to-morrow weeps in a blind cage

Terror will rage apart

Before chains break to a hammer flame

And love unbolts the dark

And freely he goes lost

In the unknown, famous light of great

And fabulous, dear God.

Dark is a way and light is a place,

Heaven that never was

Nor will be ever is always true,

And, in that brambled void,

Plenty as blackberries in the woods

The dead grow for His joy.

There he might wander bare

With the spirits of the horseshoe bay

Or the stars’ seashore dead,

Marrow of eagles, the roots of whales

And wishbones of wild geese,

With blessed, unborn God and His Ghost,

And every soul His priest,

Gulled and chanter in young Heaven’s fold

Be at cloud quaking peace,

But dark is a long way.

He, on the earth of the night, alone

With all the living, prays,

Who knows the rocketing wind will blow

The bones out of the hills,

And the scythed boulders bleed, and the last

Rage shattered waters kick

Masts and fishes to the still quick stars,

Faithlessly unto Him

Who is the light of old

And air shaped Heaven where souls grow wild

As horses in the foam:

Oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined

And druid herons’ vows

The voyage to ruin I must run,

Dawn ships clouted aground,

Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue,

Count my blessings aloud;

Four elements and five

Senses, and man a spirit in love

Tangling through this spun slime

To his nimbus bell cool kingdom come

And the lost, moonshine domes,

And the sea that hides his secret selves

Deep in its black, base bones,

Lulling of spheres in the seashell flesh,

And this last blessing most,

That the closer I move

To death, one man through his sundered hulks,

The louder the sun blooms

And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults;

And every wave of the way

And gale I tackle, the whole world then,

With more triumphant faith

Than ever was since the world was said,

Spins its morning of praise,

I hear the bouncing hills

Grow larked and greener at berry brown

Fall and the dew larks sing

Taller this thunderclap spring, and how

More spanned with angels ride

The mansouled fiery islands! Oh,

Holier then their eyes,

And my shining men no more alone

As I sail out to die.

DYLAN THOMAS

In my Craft or Sullen Art

In my craft or sullen art

Exercised in the still night

When only the moon rages

And the lovers lie abed

With all their griefs in their arms,

I labour by singing light

Not for ambition or bread

Or the strut and trade of charms

On the ivory stages

But for the common wages

Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart

From the raging moon I write

On these spindrift pages

Nor for the towering dead

With their nightingales and psalms

But for the lovers, their arms

Round the griefs of the ages,

Who pay no praise or wages

Nor heed my craft or art.

DYLAN THOMAS

Anne Donne

I lay in in London;

And round my bed my live children were crying,

And round my bed my dead children were singing.

As my blood left me it set the clappers swinging:

Tolling, jarring, jowling, all the bells of London

Were ringing as I lay dying –

John Donne, Anne Donne, Undone!

Ill-done, well-done, all done.

All fearing done, all striving and all hoping,

All weanings, watchings, done; all reckonings whether

Of debts, of moons, summed; all hither and thither

Sucked in the one ebb. Then, on my bed in London,

I heard him call me, reproaching:

Undone, Anne Donne, Undone!

Not done, not yet done!

Wearily I rose up at his bidding.

The sweat still on my face, my hair dishevelled,

Over the bells and the tolling seas I travelled,

Carrying my dead child, so lost, so light a burden,

To Paris, where he sat reading

And showed him my ill news. That done,

Went back, lived on in London.

SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER

Tilth

Robert Graves, the British veteran, is no longer in the poetic swim. He still resorts to traditional metres and rhyme, and to such out-dated words as tilth; withholding his 100% approbation also from contemporary poems that favour sexual freedom.

– From a New York critical weekly

Gone are the drab monosyllabic days

When ‘agricultural labour’ still was tilth;

And ‘100% approbation’, praise;

And ‘pornographic modernism’, filth –

Yet still I stand by tilth and filth and praise.

I fell in love at my first evening party.

You were tall and fair, just seventeen perhaps,

Talking to my two sisters. I kept silent

And never since have loved a tall fair girl,

Until last night in the small windy hours

When, floating up an unfamiliar staircase

And into someone’s bedroom, there I found her

Posted beside the window in half-light

Wearing that same white dress with lacy sleeves.

She beckoned. I came closer. We embraced

Inseparably until the dream faded.

Her eyes shone clear and blue …

Who was it, though, impersonated you?

ROBERT GRAVES

The Christmas Robin

The snows of February had buried Christmas

Deep in the woods, where grew self-seeded

The fir-trees of a Christmas yet unknown,

Without a candle or a strand of tinsel.

Nevertheless when, hand in hand, plodding

Between the frozen ruts, we lovers paused

And ‘Christmas trees!’ cried suddenly together,

Christmas was there again, as in December.

We velveted our love with fantasy

Down a long vista-row of Christmas trees,

Whose coloured candles slowly guttered down

As grandchildren came trooping round our knees.

But he knew better, did the Christmas robin –

The murderous robin with his breast aglow

And legs apart, in a spade-handle perched:

He prophesied more snow, and worse than snow.

ROBERT GRAVES

An Old Woman Speaks of the Moon

She was urgent to speak of the moon: she offered delight

And wondering praise to be shared by the girl in the shop,

Lauding the goddess who blessed her each sleepless night

Greater and brighter till full: but the girl could not stop.

She turned and looked up in my face, and hastened to cry

How beautiful was the orb, how the constant glow

Comforted in the cold night the old waking eye:

How fortunate she, whose lodging was placed that so

She in the lonely night, in her lonely age,

She from her poor lean bed might behold the undying

Letter of loveliness written on heaven’s page,

The sharp silver arrows leap down to where she was lying.

The dying spoke love to the immortal, the foul to the fair,

The withered to the still-flowering, the bound to the free:

The nipped worm to the silver swan that sails through the air:

And I took it as good, and a happy omen to me.

RUTH PITTER

Wild Honey

You, the man going along the road alone,

Careless or wretched, rarely thoughtful, never serene,

Possessing nothing worth having; man of the sickly pleasures,

Man of the mawkish, wrong-headed sorrows, typical man:

The wealth is there, man of the empty pocket,

The gold is there, man of the greying hair,

And the sweetness, man whose life is bitter as ashes,

The good work, the accomplished work, the wonderful artifice,

The wonderful artefact, man of the useless hands.

There in the riddled tree, hanging in darkness,

There in the roof of the house and the wall-hollow,

The new like pearl, the old like magical amber,

Hidden with cunning, guarded by fiery thousands

(See where they stream like smoke from the hole in the gable),

There in the bank of the brook the immortal secret,

In the ground under your feet the treasure of nations,

Under the weary foot of the fool, the wild honey.

RUTH PITTER

Sin

Take off the business suit, the old-school tie,

The gown, the cap, drop the reviews, awards,

Certificates, stand naked in your sty,

A little carnivore, clothed in dried turds.

The snot that slowly fills our passages

Seeps up from hollows where the dead beasts lie;

Dumb stamping dances spell our messages,

We only know what makes our arrows fly.

Lost in the wood, we sometimes glimpse the sky

Between the branches, and the words drop down

We cannot hear, the alien voices high

And hard, singing salvation, grace, life, dawn.

Like wolves, we lift our snouts: Blood, blood, we cry,

The blood that bought us so we need not die.

D. GWENALLT JONES

translated by Rowan Williams

Lovers are Separate

‘Do you hear the bells?’

‘What bells?’

‘The swinging bells the singing bells

Downed bells drowned bells

Hear the flying sound the dying sound

Tossed sound lost sound

Of the old bells sea-cold singing bells

Under the sea.’

‘Bells? I hear nothing

But the even breath of the sea.

And look, oh come closer and look with me –

From this rock we stare down into depths so clear

We should see any bells that might be there.

No, there is nothing.

Only the chrysoprase water, deep,

Making a large, bare, twilit room

Such as I’ve wandered through in sleep,

A dream home …’

‘Yes; but I tell you I hear the bells ringing!

Almost, I see the wild swinging

And then the swung sound the up-flung sound

Balanced high aloft – high aloft – listen now, right overhead!

Hear it top-

-pling stumbling sliding and tumbling

All down the silver air into the green sea

To be lost.

Again lost

As the dead

In that hollow sea.

‘And still you heard nothing?’

‘Alas, we could not have drawn closer and yet I heard nothing

But the even breath of the sea.’

FRANCES BELLERBY

Ends Meet

My grandmother came down the steps into the garden.

She shone in the gauzy air.

She said: ‘There’s an old woman at the gate –

See what she wants, my dear.’

My grandmother’s eyes were blue like the damsels

Darting and swerving above the stream,

Or like the kingfisher arrow shot into darkness

Through the archway’s dripping gleam.

My grandmother’s hair was silver as sunlight.

The sun had been poured right over her, I saw,

And ran down her dress and spread a pool for her shadow

To float in. And she would live for evermore.

There was nobody at the gate when I got there.

Not even a shadow hauling along the road,

Nor my yellow snail delicate under the ivy,

Nor my sheltering cold-stone toad.

But the sunflowers aloft were calm. They’d seen no one.

They were sucking light, for ever and a day.

So I busied myself with going away unheeded

And with having nothing to say.

No comment, nothing to tell, or to think,

Whilst the day followed the homing sun.

There was no old woman at my grandmother’s gate.

And there isn’t at mine.

FRANCES BELLERBY

from The Sound of the Wind that is Blowing

The land of Y Llain was on the high marsh

on the border between Caron-is-Clawdd and Padarn Odwyn

slanting from Cae Top down to Y Waun,

and beyond Cae Top was a glade of dark trees –

pines and tall larches – to break the cold wind,

the wind from the north.

And there were the small four-sided fields

like checkerboard, or a patchwork quilt,

and around each of the fields, a hedge.

My father planted the hedges farthest from the house, –

The hedges of Cae Top and Cae Brwyn, –

myself a youngster at his heels

putting the plants in his hand;

three hawthorns and a beech-tree,

three hawthorns and a beech-tree in turn;

his feet measuring the distance between them along the top of the ditch,

squeezing them solidly into the loose earth-and-chalk.

Then the patterned wiring outside them –

the square posts of peeled oak-wood

sunk deep in the living earth –

and I getting to turn the wiring-engine on the post

while he did the stapling,

the hammer ringing in my ears with the pounding.

And I daring on the sly

to send a telegram back over the taut wires

to the other children at the far end of the ditch,

the note of music raising its pitch

with each turn I gave the old wiring-engine’s handle.

My grandfather, said my father, had planted the Middle Fields

– Cae Cwteri, Cae Polion, Cae Troi –

but generations we knew nothing at all about,

except for the mark of their handiwork on Cae Lloi and Cae Moch

had planted the tall strong stout-trunked trees round the house,

and set sweet-plums here and there in the hedges.

And there we children would be

safe in a fold in the ditch under the hedges,

the dried leaves a coverlet to keep us warm

(like the babes in the story hidden with leaves by the birds).

The breeze that trickled through the trunks of the hedges

was not enough to ruffle the wren’s and the robin’s feathers:

but above the hedges and the trees, above the house,

aloft in the firmament, the wind was

tumbling the clouds, tickling them till their white laughter

was unruly hysteria like children on a kitchen floor,

till the excess of play turns suddenly strange

and the laughter’s whiteness scowls, and darkens,

and the tears burst forth, and the clouds escape

in a race from the wind, from the tickling and the tumbling,

escaping headlong from the wind’s provocation –

the pursuing wind outside me,

and I fast in the fold in the ditch beneath the leaves

listening to its sound, outside,

with nothing at all occuring within what I am

because of the care and craft of generations of my fathers

planting their hedges prudnetly to shelter me in my day, –

nothing – despite my wishing and wishing …

J. KITCHENER DAVIES

translated by Joseph P. Clancy

The River God of the River Mimram in Hertfordshire

I may be smelly and I may be old,

Rough in my pebbles, reedy in my pools,

But where my fish float by I bless their swimming

And I like the people to bathe in me, especially women.

But I can drown the fools

Who bathe too close to the weir, contrary to rules,

And they take a long time drowning

As I throw them up now and then in a spirit of clowning.

Hi yih, yippity-yap, merrily I flow,

Oh I may be an old foul river but I have plenty of go.

Once there was a lady who was too bold,

She bathed in me by the tall black cliff where the water runs cold,

So I brought her down here

To be my beautiful dear.

STEVIE SMITH

Correspondence between Mr Harrison in Newcastle and Mr Sholto Peach Harrison in Hull

Sholto Peach Harrison you are no son of mine

And do you think I bred you up to cross the River Tyne

And do you think I bred you up (and mother says the same)

And do you think I bred you up to live a life of shame

To live a life of shame my boy as you are thinking to

Down south in Kingston-upon-Hull a traveller in glue?

Come back my bonny boy nor break your father’s heart

Come back and marry Lady Susan Smart

She has a mint in Anglo-Persian oil

And Sholto never more need think of toil.

You are an old and evil man my father

I tell you frankly Sholto had much rather

Travel in glue unrecompensed unwed

Than go to church with oily Sue and afterwards to bed.

STEVIE SMITH

Infelice

Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess,

He smiled too briefly, his face was as pale as sand,

He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming,

Leaving me alone with a private meaning,

He loves me so much, my heart is singing.

Later at the Club when I rang him in the evening

They said: Sir Rat is dining, is dining, is dining,

No Madam, he left no message, ah how his silence speaks,

He loves me too much for words, my heart is singing.

The Pullman seats are here, the tickets for Paris, I am waiting,

Presently the telephone rings, it is his valet speaking,

Sir Rat is called away, to Scotland, his constituents,

(Ah the dreadful duchess, but he loves me best)

Best pleasure to the last, my heart is singing.

One night he came, it was four in the morning,

Walking slowly upstairs, he stands beside my bed,

Dear darling, lie beside me, it is too cold to stand speaking,

He lies down beside me, his face is like the sand,

He is in a sleep of love, my heart is singing.

Sleeping softly softly, in the morning I must wake him,

And waking he murmurs, I only came to sleep.

The words are so sweetly cruel, how deeply he loves me,

I say them to myself alone, my heart is singing.

Now the sunshine strengthens, it is ten in the morning,

He is so timid in love, he only needs to know,

He is my little child, how can he come if I do not call him,

I will write and tell him everything, I take the pen and write:

I love you so much, my heart is singing.

STEVIE SMITH

The Long Garden

It was the garden of the golden apples,

A long garden between a railway and a road,

In the sow’s rooting where the hen scratches

We dipped our fingers in the pockets of God.

In the thistly hedge old boots were flying sandals

By which we travelled through the childhood skies,

Old buckets rusty-holed with half-hung handles

Were drums to play when old men married wives.

The pole that lifted the clothes-line in the middle

Was the flag-pole on a prince’s palace when

We looked at it through fingers crossed to riddle

In evening sunlight miracles for men.

It was the garden of the golden apples,

And when the Carrick train went by we knew

That we could never die till something happened

Like wishing for a fruit that never grew,

Or wanting to be up on Candle-Fort

Above the village with its shops and mill.

The racing cyclists’ gasp-gapped reports

Hinted of pubs where life can drink his fill.

And when the sun went down into Drumcatton

And the New Moon by its little finger swung

From the telegraph wires, we knew how God had happened

And what the blackbird in the whitehorn sang.

It was the garden of the golden apples,

The half-way house where we had stopped a day

Before we took the west road to Drumcatton

Where the sun was always setting on the play.

PATRICK KAVANAGH

Epic

I have lived in important places, times

When great events were decided: who owned

That half a rood of rock, a no-man’s land

Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.

I heard the Duffys shouting ‘Damn your soul’

And old McCabe, stripped to the waist, seen

Step the plot defying blue cast-steel –

‘Here is the march along these iron stones’.

That was the year of the Munich bother. Which

Was most important? I inclined

To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin

Till Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind.

He said: I made the Iliad from such

A local row. Gods make their own importance.

PATRICK KAVANAGH

What Is a Man?

What is living? Finding a great hall

Inside a cell.

What is knowing? One root

To all the branches.

What is believing? Holding out

Until relief comes.

And forgiving? Crawling through thorns

To the side of an old foe.

What is singing? Winning back

The first breath of creation:

And work should be a song

Made of wheat or wood.

What is statecraft? Something

Still on all fours.

And defence of the realm?

A sword thrust in a baby’s hand.

What is being a nation? A talent

Springing in the heart.

And love of country? Keeping house

Among a cloud of witness.

What is this world to the great powers?

A circle turning.

And to the lowly of the earth?

A cradle rocking.

WALDO WILLIAMS

translated by Emyr Humphreys

Listening to Collared Doves

I am homesick now for middle age, as then

For youth. For youth is our home-land: we were born

And lived there long, though afterwards moved on

From state to state, too slowly acclimatising

Perhaps and never fluent, through the surprising

Countries, in any languages but one.

This mourning now for middle age, no more

For youth, confirms me old as not before

Age rounds the world, they say, to childhood’s far

Archaic shores; it may be so at last,

But what now (strength apart) I miss the most

Is time unseen like air, since everywhere.

And yet, when in the months and in the skies

That were the cuckoos’, and in the nearer trees

That were the deep-voiced wood-pigeons’, it is

Instead now the collared doves that call and call

(Their three flat notes growing traditional),

I think we live long enough, listening to these.

I draw my line out from their simple curve

And say, our natural span may be enough;

And think of one I knew and her long life;

And how the climate changed and how the sign-

Posts changed, defaced, from her Victorian

Childhood and youth, through our century of grief,

And how she adapted as she could, not one

By nature adaptable, bred puritan

(Though quick to be pleased and having still her own

Lightness of heart). She died twenty years ago,

Aged, of life – it seems, all she could do

Having done, all the change that she could know having known.

E. J. SCOVELL

Northumbrian Sequence: IV

Let in the wind

Let in the rain

Let in the moors tonight.

The storm beats on my window-pane,

Night stands at my bed-foot,

Let in the fear,

Let in the pain,

Let in the trees that toss and groan,

Let in the north tonight.

Let in the nameless formless power

That beats upon my door,

Let in the ice, let in the snow,

The banshee howling on the moor,

The bracken-bush on the bleak hillside,

Let in the dead tonight.

The whistling ghost behind the dyke,

The dead that rot in the mire,

Let in the thronging ancestors

The unfulfilled desire,

Let in the wraith of the dead earl,

Let in the unborn tonight.

Let in the cold,

Let in the wet,

Let in the loneliness,

Let in the quick,

Let in the dead,

Let in the unpeopled skies.

Oh how can virgin fingers weave

A covering for the void,

How can my fearful heart conceive

Gigantic solitude?

How can a house so small contain

A company so great?

Let in the dark,

Let in the dead,

Let in your love tonight.

Let in the snow that numbs the grave,

Let in the acorn-tree,

The mountain stream and mountain stone,

Let in the bitter sea.

Fearful is my virgin heart

And frail my virgin form,

And must I then take pity on

The raging of the storm

That rose up from the great abyss

Before the earth was made,

That pours the stars in cataracts

And shakes this violent world?

Let in the fire,

Let in the power,

Let in the invading might.

Gentle must my fingers be

And pitiful my heart

Since I must bind in human form

A living power so great,

A living impulse great and wild

That cries about my house

With all the violence of desire

Desiring this my peace.

Pitiful my heart must hold

The lonely stars at rest,

Have pity on the raven’s cry

The torrent and the eagle’s wing,

The icy water of the tarn

And on the biting blast.

Let in the wound,

Let in the pain,

Let in your child tonight.

KATHLEEN RAINE

To my sister Sian

Do you remember Sian? How dearly do you remember? (Autobiography)

Nature and Time are against us now:

no more we leap up the river like salmon,

nor dive through its fishy holes

sliding along its summer corridor

with all the water from Wales, nor tear it to silver

shreds with our childish arms when it bolted our path for the day,

nor wade wearing our bindings

of string weed, white-flowering from our nakedness;

nor lie in the hot yellow fields with the cows.

We go home separately Sian.

Strangest of all changes, that you have one door,

I another! Dreamily I write to our childhood,

sisters with a brotherly friendship, one loyal to both.

There hang the black woods still with candles of daffodils

lighting the draught of the wind, and our parted language

speaks to each of us of the keepers’ cot in the bracken corner

and the stream bed where the water had faded to rock.

Easily we keep our secrets now, for no-one cares

if we dare the red floods together, two little fools in the darkness

whose souls flew high above danger, whose bodies

death had a hundred times in its reach.

Forever we

did not end, but passed over our paths,

I following you, dabbling our hands in the birds’ nests,

darting through ghost walk and haunted graveyard

when the year was dead in the church tower.

We had one home together. That put us beyond all danger:

that set us forever, that and our unfathomable friendship with trees,

fields and horizons. Two children

soilitary, pilgrimy, silent, inscrutably wishing

forever dallying with lostness, whether our choice

was through the jay woods, or over the mushroom mountains,

or the old cider orchards.

Our secrets

were eternal and will always be. Forever dallying

with lostness, at last we were lost and all paths

were the path of our unforgettable double childhood.

All our secrets were one – secrecy.

The memory of what we kept secret is gone, but the secret is true.

All the places were us, we were all the places,

and the inscrutable innocent altars of nature.

I see two children slipping into a wood

speechlessly happy. Two lives lived have not changed it.

For our ways, our fields, our river, our lostness

were children. So we were our country.

MARGIAD EVANS

Brither Worm

I saw a lang worm snoove throu the space atween twa stanes,

pokan its heid, if it had ane, up throu a hole in the New Toun,

up throu a crack ye wad hardly hae seen in an area of stane,

unkenn’d upliftit tons of mason-wark piled on the soil

wi causey-streets, biggit of granite setts, like blank waas flat on the grund,

plainstane pavements of Thurso slabs laid owre the staneaircht cellars.

the area fifteen feet doun, wi weill-fittan flagstanes, Regency wark.

Nou, in my deedit stane-and-lime property awntert a nesh and perfect worm,

and I was abasit wi thochts of what was gaun-on ablow my feet,

that the feu’d and rentit grand was the soil of the Drumsheuch Forest,

and that life gaed on inunder the grund-waa-stane and had sent out a spy,

jalousan some Frien of the Worms had brocht a maist welcome shoure,

whan I on my side of the crust had teemit a pail of water,

meaning to gie the place a guid scrub-doun wi a stable-besom.

Sae a lang, saft, sappy and delicate pink and naukit cratur

neatly wan out frae atween thae weil-fittan chiselled, unnaitural stanes.

I watched and thocht lang of the wonders of Nature, and didna muve,

and thocht of the deeps of the soil, deeper nor the sea, and I made nae sound.

A rat raxt frae a crack atween twa stanes.

My hale body sheuk wi the grue.

It keekit at me, and was gane.

ROBERT GARIOCH

I’m Neutral

Last night in Scotland Street I met a man

that gruppit my lapel – a kinna foreign

cratur he seemed; he tellt me, There’s a war on

atween the Lang-nebs and the Big-heid Clan.

I wasna fasht, I took him for a moron,

naething byordnar, but he said, Ye’re wan

of thae lang-nebbit folk, and if I can,

I’m gaunnae pash ye doun and rype your sporran.

Says he, I’ll get a medal for this job:

we’re watchan ye, we ken fine what ye’re at,

ye’re with us or agin us, shut your gob.

He gied a clout that knockit aff my hat,

bawlan, A fecht! Come on, the Big-heid Mob!

Aweill, I caa’d him owre, and that was that.

ROBERT GARIOCH

Ghaisties

Cauld are the ghaisties in yon kir kyaird,

and cauld the airms

that they mell wi the mists of the timm breists of their loves;

at the heid of their bed cauld angels staund on guaird,

and marble doves.

They ken-na the fear of Gode, as they sleep ayont sin,

nor the terror of man,

and there’s nane but the angels to glunch at their trueloves’ chairms,

yet they lang for the reek of the creeshie swat frae the skin

and the grup of a haun.

But we in the warld are alowe

wi the glawmer of bluid-reid flame

that loups to the bluid in yer tongue’s tip as it tingles on mine,

and the howe

of the back we love wi our finger-nebbs, and the wame,

brent-white, wi a flush aneath like cramosie wine,

hou it curves to meet my ain!

O, ma sonsie frow,

whit tho the flesh be bruckle, and fiends be slee,

the joys of the solid earth we’ll pree or they dwine,

we’ll lauch at daith, and man, and the fiend, aa three, afore we dee.

ROBERT GARIOCH

Poem From Llanybri

If you come my way that is…

Between now and then, I will offer you

A fist full of rock cress fresh from the bank

The valley tips of garlic red with dew

Cooler than shallots, a breath you can swank

In the village when you come. At noon-day

I will offer you a choice bowl of cawl

Served with a ‘lover’s’ spoon and a chopped spray

Of leeks or savori fach, not used now,

In the old way you’ll understand. The din

Of children singing through the eyelet sheds

Ringing ’smith hoops, chasing the butt of hens;

Or I can offer you Cwmcelyn spread

With quartz stones from the wild scratchings of men:

You will have to go carefully with clogs

Or thick shoes for it’s treacherous the fen,

The East and West Marshes also have bogs.

Then I’ll do the lights, fill the lamp with oil,

Get coal from the shed, water from the well;

Pluck and draw pigeon with crop of green foil

This your good supper from the lime-tree fell.

A sit by the hearth with blue flames rising,

No talk. Just a stare at ‘Time’ gathering

Healed thoughts, pool insight, like swan sailing

Peace and sound around the home, offering

You a night’s rest and my day’s energy.

You must come – start this pilgrimage

Can you come? – send an ode or elegy

In the old way and raise our heritage.

LYNETTE ROBERTS

Poem

We must uprise O my people. Though

Secretly trenched in sorrel, we must

Upshine outshine the day’s sun: and day

Intensified by the falling prism

Of rain shall curve our smile with straw.

Bring plimsole plover to the tensile sand

And with cuprite crest and petulant feet

Distil our notes into febrile reeds

Crisply starched at the water-rail of tides.

On gault and greensand a gramophone stands:

In zebrine stripes strike out the pilotless

Age: from saxophone towns brass out the dead:

Disinter futility, that we entombing men

Might bridle our runaway hearts.

On tamarisk, on seafield pools shivering

With water-cats, ring out the square slate notes.

Shape the birdbox trees with neumes. Wind sound

Singular into cool and simple corners,

Round pale bittern grass, and all unseen

Unknown places of sheltered rubble

Where whimbrels, redshanks, sandpipers ripple

For the wing of living. Under tin of earth

And wooden boles where owls break music:

From this killing world against humanity,

Uprise against, outshine the day’s sun.

LYNETTE ROBERTS

For a Child Expected

Lovers whose lifted hands are candles in winter,

Whose gentle ways like streams in the easy summer,

Lying together

For secret setting of a child, love what they do,

Thinking they make that candle immortal, those streams forever flow,

And yet do better than they know.

So the first flutter of a baby felt in the womb,

Its little signal and promise of riches to come,

Is taken in its father’s name;

Its life is the body of his love, like his caress,

First delicate and strange, that daily use

Makes dearer and priceless.

Our baby was to be the living sign of our joy,

Restore to each the other’s lost infancy;

To a painter’s pillaging eye

Poet’s coiled hearing, add the heart we might earn

By the help of love; all that our passion would yield

We put to planning our child.

The world flowed in; whatever we liked we took:

For its hair, the gold curls of the November oak

We saw on our walk;

Snowberries that make a Milky Way in the wood

For its tender hands; calm screen of the frozen flood

For our care of its childhood.

But the birth of a child is an uncontrollable glory;

Cat’s cradle of hopes will hold no living baby,

Long though it lay quietly.

And when our baby stirs and struggles to be born

It compels humility: what we began

Is now its own.

For as the sun that shines through glass

So Jesus in His Mother was.

Therefore every human creature,

Since it shares in His nature,

In candle-gold passion or white

Sharp star should show its own way of light.

May no parental dread or dream

Darken our darling’s early beam:

May she grow to her right powers

Unperturbed by passion of ours.

ANNE RIDLER

Black Friday

Oot behind a lorry,

Peyin nae heed,

Ablow a doubledecker,

A poor wean deid.

Perra worn sannies,

Wee durrty knees,

Heh, erra polis,

Stand back please!

Lookit the conductriss.

Face as white as chalk,

Heh, see the driver but

Cannae even talk.

Anyone a witness?

Na, we niver saw.

Glad ah’m no the polis

Goin tae tell its maw.

Weemen windae-hingin

Herts in their mooth,

It’s no oor close, Lizzie

Oh Gawdstrewth!

Screams on the landin,

Twa closes doon,

It’s no wee Hughie!

Poor Nellie Broon.

Phone up the shipyard.

Oh, what a shame!

Yes, we’ll inform him,

Please repeat the name.

See Big Hughie,

Jokin wi the squad,

Better knock off, Heug,

Oh dear God.

Whit – no his laddie?

Aw, bloody hell!

D’ye see Hughie’s face but,

He’s just a boy himsel.

JAMES COPELAND

Dead ponies

There is death enough in Europe without these

Dead ponies on the mountain.

They are the underlining, the emphasis of death.

It is not wonderful that when they live

Their eyes are shadowed under mats of hair.

Despair and famine do not gripe so hard

When the bound earth and sky are kept remote

Behind clogged hairs.

The snows engulfed them, pressed their withered haunches flat,

Filled up their nostrils, burdened the cage of their ribs,

The snow retreated. Their bodies stink to heaven,

Potently crying out to raven and hawk and dog;

Come! Pick us clean; cleanse our fine bones of blood.

They were never lovely save as foals,

Before their necks grew long, uncrested;

Hut the wildness of the mountain was in their stepping,

The pride of Spring burnt in their haunches,

They were tawny as the rushes of the marsh.

The prey-birds have had their fill, and preen their feathers:

Soft entrails have gone to make the hawk arrogant.

BRENDA CHAMBERLAIN

The Bee Meeting

Who are these people at the bridge to meet me? They are the villagers –

The rector, the midwife, the sexton, the agent for bees.

In my sleeveless summery dress I have no protection,

And they are all gloved and covered, why did nobody tell me?

They are smiling and taking out veils tacked to ancient hats.

I am nude as a chicken neck, does nobody love me?

Yes, here is the secretary of bees with her white shop smock,

Buttoning the cuffs at my wrists and the slit from my neck to my knees.

Now I am milkweed silk, the bees will not notice.

They will not smell my fear, my fear, my fear.

Which is the rector now, is it that man in black?

Which is the midwife, is that her blue coat?

Everybody is nodding a square black head, they are knights in visors,

Breastplates of cheesecloth knotted under the armpits.

Their smiles and their voices are changing. I am led through a beanfield.

Strips of tinfoil winking like people,

Feather dusters fanning their hands in a sea of bean flowers,

Creamy bean flowers with black eyes and leaves like bored hearts,

Is it blood clots the tendrils are dragging up that string?

No, no, it is scarlet flowers that will one day be edible.

Now they are giving me a fashionable white straw Italian hat

And a black veil that molds to my face, they are making me one of them.

They are leading me to the shorn grove, the circle of hives.

Is it the hawthorn that smells so sick?

The barren body of hawthorn, etherising its children.

Is it some operation that is taking place?

It is the surgeon my neighbors are waiting for,

This apparition in a green helmet,

Shining gloves and white suit.

Is it the butcher, the grocer, the postman, someone I know?

I cannot run, I am rooted, and the gorse hurts me

With its yellow purses, its spiky armory.

I could not run without having to run forever.

The white hive is snug as a virgin,

Sealing off her brood cells, her honey, and quietly humming.

Smoke rolls and scarves in the grove.

The mind of the hive thinks this is the end of everything.

Here they come, the outriders, on their hysterical elastics.

If I stand very still, they will think I am cow-parsley,

A gullible head untouched by their animosity,

Not even nodding, a personage in a hedgerow.

The villagers open the chambers, they are hunting the queen.

Is she hiding, is she eating honey? She is very clever.

She is old, old, old, she must live another year, and she knows it.

While in their fingerjoint cells the new virgins

Dream of a duel they will win inevitably,

A curtain of wax dividing them from the bride flight,

The upflight of the murderess into a heaven that loves her.

The villagers are moving the virgins, there will be no killing.

The old queen does not show herself, is she so ungrateful?

I am exhausted, I am exhausted –

Pillar of white in a blackout of knives.

I am the magician’s girl who does not flinch.

The villagers are untying their disguises, they are shaking hands.

Whose is that long white box in the grove, what have they accomplished, why am I cold.

SYLVIA PLATH

Blackberrying

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,

Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,

A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea

Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries

Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes

Ebon in the hedges, fat

With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.

I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.

They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.

Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks –

Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.

Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.

I do not think the sea will appear at all.

The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.

I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,

Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.

The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.

One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.

The only thing to come now is the sea.

From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,

Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.

These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.

I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me

To the hills’ northern face, and the face is orange rock

That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space

Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths

Beating and beating at an intractable metal.

SYLVIA PLATH

Addiction to an Old Mattress

No, this is not my life, thank God …

… worn out like this, and crippled by brain-fag;

Obsessed first by one person, and then

(Almost at once) most horribly besotted by another;

These Februaries, full of draughts and cracks,

They belong to the people in the streets, the others

Out there – haberdashers, writers of menus.

Salt breezes! Bolsters from Istanbul!

Barometers, full of contempt, controlling moody isobars.

Sumptuous tittle-tattle from a summer crowd

That’s fed on lemonades and matinees. And seas

That float themselves about from place to place, and then

Spend hours – just moving some clear sleets across glass stones.

Yalta: deck-chairs in Asia’s gold cake; thrones.

Meanwhile … I live on … powerful, disobedient,

Inside their draughty haberdasher’s climate,

With these people … who are going to obsess me,

Potatoes, dentists, people I hardly know, it’s unforgivable

For this is not my life

But theirs, that I am living.

And I wolf, bolt, gulp it down, day after day.

ROSEMARY TONKS

The Sofas, Fogs and Cinemas

I have lived it, and lived it,

My nervous, luxury civilisation,

My sugar-loving nerves have battered me to pieces.

… Their idea of literature is hopeless.

Make them drink their own poetry!

Let them eat their gross novel, full of mud.

It’s quiet; just the fresh, chilly weather … and he

Gets up from his dead bedroom, and comes in here

And digs himself into the sofa.

He stays there up to two hours in the hole – and talks

– Straight into the large subjects, he faces up to everything

It’s …… damnably depressing.

(That great lavatory coat … the cigarillo burning

In the little dish … And when he calls out: ‘Ha!’

Madness! – you no longer possess your own furniture.)

On my bad days (and I’m being broken

At this very moment) I speak of my ambitions … and he

Becomes intensely gloomy, with the look of something jugged,

Morose, sour, mouldering away, with lockjaw …

I grow coarse; and more modern (I, who am driven mad

By my ideas; who go nowhere;

Who dare not leave my frontdoor, lest an idea …)

All right. I admit everything, everything!

Oh yes, the opera (Ah, but the cinema)

He particularly enjoys it, enjoys it horribly, when someone’s ill

At the last minute; and they specially fly in

A new, gigantic, Dutch soprano. He wants to help her

With her arias. Old goat! Blasphemer!

He wants to help her with her arias!

No, I … go to the cinema,

I particularly like it when the fog is thick, the street

Is like a hole in an old coat, and the light is brown as laudanum,

… the fogs! the fogs! The cinemas

Where the criminal shadow-literature flickers over our faces,

The screen is spread out like a thundercloud – that bangs

And splashes you with acid … or lies derelict, with lighted waters in it,

And in the silence, drips and crackles – taciturn, luxurious.

… The drugged and battered Philistines

Are all around you in the auditorium …

And he … is somewhere else, in his dead bedroom clothes,

He wants to make me think his thoughts

And they will be enormous, dull – (just the sort

To keep away from).

… when I see that cigarillo, when I see it … smoking

And he wants to face the international situation …

Lunatic rages! Blackness! Suffocation!

– All this sitting about in cafés to calm down

Simply wears me out. And their idea of literature!

The idiotic cut of the stanzas; the novels, full up, gross.

I have lived it, and I know too much.

My café-nerves are breaking me

With black, exhausting information.

ROSEMARY TONKS

I Shall Vote Labour

I shall vote Labour because

God votes Labour.

I shall vote Labour in order to protect

the sacred institution of The Family.

I shall vote Labour because

I am a dog.

I shall vote Labour because

upper-class hoorays annoy me in expensive restaurants.

I shall vote Labour because

I am on a diet.

I shall vote Labour because if I don’t

somebody else will:

AND

I shall vote Labour because if one person does it

everybody will be wanting to do it.

I shall vote Labour because if I do not vote Labour

my balls will drop off.

I shall vote Labour because

there are too few cars on the road.

I shall vote Labour because I am

a hopeless drug addict.

I shall vote Labour because

I failed to be a dollar millionaire aged three.

I shall vote Labour because Labour will build

more maximum security prisons.

I shall vote Labour because I want to shop

in an all-weather precinct stretching from Yeovil to Glasgow.

I shall vote Labour because

the Queen’s stamp collection is the best in the world.

I shall vote Labour because

deep in my heart

I am a Conservative.

CHRISTOPHER LOGUE

Tonight at Noon

for Charles Mingus and the Clayton Squares

Tonight at noon

Supermarkets will advertise 3p EXTRA on everything

Tonight at noon

Children from happy families will be sent to live in a home

Elephants will tell each other human jokes

America will declare peace on Russia

World War I generals will sell poppies in the streets on November 11th

The first daffodils of autumn will appear

When the leaves fall upwards to the trees

Tonight at noon

Pigeons will hunt cats through city backyards

Hitler will tell us to fight on the beaches and on the landing

fields

A tunnel full of water will be built under Liverpool

Pigs will be sighted flying in formation over Woolton

and Nelson will not only get his eye back but his arm as well

White Americans will demonstrate for equal rights

in front of the Black House

and the Monster has just created Dr Frankenstein

Girls in bikinis are moonbathing

Folksongs are being sung by real folk

Artgalleries are closed to people over 21

Poets get their poems in the Top 20

Politicians are elected to insane asylums

There’s jobs for everyone and nobody wants them

In back alleys everywhere teenage lovers are kissing

in broad daylight

In forgotten graveyards everywhere the dead will quietly

bury the living

and

You will tell me you love me

Tonight at noon

ADRIAN HENRI

Celia, Celia

When I am sad and weary

When I think all hope has gone

When I walk along High Holborn

I think of you with nothing on

ADRIAN MITCHELL

from Briggflatts

Brag, sweet tenor bull,

descant on Rawthey’s madrigal,

each pebble its part

for the fells’ late spring.

Dance tiptoe, bull,

black against may.

Ridiculous and lovely

chase hurdling shadows

morning into noon.

May on the bull’s hide

and through the dale

furrows fill with may,

paving the slowworm’s way.

A mason times his mallet

to a lark’s twitter,

listening while the marble rests,

lays his rule

at a letter’s edge,

fingertips checking,

till the stone spells a name

naming none,

a man abolished.

Painful lark, labouring to rise!

The solemn mallet says:

In the grave’s slot

he lies. We rot.

Decay thrusts the blade,

wheat stands in excrement

trembling. Rawthey trembles.

Tongue stumbles, ears err

for fear of spring.

Rub the stone with sand,

wet sandstone rending

roughness away. Fingers

ache on the rubbing stone.

The mason says: Rocks

happen by chance.

No one here bolts the door,

love is so sore.

Stone smooth as skin,

cold as the dead they load

on a low lorry by night.

The moon sits on the fell

but it will rain.

Under sacks on the stone

two children lie,

hear the horse stale,

the mason whistle,

harness mutter to shaft,

felloe to axle squeak,

rut thud the rim,

crushed grit.

Stocking to stocking, jersey to jersey,

head to a hard arm,

they kiss under the rain,

bruised by their marble bed.

In Garsdale, dawn;

at Hawes, tea from the can.

Rain stops, sacks

steam in the sun, they sit up.

Copper-wire moustache,

sea-reflecting eyes

and Baltic plainsong speech

declare: By such rocks

men killed Bloodaxe.

Fierce blood throbs in his tongue,

lean words.

Skulls cropped for steel caps

huddle round Stainmore.

Their becks ring on limestone,

whisper to peat.

The clogged cart pushes the horse downhill.

In such soft air

they trudge and sing,

laying the tune frankly on the air.

All sounds fall still,

fellside bleat,

hide-and-seek peewit.

Her pulse their pace,

palm countering palm,

till a trench is filled,

stone white as cheese

jeers at the dale.

Knotty wood, hard to rive,

smoulders to ash;

smell of October apples.

The road again,

at a trot.

Wetter, warmed, they watch

the mason meditate

on name and date.

Rain rinses the road,

the bull streams and laments.

Sour rye porridge from the hob

with cream and black tea,

meat, crust and crumb.

Her parents in bed

the children dry their clothes.

He has untied the tape

of her striped flannel drawers

before the range. Naked

on the pricked rag mat

his fingers comb

thatch of his manhood’s home.

Gentle generous voices weave

over bare night

words to confirm and delight

till bird dawn.

Rainwater from the butt

she fetches and flannel

to wash him inch by inch,

kissing the pebbles.

Shining slowworm part of the marvel.

The mason stirs:

Words!

Pens are too light.

Take a chisel to write.

Every birth a crime,

every sentence life.

Wiped of mould and mites

would the ball run true?

No hope of going back.

Hounds falter and stray,

shame deflects the pen.

Love murdered neither bleeds nor stifles

but jogs the draftsman’s elbow.

What can he, changed, tell

her, changed, perhaps dead?

Delight dwindles. Blame

stays the same.

Brief words are hard to find,

shapes to carve and discard:

Bloodaxe, king of York,

king of Dublin, king of Orkney.

Take no notice of tears;

letter the stone to stand

over love laid aside lest

insufferable happiness impede

flight to Stainmore,

to trace

lark, mallet,

becks, flocks

and axe knocks.

Dung will not soil the slowworm’s

mosaic. Breathless lark

drops to nest in sodden trash;

Rawthey truculent, dingy.

Drudge at the mallet, the may is down,

fog on fells. Guilty of spring

and spring’s ending

amputated years ache after

the bull is beef, love a convenience.

It is easier to die than to remember.

Name and date

split in soft slate

a few months obliterate.

BASIL BUNTING

To My Wife at Midnight

I

Are you to say goodnight

And turn away under

The blanket of your delight?

Are you to let me go

Alone to sleep beside you

Into the drifting snow?

Where we each reach,

Sleeping alone together,

Nobody can touch.

Is the cat’s window open?

Shall I turn into your back?

And what is to happen?

What is to happen to us

And what is to happen to each

Of us asleep in our places?

II

I mean us both going

Into sleep at our ages

To sleep and get our fairing.

They have all gone home.

Night beasts are coming out.

The black wood of Madron

Is just waking up.

I hear the rain outside

To help me to go to sleep.

Nessie, dont let my soul

Skip and miss a beat

And cause me to fall.

III

Are you asleep I say

Into the back of your neck

For you not to hear me.

Are you asleep? I hear

Your heart under the pillow

Saying my dear my dear

My dear for all it’s worth.

Where is the dun’s moor

Which began your breath?

IV

Ness, to tell you the truth

I am drifting away

Down to fish for the saithe.

Is the cat’s window open?

The weather is on my shoulder

And I am drifting down

Into O can you hear me

Among your Dunsmuir Clan?

Are you coming out to play?

V

Did I behave badly

On the field at Culloden?

I lie sore-wounded now

By all activities, and

The terrible acts of my time

Are only a distant sound.

With responsibility

I am drifting off

Breathing regularly

Into my younger days

To play the games of Greenock

Beside the sugar-house quays.

VI

Nessie Dunsmuir, I say

Wheesht wheesht to myself

To help me now to go

Under into somewhere

In the redcoat rain.

Buckle me for the war.

Are you to say goodnight

And kiss me and fasten

My drowsy armour tight?

My dear camp-follower,

Hap the blanket round me

And tuck in a flower.

Maybe from my sleep

In the stoure at Culloden

I’ll see you here asleep

In your lonely place.

W. S. GRAHAM

Greenock at Night I Find You

I

As for you loud Greenock long ropeworking

Hide and seeking rivetting town of my child

Hood, I know we think of us often mostly

At night. Have you ever desired me back

Into the set-in bed at the top of the land

In One Hope Street? I am myself lying

Half-asleep hearing the rivetting yards

And smelling the bone-works with no home

Work done for Cartsburn School in the morning.

At night. And here I am descending and

The welding lights in the shipyards flower blue

Under my hopeless eyelids as I lie

Sleeping conditioned to hide from happy.

II

So what did I do? I walked from Hope Street

Down Lyndoch Street between the night’s words

To Cartsburn Street and got to the Cartsburn Vaults

With half an hour to go. See, I am back.

III

See, I am back. My father turned and I saw

He had the stick he cut in Sheelhill Glen.

Brigit was there and Hugh and double-breasted

Sam and Malcolm Mooney and Alastair Graham.

They all were there in the Cartsburn Vaults shining

To meet me but I was only remembered.

W. S. GRAHAM

Loch Thom

I

Just for the sake of recovering

I walked backward from fifty-six

Quick years of age wanting to see,

And managed not to trip or stumble

To find Loch Thorn and turned round

To see the stretch of my childhood

Before me. Here is the loch. The same

Long-beaked cry curls across

T he heather-edges of the water held

Between the hills a boyhood’s walk

Up from Greenock. It is the morning.

And I am here with my mammy’s

Bramble jam scones in my pocket.

The Firth is miles and I have come

Back to find Loch Thom maybe

In this light does not recognise me.

This is a lonely freshwater loch.

No farms on the edge. Only

Heather grouse-moor stretching

Down to Greenock and One Hope

Street or stretching away across

Into the blue moors of Ayrshire.

II

And almost I am back again

Wading the heather down to the edge

To sit. The minnows go by in shoals

Like iron-filings in the shallows.

My mother is dead. My father is dead

And all the trout I used to know

Leaping from their sad rings are dead.

III

I drop my crumbs into the shallow

Weed for the minnows and pinheads.

You see that I will have to rise

And turn round and get back where

My running age will slow for a moment

To let me on. It is a colder

Stretch of water than I remember.

The curlew’s cry travelling still

Kills me fairly. In front of me

The grouse flurry and settle. GOBACK

GOBACK GOBACK FAREWELL LOCH THOM.

W. S. GRAHAM

Feeding Ducks

One duck stood on my toes.

The others made watery rushes after bread

Thrown by my momentary hand; instead,

She stood duck-still and got far more than those.

An invisible drone boomed by

With a beetle in it; the ne®ighbour’s yearning bull

Bugled across five fields. And an evening full

Of other evenings quietly began to die.

And my everlasting hand

Dropped on my hypocrite duck her grace of bread.

And I thought, ‘The first to be fattened, the first to be dead’,

Till my gestures enlarged, wide over the darkening land.

NORMAN MACCAIG

Toad

Stop looking like a purse. How could a purse

squeeze under the rickety door and sit,

full of satisfaction, in a man’s house?

You clamber towards me on your four corners –

right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot.

I love you for being a toad,

for crawling like a Japanese wrestler,

and for not being frightened.

I put you in my purse hand, not shutting it,

and set you down outside directly under

every star.

A jewel in your head? Toad,

you’ve put one in mine,

a tiny radiance in a dark place.

NORMAN MACCAIG

Deceptions?

To hear a dripping water tap in a house

That has no tap in it, in the dead of night.

To hear footsteps come naturally to the door

And stop there forever. In bed in an empty room

To hear a voice on the pillow say Hello.

A wheatstalk dances lasciviously in the fire.

My hand drags its plough across this white field.

My head from a sort of radiance watches a chair

Continually completing its meaning. A picture

Tries to plunge from its nail to the centre of the earth.

Immense tides wash through everything. My knuckles

Are tiny whirlpools in it. I stream sideways.

The room’s roots are straining. Sounds of the fire

Unmuffle themselves from black coal, are a theatre.

My foot rocks because my heart says so.

How could things stop? And three plump cheers for distance …

To shake a hand and be left with it. To see

Sight cramming itself into an eye and wheat

A harrow of fire: and all a correspondence

Shielding the truth and giving birth to it.

NORMAN MACCAIG

The Bright Field

I have seen the sun break through

to illuminate a small field

for a while, and gone my way

and forgotten it. But that was the pearl

of great price, the one field that had

the treasure in it. I realise now

that I must give all that I have

to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after

an imagined past. It is the turning

aside like Moses to the miracle

of the lit bush, to a brightness

that seemed as transitory as your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

R. S. THOMAS

The Moon in Lleyn

The last quarter of the moon

of Jesus gives way

to the dark; the serpent

digests the egg. Here

on my knees in this stone

church, that is full only

of the silent congregation

of shadows and the sea’s

sound, it is easy to believe

Yeats was right. Just as though

choirs had not sung, shells

have swallowed them; the tide laps

at the Bible; the bell fetches

no people to the brittle miracle

of the bread. The sand is waiting

for the running back of the grains

in the wall into its blond

glass. Religion is over, and

what will emerge from the body

of the new moon, no one

can say.

But a voice sounds

in my ear: Why so fast,

mortal? These very seas

are baptised. The parish

has a saint’s name time cannot

unfrock. In cities that

have outgrown their promise people

are becoming pilgrims

again, if not to this place,

then to the recreation of it

in their own spirits. You must remain

kneeling. Even as this moon

making its way through the earth’s

cumbersome shadow, prayer, too,

has its phases.

R. S. THOMAS

Zero

What time is it?

Is it the hour when the servant

of Pharaoh’s daughter went down

and found the abandoned baby

in the bulrushes? The hour

when Dido woke and knew Aeneas

gone from her? When Caesar

looked at the entrails and took

their signal for the crossing

of the dividing river?

Is it

that time when Aneirin

fetched the poem out of his side

and laid it upon the year’s altar

for the appeasement of envious

gods?

It is no time

at all. The shadow falls

on the bright land and men

launder their minds in it, as

they have done century by

century to prepare themselves for the crass deed.

R. S. THOMAS

The Elm Decline

The crags crash to the tarn; slow–

motion corrosion of scree.

From scooped corries,

bare as slag,

black sykes ooze

through quarries of broken boulders.

The sump of the tarn

slumps into its mosses – bog

asphodel, sundew, sedges –

a perpetual

sour October

yellowing the moor.

Seven

thousand years ago

trees grew

high as this tarn. The pikes

were stacks and skerries

spiking the green,

the tidal surge

of oak, birch, elm,

ebbing to ochre

and the wrackwood of backend.

Then

round the year Three

Thousand BC,

the proportion of elm pollen

preserved in peat

declined from twenty

per cent to four.

Stone axes,

chipped clean from the crag-face,

ripped the hide off the fells.

Spade and plough

scriated the bared flesh,

skewered down to the bone.

The rake flaked into fragments

and kettlehole tarns

were shovelled chock-full

of a rubble of rotting rocks.

Today

electric landslips

crack the rock;

drills tunnel it;

valleys go under the tap.

Dynamited runnels

channel a poisoned rain,

and the fractured ledges

are scoured and emery’d

by wind-to-wind rubbings

of nuclear dust.

Soon

the pikes, the old

bottlestops of lava,

will stand scraped bare,

nothing but air round stone

and stone in air,

ground-down stumps

of a skeleton jaw –

Until

under the scree,

under the riddled rake,

beside the outflow of the reedless lake,

no human eye remains to see

a landscape man

helped nature make.

NORMAN NICHOLSON

Eden Rock

They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock:

My father, twenty-five, in the same suit

Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack

Still two years old and trembling at his feet.

My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dress

Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat,

Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass.

Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light.

She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight

From an old H.P. sauce bottle, a screw

Of paper for a cork; slowly sets out

The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.

The sky whitens as if lit by three suns.

My mother shades her eyes and looks my way

Over the drifted stream. My father spins

A stone along the water. Leisurely,

They beckon to me from the other bank.

I hear them call, ‘See where the stream-path is!

Crossing is not as hard as you might think.’

I had not thought that it would be like this.

CHARLES CAUSLEY

The Green Man’s Last Will and Testament

In a ragged spinney (scheduled

For prompt development as a bijou housing estate)

I saw the green daemon of England’s wood

As he wrote his testament. The grey goose

Had given him one of her quills for a pen;

The robin’s breast was a crimson seal;

The long yellow centipede held a candle.

He seemed like a hollow oak-trunk, smothered with ivy:

At his feet or roots clustered the witnesses,

Like hectic toadstools, or pallid as broom-rape:

Wood-elves – goodfellows, hobs and lobs,

Black Anis, the child-devouring hag,

From her cave in the Dane Hills, saucer-eyed

Phantom dogs, Black Shuck and Barghest, with the cruel nymphs

Of the northern streams, Peg Powler of the Tees

And Jenny Greenteeth of the Ribble,

Sisters of Bellisama, the very fair one.

‘I am sick, I must die,’ he said. ‘Poisoned like Lord Randal

From hedges and ditches. My ditches run with pollution,

My hedgerows are gone, and the hedgerow singers.

The rooks, disconsolate, have lost their rookery:

The elms are all dead of the Dutch pox.

No longer the nightjar churns in the twilit glade,

Nor the owl, like a white phantom, silent-feathered

Glides to the barn. The red-beaked chough,

Enclosing Arthur’s soul, is seen no more

Wheeling and calling over the Cornish cliffs.

Old Tod has vacated his deep-dug earth;

He has gone to rummage in the city dustbins.

Tiggy is squashed flat on the M1.

‘My delicate deer are culled, and on offshore islands

My sleek silkies, where puffin and guillemot

Smother and drown in oil and tar.

The mechanical reaper has guillotined

Ortygometra, though she was no traitor,

Crouching over her cradle – no longer resounds

Crek-crek, crek-crek, among the wheatfields,

Where the scarlet cockle is missing and the blue cornflower.

My orchids and wild hyacinths are raped and torn,

My lenten lilies and my fritillaries.

Less frequent now the debate

Of cuckoo and nightingale – and where is the cuckoo’s maid,

The snake-necked bird sacred to Venus,

Her mysteries and the amber twirling wheel?

In no brightness of air dance now the butterflies –

Their hairy mallyshags are slaughtered among the nettles.

The innocent bats are evicted from the belfries,

The death-watch remains, and masticates history.

‘I’ll leave to the people of England

All that remains:

Rags and patches – a few old tales

And bawdy jokes, snatches of song and galumphing dance-steps.

Above all my obstinacy – obstinacy of flintstones

That breed in the soil, and pertinacity

Of unlovely weeds – chickweed and groundsel,

Plantain, shepherd’s purse and Jack-by-the-hedge.

Let them keep it as they wander in the inhuman towns.

‘And the little children, imprisoned in ogrish towers, enchanted

By a one-eyed troll in front of a joyless fire –

I would have them remember the old games and the old dances:

Sir Roger is dead, Sir Roger is dead,

She raised him up under the apple tree;

Poor Mary is a-weeping, weeping like Ariadne,

Weeping for her husband on a bright summer’s day.’

JOHN HEATH-STUBBS

Thoughts after Ruskin

Women reminded him of lilies and roses.

Me they remind rather of blood and soap,

Armed with a warm rag, assaulting noses,

Ears, neck, mouth and all the secret places:

Armed with a sharp knife, cutting up liver,

Holding hearts to bleed under a running tap,

Gutting and stuffing, pickling and preserving,

Scalding, blanching, broiling, pulverising,

– All the terrible chemistry of their kitchens.

Their distant husbands lean across mahogany

And delicately manipulate the market,

While safe at home, the tender and the gentle

Are killing tiny mice, dead snap by the neck,

Asphyxiating flies, evicting spiders,

Scrubbing, scouring aloud, disturbing cupboards,

Committing things to dustbins, twisting, wringing,

Wrists red and knuckles white and fingers puckered,

Pulpy, tepid. Steering screaming cleaners

Around the snags of furniture, they straighten

And haul out sheets from under the incontinent

And heavy old, stoop to importunate young,

Tugging, folding, tucking, zipping, buttoning,

Spooning in food, encouraging excretion,

Mopping up vomit, stabbing cloth with needles,

Contorting wool around their knitting needles,

Creating snug and comfy on their needles.

Their huge hands! their everywhere eyes! their voices

Raised to convey across the hullabaloo,

Their massive thighs and breasts dispensing comfort,

Their bloody passages and hairy crannies,

Their wombs that pocket a man upside down!

And when all’s over, off with overalls,

Quickly consulting clocks, they go upstairs,

Sit and sigh a little, brushing hair,

And somehow find, in mirrors, colours, odours,

Their essences of lilies and of roses.

ELMA MITCHELL

Midge

The evening is perfect, my sisters.

The loch lies silent, the air is still.

The sun’s last rays linger over the water

and there is a faint smirr, almost a smudge

of summer rain. Sisters, I smell supper,

and what is more perfect than supper?

It is emerging from the wood,

in twos and threes, a dozen in all,

making such a chatter and a clatter

as it reaches the rocky shore,

admiring the arrangements of the light.

See the innocents, my sisters,

the clumsy ones, the laughing ones,

the rolled-up sleeves and the flapping shorts,

there is even a kilt (the god of the midges,

you are good to us!). So gather your forces,

leave your tree trunks, forsake the rushes,

fly up from the sour brown mosses

to the seek flesh of face and forearm.

Think of your eggs. What does the egg need?

Blood, and blood. Blood is what the egg needs.

Our men have done their bit, they’ve gone,

it was all they were good for, poor dears. Now

it is up to us. The egg is quietly screaming

for supper, blood, supper, blood, supper!

Attack, my little Draculas, my Amazons!

Look at those flailing arms and stamping feet.

They’re running, swatting, swearing, oh they’re hopeless.

Keep at them, ladies. This is a feast,

this is a midsummer night’s dream.

Soon we shall all lie down filled and rich,

and lay, and lay, and lay, and lay, and lay.

EDWIN MORGAN

Sir James Murray

I pick a daimen icker from the thrave

And chew it thoughtfully. I must be brave

And fight for this. My English colleagues frown

But words come skelpin rank and file, and down

They go, the kittle kimmers, they’re well caught

And I won’t give them up. Who would have thought

A gleg and gangrel Scot like me should barge

Or rather breenge, like a kelpie at large

In the Cherwell, upon the very palladium

Of anglophilia? My sleekit radium

Is smuggled through the fluttering steps. My shed,

My outhouse with it’s thousand-plus well-fed

Pigeon-holes, has a northern exposure. Doon

Gaed stumpie in the ink all afternoon,

As Burns and I refreshed the dictionar

With cantrips from his dancing Carrick star!

O lovely words and lovely man! We’ll caw

Before as yowes tae knowes; we’ll shaw the braw

Auld baudrons by the ingle; we’ll comb

Quotations to bring the wild whaup safely home.

Origin obscure? Origin uncertain? Origin unknown?

I love those eldritch pliskies that are thrown

At as from a too playful past, a store

Of splore we should never be blate to semaphore!

Oxford! here is a silent collieshangie

To spike your index-cards and keep them tangy.

Some, though not I, will jib at houghmagandy:

We’ll maybe not get that past Mrs Grundy

– But evening comes. To work, to work! To words!

The ban are turning into bauckie-birds.

The light in my scriptorium flickers gamely.

Pioneers must never labour tamely.

We steam along, we crawl, we pause, we hurtle,

And stir this English porridge with a spurtle.

EDWIN MORGAN

Canedolia

an off-concrete scotch fantasia

oa! hoy! awe! ba! mey!

who saw?

rhu saw rum. garve saw smoo. nigg saw tain. lairg saw lagg.

rigg saw eigg. largs saw haggs. tongue saw luss. mull saw yell.

stoer saw strone. drem saw muck. gask saw noss. unst saw cults.

echt saw banff. weem saw wick. trool saw twatt.

how far?

from largo to lunga from joppa to skibo from ratho to shona

from ulva to minto from tinto to tolsta from soutra to marsco

from braco to barra from alva to stobo from fogo to fada from

gigha to gogo from kelso to stroma from hirta to spango.

what is it like there?

och it’s freuchie, it’s faifley, it’s wamphray, it’s frandy, it’s

sliddery.

what do you do?

we foindle and fungle, we bonkle and meigle and maxpoffle. we

scotstarvit, armit, wormit, and even wifflet. we play at crosstobs,

leuchars, gorbals and finfan. we scavaig, and there’s aye a bit of

tilquhilly. if it’s wet, treshnish and mishnish.

what is the best of the country?

blinkbonny! airgold! thundergay!

and the worst?

scrishven, shiskine, scrabster, and snizort.

listen! what’s that?

catacol and wauchope, never heed them

tell us about last night

well, we had a wee ferintosh and we lay on the quiraing. it was

pure strontian!

but who was there?

petermoidart and craigenkenneth and cambusputtock and

ecclemuchty and corriehulish and balladolly and altnacanny

and clauchanvrechan and stronachlochan and auchenlachar and

tighnacrankie and tilliebruaich and killieharra and invervannach

and achnatudlem and machrishellach and inchtamurchan and

auchterfechan and kinlochculter and ardnawhallie and inver-

shuggle

and what was the toast?

schiehallion! schiehallion! schiehallion!

EDWIN MORGAN

Barn Owl

Ernie Morgan found him, a small

Fur mitten inexplicably upright,

And hissing like a treble kettle

Beneath the tree he’d fallen from.

His bright eye frightened Ernie,

Who popped a rusty bucket over him

And ran for us. We kept him

In a backyard shed, perched

On the rung of a broken deck-chair,

Its canvas faded to his down’s biscuit.

Men from the pits, their own childhood

Spent waste in the crippling earth,

Held him gently, brought him mice

From the wealth of our riddled tenements,

Saw that we understood his tenderness,

His tiny body under its puffed quilt,

Then left us alone. We called him Snowy.

He was never clumsy. He flew

From the first like a skilled moth,

Sifting the air with feathers,

Floating it softly to the place he wanted.

At dusk he’d stir, preen, stand

At the window-ledge, fly. It was

A catching of the heart to see him go.

Six months we kept him, saw him

Grow beautiful in a way each thought

His own knowledge. One afternoon, home

With pretended illness, I watched him

Leave. It was daylight. He lifted slowly

Over the Hughes’s roof, his cream face calm,

And never came back. I saw this;

And tell it for the first time,

Having wanted to keep his mystery.

And would not say it now, but that

This morning, walking in Slindon woods

Before the sun, I found a barn owl

Dead in the rusty bracken.

He was not clumsy in his death,

His wings folded decently to him,

His plumes, unruffled orange,

Bore flawlessly their delicate patterning.

With a stick I turned him, not

Wishing to touch his feathery stiffness.

There was neither blood nor wound on him,

But for the savaged foot a scavenger

Had ripped. I saw the sinews.

I could have skewered them out

Like a common fowl’s. Moving away

I was oppressed by him, thinking

Confusedly that down the generations

Of air this death was Snowy’s

Emblematic messsenger, that I should know

The meaning of it, the dead barn owl.

LESLIE NORRIS

Water

On hot summer mornings my aunt set glasses

On a low wall outside the farmhouse,

With some jugs of cold water.

I would sit in the dark hail, or

Behind the dairy window,

Waiting for children to come from the town.

They came in small groups, serious, steady,

And I could see them, black in the heat,

Long before they turned in at our gate

To march up the soft, dim road.

They would stand by the wall,

Drinking water with an engrossed thirst. The dog

Did not bother them, knowing them responsible

Travellers. They held in quiet hands their bags

Of jam sandwiches, and bottles of yellow fizz.

Sometimes they waved a gratitude to the house,

But they never looked at us.

Their eyes were full of the mountain, lifting

Their measuring faces above our long hedge.

When they had gone I would climb the wall,

Looking for them among the thin sheep runs.

Their heads were a resolute darkness among ferns,

They climbed with unsteady certainty.

I wondered what it was they knew the mountain had.

They would pass the last house, Lambert’s, where

A violent gander, too old by many a Christmas,

Blared evil warning from his bitten moor,

Then it was open world, too high and clear

For clouds even, where over heather

The free hare cleanly ran and the summer sheep.

I knew this; and I knew all summer long

Those visionary gangs passed through our lanes,

Coming down at evening, their arms full

Of cowslips, moon daisies, whinberries, nuts,

All fruits of the sliding seasons,

And the enormous experience of the mountain

That I who loved it did not understand.

In the summer, dust filled our winter ruts

With a level softness, and children walked

At evening through golden curtains scuffed

From the road by their trailing feet.

They would drink tiredly at our wall, talking

Softly, leaning, their sleepy faces warm for home.

We would see them murmur slowly through our stiff

Gate, their shy heads gilded by the last sun.

One by one we would gather up the used jugs,

The glasses. We would pour away

A little water. It would lie on the thick dust, gleaming.

LESLIE NORRIS

Butter

Where has my butter gone? The

vanman, he took seven pounds

and a basket of warm eggs, for

jam, sugar, tea, paraffin. I

gave the tinkers a lump, to keep

this away, the black word from our

byre. I put some in the damp peats,

to coax a flame. I swear the cat

has a yellow tongue. There was only

a scrape for the fisherman’s bannock

like a bit of sun on a dull day. The

old cow is giving me a mad look.

GEORGE MACKAY BROWN

Hamnavoe Market

They drove to the Market with ringing pockets.

Folster found a girl

Who put wounds on his face and throat,

Small and diagonal, like red doves.

Johnston stood beside the barrel.

All day he stood there.

He woke in a ditch, his mouth full of ashes.

Grieve bought a balloon and a goldfish.

He swung through the air,

He fired shotguns, rolled pennies, ate sweet fog from a stick.

Heddle was at the Market also.

I know nothing of his activities,

He is and always was a quiet man.

Garson fought three rounds with a negro boxer,

And received thirty shillings,

Much applause, and an eye loaded with thunder.

Where did they find Flett?

They found him in a brazen circle,

All flame and blood, a new Salvationist.

A gypsy saw in the hand of Halcro

Great strolling herds, harvests, a proud woman.

He wintered in the poorhouse.

They drove home from the Market under the stars

Except for Johnston

Who lay in a ditch, his mouth full of dying fires.

GEORGE MACKAY BROWN

Haddock Fishermen

Midnight. The wind yawing nor-east.

A low blunt moon.

Unquiet beside quiet wives we rest.

A spit of rain and a gull

In the open door.

The lit fire. A quick mouthful of ale.

We push the Merle at a sea of cold flame.

The oars drip honey.

Hook by hook uncoils under The Kame.

Our line breaks the trek of sudden thousands.

Twelve nobbled jaws,

Grey cowls, gape in our hands.

Twelve cold mouths scream without sound.

The sea is empty again.

Like tinkers the bright ones endlessly shift their ground.

We probe emptiness all the afternoon,

Then pause and fill our teeth

With dependable food, beef and barley scone.

Sunset drags its butcher blade

From the day’s throat.

We turn through an ebb salt and sticky as blood.

More stars than fish. Women, cats, a gull

Mewl at the rock.

The valley divides the meagre miracle.

GEORGE MACKAY BROWN

Money

Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:

‘Why do you let me lie here wastefully?

I am all you never had of goods and sex.

You could get them still by writing a few cheques.’

So I look at others, what they do with theirs:

They certainly don’t keep it upstairs.

By now they’ve a second house and car and wife:

Clearly money has something to do with life

– In fact, they’ve a lot in common, if you enquire:

You can’t put off being young until you retire,

And however you bank your screw, the money you save

Won’t in the end buy you more than a shave.

I listen to money singing. It’s like looking down

From long french windows at a provincial town,

The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad

In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.

PHILIP LARKIN

Water

If I were called in

To construct a religion

I should make use of water.

Going to church

Would entail a fording

To dry, different clothes;

My liturgy would employ

Images of sousing,

A furious devout drench,

And I should raise in the east

A glass of water

Where any-angled light

Would congregate endlessly.

PHILIP LARKIN

Going, Going

I thought it would last my time –

The sense that, beyond the town,

There would always be fields and farms,

Where the village louts could climb

Such trees as were not cut down;

I knew there’d be false alarms

In the papers about old streets

And split-level shopping, but some

Have always been left so far;

And when the old part retreats

As the bleak high-risers come

We can always escape in the car.

Things are tougher than we are, just

As earth will always respond

However we mess it about;

Chuck filth in the sea, if you must:

The tides will be clean beyond.

– But what do I feel now? Doubt?

Or age, simply? The crowd

Is young in the M1 café;

Their kids are screaming for more –

More houses, more parking allowed,

More caravan sites, more pay.

On the Business Page, a score

Of spectacled grins approve

Some takeover bid that entails

Five per cent profit (and ten

Per cent more in the estuaries): move

Your works to the unspoilt dales

(Grey area grants)! And when

You try to get near the sea

In summer …

It seems, just now,

To be happening so very fast;

Despite all the land left free

For the first time I feel somehow

That it isn’t going to last,

That before I snuff it, the whole

Boiling will be bricked in

Except for the tourist parts –

First slum of Europe: a role

It won’t be so hard to win,

With a cast of crooks and tarts.

And that will be England gone,

The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,

The guildhalls, the carved choirs.

There’ll be books; it will linger on

In galleries; but all that remains

For us will be concrete and tyres.

Most things are never meant.

This won’t be, most likely: but greeds

And garbage are too thick-strewn

To be swept up now, or invent

Excuses that make them all needs.

I just think it will happen, soon.

PHILIP LARKIN

I Was Not There

The morning they set out from home

I was not there to comfort them

the dawn was innocent with snow

in mockery – it is not true

the dawn was neutral was immune

their shadows threaded it too soon

they were relieved that it had come

I was not there to comfort them

One told me that my father spent

a day in prison long ago

he did not tell me that he went

what difference does it make now

when he set out when he came home

I was not there to comfort him

and now I have no means to know

of what I was kept ignorant

Both my parents died in camps

I was not there to comfort them

I was not there they were alone

my mind refuses to conceive

the life the death they must have known

I must atone because I live

I could not have saved them from death

the ground is neutral underneath

Every child must leave its home

time gathers life impartially

I could have spared them nothing since

I was too young – it is not true

they might have lived to succour me

and none shall say in my defence

had I been there to comfort them

it would have made no difference

KAREN GERSHON

The Boasts of Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd

Sunday, skilled in zealous verse I praise the Lord.

Monday, I sing in bed to my busty Nest,

‘Such whiteness you are, pear blossom must be jealous.’

Tuesday, scholar Gwladus. Not to love her is a sin.

My couplets she pigeon-coos when I thrust to woo her

till her pale cheeks flush like rosy apple skin.

Wednesday, Generys. Dry old hymns I steal to please her.

Then with passion fruit in season I kneel to ease her.

Thursday, Hunydd, no hesitating lady, she.

One small cherry-englyn and she’s my devotee.

Friday, worried Hawis, my epic regular.

She wants no baby, she’s gooseberry vehement

till sugared by my poetry of endearment.

Saturday, I score and score. One tidy eulogy

and I’m away – I can’t brake – through an orchard

I adore. O sweet riot of efflorescence,

let her name be secret for her husband’s sake,

my peach of a woman, my vegetarian diet.

O tongue, lick up juices of the fruit. O teeth

– I’ve all of mine – be sure my busy tongue keeps quiet.

DANNIE ABSE

Epithalamion

Singing, today I married my white girl

beautiful in a barley field.

Green on thy finger a grass blade curled,

so with this ring I thee wed, I thee wed,

and send our love to the loveless world

of all the living and all the dead.

Now, no more than vulnerable human,

we more than one, less than two,

are nearly ourselves in a barley field –

and only love is the rent that’s due

though the bailiffs of time return anew

to all the living but not the dead.

Shipwrecked, the sun sinks down harbours

of a sky, unloads its liquid cargoes

of marigolds, and I and my white girl

lie still in the barley – who else wishes

to speak, what more can be said

by all the living against all the dead?

Come then all you wedding guests:

green ghost of trees, gold of barley,

you blackbird priests in the field,

you wind that shakes the pansy head

fluttering on a stalk like a butterfly;

come the living and come the dead.

Listen flowers, birds, winds, worlds,

tell all today that I married

more than a white girl in the barley –

for today I took to my human bed

flower and bird and wind and world

and all the living and all the dead.

DANNIE ABSE

The Lost Woman

My mother went with no more warning

Than a bright voice and a bad pain.

Home from school on a June morning

And where the brook goes under the lane

I saw the back of a shocking white

Ambulance drawing away from the gate.

She never returned and I never saw

Her buried. So a romance began.

The ivy-mother turned into a tree

That still hops away like a rainbow down

The avenue as I approach.

My tendrils are the ones that clutch.

I made a life for her over the years.

Frustrated no more by a dull marriage

She ran a canteen through several wars.

The wit of a cliché-ridden village

She met her match at an extra-mural

Class and the OU summer school.

Many a hero in his time

And every poet has acquired

A lost woman to haunt the home,

To be compensated and desired,

Who will not alter, who will not grow,

A corpse they need never get to know.

She is nearly always benign. Her habit

Is not to stride at dead of night.

Soft and crepuscular in rabbit–

Light she comes out. Hear how they hate

Themselves for losing her as they did.

Her country is bland and she does not chide.

But my lost woman evermore snaps

From somewhere else: ‘You did not love me.

I sacrificed too much perhaps,

I showed you the way to rise above me

And you took it. You are the ghost

With the bat-voice, my dear. I am not lost.’

PATRICIA BEER

Scotland

It was a day peculiar to this piece of the planet,

when larks rose on long thin strings of singing

and the air shifted with the shimmer of actual angels.

Greenness entered the body. The grasses

shivered with presences, and sunlight

stayed like a halo on hair and heather and hills.

Walking into town, I saw, in a radiant raincoat,

the woman from the fish-shop. ‘What a day it is!’

cried I, like a sunstruck madman.

And what did she have to say for it?

Her brow grew bleak, her ancestors raged in their graves

as she spoke with their ancient misery:

‘We’ll pay for it, we’ll pay for it, we’ll pay for it!’

ALASTAIR REID

The Child’s Story

When I was small and they talked about love I laughed

But I ran away and I hid in a tall tree

Or I lay in asparagus beds

But I still listened.

The blue dome sang with the wildest birds

And the new sun sang in the idle noon

But then I heard love, love, rung from the steeples, each belfry,

And I was afraid and I watched the cypress trees

Join the deciduous chestnuts and oaks in a crowd of shadows

And then I shivered and ran and ran to the tall

White house with the green shutters and dark red door

And I cried ‘Let me in even if you must love me’

And they came and lifted me up and told me the name

Of the near and the far stars,

And so my first love was.

ELIZABETH JENNINGS

My Grandmother

She kept an antique shop – or it kept her.

Among Apostle spoons and Bristol glass,

The faded silks, the heavy furniture,

She watched her own reflection in the brass

Salvers and silver bowls, as if to prove

Polish was all, there was no need of love.

And I remember how I once refused

To go out with her, since I was afraid.

It was perhaps a wish not to be used

Like antique objects. Though she never said

That she was hurt, I still could feel the guilt

Of that refusal, guessing how she felt.

Later, too frail to keep a shop, she put

All her best things in one long narrow room.

The place smelt old, of things too long kept shut,

The smell of absences where shadows come

That can’t be polished. There was nothing then

To give her own reflection back again.

And when she died I felt no grief at all,

Only the guilt of what I once refused.

I walked into her room among the tall

Sideboards and cupboards – things she never used

But needed: and no finger-marks were there,

Only the new dust falling through the air.

ELIZABETH JENNINGS

A Bird in the House

It was a yellow voice, a high, shrill treble in the nursery

White always and high, I remember it so,

White cupboard, off-white table, mugs, dolls’ faces

And I was four or five. The garden could have been

Miles away. We were taken down to the green

Asparagus beds, the cut lawn, and the smell of it

Comes each summer after rain when white returns. Our bird,

A canary called Peter, sang behind bars. The black and white cat

Curled and snoozed by the fire and danger was far away.

Far away for us. Safety was life and only now do I know

That white walls and lit leaves knocking windows

Are a good prison but always you have

To escape, fly off from love not felt as love,

But our bird died in his yellow feathers. The quick

Cat caught him, tore him through bars when we were out

And I do not remember tears or sadness, I only

Remember the ritual, the warm yellow feathers we put

In a cardboard egg. What a sense of fitness. How far, I know now,

Ritual goes back, egg to egg, birth to burial and we went

Down the garden softly, two in a small procession,

And the high clouds bent down, the sky pulled aside

Its blue curtains. Death was there or else

Where the wise cat had hidden. That day we buried our bird

With a sense of fitness, not knowing death would be hard

Later, dark, without form or purpose.

After my first true grief I wept, was sad, was dark, but today,

Clear of terror and agony,

The yellow bird sings in my mind and I say

That the child is callous but wise, knows the purpose of play.

And the grief of ten years ago

Now has an ancient rite,

A walk down the garden carrying death in an egg

And the sky singing, the trees still waving farewell

When dying was nothing to know.

ELIZABETH JENNINGS

When I am Reading

When I am reading

the literature of my people

I think,

We have no Homer

no poet as great as that,

at all as great as that,

in that way

in that marvellous way.

But now and again I read

about a particular girl

who died of love

in a ragged dress

or an eagle will rise

crying, I was eating

noble dead soldiers

who were lying on a battlefield.

And now and again there will sail

on the sea towards Canada

ships with salt sails,

songs that are white with pain.

IAIN CRICHTON SMITH

Owl and Mouse

The owl wafts home with a mouse in its beak.

The moon is stunningly bright in the high sky.

Such a gold stone, such a brilliant hard light.

Such large round eyes of the owl among the trees.

All seems immortal but for the dangling mouse,

an old hurt string among the harmony

of the masterful and jewelled orchestra

which shows no waste soundlessly playing on.

IAIN CRICHTON SMITH

You Are at the Bottom of My Mind

from the Gaelic

Without my knowing it you are at the bottom of my mind

like a visitor to the bottom of the sea

with his helmet and his two large eyes,

and I do not rightly know your appearance or your manner

after five years of showers

of time pouring between me and you:

nameless mountains of water pouring

between me hauling you on board

and your appearance and manner in my weak hands.

You went astray

among the mysterious plants of the sea-bed

in the green half-light without love,

and you will never rise to the surface

though my hands are hauling ceaselessly,

and I do not know your way at all,

you in the half-light of your sleep

haunting the bed of the sea without ceasing

and I hauling and hauling on the surface.

IAIN CRICHTON SMITH

Some Poetry

Poetry is a loose term and only

A fool would offer a definition.

Those not concerned with the form

At all usually refer to some

Beautiful manifestation or the other.

Chopin, dying in hellish foggy London,

Wrote to say he was leaving for

Paris to finish the ultimate act,

Begging Grzymala to make his room ready

And not to forget a bunch of violets

So that he would have a little poetry

Around him when he returned.

I like to think the violets were

Easily obtainable and that the poetry

Was there, on the table, breathing

Wordless volumes for one too tired

To turn pages while moving swiftly

Towards an inevitable incomprehensible form.

FREDA DOWNIE

Hampstead: the Horse Chestnut Trees

At the top of a low hill

two stand together, green

bobbings contained within

the general sway. They

must be about my age.

My brother and I

rode between them and

down the hill and the impetus

took us on without pedalling

to be finally braked by

a bit of sullen marsh

(no longer there) where the mud

was coloured by the red-brown

oozings of iron. It

was autumn

or was it?

Nothing to keep it there, the

smell of leaf in May

sweet and powerful as rutting

confuses me now, it’s all

getting lost, I started

forgetting it even as I wrote.

Forms remain, not the life

of detail or hue

then the forms are lost and

only a few dates stay with you.

But the trees have no sentiments

their hearts are wood

and preserve nothing

their

boles get great, they are

embraced by the wind they

rushingly embrace,

they spread outward

and upward

without regret

hardening tender green

to insensate lumber.

THOM GUNN

Father in the Railway Buffet

What are you doing here, ghost, among these urns,

These film-wrapped sandwiches and help-yourself biscuits,

Upright and grand, with your stick, hat and gloves,

Your breath of eau-de-cologne?

What have you to say to these head-scarfed tea-ladies,

For whom your expensive vowels are exotic as Japan?

Stay, ghost, in your proper haunts, the clubland smoke-rooms,

Where you know the waiters by name.

You have no place among these damp and nameless.

Why do you walk here? I came to say goodbye.

You were ashamed of me for being different.

It didn’t matter.

You who never even learned to queue?

U. A. FANTHORPE

Football at Slack

Between plunging valleys, on a bareback of hill

Men in bunting colours

Bounced, and their blown ball bounced.

The blown ball jumped, and the merry-coloured men

Spouted like water to head it.

The ball blew away downwind –

The rubbery men bounced after it.

The ball jumped up and out and hung on the wind

Over a gulf of treetops.

Then they all shouted together, and the ball blew back.

Winds from fiery holes in heaven

Piled the hills darkening around them

To awe them. The glare light

Mixed its mad oils and threw glooms.

Then the rain lowered a steel press.

Hair plastered, they all just trod water

To puddle glitter. And their shouts bobbed up

Coming fine and thin, washed and happy

While the humped world sank foundering

And the valleys blued unthinkable

Under depth of Atlantic depression –

But the wingers leapt, they bicycled in air

And the goalie flew horizontal

And once again a golden holocaust

Lifted the cloud’s edge, to watch them.

TED HUGHES

Wind

This house has been far out at sea all night,

The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,

Winds stampeding the fields under the window

Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky

The hills had new places, and wind wielded

Blade-light, luminous and emerald,

Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as

The coal-house door. I dared once to look up –

Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes

The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,

The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,

At any second to bang and vanish with a flap:

The wind flung a magpie away and a black–

Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note

That any second would shatter it. Now deep

In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip

Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,

And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,

Seeing the window tremble to come in,

Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.

TED HUGHES

Epiphany

London. The grimy lilac softness

Of an April evening. Me

Walking over Chalk Farm Bridge

On my way to the tube station.

A new father – slightly light-headed

With the lack of sleep and the novelty.

Next, this young fellow coming towards me.

I glanced at him for the first time as I passed him

Because I noticed (I couldn’t believe it)

What I’d been ignoring.

Not the bulge of a small animal

Buttoned into the top of his jacket

The way colliers used to wear their whippets –

But its actual face. Eyes reaching out

Trying to catch my eyes – so familiar!

The huge ears, the pinched, urchin expression –

The wild confronting stare, pushed through fear,

Between the jacket lapels.

‘It’s a fox-cub!’

I heard my own surprise as I stopped.

He stopped. ‘Where did you get it? What

Are you going to do with it?’

A fox-cub

On the hump of Chalk Farm Bridge!

‘You can have him for a pound.’ ‘But

Where did you find it? What will you do with it?’

‘Oh, somebody’ll buy him. Cheap enough

At a pound.’ And a grin.

What I was thinking

Was – what would you think? How would we fit it

Into our crate of space? With the baby?

What would you make of its old smell

And its mannerless energy?

And as it grew up and began to enjoy itself

What would we do with an unpredictable,

Powerful, bounding fox?

The long-mouthed, flashing temperament?

That necessary nightly twenty miles

And that vast hunger for everything beyond us?

How would we cope with its cosmic derangements

Whenever we moved?

The little fox peered past me at other folks,

At this one and at that one, then at me.

Good luck was all it needed.

Already past the kittenish

But the eyes still small,

Round, orphaned-looking, woebegone

As if with weeping. Bereft

Of the blue milk, the toys of feather and fur,

The den life’s happy dark. And the huge whisper

Of the constellations

Out of which Mother had always returned.

My thoughts felt like big, ignorant hounds

Circling and sniffing around him.

Then I walked on

As if out of my own life.

I let that fox-cub go. I tossed it back

Into the future

Of a fox-cub in London and I hurried

Straight on and dived as if escaping

Into the Underground. If I had paid,

If I had paid that pound and turned back

To you, with that armful of fox –

If I had grasped that whatever comes with a fox

Is what tests a marriage and proves it a marriage –

I would not have failed the test. Would you have failed it?

But I failed. Our marriage had failed.

TED HUGHES

Elegy for the Welsh Dead, in the Falkland Islands, 1982

Gwŷr a aeth Gatraeth oedd ffraeth eu llu;

Glasfedd eu hancwyn, a gwenwyn fu.

– Y Gododdin (6th century)

Men went to Catraeth, keen was their company.

They were fed on fresh mead, and it proved poison.

Men went to Catraeth. The luxury liner

For three weeks feasted them.

They remembered easy ovations,

Our boys, splendid in courage.

For three weeks the albatross roads,

Passwords of dolphin and petrel,

Practised their obedience

Where the killer whales gathered,

Where the monotonous seas yelped.

Though they went to church with their standards

Raw death has them garnished.

Men went to Catraeth. The Malvinas

Of their destiny greeted them strangely.

Instead of affection there was coldness,

Splintering iron and the icy sea,

Mud and the wind’s malevolent satire.

They stood nonplussed in the bomb’s indictment.

Malcolm Wigley of Connah’s Quay. Did his helm

Ride high in the war-line?

Did he drink enough mead for that journey?

The desolated shores of Tegeingl,

Did they pig this steel that destroyed him?

The Dee runs silent beside empty foundries.

The way of the wind and the rain is adamant.

Clifford Elley of Pontypridd. Doubtless he feasted.

He went to Catraeth with a bold heart.

He was used to valleys. The shadow held him.

The staff and the fasces of tribunes betrayed him.

With the oil of our virtue we have anointed

His head, in the presence of foes.

A lad in Tredegar or Maerdy. Was he shy before girls?

He exposes himself now to the hags, the glance

Of the loose-fleshed whores, the deaths

That congregate like gulls on garbage.

His sword flashed in the wastes of nightmare.

Russell Carlisle of Rhuthun. Men of the North

Mourn Rheged’s son in the castellated Vale.

His nodding charger neighed for the battle.

Uplifted hooves pawed at the lightning.

Now he lies down. Under the air he is dead.

Men went to Catraeth. Of the forty-three

Certainly Tony Jones of Carmarthen was brave.

What did it matter, steel in the heart?

Shrapnel is faithful now. His shroud is frost.

With the dawn men went. Those forty-three,

Gentlemen all, from the streets and byways of Wales,

Dragons of Aberdare, Denbigh and Neath –

Figment of empire, whore’s honour, held them.

Forty-three at Catraeth died for our dregs.

ANTHONY CONRAN

from Mercian Hymns

I

King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone: overlord of the M5: architect of the historic rampart and ditch, the citadel at Tamworth, the summer hermitage in Holy Cross: guardian of the Welsh Bridge and the Iron Bridge: contractor to the desirable new estates: saltmaster: money-changer: commissioner for oaths: martyrologist; the friend of Charlemagne.

‘I liked that’, said Offa, ‘sing it again.’

XIV

Dismissing reports and men, he put pressure on the wax, blistered it to a crest. He threatened malefactors with ash from his noon cigar.

When the sky cleared above Malvern, he lingered in his orchard; by the quiet hammer-pond. Trout-fry simmered there, translucent, as though forming the water’s underskin. He had a care for natural minutiae. What his gaze touched was his tenderness. Woodlice sat pellet-like in the cracked bark and a snail sugared its new stone.

At dinner, he relished the mockery of drinking his family’s health. He did this whenever it suited him, which was not often.

XXI

Cohorts of charabancs fanfared Offa’s province and his concern, negotiating the by-ways from Teme to Trent. Their windshields dripped butterflies. Stranded on hilltops they signalled with plumes of steam. Twilight menaced the land. The young women wept and surrendered.

Still, everyone was cheerful, heedless in such days: at summer weekends dipping into valleys beyond Mercia’s dyke. Tea was enjoyed, by lakesides where all might fancy carillons of real Camelot vibrating through the silent water.

Gradually, during the years, deciduous velvet peeled from evergreen albums and during the years more treasures were mislaid: the harp-shaped brooches, the nuggets of fool’s gold.

XXII

We ran across the meadow scabbed with cow-dung, past the crab-apple trees and camouflaged nissen hut. It was curfew-time for our war-band.

At home the curtains were drawn. The wireless boomed its commands. I loved the battle-anthems and the gregarious news.

Then, in the earthy shelter, warmed by a blue-glassed stormlantern, I huddled with stories of dragon-tailed airships and warriors who took wing immortal as phantoms.

XXVII

‘Now when King Offa was alive and dead’, they were all there, the funereal gleemen: papal legate and rural dean; Merovingian car-dealers, Welsh mercenaries; a shuffle of house-carls.

He was defunct. They were perfunctory. The ceremony stood acclaimed. The mob received memorial vouchers and signs.

After that shadowy, thrashing midsummer hail-storm, Earth lay for a while, the ghost-bride of livid Thor, butcher of strawberries, and the shire-tree dripped red in the arena of its uprooting.

GEOFFREY HILL

Punishment

I can feel the tug

of the halter at the nape

of her neck, the wind

on her naked front.

It blows her nipples

to amber beads,

it shakes the frail rigging

of her ribs.

I can see her drowned

body in the bog,

the weighing stone,

the floating rods and boughs.

Under which at first

she was a barked sapling

that is dug up

oak-bone, brain-firkin:

her shaved head

like a stubble of black corn,

her blindfold a soiled bandage,

her noose a ring

to store

the memories of love.

Little adulteress,

before they punished you

you were flaxen-haired,

undernourished, and your

tar-black face was beautiful.

My poor scapegoat,

I almost love you

but would have cast, I know,

the stones of silence.

I am the artful voyeur

of your brain’s exposed

and darkened combs,

your muscles’ webbing

and all your numbered bones:

I who have stood dumb

when your betraying sisters,

cauled in tar,

wept by the railings,

who would connive

in civilised outrage

yet understand the exact

and tribal, intimate revenge.

SEAMUS HEANEY

The Harvest Bow

As you plaited the harvest bow

You implicated the mellowed silence in you

In wheat that does not rust

But brightens as it tightens twist by twist

Into a knowable corona,

A throwaway love-knot of straw.

Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks

And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of gamecocks

Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent

Until your fingers moved somnambulant:

I tell and finger it like braille,

Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,

And if I spy into its golden loops

I see us walk between the railway slopes

Into an evening of long grass and midges,

Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,

An auction notice on an outhouse wall –

You with a harvest bow in your lapel,

Me with the fishing rod, already homesick

For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick

Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes

Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes

Nothing: that original townland

Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.

The end of art is peace

Could be the motto of this frail device

That I have pinned up on our deal dresser –

Like a drawn snare

Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn

Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.

SEAMUS HEANEY

The Guttural Muse

Late summer, and at midnight

I smelt the heat of the day:

At my window over the hotel car park

I breathed the muddied night airs off the lake

And watched a young crowd leave the discotheque.

Their voices rose up thick and comforting

As oily bubbles the feeding tench sent up

That evening at dusk – the slimy tench

Once called the ‘doctor fish’ because his slime

Was said to heal the wounds of fish that touched it.

A girl in a white dress

Was being courted out among the cars:

As her voice swarmed and puddled into laughs

I felt like some old pike all badged with sores

Wanting to swim in touch with soft-mouthed life.

SEAMUS HEANEY

A Keen for the Coins

O henny penny! Oh horsed half-crown!

O florin salmon! O sixpence hound!

O woodcock! Piglets! Hare and bull!

O mint of field and flood, farewell!

Be Ireland’s lost ark, gone to ground,

And where the rainbow ends, be found.

SEAMUS HEANEY

The Blackbird of Glanmore

On the grass when I arrive,

Filling the stillness with life,

But ready to scare off

At the very first wrong move.

In the ivy when I leave.

It’s you, blackbird, I love.

I park, pause, take heed.

Breathe. Just breathe and sit

And lines I once translated

Come back: ‘I want away

To the house of death, to my father

Under the low clay roof.’

And I think of one gone to him,

A little stillness dancer –

Haunter-son, lost brother –

Cavorting through the yard,

So glad to see me home,

My homesick first term over.

And think of a neighbour’s words

Long after the accident:

‘Yon bird on the shed roof,

Up on the ridge for weeks –

I said nothing at the time

Bur I never liked yon bird.’

The automatic lock

Clunks shut, the blackbird’s panic

Is shortlived, for a second

I’ve a bird’s eye view of myself,

A shadow on raked gravel

In front of my house of life.

Hedge-hop, I am absolute

For you, your ready talkback,

Your each stand-offish comeback,

Your picky, nervy goldbeak –

On the grass when I arrive,

In the ivy when I leave.

SEAMUS HEANEY

Englan Voice

I prepare – an prepare well – fe Englan.

Me decide, and done leave behine

all the voice of ol slave-estate bushman.

None of that distric bad-talk in Englan,

that bush talk of ol slave-estate man.

Hear me speak in Englan, an see

you dohn think I a Englan native.

Me nah go say

‘Bwoy, how you du?’

me a-go say ‘How are you old man?’

Me nah go say

‘Wha yu nyam las night?’

me a-go say ‘What did you have for supper?’

Patois talk is bushman talk –

people who talk patois them dam lazy.

Because mi bush voice so settle in me

an might let me down in-a Englan

me a-practise.

Me a-practise talk like teacher

till mi Englan voice come out-a me

like water from hillside rock.

Even if you fellows here

dohn hear mi Englan voice

I have it – an hear it in mi head!

JAMES BERRY

The Nation

The national day

had dawned. Everywhere

the national tree was opening its blossoms

to the sun’s first rays, and from all quarters

young and old in national costume

were making their way to the original National

Building, where the national standard already

fluttered against the sky. Some breakfasted

on the national dish as they walked, frequently

pausing to greet acquaintances with a heartfelt

exchange of the national gesture. Many

were leading the national animal; others carried it

in their arms. The national bird

flew overhead; and on every side

could be heard the keen strains

of the national anthem, played on

the national instrument.

Where enough were gathered together,

national feeling ran high, and concerted cries of

‘Death to the national foe!’ were raised.

The national weapon was brandished. Though

festivities were constrained by the size of

the national debt, the national sport was

vigorously played all day

and the national drink drunk.

And from midday till late in the evening

there arose continually from the rear

of the national prison the sounds of the national

method of execution, dealing out rapid

justice to those who had given way

– on this day of all days –

to the national vice.

ROY FISHER

Handbag

My mother’s old leather handbag,

crowded with letters she carried

all through the war. The smell

of my mother’s handbag: mints

and lipstick and Coty powder.

The look of those letters, softened

and worn at the edges, opened,

read, and refolded so often.

Letters from my father. Odour

of leather and powder, which ever

since then has meant womanliness,

and love, and anguish, and war.

RUTH FAINLIGHT

Willow Song

I went down to the railway

But the railway wasn’t there.

A long scar lay across the waste

Bound up with vetch and maidenhair

And birdsfoot trefoils everywhere.

But the clover and the sweet hay,

The cranesbill and the yarrow

Were as nothing to the rose bay

the rose bay, the rose bay,

As nothing to the rose bay willow.

I went down to the river

But the river wasn’t there.

A hill of slag lay in its course

With pennycress and cocklebur

And thistles bristling with fur.

But ragweed, dock and bitter may

And hawkbit in the hollow

Were as nothing to the rose bay,

the rose bay, the rose bay

As nothing to the rose bay willow.

I went down to find my love.

My sweet love wasn’t there.

A shadow stole into her place

And spoiled the loosestrife of her hair

And counselled me to pick despair.

Old elder and young honesty

Turned ashen, but their sorrow

Was as nothing to the rose bay

the rose bay, the rose bay,

As nothing to the rose bay willow.

O I remember summer

When the hemlock was in leaf.

The sudden poppies by the path

Were little pools of crimson grief.

Sick henbane cowered like a thief.

But self-heal sprang up in her way,

And mignonette’s light yellow,

To flourish with the rose bay,

the rose bay, the rose bay,

To flourish with the rose bay willow.

Its flames took all the wasteland

And all the river’s silt,

But as my dear grew thin and grey

They turned as white as salt or milk.

Great purples withered out of guilt,

And bright weeds blew away

In cloudy wreaths of summer snow.

And the first one was the rose bay,

the rose bay, the rose bay,

The first one was the rose bay willow.

ANNE STEVENSON

Immigrant

November ’63: eight months in London.

I pause on the low bridge to watch the pelicans:

they float swanlike, arching their white necks

over only slightly ruffled bundles of wings,

burying awkward beaks in the lake’s water.

I clench cold fists in my Marks and Spencer’s jacket

and secretly test my accent once again:

St James’s Park; St James’s Park; St James’s Park.

FLEUR ADCOCK

Begin

Begin again to the summoning birds

to the sight of light at the window,

begin to the roar of morning traffic

all along Pembroke Road.

Every beginning is a promise

born in light and dying in dark

determination and exaltation of springtime

flowering the way to work.

Begin to the pageant of queuing girls

the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal

bridges linking the past and future

old friends passing though with us still.

Begin to the loneliness that cannot end

since it perhaps is what makes us begin,

begin to wonder at unknown faces

at crying birds in the sudden rain

at branches stark in the willing sunlight

at seagulls foraging for bread

at couples sharing a sunny secret

alone together while making good.

Though we live in a world that dreams of ending

that always seems about to give in

something that will not acknowledge conclusion

insists that we forever begin.

BRENDAN KENNELLY

River & Fountain

I

I am walking backwards into the future like a Greek.

I have nothing to say. There is nothing I would describe.

It was always thus: as if snow has fallen on Front

Square, and, feeling the downy silence of the snowflakes

That cover cobbles and each other, white erasing white,

I read shadow and snow-drift under the Campanile.

II

‘It fits on to the back of a postage stamp,’ Robert said

As he scribbled out in tiny symbols the equation,

His silhouette a frost-flower on the window of my last

Year, his page the sky between chimney-stacks, his head

And my head at the city’s centre aching for giddy

Limits, mathematics, poetry, squeaky nibs at all hours.

III

Top of the staircase, Number Sixteen in Botany Bay,

Slum-dwellers, we survived gas-rings that popped, slop-

Buckets in the bedrooms, changeable ‘wives’, and toasted

Doughy doorsteps, Freshmen turning into Sophisters

In front of the higgledy flames: our still-life, crusts

And buttery books, the half-empty marmalade jar.

IV

My Dansette record player bottled up like genies

Sibelius, Shostakovich, Bruckner, dusty sleeves

Accumulating next to Liddell and Scott’s Greek–English

Lexicon voices the fluffy needle set almost free.

I was the culture vulture from Ulster, Vincent’s joke

Who heard The Rite of Spring and contemplated suicide.

V

Adam was first to read the maroon-covered notebooks

I filled with innocent outpourings, Adam the scholar

Whose stammer could stop him christening this and that,

Whose Eden was annotation and vocabulary lists

In a precise classicist’s hand, the love of words as words.

My first and best review was Adam’s ‘I like these – I – I –’

VI

‘College poet? Village idiot you mean!’ (Vincent again).

In neither profession could I settle comfortably

Once Derek arrived reciting Rimbaud, giving names

To the constellations over the Examination Hall.

‘Are you Longley? Can I borrow your typewriter? Soon?’

His was the first snow party I attended. I felt the cold.

VII

We were from the North, hitch-hikers on the Newry Road,

Faces that vanished from a hundred driving-mirrors

Down that warren of reflections – O’Neill’s Bar, Nesbitt’s –

And through Front Gate to Connemara and Inishere,

The raw experience of market towns and clachans, then

Back to Rooms, village of minds, poetry’s townland.

VIII

Though College Square in Belfast and the Linen Hall

Had been our patch, nobody mentioned William Drennan.

In Dublin what dreams of liberty, the Index, the Ban:

Etonians on Commons cut our accents with a knife.

When Brendan from Ballylongford defied the Bishop, we

Flapped our wings together and were melted in the sun.

IX

A bath-house lotus-eater – fags, sodden Irish Times –

I tagged along with the Fabians, to embarrass Church

And State our grand design. Would-be class-warriors

We raised, for a moment, the Red Flag at the Rubrics,

Then joined the Civil Service and talked of Civil Rights

Was Trinity a Trojan Horse? Were we Greeks at all?

X

‘The Golden Mean is a tension, Ladies, Gentlemen,

And not a dead level’: the Homeric head of Stanford

Who would nearly sing the first lines of the Odyssey.

That year I should have failed, but, teaching the Poetics,

He asked us for definitions, and accepted mine:

‘Sir, if prose is a river, then poetry’s a fountain.’

XI

Someone has skipped the seminar. Imagine his face,

The children’s faces, my wife’s: she sat beside me then

And they were waiting to be born, ghosts from a future

Without Tom: he fell in love just once and died of it.

Oh, to have turned away from everything to one face,

Eros and Thanatos your gods, icicle and dew.

XII

Walking forwards into the past with more of an idea

I want to say to my friends of thirty years ago

And to daughters and a son that Belfast is our home,

Prose a river still – the Liffey, the Lagan – and poetry

A fountain that plays in an imaginary Front Square.

When snow falls it is feathers from the wings of Icarus.

MICHAEL LONGLEY

Dreams of a Summer Night

The girls are quiet now in the house upstairs.

Still bright at ten with no need of music

on local habitations, tile and brick,

as the moon rises like a magic lamp

hung in a thorn bush and the sun retires

beyond the Bandon River; but I put on

young Mozart’s Oboe Concerto, K.314,

the opening bit, in search of a nice tune –

and find it straight away, quick and exact,

the broken silence of the creative act.

Strangely, after the gold rush and the slump,

what remains is a great sense of relief.

Can we relax now and get on with life?

Step out and take a deep breath of night air

in peace, not always having to defer

to market forces, to the great hegemony,

the global hurricane, the rule of money?

High over Innishannon a single star

on the woods of this unthickly wooded shore.

Can we turn now to the important things

like visible scents, how even silence sings?

How we grew frolicsome one sunny June

some sixty years ago at Cushendun

in our young lives of clover, clock and cloud,

the first awakenings under a northern sky

heartbreaking in its extremity? ‘One day

the old grow young,’ as the old rock star said.

The first movement – aperto, open, frank –

declares its candour with a lively run

of oboe riffs; adagio, and we think

of the proactive soul in wind and wood

before revisiting the original mood

though more maturely, having lived meanwhile.

It’s far from what Said meant by late style

since it was written by a twenty-year-old;

but I’m late listening, taking it all in

like a dreamt ‘gentle concord’ in the world.

Drilling for oil and war we seldom register

the resilient silence strewn about our toes

and under our very noses: thyme and sage,

mushroom and violet, briony, briar rose

and other elfin species. Soppy, I sniff

inchoate presences in the dim, substantive

trance of a summer night, its peace and quiet,

remembering poetry is a real mirage

in an unreal world of cash and babble,

ringtone and car alarm, and remains ‘a point of

departure not from reality but to it’ –

wherein lies one function of the poet,

to be instrumental in the soul’s increase.

During the May rising they used to say

«Prenez vos désirs pour la réalité;

l’imagination au pouvoir!» These very reasonable

demands are even more urgent for us today

trying to save ourselves from corporate space,

from virtuality with its image crime,

and Mozart from the ubiquitous pop sound:

fiddle and flute, soft oboe and clarinet,

the next best thing to silence in the mind,

that scarce but still renewable resource.

The young produce the liveliest work of course

but soon enough it’s Wild Strawberries time,

age and experience, the lost summer house,

girls on a jetty, ‘the old sunlit face’.

There was a week of dreams for some reason,

some Kafkaesque and some more seasonable:

a concrete labyrinth with no obvious exit,

a maze of corridors, little natural light,

gruff notices prohibiting this and that,

no eating, drinking, smoking, and don’t laugh,

surly administrative and security staff.

Alarms went off at intervals. Doors were shut

and windows, where there were windows, unopenable;

from secret offices a mysterious mumble

qualifying the air-conditioned silence:

Genetics, Human Resources, Behavioural Sciences.

Someone had proved the soul doesn’t exist

and wiped out any traces of the past;

all were in danger but it faded fast

at the last minute, only to be replaced

by animations, eyes in a twitchy forest,

oak limbs outgrabbing, knuckles whitening, rock

speaking, Rackham púcas at face and neck.

These vanished too; then an erotic bower

snowed in by a warm leaf-and-petal shower

around the long ears and the bristling back.

She lay there in soft focus, her bright eye

moist with provocation; but just as I …

So many quiet shores ‘bleared, smeared with toil’,

there’s nowhere for a sticky duck to hide

from the unchecked invasion of crude oil

dumped on the sand by a once friendly tide;

and if they drill here what else do we gain

but a bonanza for an acquisitive crowd

of blow-hard types, determined, garish, loud?

Would we ever get our old lives back again?

Gossip is history, history is gossip –

the locals talking in a hardware shop

about Tom Barry, James II, Marlborough

or that torpedo from a German sub,

the opening wine bar and the closing pub,

the pharmaceutical giant at Dunderrow,

its ethics, working conditions and so on,

a proposal to dig the whole town up again

for fibre optics and more ‘information’

now on the table at the Kinsale borough

council and more than likely to go through.

‘All politics is local’, right where you are.

Communities are the real vehicles of power

not merely its last points of application

or they should be, says Amit Chaudhuri;

water and gas have first consideration

as every pre-Socratic thinker knew.

You hear a different music of the spheres

depending where you sit in the concert space,

so this is the centre of the whole creation:

important or trivial, it all finishes here

on your own starlit doorstep. It could be worse.

A boreal sun, white nights of Petersburg!

The never fading gleam of Tír na nÓg!

But you can have too much of shiny things.

The dark has its own wisdom, its own owl wings,

for this is when the spirits come out to play

and the grim ghosts we daren’t admit by day.

Nacht und Träume: geese dreaming of maize,

old Siggi’s youngest crying out for ‘stwawbewwies’

the entrepreneur with his elaborate schemes,

love dreams, exam dreams and anxiety dreams

‘over-interpreted as they need to be.

I had a patient once …’ But even he

granted the mystery of autonomous art,

those strange impulses circuiting the brain,

the plays of Shakespeare, symphonies of Mozart.

Eleven and still light. No more music now

except for night and silence round the place.

Gazing into the past I hear once more

fathers and uncles back from a won war

and see ‘the ice-cream on the pier’, the rain

and windy picnics laid out under the brow

of the Cave Hill, Belfast laid out below –

then jump-cut to the dreams, vivid but short,

scaring us as they did when we were ten:

child murder in Macbeth, wolves at the door,

the dizzying height and the obscure disgrace,

indictments for a guilt we seldom face.

Sometimes you’re hauled before a midnight court,

women presiding, to face charges of

failure in generosity, patience, love

and finer feeling. Often the chief judge

condemns you roundly to a change of heart

and sends you down abruptly for an age

of solitary. Read me the riot act again

in the grave, measured tone you used to restrain

my frantic idiocies. The least I can do

is praise your qualities the one way I know

now that I mourn, as here, your grace and poise,

your pungent wit, the laughter in your eyes,

the buoyant upbeat, the interior light

and those odd melancholy moments when

your head would close down with fastidious pain

at a world too coarse and tragic to be borne.

Aspiring spirit, late in finding rest

and harmony, may you have peace at last.

Today in a freak of thought I wondered if

the conservation-of-energy law applies

to souls and promises us eternal life.

At times like this we let ourselves imagine

some substance in the old claim of religion

that we don’t die, not really. Don’t light residues

commingle with the other starry dead

when our cold ashes in the earth are laid

or scattered on the waves at Port na Spaniagh

and the mad particles begin to spin

like sand grains in the night? Our contribution:

a few good books and a few words of caution.

You the unborn, the bright ones who come later,

remember we too sparkled in the sun,

burst on the shingle, perished underwater,

revolved our secrets in the vast oceans

of time, and live on in our transmigrations.

And you, old friend, Brancusi’s ‘Sleeping Muse’,

who saved me when I’d nothing left to lose,

I can still wish for what you wish for too:

‘the amazing truth ’tis no witchcraft to see’,

refreshed tradition, lateral thought, a new

world politics and a disabused serenity.

These summer mornings I get up at five,

biro in hand, surprised to be still alive,

grateful for all the clichés and beguiled

by the first birdsong, the first light, the wild

relationship of water and cloud kingdoms

shaping our wishes and our waking dreams.

It’s late, so lights out even as a last glow

still lingers on the gardens, on roof and rock:

mid-June now and it’s never completely dark

but vague, ambrosial, metamorphic, slow

as if some happy mischief is at work

in the mist-pearly undergrowth below,

transfiguring the earth from dusk to dawn.

The moon floats from a cloud and two dogs bark;

the anthropomorphic trees are trees again,

the human forms recover their wood-grain

and the prehensile skins of hand and groin

revert, the limbs to branches, hair to leaves

as they resume their old arboreal lives.

The girls are fast asleep in the rooms above.

Back here from dreamland with a dewy leaf

to keep me right and ward off disbelief,

I await the daylight we were born to love:

birds at a window, boats on a rising wave,

light dancing on dawn water, the lives we live.

DEREK MAHON

Extra Helpings

In our primary school

Set lunch was the rule

Though in Scotland we call that meal ‘dinner’.

We tucked in like starvelings,

Inchinnan’s wee darlings,

And it didn’t make thin children thinner.

But what I liked best

Was disliked by the rest,

Rice pudding with raisins and bloated sultanas,

Stewed fruit and dumplings

In big extra helpings

And hooray for first post-War bananas!

It was very good scoff

So I polished it off

A very dab hand with a spoon,

a spoon,

A very dab hand with my spoon.

Detested mashed turnip

Gave most kids the pip

While cabbage was much the same tale.

No shortage of roots, and no hardship of greens –

After mine I ate Harry’s, then Elspeth’s, then Jean’s,

O a glutton for turnips and kail.

It was very good scoff

So I polished it off

A very dab hand with a fork,

a fork,

A very dab hand with my fork.

I used to be slim.

I used to be slim!

‘Look!’ they say now. ‘There’s at least three of him!’

To which I reply

With a daggerly eye,

‘Well, that’s better than three-quarters you!’

But my clothes don’t fit

I’m fed up with it

And the sylph in me’s guilty and blue.

Semolina and sago with jam,

with jam,

Oh dear, what a pudding I am,

I am,

Oh dear, what a pudding I am.

But I’m longing for lunch

And something to munch

Though I wish it was back in that school

When the dinner-bell rings

And all good things

Await to be guzzled until I am happy and full.

Dear God, I’d die

For Shepherd’s Pie

In 1949 or 1950

When the dinner-bell rings

And all good things

Draw children on the sniff and make then nifty.

It was very good scoff

So I polished it off –

Oh dear, what a pudding I am,

I am,

Oh dear, what a pudding I am,

But a very dab hand with a spoon,

a spoon,

And a very dab hand with a fork.

DOUGLAS DUNN

Swineherd

When all this is over, said the swineherd,

I mean to retire, where

Nobody will have heard about my special skills

And conversation is mainly about the weather.

I intend to learn how to make coffee, at least as well

As the Portuguese lay-sister in the kitchen

And polish the brass fenders every day.

I want to lie awake at night

Listening to cream crawling to the top of the jug

And the water lying soft in the cistern.

I want to see an orchard where the trees grow in straight lines

And the yellow fox finds shelter between the navy-blue trunks,

Where it gets dark early in summer

And the apple-blossom is allowed to wither on the bough.

EILÉAN NÍ CHUILLEANÁIN

gaelic is alive

in memoriam caitlín maude

let’s put aside

today’s work

and dance to

the wind’s port-à-beul

‘gaelic is alive’

despite all arrows

she climbs the hillside

sapling of oak in her arms

her defiant eyes

reaching the far-off horizon

she aims for the far-off horizon

a bright lasting star in her breast

defend her from too bold a leap

but be dancing be dancing

it is work to be dancing

AONGHAS MACNEACAIL

translated by the author

When I Grow Up

When I grow up I want to have a bad leg.

I want to limp down the street I live in

without knowing where I am. I want the disease

where you put your hand on your hip

and lean forward slightly, groaning to yourself.

If a little boy asks me the way

I’ll try and touch him between the legs.

What a dirty old man I’m going to be when I grow up!

What shall we do with me?

I promise I’ll be good

if you let me fall over in the street

and lie there calling like a baby bird. Please,

nobody come. I’m perfectly all right. I like it here.

I wonder would it be possible

to get me into a National Health Hospice

somewhere in Manchester?

I’ll stand in the middle of my cubicle

holding onto a piece of string for safety,

shaking like a leaf at the thought of my suitcase.

I’d certainly like to have a nervous tic

so I can purse my lips up all the time

like Cecil Beaton. Can I be completely bald, please?

I love the smell of old pee.

Why can’t I smell like that?

When I grow up I want a thin piece of steel

inserted into my penis for some reason.

Nobody’s to tell me why it’s there. I want to guess!

Tell me, is that a bottle of old Burgundy

under my bed? I never can tell

if I feel randy any more, can you?

I think it’s only fair that I should be allowed

to cough up a bit of blood when I feel like it.

My daughter will bring me a special air cushion

to hold me upright and I’ll watch

in baffled admiration as she blows it up for me.

Here’s my list: nappies, story books, munchies,

something else. What was the other thing?

I can’t remember exactly,

but when I grow up I’ll know. When I grow up

I’ll pluck at my bedclothes to collect lost thoughts.

I’ll roll them into balls and swallow them.

HUGO WILLIAMS

New Year Behind the Asylum

There was the noise like when the men in droves

Are hurrying to the match only this noise was

Everybody hurrying to see the New Year in

In town under the clock but we, that once,

He said would I come our usual Saturday walk

And see it in out there in the open fields

Behind the asylum. Even on sunny days

How it troubled me more and more the nearer we got

And he went quiet and as if he was ashamed

For what he must always do, which was

Go and grip the bars of the iron gates and stand

Staring into the garden until they saw him.

They were like the animals, so glad and shy

Like overgrown children dressed in things

Handed down too big or small and they came in a crowd

And said hello with funny chunnering noises

And through the bars, looking so serious,

He put his empty hand out. But that night

We crept past quickly and only stopped

In the middle of the empty fields and there

While the clock in the square where the normal people stood

And all the clocks in England were striking twelve

We heard the rejoicings for the New Year

From works and churches and the big ships in the docks

So faint I wished we were hearing nothing at all

We were so far away in our black fields

I felt we might not ever get back again

Where the people were and it was warm, and then

Came up their sort of rejoicing out of the asylum,

Singing or sobbing I don’t know what it was

Like nothing on earth, their sort of welcoming in

Another New Year and it was only then

When the bells and the cheerful hooters couldn’t be heard

But only the inmates, only the poor mad people

Singing or sobbing their hearts out for the New Year

That he gripped me fast and kissed my hair

And held me in against him and clung on tight to me

Under a terrible number of bare stars

So far from town and the lights and house and home

And shut my ears against the big children crying

But listened himself, listened and listened

That one time. And I’ve thought since and now

He’s dead I’m sure that what he meant was this:

That I should know how much love would be needed.

DAVID CONSTANTINE

Tullynoe: Tête-à-Tête in the Parish Priest’s Parlour

‘Ah, he was a grand man.’

‘He was: he fell out of the train going to Sligo.’

‘He did: he thought he was going to the lavatory.’

‘He did: in fact he stepped out the rear door of the train.’

‘He did: God, he must have got an awful fright.’

‘He did: he saw that it wasn’t the lavatory at all.’

‘He did: he saw that it was the railway tracks going away from him.’

‘He did: I wonder if… but he was a grand man.’

‘He was: he had the most expensive Toyota you can buy.’

‘He had: well, it was only beautiful.’

‘It was: he used to have an Audi.’

‘He had: as a matter of fact he used to have two Audis.’

‘He had: and then he had an Avenger.’

‘He had: and then he had a Volvo.’

‘He had: in the beginning he had a lot of Volkses.’

‘He had: he was a great man for the Volkses.’

‘He was: did he once have Escort?’

‘He had not: he had a son a doctor.’

‘He had: he had a Morris Minor too.’

‘He had: and he had a sister a hairdresser in Kilmallock.’

‘He had: he had another sister a hairdresser in Ballybunion.’

‘He had: he was put in a coffin which was put in his father’s cart.’

‘He was: his lady wife sat on top of the coffin driving the donkey.’

‘She did: Ah, but he was a grand man.’

‘He was: he was a grand man …’

‘Good night, Father.’

‘Good night, Mary.’

PAUL DURCAN

The Achill Woman

She came up the hill carrying water.

She wore a half-buttoned, wool cardigan,

a tea-towel round her waist.

She pushed the hair out of her eyes with

her free hand and put the bucket down.

The zinc-music of the handle on the rim

tuned the evening. An Easter moon rose.

In the next-door field a stream was

a fluid sunset; and then, stars.

I remember the cold rosiness of her hands.

She bent down and blew on them like broth.

And round her waist, on a white background,

in coarse, woven letters, the words ‘glass cloth.’

And she was nearly finished for the day.

And I was all talk, raw from college-

week-ending at a friend’s cottage

with one suitcase and the set text

of the Court poets of the Silver Age.

We stayed putting down time until

the evening turned cold without warning.

She said goodnight and started down the hill.

The grass changed from lavender to black.

The trees turned back to cold outlines.

You could taste frost

but nothing now can change the way I went

indoors, chilled by the wind

and made a fire

and took down my book

and opened it and failed to comprehend

the harmonies of servitude,

the grace music gives to flattery

and language borrows from ambition –

and how I fell asleep

oblivious to

the planets clouding over in the skies,

the slow decline of the Spring moon,

the songs crying out their ironies.

EAVAN BOLAND

How the Wild South East was Lost

for Robert Maclean

See, I was raised on the wild side, border country,

Kent ’n’ Surrey, a spit from the country line,

An’ they bring me up in a prep school over the canyon:

Weren’t no irregular verb I couldn’t call mine.

Them days, I seen oldtimers set in the ranch-house

(Talkin’ ’bout J. ‘Boy’ Hobbs and Pat C. Hendren)

Blow a man clean away with a Greek optative.

Scripture test, or a sprig o’ that rho-do-dendron.

Hard pedallin’ country, stranger, flint ’n’ chalkface,

Evergreen needles, acorns an’ beechmast shells,

But stop that old lone pine you could squint clean over

To the dome o’ the Chamber o’ Commerce in Tunbridge Wells.

Yep, I was raised in them changeable weather conditions:

I seen ’em, afternoon of a sunny dawn,

Clack up the deck chairs, bolt for the back French windows

When they bin drinkin’ that strong tea on the lawn.

In a cloud o’ pipesmoke rollin’ there over the canyon,

Book-larned me up that Minor Scholarship stuff:

Bent my back to that in-between innings light roller

And life weren’t easy. And that’s why I’m so tough.

KIT WRIGHT

‘Unrelated Incidents’ – No. 3

this is thi

six a clock

news thi

man said n

thi reason

a talk wia

BBC accent

iz coz yi

widny wahnt

mi ti talk

aboot thi

trooth wia

voice lik

wanna yoo

scruff. if

a toktaboot

thi trooth

lik wanna yoo

scruff yi

widny thingk

it wuz troo.

jist wanna yoo

scruff tokn.

thirza right

way ti spell

ana right way

ti tok it. this

is me tokn yir

right way a

spellin. this

is ma trooth.

yooz doant no

thi trooth

yirsellz cawz

yi canny talk

right. this is

the six a clock

nyooz. belt up.

TOM LEONARD

Shakespeare at School

Forty boys on benches with their quills,

Six days a week through almost all the year,

Long hours of Latin with relentless drills

And repetition, all enforced by fear.

I picture Shakespeare sitting near the back,

Indulging in a risky bit of fun

By exercising his prodigious knack

Of thinking up an idiotic pun,

And whispering his gem to other boys,

Some of whom could not suppress their mirth –

Behaviour that unfailingly annoys

Any teacher anywhere on earth.

The fun was over when the master spoke:

Will Shakespeare, come up here and share the joke.

WENDY COPE

Bagpipe Muzak, Glasgow 1990

When A. and R. men hit the street

To sign up every second band they meet

Then marketing men will spill out spiel

About how us Glesca folk are really real

(Where once they used to fear and pity

These days they glamorise and patronise our city –

Accentwise once they could hear bugger all

That was not low, glottal or guttural,

Now we’ve ‘kudos’ incident’ly

And the Patter’s street-smart, strictly state-of-the-art

And our oaths are user-friendly).

It’s all go the sandblaster, it’s all go Tutti Frutti,

All we want is a wally close with Rennie Mackintosh putti

Malkie Machismo invented a gismo for making whisky oot o’ girders

He tasted it, came back for mair, and soon he was on to his thirders.

Rabbie Burns turned in his grave and dunted Hugh MacDiarmid,

Said: It’s oor National Thorn, John Barleycorn, but I doot we’ll ever learn it …

It’s all go the Rotary Club, it’s all go ‘The Toast Tae The Lassies’,

It’s all go Holy Willie’s Prayer and plunging your dirk in the haggis.

Robbie Coltrane flew Caledonian MacBrayne

To Lewis … on a Sunday!

Protesting Wee Frees fed him antifreeze

(Why God knows) till he was comatose

And didnae wake up till the Monday.

Aye it’s Retro Time for Northern Soul and the whoop and the skirl o’ the saxes.

All they’ll score’s more groundglass heroin and venison filofaxes.

The rent-boys preen on Buchanan Street, their boas are made of vulture,

It’s all go the January sales in the Metropolis of Culture.

It’s all go the PR campaign and a radical change of image –

Write Saatchi and Saatchi a blank cheque to pay them for the damage.

Tam o’Shanter fell asleep

To the sound of fairy laughter

Woke up on the cold-heather hillside

To find it was ten years after

And it’s all go (again) the Devolution Debate and pro … pro … proportional representation.

Over pasta and pesto in a Byres Road bistro, Scotland declares hersel’ a nation.

Margo McDonald spruced up her spouse for thon Govan By-Election

The voters they selectit him in a sideyways left defection,

The Labour man was awfy hurt, he’d dependit on the X-fillers

And the so-and-sos had betrayed him for thirty pieces of Sillars!

Once it was no go the SNP, they were sneered at as ‘Tory’ and tartan

And thought to be very little to do with the price of Spam in Dumbarton.

Now it’s all go to the Nationalists, the toast of the folk and the famous

– Of Billy Connolly, Muriel Gray and the Auchtermuchty Proclaimers.

It’s all go L.A. lager, it’s all go the Campaign for an Assembly

It’s all go Suas Alba and winning ten–nil at Wembley.

Are there separatist dreams in the glens and the schemes?

Well … it doesny take Taggart to detect it!

Or to jalouse we hate the Government

And we patently didnae elect it.

So – watch out Margaret Thatcher, and tak’ tent Neil Kinnock

Or we’ll tak’ the United Kingdom and brekk it like a bannock.

LIZ LOCHHEAD

Belfast Confetti

Suddenly as the riot squad moved in, it was raining exclamation marks,

Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys. A fount of broken type. And the explosion

Itself – an asterisk on the map. This hyphenated line, a burst of rapid fire …

I was trying to complete a sentence in my head, but it kept stuttering,

All the alleyways and side-streets blocked with stops and colons.

I know this labyrinth so well – Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa Street –

Why can’t I escape? Every move is punctuated. Crimea Street. Dead end again.

A Saracen, Kremlin-2 mesh. Makrolon face-shields. Walkie-talkies. What is

My name? Where am I coming from? Where am I going? A fusillade of question-marks.

CIARAN CARSON

Poor Snow

The violet

light of snow falling.

Its tiny darts

make eye stripes.

Dark flakes

rapid, upwards.

It’s restless, it can’t

find whiteness.

Its grey and violet

trillion souls.

DENISE RILEY

Listen Mr Oxford Don

Me not no Oxford don

me a simple immigrant

from Clapham Common

I didn’t graduate

I immigrate

But listen Mr Oxford don

I’m a man on de run

and a man on de run

is a dangerous one

I ent have no gun

I ent have no knife

but mugging de Queen’s English

is the story of my life

I dont need no axe

to split/ up yu syntax

I dont need no hammer

to mash/ up yu grammar

I warning you Mr Oxford don

I’m a wanted man

and a wanted man

is a dangerous one

Dem accuse me of assault

on de Oxford dictionary/

imagine a concise peaceful man like me/

dem want me serve time

for inciting rhyme to riot

but I tekking it quiet

down here in Clapham Common

I’m not a violent man Mr Oxford don

I only armed wit mih human breath

but human breath

is a dangerous weapon

So mek dem send one big word after me

I ent serving no jail sentence

I slashing suffix in self-defence

I bashing future wit present tense

and if necessary

I making de Queen’s English accessory/to my offence

JOHN AGARD

Alien

… as a woman I have no country.

– VIRGINIA WOOLF

I have never returned

wounded, to the white cliffs

of Dover, knowing I rule –

though a bit of shrapnel

is my heart –

over and over singing

Elizabeth and England

in the bottom of

a gunboat.

No. I walk these streets

already beautifully paved

with bones of enemies

and women. I am subject

to a proud succession,

brave and noble sons

in mufti, bowler hats.

Who point to our great poets

with their walking sticks

of oak. Who will not bury

my heart in Westminster Abbey,

singing God the Father God

the Son and God the Holy Ghost,

this morning the serving maid

burned the toast.

Eliza sits below stairs to mend

the linen here in England’s

green and pleasant –

and this land is my land

to which I have never returned.

GILLIAN ALLNUTT

To a Cuckoo at Coolanlough

Driving the perfect length of Ireland,

Like a worn fold in a newspaper,

All my deep, country feelings

Wished I could have hypnotised myself

Into going back for the cherry-market

At Borris-in-Ossory.

But all I could think of was the fountain

Where Shelley wrote his ‘Ode to the West Wind’

Nesting like a train-fever or combing jacket

Over the town.

A child will only

Sleep so long, and I wonder

If he is an artist, or have the six

Muscles around his eye forgotten colour,

And look it up, that Saturn-red, wild smudging,

In a dream-book?

And I wonder, after the three-minute

News, if you remember

The bits of road that I do?

MEDBH MCGUCKIAN

I think someone might write an elegy

I think someone might write an elegy

for the dead words: the shapely words

that have no shape to fit round now,

whose ladies have stepped out of them,

as it were, and left them in a huddle,

the words we don’t have things for I think

someone might write an elegy for words

like timothy, cocksfoot, feverfew,

fennel and saffron, ginger and galingale.

For mowdewart and marmot; for furze-pig

and parmaceti; for feline

and anserine; for Lawrence the tod.

For cirrus, nimbus and stratocumulus.

For Persepolis, Hamadan, Shushan,

for Tolleshunt d’Arcy and Cirencester;

for Elizabeth Sarah Davidson,

which once seemed to me the fairest words

that ever anyone laid tongue to

For the words that mean nothing now

and whose loveliness, made as it was

by what they meant, has left them, the husks

of dragonflies, drying out … Things that are dead

we keep with words, but when the words die

themselves; oh then they’re dead, and dead indeed.

SHEENAGH PUGH

Incantata

In memory of Mary Farl Powers

I thought of you tonight, a leanbh, lying there in your long barrow

colder and dumber than a fish by Francisco de Herrera,

as I X-Actoed from a spud the Inca

glyph for a mouth: thought of that first time I saw your pink

spotted torso, distant-near as a nautilus,

when you undid your portfolio, yes indeedy,

and held the print of what looked like a cankered potato

at arm’s length – your arms being longer, it seemed, than Lugh’s.

Even Lugh of the Long (sometimes the Silver) Arm

would have wanted some distance between himself and the army-worms

that so clouded the sky over St Cloud you’d have to seal

the doors and windows and steel

yourself against their nightmarish déjeuner sur l’herbe:

try as you might to run a foil

across their tracks, it was to no avail;

the army-worms shinnied down the stove-pipe on an army-worm rope.

I can hardly believe that, when we met, my idea of ‘R and R’

was to get smashed, almost every night, on sickly-sweet Demerara

rum and Coke: as well as leaving you a grass widow

(remember how Krapp looks up ‘viduity’?),

after eight or ten or twelve of those dark rums

it might be eight or ten or twelve o’clock before I’d land

back home in Landseer Street, deaf and blind

to the fact that not only was I all at sea, but in the doldrums.

Again and again you’d hold forth on your own version of Thomism,

your own Summa

Theologiae that in everything there is an order,

that the things of the world sing out in a great oratorio:

it was Thomism, though, tempered by La Nausée,

by His Nibs Sam Bethicket,

and by that Dublin thing, that an artist must walk down Baggott

Street wearing a hair-shirt under the shirt of Nessus.

‘D’éirigh me ar maidin,’ I sang, ‘a tharraingt chun aoinigh mhóir’:

our first night, you just had to let slip that your secret amour

for a friend of mine was such

that you’d ended up lying with him in a ditch

under a bit of whin, or gorse, or furze,

somewhere on the border of Leitrim, perhaps, or Roscommon:

‘gamine’, I wanted to say, ‘kimono’;

even then it was clear I’d never be at the centre of your universe.

Nor should I have been, since you were there already, your own Ding

an sich, no less likely to take wing

than the Christ you drew for a Christmas card as a pupa

in swaddling clothes: and how resolutely you would pooh pooh

the idea I shared with Vladimir and Estragon,

with whom I’d been having a couple of jars,

that this image of the Christ-child swaddled and laid in the manger

could be traced directly to those army-worm dragoons.

I thought of the night Vladimir was explaining to all and sundry

the difference between geantrai and suantrai

and you remarked on how you used to have a crush

on Burt Lancaster as Elmer Gantry, and Vladimir went to brush

the ash off his sleeve with a legerdemain

that meant only one thing – ‘Why does he put up with this crap?’ –

and you weighed in with ‘To live in a dustbin, eating scrap,

seemed to Nagg and Nell a most eminent domain.’

How little you were exercised by those tiresome literary intrigues,

how you urged me to have no more truck

than the Thane of Calder

with a fourth estate that professes itself to be ‘égalitaire’

but wants only blood on the sand: yet, irony of ironies,

you were the one who, in the end,

got yourself up as a retiarius and, armed with net and trident,

marched from Mount Street to the Merrion Square arena.

In the end, you were the one who went forth to beard the lion,

you who took the DART line

every day from Jane’s flat in Dun Laoghaire, or Dalkey,

dreaming your dream that the subterranean Dodder and Tolka

might again be heard above the hoi polloi

for whom Irish ‘art’ means a High Cross at Carndonagh or Corofin

and The Book of Kells: not until the lion cried craven

would the poor Tolka and the poor Dodder again sing out for joy.

I saw you again tonight, in your jump-suit, thin as a rake,

your hand moving in such a deliberate arc

as you ground a lithographic stone

that your hand and the stone blurred to one

and your face blurred into the face of your mother, Betty Wahl,

who took your failing, ink-stained hand

in her failing, ink-stained hand

and together you ground down that stone by sheer force of will.

I remember your pooh poohing, as we sat there on the ‘Enterprise’,

my theory that if your name is Powers

you grow into it or, at least,

are less inclined to tremble before the likes of this bomb-blast

further up the track: I myself was shaking like a leaf

as we wondered whether the IRA or the Red

Hand Commandos or even the Red

Brigades had brought us to a standstill worthy of Hamm and Clov.

Hamm and Clov; Nagg and Nell; Watt and Knott;

the fact is that we’d been at a standstill long before the night

things came to a head,

long before we’d sat for half the day in the sweltering heat

somewhere just south of Killnasaggart

and I let slip a name – her name – off my tongue

and you turned away (I see it now) the better to deliver the sting

in your own tail, to let slip your own little secret.

I thought of you again tonight, thin as a rake, as you bent

over the copper plate of ‘Emblements’,

its tidal wave of army-worms into which you all but disappeared:

I wanted to catch something of its spirit

and yours, to body out your disembodied vox

clamantis in deserto, to let this all-too-cumbersome device

of a potato-mouth in a potato-face

speak out, unencumbered, from its long, low, mould-filled box.

I wanted it to speak to what seems always true of the truly great,

that you had a winningly inaccurate

sense of your own worth, that you would second-guess

yourself too readily by far, that you would rally to any cause

before your own, mine even,

though you detected in me a tendency to put

on too much artificiality, both as man and poet,

which is why you called me ‘Polyester’ or ‘Polyurethane’.

That last time in Dublin, I copied with a quill dipped in oak-gall

onto a sheet of vellum, or maybe a human caul,

a poem for The Great Book of Ireland: as I watched the low

swoop over the lawn today of a swallow

I thought of your animated talk of Camille Pissarro

and André Derain’s The Turning Road, L’Estaque:

when I saw in that swallow’s nest a face in a mud-pack

from that muddy road I was filled again with a profound sorrow.

You must have known already, as we moved from the ‘Hurly Burly’

to McDaid’s or Riley’s,

that something was amiss: I think you even mentioned a homeopath

as you showed off the great new acid-bath

in the Graphic Studio, and again undid your portfolio

to lay out your latest works; I try to imagine the strain

you must have been under, pretending to be as right as rain

while hearing the bells of a church from some long-flooded valley.

From the Quabbin reservoir, maybe, where the banks and bakeries

of a dozen little submerged Pompeii reliquaries

still do a roaring trade: as clearly as I saw your death-mask

in that swallow’s nest, you must have heard the music

rise from the muddy ground between

your breasts as a nocturne, maybe, by John Field;

to think that you thought yourself so invulnerable, so inviolate,

that a little cancer could be beaten.

You must have known, as we walked through the ankle-deep clabber

with Katherine and Jean and the long-winded Quintus Calaber,

that cancer had already made such a breach

that you would almost surely perish:

you must have thought, as we walked through the woods

along the edge of the Quabbin,

that rather than let some doctor cut you open

you’d rely on infusions of hardock, hemlock, all the idle weeds.

I thought again of how art may be made, as it was by André Derain,

of nothing more than a turn

in the road where a swallow dips into the mire

or plucks a strand of bloody wool from a strand of barbed wire

in the aftermath of Chickamauga or Culloden

and builds from pain, from misery, from a deep-seated hurt,

a monument to the human heart

that shines like a golden dome among roofs rain-glazed and leaden.

I wanted the mouth in this potato-cut

to be heard far beyond the leaden, rain-glazed roofs of Quito,

to be heard all the way from the southern hemisphere

to Clontarf or Clondalkin, to wherever your sweet-severe

spirit might still find a toe-hold

in this world: it struck me then how you would be aghast

at the thought of my thinking you were some kind of ghost

who might still roam the earth in search of an earthly delight.

You’d be aghast at the idea of your spirit hanging over this vale

of tears like a jump-suited jump-jet whose vapour-trail

unravels a sky: for there’s nothing, you’d say, nothing over

and above the sky itself, nothing but cloud-cover

reflected in a thousand lakes; it seems that Minne-

sota itself means ‘sky-tinted water’, that the sky is a great slab

of granite or iron ore that might at any moment slip

back into the worked-our sky-quarry, into the worked-out sky-mines.

To use the word ‘might’ is to betray you once too often, to betray

your notion that nothing’s random, nothing arbitrary:

the gelignite weeps, the hands fly by on the alarm clock,

the ‘Enterprise’ goes clackety-clack

as they all must; even the car hijacked that morning in the Cross,

that was preordained, its owner spread on the bonnet

before being gagged and bound or bound

and gagged, that was fixed like the stars in the Southern Cross.

The fact that you were determined to cut yourself off in your prime

because it was pre-determined has my eyes abrim:

I crouch with Belacqua

and Lucky and Pozzo in the Acacacac-

ademy of Anthropopopometry, trying to make sense of the ‘quaquaqua’

of that potato-mouth; that mouth as prim

and proper as it’s full of self-opprobrium,

with its ‘quaquaqua’, with its ‘Quoiquoiquoiquoiquoiquoiquoiq’.

That’s all that’s left of the voice of Enrico Caruso

from all that’s left of an opera-house somewhere in Matto Grosso,

all that’s left of the hogweed and horehound and cuckoo-pint,

of the eighteen soldiers dead at Warrenpoint,

of the Black Church clique and the Graphic Studio claque,

of the many moons of glasses on a tray,

of the brewery-carts drawn by moon-booted drays,

of those jump-suits worn under your bottle-green worsted cloak.

Of the great big dishes of chicken lo mein and beef chow mein,

of what’s mine is yours and what’s yours mine,

of the oxlips and cowslips

on the banks of the Liffey at Leixlip

where the salmon breaks through the either/or neither/nor nether

reaches despite the temple-veil

of itself being rent and the penny left out overnight on the rail

is a sheet of copper when the mail-train has passed over.

Of the bride carried over the threshold, hey, only to alight

on the limestone slab of another threshold,

of the swarm, the cast,

the colt, the spew of bees hanging like a bottle of Lucozade

from a branch the groom must sever,

of Emily Post’s ruling, in Etiquette,

on how best to deal with the butler being in cahoots

with the cook when they’re both in cahoots with the chauffeur.

Of that poplar-flanked stretch of road between Leiden

and The Hague, of the road between Rathmullen and Ramelton,

where we looked so long and hard

for some trace of Spinoza or Amelia Earhart,

both of them going down with their engines on fire:

of the stretch of road somewhere near Urney

where Orpheus was again overwhelmed by that urge to turn

back and lost not only Eurydice but his steel-strung lyre.

Of the sparrows and finches in their bell of suet,

of the bitter-sweet

bottle of Calvados we felt obliged to open

somewhere near Falaise, so as to toast our new-found copains,

of the priest of the parish

who came enquiring about our ‘status’, of the hedge-clippers

I somehow had to hand, of him running like the clappers

up Landseer Street, of my subsequent self-reproach.

Of the remnants of Airey Neave, of the remnants of Mountbatten,

of the famous andouilles, of the famous boudins

noirs et blancs, of the barrel-vault

of the cathedral at Rouen, of the flashlight, fat and roll of felt

on each of their sledges, of the music

of Joseph Beuys’s pack of huskies, of that baldy little bugger

mushing them all the way from Berncastel through Bacarrat

to Belfast, his head stuck with honey and gold-leaf like a mosque.

Of Benjamin Britten’s Lachrymae, with its gut-wrenching viola,

of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, of Frankie Valli’s,

of Braque’s great painting The Shower of Rain,

of the fizzy, lemon or sherbet-green Ranus ranus

plonked down in Trinity like a little Naugahyde pouffe,

of eighteen soldiers dead in Oriel,

of the weakness for a little fol-de-rol-de-rolly

suggested by the gap between the front teeth of the Wife of Bath.

Of A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, of Seurat’s

piling of tesserae upon tesserae

to give us a monkey arching its back

and the smoke arching out from a smoke-stack,

of Sunday afternoons in the Botanic Gardens, going with the flow

of the burghers of Sandy Row and Donegal

Pass and Andersonstown and Rathcoole,

of the army Land Rover flaunt-flouncing by with its heavy furbelow.

Of Marlborough Park, of Notting Hill, of the Fitzroy Avenue

immortalised by Van ‘His real name’s Ivan’

Morrison, ‘and him the dead spit

of Padraic Fiacc’, of John Hewitt, the famous expat,

in whose memory they offer every year six of their best milch cows,

of the Bard of Ballymacarrett,

of every ungodly poet in his or her godly garret,

of Medhbh and Michael and Frank and Ciaran and ‘wee’ John Qughes.

Of the Belfast school, so called, of the school of hard knocks,

of your fervent eschewal of stockings and socks

as you set out to hunt down your foes

as implacably as the tóraidheacht through the Fews

of Redmond O’Hanlon, of how that ‘d’ and that ‘c’ aspirate

in tóraidheacht make it sound like a last gasp in an oxygentent,

of your refusal to open a vent

but to breathe in spirit of salt, the mordant salt-spirit.

Of how mordantly hydrochloric acid must have scored and scarred,

of the claim that boiled skirrets

can cure the spitting of blood, of that dank

flat somewhere off Morehampton Road, of the unbelievable stink

of valerian or feverfew simmering over a low heat,

of your sitting there, pale and gaunt,

with that great prescriber of boiled skirrets, Dr John Arbuthnot,

your face in a bowl of feverfew, a towel over your head.

Of the great roll of paper like a bolt of cloth

running out again and again like a road at the edge of a cliff,

of how you called a Red Admiral a Red

Admirable, of how you were never in the red

on either the first or the last

of the month, of your habit of loosing the drawstring of your purse

and finding one scrunched-up, obstreperous

note and smoothing it out and holding it up, pristine and pellucid.

Of how you spent your whole life with your back to the wall,

of your generosity when all the while

you yourself lived from hand

to mouth, of Joseph Beuys’s pack of hounds

crying out from their felt and fat ‘Atone, atone, atone’,

of Watt remembering the ‘Krak! Krek! Krik!’

of those three frogs’ karaoke

like the still, sad basso continuo of the great quotidian.

Of a ground bass of sadness, yes, but also a sennet of hautboys

as the fat and felt hounds of Beuys O’Beuys

bayed at the moon over a caravan

in Dunmore East, I’m pretty sure it was, or Dungarvan:

of my guest appearance in your self-portrait not as a hidalgo

from a long line

of hidalgos but a hound-dog, a leanbh,

a dog that skulks in the background, a dog that skulks and stalks.

Of that self-portrait, of the self-portraits by Rembrandt van Rijn,

of all that’s revelation, all that’s rune,

of all that’s composed, all composed of odds and ends,

of that daft urge to make amends

when it’s far too late, too late even to make sense of the clutter

of false trails and reversed horseshoe tracks

and the aniseed we took it in turn to drag

across each other’s scents, when only a fish is dumber and colder.

Of your avoidance of canned goods, in the main,

on account of the exceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedingly high risk of ptomaine,

of corned beef in particular being full of crap,

of your delight, so, in eating a banana as ceremoniously as Krapp

but flinging the skin over your shoulder like a thrush

flinging off a shell from which it’s only just managed to disinter

a snail, like a stone-faced, twelfth-century

FitzKrapp eating his banana by the mellow, yellow light of a rush.

Of the ‘Yes, let’s go’ spoken by Monsieur Tarragon,

of the early-ripening jardonelle, the tumorous jardon, the jargon

of jays, the jars

of tomato relish and the jars

of Victoria plums, absolutely de rigueur for a passable plum baba,

of the drawers full of balls of twine and butcher’s string,

of Dire Straits playing ‘The Sultans of Swing’,

of the horse’s hock suddenly erupting in those boils and buboes.

Of the Greek figurine of a pig, of the pig on a terracotta frieze,

of the sow dropping dead from some mysterious virus,

of your predilection for gammon

served with a sauce of coriander or cumin,

of the slippery elm, of the hornbeam or witch-, or even wych-,

hazel that’s good for stopping a haemorrhage

in mid-flow, of the merest of mere

hints of elderberry curing everything from sciatica to a stitch.

Of the decree condemnator, the decree absolvitor, the decree nisi,

of Aosdána, of an chraobh cnuais,

of the fields of buckwheat

taken over by garget, inkberry, scoke – all names for pokeweed –

of Mother Courage, of Arturo Ui,

of those Sunday mornings spent picking at sesame

noodles and all sorts and conditions of dim sum,

of tea and ham sandwiches in the Nesbitt Arms hotel in Ardara.

Of the day your father came to call, of your leaving your sickroom

in what can only have been a state of delirium,

of how you simply wouldn’t relent

from your vision of a blind

watch-maker, of your fatal belief that fate

governs everything from the honey-rust of your father’s terrier’s

eyebrows to the horse that rusts and rears

in the furrow, of the furrows from which we can no more deviate

than they can from themselves, no more than the map of Europe

can be redrawn, than that Hermes might make a harp from his harpe,

than that we must live in a vale

of tears on the banks of the Lagan or the Foyle,

than that what we have is a done deal,

than that the Irish Hermes,

Lugh, might have leafed through his vast herbarium

for the leaf that had it within it, Mary, to anoint and anneal,

than that Lugh of the Long Arm might have found in the midst of lus

na leac or lus na treatha or Frannc-lus,

in the midst of eyebright, or speedwell, or tansy, an antidote,

than that this Incantata

might have you look up from your plate of copper or zinc

on which you’ve etched the row upon row

of army-worms, than that you might reach out, arrah,

and take in your ink-stained hands my own hands stained with ink.

PAUL MULDOON

Inglan is a Bitch

w’en mi jus’ come to Landan toun

mi use to work pan di andahgroun

but workin’ pan di andahgroun

y’u don’t get fi know your way aroun’

Inglan is a bitch

dere’s no escapin’ it

Inglan is a bitch

dere’s no runnin’ whey fram it

mi get a lickle jab in a big ’otell

an’ awftah a while, mi woz doin’ quite well

dem staat mi aaf as a dish-washah

but w’en mi tek a stack, mi noh tun clack-watchah!

Inglan is a bitch

dere’s no escapin it

Inglan is a bitch

noh baddah try fi hide fram it

w’en dem gi’ you di lickle wage packit

fus dem rab it wid dem big tax rackit

y’u haffi struggle fi mek en’s meet

an’ w’en y’u goh a y’u bed y’u jus’ cant sleep

Inglan is a bitch

dere’s no escapin’ it

Inglan is a bitch fi true

a noh lie mi a tell, a true

mi use to work dig ditch w’en it cowl noh bitch

mi did strang like a mule, but, bwoy, mi did fool

den awftah a while mi jus’ stap dhu ovahtime

den awftah a while mi jus’ phu dung mi tool

Inglan is a bitch

dere’s no escapin it

Inglan is a bitch

y’u haffi know how fi suvvive in it

well mi dhu day wok an’ mi dhu nite wok

mi dhu clean wok an’ mi dhu dutty wok

dem seh dat black man is very lazy

but if y’u si how mi wok y’u woulda sey mi crazy

Inglan is a bitch

dere’s no escapin it

Inglan is a bitch

y’u bettah face up to it

dem have a lickle facktri up inna Brackly

inna disya facktri all dem dhu is pack crackry

fi di laas fifteen years dem get mi laybah

now awftah fifteen years mi fall out a fayvah

Inglan is a bitch

dere’s no escapin’ it

Inglan is a bitch

dere’s no runnin’ whey fram it

mi know dem have work, work in abundant

yet still, dem mek mi redundant

now, at fifty-five mi gettin’ quite ol’

yet still, dem sen’ mi fi goh draw dole

Inglan is a bitch

dere’s no escapin’ it

Inglan is a bitch fi true

is whey wi a goh dhu ’bout it?

LINTON KWESI JOHNSON

The Orchids at Cwm y Gaer

Now, disbelieving, I will go

Down a road so narrow

I must travel sideways

Though still the willows will swat me with their swags of rain

And my own sweat tighten under my arms

As once my father’s fingers did.

Step carefully

For here they are,

Newborn but already white with webs.

Once the superstitious thought

It was Christ’s blood that mottled the leaves,

But now it’s as easy to suppose

That these eruptions, under a shadow’s anglepoise,

Are uranium rods

Broken through from the terrible core.

We build our legends;

We build our gods;

But how does a people understand its gods?

These might be such, thrusting up

Like the pillars of the reactor,

Their alpha-love kissing our skin,

Their gamma-love passing through our bones

To leave their ghosts forever hidden in our chromosomes.

We are people who worships gods

Whose mouths gasp electric,

whose eyes

Are a dull, totalitarian

Gold, whose commerce is strange

As a rockpool’s

pornography.

I pause one moment

On this narrow road

With the light tipping out of a tree’s tundish

And the spiders at their riot after rain.

Already a thread hangs from my hair

And ties me to this place.

So I open my hands to the orchids at Cwm y Gaer

And count each breath.

How long before the welts appear?

How soon before the cradle of nightsweats,

Or that deep, enriched delirium, dark as dew?

ROBERT MINHINNICK

Cousin Coat

You are my secret coat. You’re never dry.

You wear the weight and stink of black canals.

Malodorous companion, we know why

It’s taken me so long to see we’re pals,

To learn why my acquaintance never sniff

Or send me notes to say I stink of stiff.

But you don’t talk, historical bespoke.

You must be worn, be intimate as skin,

And though I never lived what you invoke,

At birth I was already buttoned in.

Your clammy itch became my atmosphere,

An air made half of anger, half of fear.

And what you are is what I tried to shed

In libraries with Donne and Henry James.

You’re here to bear a message from the dead

Whose history’s dishonoured with their names.

You mean the North, the poor, and troopers sent

To shoot down those who showed their discontent.

No comfort there for comfy meliorists

Grown weepy over Jarrow photographs.

No comfort when the poor the state enlists

Parade before their fathers’ cenotaphs.

No comfort when the strikers all go back

To see which twenty thousand get the sack.

Be with me when they cauterise the facts.

Be with me to the bottom of the page,

Insisting on what history exacts.

Be memory, be conscience, will and rage,

And keep me cold and honest, cousin coat,

So if I lie, I’ll know you’re at my throat.

SEAN O’BRIEN

Aubade

It’s all the same to morning what it dawns on –

On the bickering of jackdaws in leafy trees;

On that dandy from the wetlands, the green mallard’s

Stylish glissando among reeds; on the moorhen

Whose white petticoat flickers around the boghole;

On the oystercatcher on tiptoe at low tide.

It’s all the same to the sun what it rises on –

On the windows in houses in Georgian squares;

On bees swarming to blitz suburban gardens;

On young couples yawning in unison before

They do it again; on dew like sweat or tears

On lilies and roses; on your bare shoulders.

But it isn’t all the same to us that night-time

Runs out; that we must make do with today’s

Happenings, and stoop and somehow glue together

The silly little shards of our lives, so that

Our children can drink water from broken bowls,

Not from cupped hands. It isn’t the same at all.

NUALA NÍ DHOMHNAILL

translated by Michael Longley

From the Irish

According to Dineen, a Gael unsurpassed

in lexicographical enterprise, the Irish

for moon means ‘the white circle in a slice

of half-boiled potato or turnip’. A star

is the mark on the forehead of a beast

and the sun is the bottom of a lake, or well.

Well, if I say to you your face

is like a slice of half-boiled turnip,

your hair is the colour of a lake’s bottom

and at the centre of each of your eyes

is the mark of the beast, it is because

I want to love you properly, according to Dineen.

IAN DUHIG

Phrase Book

I’m standing here inside my skin,

which will do for a Human Remains Pouch

for the moment. Look down there (up here).

Quickly. Slowly. This is my own front room

where I’m lost in the action, live from a war,

on screen. I am an Englishwoman, I don’t understand you.

What’s the matter? You are right. You are wrong.

Things are going well (badly). Am I disturbing you?

TV is showing bliss as taught to pilots:

Blend, Low silhouette, Irregular shape, Small,

Secluded. (Please write it down. Please speak slowly.)

Bliss is how it was in this very room

when I raised my body to his mouth,

when he even balanced me in the air,

or at least I thought so and yes the pilots say

yes they have caught it through the Side-Looking

Airborne Radar, and through the J-Stars.

I am expecting a gentleman (a young gentleman,

two gentlemen, some gentlemen). Please send him

(them) up at once. This is really beautiful.

Yes they have seen us, the pilots, in the Kill Box

on their screens, and played the routine for

getting us Stealthed, that is, Cleansed, to you and me,

Taken Out. They know how to move into a single room

like that, to send in with Pinpoint Accuracy, a hundred Harms.

I have two cases and a cardboard box. There is another

bag there. I cannot open my case – look out,

the lock is broken. Have I done enough?

Bliss, the pilots say, is for evasion

and escape. What’s love in all this debris?

Just one person pounding another into dust,

into dust. I do not know the word for it yet.

Where is the British Consulate? Please explain.

What does it mean? What must I do? Where

can I find? What have I done? I have done

nothing. Let me pass please. I am an Englishwoman.

JO SHAPCOTT

I swear

Because I turned up from Bombay

too prissy to be rude

because you arrived via Leeds and Burnley

you thought it would do me good

to learn some Language. So

you never just fell, you went arse over tits,

and you were never not bothered

you just couldn’t be arsed, and when

you laughed you laughed like an effing drain

and when there was pain it was a pain

in the arse.

That was just the start: you taught me

all the Language you knew

right through the alphabet from a to z,

from first to last, from bad to worse and worser

and the very worst you could muster.

I learned the curses. I learned the curser.

So proper you looked in your nice shoes and suit

until you produced Language like magic

out of your mouth and I was impressed

and oh I fell for you arse over tits

and when I said so you laughed like a drain

and we blinded and swore like the daft buggers

we were, all the way down Clerkenwell

and all the way up on the train

to the Horseshoe Pass.

And I tell you, since you went it’s a pain

in the arse, and when some days I feel like shit

or when I say that I feel flat, I swear

I hear you laugh like a drain.

Not just flat, Mrs, Flat as a witch’s tit,

that’s what you say. Flat

as a witch’s tit.

IMTIAZ DHARKER

Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan

They sent me a salwar kameez

peacock-blue,

and another

glistening like an orange split open,

embossed slippers, gold and black

points curling.

Candy-striped glass bangles

snapped, drew blood.

Like at school, fashions changed

in Pakistan –

the salwar bottoms were broad and stiff,

then narrow.

My aunts chose an apple-green sari,

silver-bordered

for my teens.

I tried each satin-silken top –

was alien in the sitting room.

I could never be as lovely

as those clothes –

I longed

for denim and corduroy.

My costume clung to me

and I was aflame,

I couldn’t rise up out of its fire,

half-English,

unlike Aunt Jamila.

I wanted my parents’ camel-skin lamp –

switching it on in my bedroom,

to consider the cruelty

and the transformation

from camel to shade,

marvel at the colours

like stained glass.

My mother cherished her jewellery –

Indian gold, dangling, filigree,

But it was stolen from our car.

The presents were radiant in my wardrobe.

My aunts requested cardigans

from Marks and Spencers.

My salwar kameez

didn’t impress the schoolfriend

who sat on my bed, asked to see

my weekend clothes.

But often I admired the mirror-work,

tried to glimpse myself

in the miniature

glass circles, recall the story

how the three of us

sailed to England.

Prickly heat had me screaming on the way.

I ended up in a cot

in my English grandmother’s dining-room,

found myself alone,

playing with a tin boat.

I pictured my birthplace

from fifties’ photographs.

When I was older

there was conflict, a fractured land

throbbing through newsprint.

Sometimes I was Lahore –

my aunts in shaded rooms,

screened from male visitors,

sorting presents,

wrapping them in tissue.

Or there were beggars, sweeper-girls

and I was there

of no fixed nationality,

staring through fretwork

at the Shalimar Gardens.

MONIZA ALVI

Seed

The first warm day of spring

and I step out into the garden from the gloom

of a house where hope had died

to tally the storm damage, to seek what may

have survived. And finding some forgotten

lupins I’d sown from seed last autumn

holding in their fingers a raindrop each

like a peace offering, or a promise,

I am suddenly grateful and would

offer a prayer if I believed in God.

But not believing, I bless the power of seed,

its casual, useful persistence,

and bless the power of sun,

its conspiracy with the underground,

and thank my stars the winter’s ended.

PAULA MEEHAN

The Singer

A weekday haar.

The boats are out to sea

in a radio stasis, physical and stilled

between the water and unending sky.

It’s late in the afternoon; it’s holiday:

they’ve set the fair up at the harbour’s edge

amongst the lobster creels and fishing nets,

matching the reds of marker buoys and floats

with scarlet bulbs and candied apple-skins.

The rides look pale and quiet in the grey

of four o’clock, and most are stalled, or vacant,

waiting for the night and mystery.

On days like these the fair is mostly refuge:

the booths at the pier-end lit against the fog

like one of those chalk-coloured prints that Harunobu

committed to paper so fine it seems

intangible, a pop song from the sixties

working against the foghorn’s steady bass

like tinselwork.

On days like these

the one thing that never ends is the expectancy

of standing in the haar and listening

for stars on their crystal axis, or the slide

of nightfall, like the whisper in the strands

of coloured lights around the carousel.

The singer is lost in a web

of speakers and wires, and voices from the quay,

but now and then she rises through it all,

her voice like a thread I keep

losing and finding again, though I’m never quite sure

if it’s love she intends, or loss, or a moment’s

angry hosanna.

At sea

the stillness thickens, charged with idle boats

and schools of fishes swimming in the blur

of memory, or joy, or what it is

to happen in the hurry of a world

that ebbs and flows like song, or given light,

against the random static of the dark.

JOHN BURNSIDE

On the Roof of the World

‘Hey Jude’ was the longest single, up to that time,

ever released. It sweats off, chorus like a mantra.

The times are changing. New musics divide the audience

and skirts are longer, but it’s a bright London shopping day

when the traffic stops. Only a black cab moves

gingerly through the crowd, like a toy cruiser nudging weed,

and we’re all craning upwards: planks and scaffolding

on the townhouse roof and the clipped, drifting music

the Beatles play. It is their last concert,

though nobody knows this. George twangs his Fender, John

hammers-off on his Epiphone, Paul stomps

with his violin-bodied fretless bass and Ringo, dreamed up

by a manager who died a long time ago, kicks the years

out of his bass drum padded with a rug. How sweet

it would have been, someone will write, to watch them

play the Marquee, this funky little rock’n’roll band.

They are so far above us, we can hardly see them.

They are playing for God. They are playing for cameras

because the show’s outgrown the road. We can’t believe it.

Tomorrow’s papers will acclaim a British institution.

I’ll read them and imagine I was there like everyone.

They are already going out of fashion. There’s nothing left

but acrimony, separation, lawsuits. The last great single,

‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’, will be John and Paul

alone, hurrying in midsummer heat, the way it was at the start.

Nobody knows this. They have climbed too far to get back

anywhere we might be among the crowd who clap then drift apart

when the helmeted bobbies have the amps turned off.

LACHLAN MACKINNON

The Wife of Bath Speaks in Brixton Market

My life is my own bible

wen it come to all de woes

in married life

fah since I reach twelve,

Tanks to Eternal Gawd,

is five husban I have

(if dat is passible)

but all of dem was wort someting

in dem own way

doah dem say

dat troo Jesas only go to one weddin

in Canaan

we no suppose fi married

more dan once

but den again

dem say Im tell de Samaritan woman

by de well

dat doah she did have five husban

de laas one never count

is wat Im mean by dat

why jus de fif one lef out

ow much she can have den

four?

Im don’t give no precise number

Well,

people can argue it forever

but me sure of one serious ting

Im order we to sex an multiply

Im also say dat

de man mus lef im madda an im fadda

an cling to me

but Im never say

how many

mi no hear no mention of bigamy

or polygamy

so why me or anyone

should tink it is a crime

An wat about de wise king Soloman

look how much wife im tek, Lawd,

ah wish ah did have as much in bed as him!

God mus did give him some ‘great’ gif

No one alive did ever have such fun

But still

I will tank de Lawd

fah doah I have only five

I shall welcome de sixt one

wenever im choose to arrive

because I nat lacking up my foot at all

if one husban dead

anadda christian man will surely come

fah even de apostle say dat den mi free

to tek anadda man dat can please me

betta to married dan to bun

Abraham, Joseph,

nuff adda holy man

did have nuff wife

Whey God forbid dat?

Yuh see no clear word?

Where Im ever order virginity?

Dere is no such commandment!

is de apostle Paul come talk bout maidenhead

an him never qualify fi talk bout dat.

Im say a man may counsel a woman

but counselling is nat command

wat I do wid my body is my personal business

an if God did command virginity

nobady wouldn married

fah married woulda dead

an no more pickney wouldn born

so no new maidenhead.

How Paul him want to tek command

wen Jesas wouldn dweet

we all know pum pum is someting sweet

an nuff sword will falla it.

Whoever, jus like de apostle,

want to do widdouten sex

is free to choose dat,

but wid we, no badda vex

fah if my husban wear out an im dead

you free to marry me

dat is nat bigamy

an to enjoy good sex

is nat a frailty

nat unless yuh did decide, like Paul,

fi tek up chastity

because a man don’t want pure gold pot

in im house

im want some mek wid good wood

as a spouse

an God did give we all a different gif

we choose wat we is suited for

everyone don’t have to give up everyting fah Christ

Im neva aks we dat

dat is fah who want perfect peace

an you all know already

dat is nat me

I gwine mek de bes of all my years

fah dat is de joy an fruit of marriage

an why we have dese private parts so sweet

dem cyan jus mek so an don’t put to use

except to piss

or tell man apart from woman

das wat you tink?

fram wat me feel already

dat could nat be so

a man mus give im wife er tings

Piss yes, an tell we apart

but wat pleasure dese instrument brings!

JEAN ‘BINTA’ BREEZE

From Dublin to Ramallah

for Ghassan Zaqtan

Because they would not let you ford the river Jordan

and travel here to Dublin, I stop this postcard in its tracks –

before it reaches your sealed-up letterbox, before yet another checkpoint,

before the next interrogation even begins.

And instead of a postcard, I post you a poem of water.

Subterranean subterfuge,

an indolent element that slides across borders,

as boundaries are eroded by the fluency of tongues.

I send you a watery bulletin from the underwater backroom

of Bewley’s Oriental Café,

my hands tinted by stainedglass light as I write,

near windows thickened with rain.

I ship you the smoked astringency of Formosa Lapsang Souchong

and a bun with a tunnel of sweet almond paste

set out on a chipped pink marble-topped table,

from the berth of a high-backed red-plush settle.

I greet you from the ranks of the solitary souls of Dublin,

fetched up over dinner with the paper for company.

Closer to home and to exile,

the waters will rise from their source.

I give you the Liffey in spate.

Drenched, relentless, the soaked November clouds

settle a torrent of raindrops

to fatten the flood.

Puddles pool into lakes, drains burst their sides,

and each granite pavement’s slick rivulet has the purpose of gravity.

Wet, we are soaking in order to float.

Dogs in the rain: the cream double-decker buses steam up and stink

of wet coats and wet shopping,

a steep river of buses plying the Liffey;

the big circumnavigations swing in from the suburbs, turn,

cluster in the centre, back off once more.

Closer to home and to exile:

I seek for this greeting the modesty of rainwater,

the wet from ordinary clouds

that darkens the soil, swells reservoirs, curls back

the leaves of open books on a damp day into rows of tsunami,

and, once in a while, calls for a song.

I ask for a liquid dissolution:

let borders dissolve, let words dissolve,

let English absorb the fluency of Arabic, with ease,

let us speak in wet tongues.

Look, the Liffey is full of itself. So I post it

to Ramallah, to meet up with the Jordan,

as the Irish Sea swells into the Mediterranean,

letting the Liffey

dive down beneath bedrock

swelling the limestone aquifer from Hebron to Jenin,

plumping each cool porous cell with good Irish rain.

If you answer the phone, the sea at Killiney

will sound throughout Palestine.

If you put your head out the window (avoiding the snipers, please)

a cloud will rain rain from the Liffey

and drench all Ramallah, drowning the curfew.

Sweet water will spring from your taps for chai bi nana

and not be cut off.

Ghassan, please blow up that yellow inflatable dinghy stored

in your roof,

dust off your compass,

bring all friends,

and swim through the borders from Ramallah to Dublin.

SARAH MAGUIRE

The Women of Mumbles Head

The moon is sixpence,

a pillar of salt or

a shoal of herring.

But on such a night,

wild as the wet wind,

larger than life,

she casts a long line

over the slippery sea.

And the women of Mumbles Head

are one, a long line,

over the slippery sea.

Wet clothes clog them,

heavy ropes tire them,

but the women of Mumbles Head

are one, a long line,

over the slippery sea.

And under white beams

their strong arms glisten,

like silver, like salt,

like a shoal of herring,

under the slippery sea.

And they haul

for their dear ones,

and they call

for their dear ones,

casting a long line

over the slippery sea.

But the mounting waves

draw from them,

the mountain waves

draw from them,

the bodies of their dear ones,

O, the bodies of their dear ones,

drawn under the slippery sea.

In a chain of shawls

they hook one in,

fish-wet, moonlit,

they’ve plucked him back

from under the slippery sea.

For the moon is sixpence,

a pillar of salt

or a shoal of herring,

and the women of Mumbles Head

are one, a long line

over the slippery sea.

MAURA DOOLEY

The Numties

The parsnip Numties: I was a teenager then,

Collecting clip-together models

Of historical windsocks, dancing the Cumbernauld bump.

Satirical pornography, plant-staplers, nostalgiaform shoes

Were brochure-fresh. It was numty-four

I first saw a neighbour laughing in a herbal shirt.

Moshtensky, Garvin, Manda Sharry –

Names as quintessentially Numties

As Hearers and Bonders, duckponding, or getting a job

In eradication. Everything so familiar and sandwiched

Between the pre-Numties and the debouche of decades after.

I keep plunging down to the wreck

Of the submerged Numties, every year

Bringing back something jubilantly pristine,

Deeper drowned, clutching my breath.

ROBERT CRAWFORD

Song of a Wire Fence

Once I loved a woman

with barbed wire dreams

and scars ploughed into her skin.

She almost slept in my arms,

she almost slept in my arms.

And I sang her Dafydd y Garreg

and Bugeilio’r Gwenith Gwyn

from the harps of Capel Curig

to the hooves of Synod Inn.

I gave her a young man’s stare

the night she read my palm,

my fingers ploughed her wild hair

and she almost slept in my arms,

she almost slept in my arms.

And I sang her Tros y Garreg

and Ar Hyd y Nos

from the floods of Pencarreg

to the sands of Ynyslas.

The song of a wire fence

crossed over a thousand farms

and love, she knew no distance,

she almost slept in my arms,

she almost slept in my arms.

PAUL HENRY

Pride

When I looked up, the black man was there,

staring into my face,

as if he had always been there,

as if he and I went a long way back.

He looked into the dark pool of my eyes

as the train slid out of Euston.

For a long time this went on

the stranger and I looking at each other,

a look that was like something being given

from one to the other.

My whole childhood, I’m quite sure,

passed before him, the worst things

I’ve ever done, the biggest lies I’ve ever told.

And he was a little boy on a red dust road.

He stared into the dark depth of me,

and then he spoke:

‘Ibo,’ he said. ‘Ibo, definitely.’

Our train rushed through the dark.

‘You are an Ibo!’ he said, thumping the table.

My coffee jumped and spilled.

Several sleeping people woke.

The night train boasted and whistled

through the English countryside,

past unwritten stops in the blackness.

‘That nose is an Ibo nose.

Those teeth are Ibo teeth,’ the stranger said,

his voice getting louder and louder.

I had no doubt, from the way he said it,

that Ibo noses are the best noses in the world,

that Ibo teeth are perfect pearls.

People were walking down the trembling aisle

to come and look

as the night rain babbled against the window.

There was a moment when

my whole face changed into a map,

and the stranger on the train

located even the name

of my village in Nigeria

in the lower part of my jaw.

I told him what I’d heard was my father’s name.

Okafor. He told me what it meant,

something stunning,

something so apt and astonishing.

Tell me, I asked the black man on the train

who was himself transforming,

at roughly the same speed as the train,

and could have been

at any stop, my brother, my father as a young man,

or any member of my large clan,

Tell me about the Ibos.

His face had a look

I’ve seen on a MacLachlan, a MacDonnell, a MacLeod,

the most startling thing, pride,

a quality of being certain.

Now that I know you are an Ibo, we will eat.

He produced a spicy meat patty,

ripping it into two.

Tell me about the Ibos.

‘The Ibos are small in stature

Not tall like the Yoruba or Hausa.

The Ibos are clever, reliable,

dependable, faithful, true.

The Ibos should be running Nigeria.

There would be none of this corruption.’

And what, I asked, are the Ibos’ faults?

I smiled my newly acquired Ibo smile,

flashed my gleaming Ibo teeth.

The train grabbed at a bend,

‘Faults? No faults. Not a single one.’

‘If you went back,’ he said brightening,

‘The whole village would come out for you.

Massive celebrations. Definitely.

Definitely,’ he opened his arms wide.

‘The eldest grandchild – fantastic welcome.

If the grandparents are alive.’

I saw myself arriving

the hot dust, the red road,

the trees heavy with other fruits,

the bright things, the flowers.

I saw myself watching

the old people dance towards me

dressed up for me in happy prints.

And I found my feet.

I started to dance.

I danced a dance I never knew I knew.

Words and sounds fell out of my mouth like seeds.

I astonished myself.

My grandmother was like me exactly, only darker.

When I looked up, the black man had gone.

Only my own face startled me in the dark train window.

JACKIE KAY

Mappamundi

Eh’ve wurkt oot a poetic map o thi warld.

Vass tracts o land ur penntit reid tae shaw

Englan kens naethin aboot um. Ireland’s

bin shuftit tae London, whaur

oafficis o thi Poetry Sock occupeh fehv

squerr mile. Seamus Heaney occupehs three

o thon. Th’anerly ithir bits in Britain

ur Oaxfurd an Hull. Scoatlan, Thi Pool,

an Huddersfield, ur cut ti cuttilbanes in

America, which issa grecht big burdcage wi

a tartan rug owre ut, tae shaw

Roabirt Lowell. Chile disnae exist.

Argentina’s bin beat. Hungary and Russia

haena visas. Africa’s editid doon ti

a column in Poetry Verruca,

whaur Okigbo’s gote thi ghaist

o Roy Campbill hingin owre um. Thi Faur East’s

faan aff – aa but China: thon’s renemmed

Ezra Poond an pit in thi croncit cage.

France disna get a luke-in:

accoardin tae Geoffrey Hill, plucky wee

Charles Péguy is wrasslin wi

this big deid parrot caad ‘Surrealism’ fur

thi throne o Absinthe Sorbet.

In this scenario Eh’m a bittern stoarm aff Ulm.

W. N. HERBERT

Elevation

3.2.11

Flying over Wales, suspended

high above, is to learn

how to love her; gliding slow,

knowing her from this new angle.

Between the tease of mare-tail clouds,

her peninsula arm exposed,

sleeve eager, rolled-ready.

And look, beneath her collage of a dress,

the mystery of the mountain

elegantly stonewall-stitched.

And there, the furrows of unearthed slate

combed like the drag

of fingers through sand

and the small bright lakes

like enigmatic birth marks

glimpsed while lovers lock.

Tonight, nose pressed against the window,

your lips insist on reciting

the litany of place names,

‘Dyfi Junction, Cors Fochno …’

your breath a sacred shuffle across her body,

‘Dowlais, Penrhys, Gilfach Goch …’

And as she wraps her shyness with a veil of cloud,

the plane’s shadow

casts a cross below,

a timeless kiss on this love letter,

a hesitant vote for her future.

IFOR AP GLYN

translated by Clare Potter

Flood Before and After

It reeled across the North, to the extent

that even Northerners cried ‘This is North!’

and what would you have said, to see a sky

threatening the children with great change?

Extraordinary clouds! Spectaculars!

There was the Dimden family, in their barn.

And long, quite vertical rain, the three horizons

hunched, different formulations, browns

and oranges. Then the unlucky Greens

running with their sons to find their sons.

The scarecrow and the crow, they did okay,

getting dark together, but unfrightened.

Fists of clouds! Genii of glamour!

Not to mention thunders – not again!

There stand the Dimdens, safe for once and sad.

The Greens have found their sons! Now for their daughters.

But out goes the lightning, giant’s fork

into a mound of chilli, steaming there

and where’s it gone? Into the open mouth,

barn and all, flavours and seasonings!

Cuddle in the rain, old favourites.

There goes a Noah, borrowing a plank.

Little slow to move, we thought. It ends

with tangles, the new rivers, and the sunshine

formally requesting a rainbow. Granted.

The creaking and excusing back to work.

A valuable man was lost in it.

That was in the paper, with the picture.

All the Northern correspondents went

reading to the telephones, all cold,

which brought the dry onlookers from the South,

gaspers, whistlers, an ambassador

and leading lights to mingle with the hurt.

The clouds were diplomats of the same kind,

edging over to exonerate

and praise. And then the royal son arrived,

helicoptered down on a flat field,

glancing up at the sky through the whup of blades,

attending to the worried with a joke.

Hell, I don’t know what – we were all cold.

The landscape looked an archipelago.

The Dimdens finally twigged, the Greens were found

beating the Blooms at rummy, in a cave.

All were interviewed and had lost all.

All saluted when the helicopter rose.

Only some came up the knoll with us

to check our options. Only two of those

saw, as I did, Noah’s tiny boat

scarcely moving, at the edge of sight

below the line, and only I’d admit

the crow and the scarecrow were rowing it.

GLYN MAXWELL

Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead

On the civic amenity landfill site,

the coup, the dump beyond the cemetery

and the 30-mile-an-hour sign, her stiff

old ladies’ bags, open mouthed, spew

postcards sent from small Scots towns

in 1960: Peebles, Largs, the rock-gardens

of Carnoustie, tinted in the dirt.

Mr and Mrs Scotland, here is the hand you were dealt:

fair but cool, showery but nevertheless,

Jean asks kindly; the lovely scenery;

in careful school-room script –

The Beltane Queen was crowned today.

But Mr and Mrs Scotland are dead.

Couldn’t he have burned them? Released

in a grey curl of smoke

this pattern for a cable knit? Or this:

tossed between a toppled fridge

and sweet-stinking anorak: Dictionary for Mothers

M – Milk, the woman who worries …;

And here, Mr Scotland’s John Bull Puncture Repair Kit;

those days when he knew intimately

the thin roads of his country, hedgerows

hanged with small black brambles’ hearts;

and here, for God’s sake, his last few joiners’ tools,

SCOTLAND, SCOTLAND, stamped on their tired handles.

Do we take them? Before the bulldozer comes

to make more room, to shove aside

his shaving brush, her button tin.

Do we save this toolbox, these old-fashioned views

addressed, after all, to Mr and Mrs Scotland?

Should we reach and take them? And then?

Forget them, till that person enters

our silent house, begins to open

to the light our kitchen drawers,

and performs for us this perfunctory rite:

the sweeping up, the turning out.

KATHLEEN JAMIE

Blackwater

Where the coastline doubles up on itself

as if punched in the gut by the god Meander,

who likes to dabble in landscapes

but, with this one, lost his grip.

He muddled salt and sweet,

bent the creeks more than double,

loaded each distinction

till it burst its banks. Picture this:

an estuary where the eye can’t tell

sea from river, hill from valley,

near from far, first from last, in from out

– any one thing, in fact, from any other.

Where the stumps of Saxon fishtraps

butt up through the silt at low tide

like the rusted teeth in the wrecked head

of the god Yawn, who can’t keep his mouth shut,

not here, where the land spits out

its haul of the useless,

the shapeless, tasteless, nameless.

Where there has been nothing as clear

as the winter in which the goddess Inertia

hunkered down over Maldon

– the town hemmed in with skirts of ice.

The men of the saltworks and oyster pits,

bass fishers, whelk pickers, farmers and bargees

were hamstrung. Some set off

to find the first three miles in any direction

glass, their boats sleeved in glass,

glass hobbling their horses.

Where the vague men of the Dengie Peninsula

drove their marsh lambs a fortnight’s walk

to market and picked up a wife on the way:

an inland girl from a county town

whose clean lungs became damp rooms,

whose good skin leathered and would not cure,

whose blood was drunk by the god Stagnant

who came at night and took little sips

till her blackened soul left her body,

how else, but by way of water.

Where you think you’ve reached open sea

till something catches in your throat

– fossil fuel and fish long out of water.

Where the goddess Stasis laid a path

towards the horizon, which seems not far

till you sidle, circle, give up, settle in

like the World War One submarines

docked in the shallows near Osea.

They grew so at home

that Stasis offered them the gift of life

as mud lumps on mud banks

who honk and puff their way off shore

to zoom, reborn, to the battle zone

(where Osea keeps watch on Ostend),

drawn to the mutating warmth

of Bradwell power station’s radiant pools.

Where they at last unplugged the glottal stop

in the throat of the god Moribund

and opened a wall to unravel the fields

where the borrow dyke lends itself to the polder,

mops up sticklebacks and sea lavender:

– bristling, stunted, salt and sweet.

Where the county arms are three cutlasses,

each with a bite taken out

by a bored god. Salt of earth,

they chew the matter over:

‘Whatever’s it all about, John?’

‘Whenever is it all going to end?’

LAVINIA GREENLAW

To the Women of the Merrie England Coffee Houses, Huddersfield

O women of the Merrie England Coffee Houses, Huddersfield,

when I break sweat just thinking about hard work, I think about you.

Nowhere to hide behind that counter, nowhere to shirk.

I’m watching you right now bumping and grinding hip to hip,

I’m noting your scrubbed pink hands in the cabinet of fancy cakes,

loose and quick among the lemon meringues and cream puffs

and custard tarts, darting and brushing like carp in a glass tank.

O women, the soles of your feet on fire in your sensible shoes,

your fingers aflame, spitting and hissing under the grill.

You, madam, by the cauldron of soup – you didn’t hassle us,

just wiped the crumbs from under our genius poems,

me and the boy Smith, one toasted teacake between us,

eking it out through the dead afternoons, our early drafts

hallmarked and franked with rings of coffee and tea.

Women of the Merrie England, under those scarlet aprons are you naked?

Are you calendar girls? Miss July traps a swarm of steam in a jug

as perspiration rolls from the upper delta of her open neck

to where Christ crucified bobs and twists on a gold chain.

Miss April delivers the kiss of life to a Silk Cut by the fire escape.

Miss November, pass me the key to the toilets, please,

I won’t violate your paintwork, desecrate the back of the door

with crude anatomical shapes or the names of speedway stars.

I’m no closet queen in search of a glory hole for gay sex,

no smackhead needing a cubbyhole to shoot up –

one glass of your phosphorescing, radioactive orange crush

was always enough for me and the boy Smith, his mother

asleep at the wheel on the long drive back from Wales,

the airbag not invented yet – just a bubble in somebody’s dream.

Does he pay you a pittance in groats, King Henry, stuffing his face

with hare and swan, his beard dyed red with venison blood

and pinned with the fiddling bones of partridge and quail,

while you, O women of the Merrie England, his maids,

swab the greasy tiles with a bucket of rain and a bald mop

or check for counterfeit tenners under the sun-tanning light?

A tenner! – still two hours’ graft at the minimum wage.

Don’t let catering margarine ease off your eternity rings.

Don’t lose your marriages down the waste-disposal pipe.

Hang on to your husbands and friends – no sugar daddies or lovers

or cafetières for you, O women of the Merrie England,

no camomile or Earl Grey, just take-it-or-leave-it ground or char

served in the time-bitten cups my grandmother sipped from,

hooking the milky membrane aside with a spoon, watching it reform.

I’ve seen you nudging and winking. Look who just dropped in, you say,

The Man Who Fell to Earth, wanting tea for one and the soup of the day.

I take the window seat and gawp at the steeplejacks: all gone –

Kaye’s, the Coach House, Leeds Road, the White Lion and the Yards.

But you, under the mock Tudor beams, under the fake shields,

under the falsified coats of arms, you go on, you go on

O women of the Merrie England, O mothers of Huddersfield, O ladies!

SIMON ARMITAGE

A Private Bottling

So I will go, then. I would rather grieve over

your absence than over you.

– ANTONIO PORCHIA

Back in the same room that an hour ago

we had led, lamp by lamp, into the darkness

I sit down and turn the radio on low

as the last girl on the planet still awake

reads a dedication to the ships

and puts on a recording of the ocean.

I carefully arrange a chain of nips

in a big fairy-ring; in each square glass

the tincture of a failed geography,

its dwindled burns and woodlands, whin-fires, heather,

the sklent of its wind and its salty rain,

the love-worn habits of its working-folk,

the waveform of their speech, and by extension

how they sing, make love, or take a joke.

So I have a good nose for this sort of thing.

Then I will suffer kiss after fierce kiss

letting their gold tongues slide along my tongue

as each gives up, in turn, its little song

of the patient years in glass and sherry-oak,

the shy negotiations with the sea,

air and earth, the trick of how the peat-smoke

was shut inside it, like a black thought.

Tonight I toast her with the extinct malts

of Ardlussa, Ladyburn and Dalintober

and an ancient pledge of passionate indifference:

Ochon o do dhóigh mé mo chlairsach ar a shon,

wishing her health, as I might wish her weather.

When the circle is closed and I have drunk myself sober

I will tilt the blinds a few degrees, and watch

the dawn grow in a glass of liver-salts,

wait for the birds, the milk-float’s sweet nothings,

then slip back to the bed where she lies curled,

replace the live egg of her burning ass

gently, in the cold nest of my lap,

as dead to her as she is to the world.

*

Here we are again; it is precisely

twelve, fifteen, thirty years down the road

and one turn higher up the spiral chamber

that separates the burnt ale and dark grains

of what I know, from what I can remember.

Now each glass holds its micro-episode

in permanent suspension, like a movie-frame

on acetate, until it plays again,

revivified by a suave connoisseurship

that deepens in the silence and the dark

to something like an infinite sensitivity.

This is no romantic fantasy: my father

used to know a man who’d taste the sea,

then leave his nets strung out along the bay

because there were no fish in it that day.

Everything is in everything else. It is a matter

of attunement, as once, through the hiss and backwash,

I steered the dial into the voice of God

slightly to the left of Hilversum,

half-drowned by some big, blurry waltz

the way some stars obscure their dwarf companions

for centuries, till someone thinks to look.

In the same way, I can isolate the feints

of feminine effluvia, carrion, shite,

those rogues and toxins only introduced

to give the composition a little weight

as rough harmonics do the violin-note

or Pluto, Cheiron and the lesser saints

might do to our lives, for all you know.

(By Christ, you would recognise their absence

as anyone would testify, having sunk

a glass of North British, run off a patent still

in some sleet-hammered satellite of Edinburgh:

a bleak spirit no amount of caramel

could sweeten or disguise, its after-effect

somewhere between a blanket-bath and a sad wank.

There is, no doubt, a bar in Lothian

where it is sworn upon and swallowed neat

by furloughed riggers and the Special Police,

men who hate the company of women.)

O whiskies of Long Island and Provence!

This little number catches at the throat

but is all sweetness in the finish: my tongue trips

first through burning brake-fluid, then nicotine,

pastis, Diorissimo and wet grass;

another is silk sleeves and lip-service

with a kick like a smacked puss in a train-station;

another, the light charge and the trace of zinc

tap-water picks up at the moon’s eclipse.

You will know the time I mean by this.

Because your singular absence, in your absence,

has bred hard, tonight I take the waters

with the whole clan: our faceless ushers, bridesmaids,

our four Shelties, three now ghosts of ghosts;

our douce sons and our lovely loudmouthed daughters

who will, by this late hour, be fully grown,

perhaps with unborn children of their own.

So finally, let me propose a toast:

not to love, or life, or real feeling,

but to their sentimental residue;

to your sweet memory, but not to you.

The sun will close its circle in the sky

before I close my own, and drain the purely

offertory glass that tastes of nothing

but silence, burnt dust on the valves, and whisky.

DON PATERSON

The London Eye

Through my gold-tinted Gucci sunglasses,

the sightseers. Big Ben’s quarter chime

strikes the convoy of number 12 buses

that bleeds into the city’s monochrome.

Through somebody’s zoom lens, me shouting

to you, Hello! … on … bridge … ’minster!

The aerial view postcard, the man writing

squat words like black cabs in rush hour.

The South Bank buzzes with a rising treble.

You kiss my cheek, formal as a blind date.

We enter Cupid’s capsule, a thought bubble

where I think, ‘Space age!’ you think, ‘She was late.’

Big Ben strikes six. My SKIN .BeatTM blinks, replies

18.02. We’re moving anticlockwise.

PATIENCE AGBABI

from The Electric Poly-Olbion

Godspeed our flashy myths that last five minutes.

Godspeed the ‘Devil’s Christmas Tree’ at Widnes

where the river widens, turns to brainy channels,

Godspeed the Childe of Hale, whose famous long bones

lie in the churchyard children still walk miles

to see, escaping the estates in summer,

Godspeed the all night burn-off flame at Stanlow

and those who watched it from the opposite bank

claiming it was eternal, Godspeed men

who, six-foot-nine, could walk it at low tide,

Godspeed Runcorn and Legoland, Godspeed

the Weaver Navigation and a sky

the colour of a sandbank fat with water,

Godspeed the heavy metals, been and gone,

the fish ladders, the runs of river lymph,

Godspeed the pop and soul, the punk and glam

all been and gone and still the river runs,

the iron and limpet, cadmium and starfish,

the mighty waste, the flags flying at half-mast

in mourning for the North Atlantic Gulf Stream,

the mercury and medusae, zinc and winkles,

the sediment a tide file stretching back

to when records began, the paint-stripped, bleached out

afternoons of wanks and toxic dog-walks,

and somewhere out to sea the cold miracle,

the strange comportment of wind and saltwater

that cleans and lifts and moves back in to bless

hill sources once again, against the grain

of by-product and irony. Godspeed

the steady state that waits once men have left

the estuary to silvery skies and starlight

and skeins of waterfowl, and silent bridges.

PAUL FARLEY

Our Town with the Whole of India!

Our town in England with the whole of India sundering

out of its temples, mandirs and mosques for the customised

streets. Our parade, clad in cloak-orange with banners

and tridents, chanting from station to station for Vaisakhi

over Easter. Our full-moon madness for Eidh with free

pavement tandooris and legless dancing to boostered

cars. Our Guy Fawkes’ Diwali – a kingdom of rockets

for the Odysseus-trials of Rama who arrowed the jungle

foe to re-palace the Penelope-faith of his Sita.

Our Sunrise Radio with its lip sync of Bollywood lovers

pumping through the rows of emporium cubby holes

whilst bhangra beats slam where the hagglers roar

at the pulled-up back-of-the-lorry cut-price stalls.

Sitar shimmerings drip down the furbishly columned

gold store. Askance is the peaceful Pizza Hut …

A Somali cab joint, been there for ever, with smiley

guitar licks where reggae played before Caribbeans

disappeared, where years before Teddy Boys jived.

Our cafés with the brickwork trays of saffron sweets,

brass woks frying flamingo-pink syrup-tunnelled

jalebis networking crustily into their familied clumps.

Reveries of incense scent the beefless counter where

bloodied men sling out skinned legs and breasts

into thin bags topped with the proof of giblets.

Stepped road displays – chock-full of ripe karela,

okra, aubergine – sunshined with mango, pineapple,

lychee. Factory walkers prayer-toss the river of

sponging swans with chapattis. A posse brightens

on park-shots of Bacardi – waxing for the bronze

eyeful of girls. The girls slim their skirts after college

blowing dreams into pink bubble gums at neck-

descending and tight-neck sari-mannequins. Their grannies

point for poled yards of silk for own-made styles.

The mother of the runaway daughter, in the marriage

bureau, weeps over the plush-back catalogues glossed

with tuxedo-boys from the whole of our India!

DALJIT NAGRA

Another Westminster Bridge

go and glimpse the lovely inattentive water

discarding the gaze of many a bored street walker

where the weather trespasses into strip-lit offices

through tiny windows into tiny thoughts and authorities

and the soft beseeching tapping of typewriters

take hold of a breath-width instant, stare

at water which is already elsewhere

in a scrapwork of flashes and glittery flutters

and regular waves of apparently motionless motion

under the teetering structures of administration

where a million shut-away eyes glance once

restlessly at the river’s ruts and glints

count five, then wander swiftly

away over the stone wing-bone of the city

ALICE OSWALD

Liverpool Blues

The skyline in the moonlight, the river running thin,

my lover weeping lotus blossom for his next of kin.

The stars will tell their stories over Birkenhead and Cammell Laird’s.

In Berry Street, in Bold Street, in Princes Park and Princess Street

I’ve seen a girl I never knew and never thought to meet.

The Liver Birds have flown away, the cathedrals’ doors are closed.

To hospitals and factories, bars, clubs, churches, loony bins,

something is uneasy beneath the city’s restless din.

A woman has been murdered, yet no one says a word.

The homeless and the helpless, the workers on the street

have nothing left to live for, can only smell defeat.

My husband’s left his heart elsewhere, my love has been foreclosed.

We’re living in a borderland, somewhere between life and death,

losing ourselves in the search for a self.

It’s a country of our making, the cards are curiously dealt.

The helicopter spotlights buzz us, lights come flooding in,

even our bedroom’s no longer safe, we’re living on a pin.

We mouth our dreams in the telling dark, but nothing can be heard.

We mouth our dreams in the telling dark, but nothing can be heard.

We mouth our dreams in the telling dark, and only words are lost.

We mouth our dreams in the telling dark, still nothing can be heard.

DERYN REES-JONES

And They Call It Lovely Derry

And so, strangely enough, to Florida.

Twenty from our side of the River

Foyle and twenty more from the other,

lifted out of a ‘war-torn community’

to mix three weeks in a normal society.

That was the general idea.

When we arrived we were paired

and placed with a host couple, good

church people, settled and stable.

She was the first Prod I had ever met;

a small girl, pale and introvert, who wept

for home, then sniffed, and smiled.

The husband sat at the head of the table

holding forth, hot and bothered.

He couldn’t decide on the right word,

hmmed and hawed between Blacks and Coloured,

whatever, his point? They were bone idle,

wouldn’t accept the jobs they were offered.

The woman dreamed of having a child,

I took to the role of living doll

and would tolerate each morning’s session

under the rug of curling tongs.

I had never even heard of Racism.

We gave a concert on the last night,

forty of us, rigid with stage fright.

My whistle shrieked on a high note.

We harmonised on all the songs

but fell apart with the grand finale,

the well-rehearsed ‘O I know a wee spot …’

as the group split between London and Lovely.

COLETTE BRYCE

10th February: Queen

I keep the queen, she is long in my hand,

her legs slightly pliant;

folded, dropped down, wings flat

that flew her mating flight

to the sun and back, full of spermatozoa, dronesong.

She was made mechanically ecstatic.

I magnify what she is, magnify her skews and centres.

How downy she is, fur like a fox’s greyness, like a thistle’s mane.

Wings perfect, abdomen subtle in shades of brittle;

her rear legs are big in the lens;

feet like hung anchors are hooks for staying on cell-rims.

Veins in her wings are a rootwork of rivers,

all echo and interlace. This is her face, compound eye.

I look at the slope of her head, the mouth’s proboscis;

her thin tongue piercing is pink as cut flesh, flash glass.

Some hairs feather and split below the head.

Those eyes are like castanets, cast nets;

woman all feral and ironwork, I slip

under the framework, into the subtle.

The wing is jointed at the black leather shoulder.

I wear it, I am soft to stroke, the lower blade fans.

Third generation queen of our stock,

you fall as I turn. I hold your hunchback;

a carcase of lightness, no grief, part animal, part flower.

SEAN BORODALE

In Belfast

I

Here the seagulls stay in off the Lough all day.

Victoria Regina steering the ship of the City Hall

in this the first and last of her intense provinces,

a ballast of copper and gravitas.

The inhaling shop-fronts exhale the length

and breadth of Royal Avenue, pause,

inhale again. The city is making money

on a weather-mangled Tuesday.

While the house for the Transport Workers’ Union

fights the weight of the sky and manages

to stay up, under the Albert Bridge the river

is simmering at low tide and sheeted with silt.

II

I have returned after ten years to a corner

and tell myself it is as real to sleep here

as the twenty other corners I have slept in.

More real, even, with this history’s dent and fracture

splitting the atmosphere. And what I have been given

is a delicate unravelling of wishes

that leaves the future unspoken and the past

unencountered and unaccounted for.

This city weaves itself so intimately

it is hard to see, despite the tenacity of the river

and the iron sky; and in its downpour and its vapour I am

as much at home here as I will ever be.

SINÉAD MORRISSEY

Already someone’s set their dogs among the swans

The loch looks away, up at the crags

of Holyrood Park, as the landscape

turns witness to all that, one day,

I’d be surprised to think of as myself.

My tongue slumps in my mouth again,

a bastard feather. The moon, wearing

her off-the-shoulder number, slips

her bare shadows down to my feet –

my ghost preceding me, like a magnet.

The swans begin to nest, or, snorting water,

turn like hefty lanterns

gazing around themselves

as headlights of late traffic, brash crescendos,

rally for expiring destinations.

For nothing withstands this coolness

closing in, so constantly remote.

I’d live the night out

on the dark hymnal lake, to hear it talking

towards the edges of itself – that voice of the waters

so completely unbothered,

syllabic and out for the count.

RACHEL BOAST

Us

If you ask me, us takes in undulations –

each wave in the sea, all insides compressed –

as if, from one coast, you could reach out to

the next; and maybe it’s a Midlands thing

but when I was young, us equally meant me,

says the one, ‘Oi, you, tell us where yer from’;

and the way supporters share the one fate –

I, being one, am Liverpool no less –

cresting the Mexican wave of we or us,

a shore-like state, two places at once, God

knows what’s in it; and, at opposite ends

my heart’s sunk at separations of us.

When it comes to us, colour me unsure.

Something in me, or it, has failed the course.

I’d love to think I could stretch to it – us –

but the waves therein are too wide for words.

I hope you get, here, where I’m coming from.

I hope you’re with me on this – between love

and loss – where I’d give myself away, stranded

as if the universe is a matter of one stress.

Us. I hope, from here on, I can say it

and though far-fetched, it won’t be too far wrong.

ZAFFAR KUNIAL

ACKNOWLEDEGEMENTS

The publisher gratefully acknowledges permission to reprint copyright material in this book as follows:

ABSE, DANNIE: ‘Epithalamion’ from New & Collected Poems (Hutchinson 2003) © Dannie Abse 2003; ‘The Boasts of Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd’ © Dannie Abse; both poems reproduced by permission of the Estate through United Agents

ADCOCK, FLEUR: ‘Immigrant’ © Fleur Adcock reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books

AGARD, JOHN: ‘Listen, Mr Oxford Don’ © John Agard reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Alternative Anthem: Selected Poems, with Live DVD (Bloodaxe Books 2009)

AGBABI, PATIENCE: ‘The London Eye’, from Bloodshot Monochrome (Canongate 2008), reprinted by permission of the publisher

ALLNUTT, GILLIAN: ‘Alien’ © Gillian Allnut reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from How the Bicycle Shone: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe 2007)

ALVI, MONIZA: ‘Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan’ © Moniza Alvi reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Split World: Poems 1990–2005 (Bloodaxe Books 2005)

ARMITAGE, SIMON: ‘To the Women of Merrie England Coffee Houses, Huddersfield’, Taken from Paper Aeroplane: Selected Poems 1988–2014 © Simon Armitage and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber; translation © Simon Armitage and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

AUDEN, W. H.: ‘Refugee Blues’; ‘Night Mail’; ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ © the Estate of W. H. Auden by kind permission of the Estate through its agents Curtis Brown

BECKETT, SAMUEL: ‘Cascando’, taken from Collected Poems of Samuel Beckett © Estate of Samuel Beckett and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

BEER, PATRICIA: ‘The Lost Woman’ © the Estate of Patricia Beer reprinted by kind permission of Carcanet Press Ltd, Manchester, UK

BELLERBY, FRANCES: ‘Lovers are Separate’; ‘Ends Meet’, from Selected Poems (Enitharmon)

BELLOC, HILAIRE: ‘Ha’nacker Mill’; ‘Ballade of Genuine Concern’, from Sonnets and Verse by Hilaire Belloc reprinted by permissions of Peters Fraser and Dunlop on behalf of the Estate of Hilaire Belloc

BERRY, JAMES: ‘Englan Voice’ © James Berry reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from The Story I Am In: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2011)

BOAST, RACHEL: ‘Already someone’s set their dogs among the swans’ © Rachel Boast reprinted by kind permission of Picador

BOLAND, EAVAN: ‘The Achill Woman’ © Eavan Boland reprinted by kind permission of Carcanet Press Ltd, Manchester, UK; translation © Eavan Boland from The Word Exchange (ed. Greg Delanty and Michael Matto), W. W. Norton & Company

BORODALE, SEAN: ‘10th February: Queen’ © Sean Borodale reprinted by kind permission of Penguin Random House

BREEZE, JEAN ‘BINTA’: ‘The Wife of Bath Speaks in Brixton Market’ © Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Third World Girl: Selected Poems, with live DVD (Bloodaxe Books 2011)

BROWN, GEORGE MACKAY: ‘Butter’; ‘Hamnavoe Market’; ‘Haddock Fishermen’ © The Estate of George Mackay Brown

BRYCE, COLETTE: ‘And They Call It Lovely Derry’ © Colette Bryce reprinted by kind permission of Picador

BUNTING, BASIL: ‘from Briggflatts’ © The Estate of Basil Bunting reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Complete Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2000)

BURNSIDE, JOHN: ‘The Singer’ © John Burnside reprinted by kind permission of Penguin Random House and United Agents

CARSON, CIARAN: ‘Belfast Confetti’ by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press, Loughcrew, Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland from Collected Poems (2008)

CAUSLEY, CHARLES: ‘Eden Rock’ from Collected Poems 1951–2000 (Macmillan)

CHAMBERLAIN, BRENDA: ‘Dead Ponies’ © Estate of Brenda Chamberlain

CONRAN, ANTHONY: ‘Elegy for the Welsh Dead, in the Falkland Islands, 1982’; translations © The Estate of Anthony Conran reprinted by kind permission of Seren Books

CONSTANTINE, DAVID: ‘New Year Behind the Asylum’ © David Constantine reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Collected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2004)

COPE, WENDY: ‘Shakespeare at School’ © Wendy Cope reproduced by permission of the artist through United Agents

CORNFORD, FRANCIS: ‘Childhood’; ‘To a Fat Lady Seen from a Train’ by permission of the Trustees of the Francis Crofts Cornford Will Trust

CRAWFORD, ROBERT: ‘The Numties’ © Robert Crawford reprinted by permission of Penguin Random House and David Godwin Associates

CROSSLEY-HOLLAND, KEVIN: ‘The Battle of Brunanburh’ © Kevin Crossley-Holland reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press

DAVIES, IDRIS: ‘The Bells of Rhymney’; ‘The Angry Summer’ from The Collected Poems of Idris Davies (ed. Islwyn Jenkins) (Gomer), reproduced by permission of Gomer Press and the Estate of Idris Davies

DE LA MARE, WALTER: ‘The Birthnight’; ‘No’, reproduced by permission of the Literary Trustees of Walter de la Mare and the Society of Authors

DHARKER, IMTIAZ: ‘I Swear’ © Imtiaz Dharker reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Over the Moon (Bloodaxe Books 2014)

DOOLEY, MAURA: ‘The Women of Mumbles Head’ © Maura Dooley reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Soundbarrier: Poems 1982–2002 Bloodaxe Books 2001)

DOWNIE, FREDA: The Estate of Freda Downie reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Collected Poems (ed. George Szirtes) (Bloodaxe Books 1995)

DRAYCOTT, JANE: translation © Jane Draycott reproduced by kind permission of Carcanet Press Ltd, Manchester UK

DUHIG, IAN: ‘From the Irish’ © Ian Duhig reproduced by kind permission of Picador

DUNN, DOUGLAS: ‘Extra Helpings’ © Douglas Dunn reproduced by permission of the artist through United Agents and Faber & Faber

DURCAN, PAUL: ‘Tullynoe: Tête-à-Tête in the Parish Priest’s Parlour’ © Paul Durcan reproduced by permission of the author

EARLE, JEAN: ‘A Saturday in the ’20s’ © Jean Earle reprinted by kind permission of Seren Books

EDGAR, MARRIOTT: ‘The Lion and Albert’ © the Estate of Marriott Edgar

ELIOT, T. S.: ‘The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock’ taken from The Poems of T. S . Eliot: Volume I © the Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber; ‘A Game of Chess’ taken from The Waste Land © the Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

EVANS, MARGIAD: ‘To my sister Sian’ © the Estate of Margiad Evans

FAINLIGHT, RUTH: ‘Handbag’ © Ruth Fainlight reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from New & Collected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2011)

FANTHORPE, U. A.: ‘Father in the Railway Buffet’ from New and Collected Poems, Enitharmon Press 2010

FARLEY, PAUL: ‘from The Electric Poly-Olbion’ © Paul Farley reproduced by permission of Rogers Coleridge and White

FISHER, ROY: ‘The Nation’ © Roy Fisher reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from The Long & the Short of It: Poems 1955–2010 (Bloodaxe Books 2012)

FRANCIS, MATTHEW: ‘from The Mabinogian’ © Matthew Francis and Faber & Faber

GASCOYNE, DAVID: ‘A Wartime Dawn’ © The Estate of David Gascoyne

GRAHAM, W. S.: ‘To My Wife at Midnight’; ‘Greenock at Night I Find You’; ‘Loch Thom’ reproduced by permission of Rosalind Mudaliar, the Estate of W. S. Graham

GRAVES, ROBERT: ‘Tilth’; ‘The Christmas Robin’ © Estate of Robert Graves reprinted by kind permission of Carcanet Press Ltd, Manchester, UK

GREENLAW, LAVINIA: ‘Blackwater’ taken from Minsk © Lavinia Greenlaw and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

GUNN, THOM: ‘Hampstead: Horse Chestnut Trees’ taken from Collected Poems © Estate of Thom Gunn and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

HAMER, RICHARD: translations © Richard Hamer reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber

HARVEY, F. W.: ‘Ducks’ © Mrs E. Griffiths

HEANEY, SEAMUS: ‘The Blackbird of Glanmore’ taken from District and Circle Line © Estate of Seamus Heaney and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber; ‘Punishment’ taken from North © Estate of Seamus Heaney and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber; ‘The Harvest ‘Bow and ‘The Gutteral Muse’ from Field Work © Estate of Seamus Heaney and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber; ‘A Keen for the Coins’ © Estate of Seamus Heaney reprinted with permission; translations © Estate of Seamus Heaney

HEATH-STUBBS, JOHN: ‘The Green Man’s Last Will and Testament’ from The Naming of Beasts (Carcanet)

HERBERT, W. N.: ‘Mappamundi’ © W. N. Herbert reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books

HENRI, ADRIAN: © the Estate of Adrian Henri reproduced by permission of Rogers Coleridge and White

HENRY, PAUL: ‘Song of a Wire Fence’ © Paul Henry reprinted by kind permission of Seren Books

HILL, GEOFFREY: ‘from Mercian Hymns’ © The Estate of Geoffrey Hill reproduced by permission of Penguin Random House

HOLLIS, MATTHEW: translation © Matthew Hollis reproduced by permission of the author

HUGHES, TED: ‘Football at Slack’, ‘Wind’ and ‘Epiphany’ taken from Collected Poems © Estate of Ted Hughes and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

HUMPHREYS, EMYR: translation © Emyr Humphrey

JAMIE, KATHLEEN: ‘Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead’ © Kathleen Jamie reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead: Poems 1980–1994 (Bloodaxe Books 2002)

JENNINGS, ELIZABETH: ‘The Child’s Story’; ‘My Grandmother’; ‘A Bird in the House’ from The Collected Poems (Carcanet) reproduced by kind permission of Carcanet Press Ltd, Manchester UK

JONES, DAVID: ‘from In Parenthesis’ © Estate of David Jones and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

KAVANAGH, PATRICK: ‘The Long Garden’; ‘Epic’ from Collected Poems (ed. A. Quinn) (Allen Lane 2004) by permission of the Trustees of the Estate of Katherine B. Kavanagh, Jonathan Williams Literary Agency

KAY, JACKIE: ‘Pride’ © Jackie Kay reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Darling: New and Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2007)

KENELLEY, BRENDAN: ‘Begin’ © Brendan Kennelley reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Familiar Strangers: New & Selected Poems 1960–2004 (Bloodaxe Books 2004)

KUNIAL, ZAFFAR: ‘Us’ © Zaffar Kunial reproduced by permission of the author

LARKIN, PHILIP: ‘Money’, ‘Water’ and ‘Going, Going’ taken from The Complete Poems © Estate of Philip Larkin and reprinted with permission of the Society of Authors and Faber & Faber

LEONARD, TOM: ‘“Unrelated Incidents” – No. 3’ from outside the narrative (Poems 1965–2009) by permission of the author

LOCHHEAD, LIZ: ‘Bagpipe Muzak, Glasgow 1990’ © Liz Lochhead 1990 by kind permission of the author

LOGUE, CHRISTOPHER: ‘I Shall Vote Labour’ taken from Selected Poems © Estate of Christopher Logue and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

LONGLEY, MICHAEL: ‘River & Fountain’ © Michael Longley and reproduced by kind permission of the author and The LAW Agency; translations © Michael Longley

MACAULAY, ROSE: ‘Lunch Hour’ reproduced by permission of the Society of Authors as the literary representative of the Estate of Rose Macaulay

MACCAIG, NORMAN: ‘Feeding Ducks’; ‘Toad’; ‘Deceptions?’ © The Estate of Norman McCaig

MACDIARMID, HUGH: ‘The Bonnie Broukit Bairn’; ‘Back Bedroom’ © Estate of Hugh MacDiarmid reprinted by kind permission of Carcanet Press Ltd, Manchester, UK

MCGUCKIAN, MEDBH: ‘To a Cuckoo at Coolanlough’ © by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press, Loughcrew, Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland

MACKINNON, LACHLAN: ‘On the Roof of the World’ © Lachlan Mackinnon reproduced with the permission of by Faber & Faber

MACNEACCAIL, AONGHAS: ‘gaelic is alive’ © Aonghas MacNeacail reproduced from dèanamh gàire ris a’ chloc / laughing at the clock: new and selected poems with permission from Polygon

MACNEICE, LOUIS: ‘Carrickfergus’; ‘Soap Suds’; ‘Snow’ from The Collected Poems (Faber) and reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates Faber & Faber

MAGUIRE, SARAH: ‘From Dublin to Ramallah’ © Sarah Maguire reproduced by permission of Penguin Random House

MAHON, DEREK: ‘Dreams of a Summer Night’ by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press, Loughcrew, Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland from New Selected Poems (2016); translation © Derek Mahon from The Word Exchange (ed. Greg Delanty and Michael Matto), W. W. Norton & Company

MAXWELL, GLYN: ‘Flood Before and After’ © Glyn Maxwell reproduced by kind permission of Picador

MEEHAN, PAULA: ‘Seed’ © Paula Meehan reproduced by permission of Dedalus Press from Mysteries of the Home (2013)

MINHINNICK, ROBERT: ‘The Orchids at Cwm y Gaer’ © Robert Minhinnick reprinted by kind permission of Seren Books

MITCHELL, ADRIAN: ‘Celia, Celia’ © The Estate of Adrian Mitchell reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books

MITCHELL, ELMA: ‘Thoughts After Ruskin’ first published by Peterloo Poets in The Poor Man in the Flesh (1976)

MORGAN, EDWIN: ‘Midge’; ‘Sir James Murray’; ‘Camedolia’ © Estate of Edwin Morgan reprinted by kind permission of Carcanet Press Ltd, Manchester, UK

MORRISSEY, SINÉAD: ‘In Belfast’ © Sinéad Morrissey reprinted by kind permission of Carcanet Press Ltd, Manchester, UK

MUIR, EDWIN: ‘The Late Wasp’ and ‘The Interrogation’ taken from  Collected Poems  © Estate of Edwin Muir  and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

MULDOON, PAUL: ‘Incantata’ taken from Selected Poems 1968–2014 © Paul Muldoon and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber; translation © Paul Muldoon with permission of Faber & Faber

NAGRA, DALJIT: ‘Our Town with the Whole of India!’ taken from Look We Have Coming to Dover! © Daljit Nagra and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

NÍ CHUILLEANÁIN, EILEEN: ‘Swineheard’ by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press, Loughcrew, Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland from Selected Poems (2008)

NÍ DHOMNAILL, NUALA: by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press, Loughcrew, Oldcastle, Country Meath, Ireland from Pharoah’s Daughter (1990)

NICHOLSON, NORMAN: ‘The Elm Decline’ from Collected Poems reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber

NORRIS, LESLIE: ‘Barn Owl’; ‘Water’ © Meic Stephens

O’BRIEN, SEAN: ‘Cousin Coat’ © Sean O’Brien reproduced by kind permission of Picador

O’CONNOR, FRANK: translations © the Estate of Frank O’Connor reproduced by kind permission of Peters Fraser and Dunlop

O’DONOGHUE, BERNARD: translation © Bernard O’Donoghue reproduced by permission of the author and Faber & Faber

OSWALD, ALICE: ‘Another Westminster Bridge’ taken from Woods etc © Alice Oswald and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

PATERSON, DON: ‘A Private Bottling’ taken from God’s Gift to Women © Don Paterson and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

PLATH, SYLVIA: ‘The Bee Meeting’; ‘Blackberrying’ taken from Collected Poems © Estate of Sylvia Plath and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

POTTER, CLARE: translation © Clare Potter

PUGH, SHEENAGH: ‘I think someone might write an elegy’ © Sheenagh Pugh from Selected Poems (Seren 1990)

RAINE, KATHLEEN: ‘Northumbrian Sequence: IV’ © The Literary Estate of Kathleen Raine from Collected Poems (2000)

READ, HERBERT: ‘To a Conscript of 1940’ © the Estate of Herbert Read from Selected Poetry (Sinclair-Stevenson)

REED, HENRY: ‘Lessons of War’ © Royal Literary Fund

REES-JONES, DERYN: ‘Liverpool Blues’, © Deryn Rees-Jones reprinted by kind permission of Seren Books

REID, ALASTAIR: ‘Scotland’ © Alastair Reid reproduced with permission from Inside Out – Selected Poetry and Translations (Polygon 2008)

RIDLER, ANNE: ‘The Child Expected’ © Estate of Anne Ridler reprinted by kind permission of Carcanet Press Ltd, Manchester, UK

RILEY, DENISE: ‘Poor Snow’ © Denise Riley reproduced from No Fee (Street Editions, 1977)

RIORDAN, MAURICE: translation © Maurice Riordan reproduced with permission of Faber and Faber

ROBERTS, LYNETTE: ‘Poem From Llanybri’; ‘Poem’ © the Estate of Lynette Roberts reprinted by kind permission of Carcanet Press Ltd, Manchester, UK

SACKVILLE-WEST, VITA: ‘Full Moon’ by Vita Sackville-West © the Estate of Vita Sackville-West by kind permission of the Estate through its agents Curtis Brown

SASSOON, SIEGFRIED: ‘The Survivors’; ‘The General’; ‘Everyone Sang’; ‘Falling Asleep’ © Siegfried Sassoon by permission of the Estate of George Sassoon

SCOVELL, E. J.: ‘Listening to Collared Doves’ © the Estate of E. J. Scovell reproduced from Listening to Collared Doves (Mandeville Press 1986)

SHAPCOTT, JO: ‘Phrase Book’ taken from Phrase Book © Jo Shapcott and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

SITWELL, EDITH: ‘Aubade’; ‘Still Falls the Rain’ from Collected Poems by Edith Sitwell reprinted by permission of Peters Fraser and Dunlop on behalf of Estate of Edith Sitwell

SMITH, STEVIE: ‘The River God of the River Mimran in Hertfordshire’; ‘Correspondence between Mr Harrison in Newcastle and Mr Sholto Peach Harrison in Hull’; ‘Infelice’ taken from The Collected Poems and Drawings of Stevie Smith © Estate of Stevie Smith and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

STEVENSON, ANNE: ‘Willow Song’ © Anne Stevenson reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Poems 1955–2005 (Bloodaxe Books 2005)

THOMAS, DYLAN: ‘Fern Hill’, ‘Poem on his Birthday’ and ‘In my craft or sullen art’ © The Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas, published in The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: The Centenary Edition (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

THOMAS, R. S.: ‘The Bright Field’; ‘The Moon in Lleyn’; ‘Zero’ © The Estate of R. S. Thomas reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books

TONKS, ROSEMARY: ‘Addiction to an Old Mattress’; ‘The Sofas’, ‘Fogs and Cinemas’ © The Estate of Rosemary Tonks reprinted by kind permission of Bloodaxe Books from Bedouin of the London Evening: Collected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2014)

TOWNSEND WARNER, SYLVIA: ‘Anne Donne’ © The Estate of Sylvia Townsend Warner

WICKHAM, ANNA: ‘The Fired Pot’; ‘Meditation at Kew’ © The Estate of Anna Wickham reproduced by permission Peters Fraser and Dunlop

WILLIAMS, HUGO: ‘When I Grow Up’ taken from Collected Poems © Hugo Williams and reprinted with permission of Faber & Faber

WILLIAMS, ROWAN: translation © Rowan Williams

WILLIAMS, WALDO: ‘What Is a Man?’ © the Estate of Waldo Williams

WRIGHT, KIT: ‘How the Wild South East was Lost’ © Kit Wright reproduced from Hoping It Might be So (Leviathan, 2000)

Every effort has been made to trace and contact the copyright holders prior to publication. If notified, the publisher will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity.

INDEX OF POETS AND TRANSLATORS

1. Abse, Dannie (1923–2014) 527, 528

2. Adam, Jean (1710–65) 181

3. Adcock, Fleur (b.1934) 564

4. Agard, John (b.1949) 593

5. Agbabi, Patience (b.1965) 658

6. Allnutt, Gillian (b.1949) 595

7. Alvi, Moniza (b.1954) 624

8. Aneirin (6/7th c.) 9

9. Angus, Marion (1866–1946) 388, 389

10. Anon 3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 50, 52, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 73, 74, 119, 132, 134, 136, 140, 161, 162, 180, 186, 192, 308, 309, 310

11. Armitage, Simon (b.1963) 50, 651

12. Armstrong, Martin (1882–1974) 350

13. Arnold, Matthew (1822–88) 277

14. Askew, Anne (1521–46) 76

15. Aston, Katherine (c.1620s–50s) 149

16. Auden, W. H. (1907–73) 23, 409, 411, 414

1. Bacon, Anne (?1528–1610) 78

2. Baillie, Joanna (1762–1851) 217

3. Barbauld, Anna Laetitia (1743–1825) 189

4. Bateman, Meg (b.1959) 73

5. Beckett, Samuel (1906–89) 393

6. Bede (672–3) 11

7. Beer, Patricia (1924–99) 529

8. Bellerby, Frances (1899–1975) 447, 448

9. Belloc, Hilaire (1870–1953) 334, 335

10. Bentley, E. C. (1875–1956) 339

11. Bernstein, Marion (1846–1906) 306

12. Berry, James (b.1924) 559

13. Blake, William (1757–1827) 207, 208, 209

14. Boast, Rachel (b.1975) 667

15. Boland, Eavan (b.1944) 17, 584

16. Borodale, Sean (b.1973) 665

17. Breeze, Jean ‘Binta’ (b.1956) 629

18. Bridges, Robert (1844–1930) 303, 304

19. Brontë, Emily (1818–48) and Charlotte (1816–55) 269

20. Brown, George Mackay (1921–96) 519, 521

21. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806–61) 257, 258, 259

22. Browning, Robert (1812–89) 270, 271, 272

23. Bryce, Colette (b.1970) 663

24. Bunting, Basil (1900–85) 483

25. Burns, Robert (1759–96) 212, 213, 215, 216

26. Burnside, John (b.1955) 627

27. Byron, Lord (1788–1824) 238, 239

1. Caedmon (fl.658–680) 3

2. Cameron, Mary (17th c.) 159

3. Campion, Thomas (1567–1620) 104, 105

4. Carney, James (1914–89) 29

5. Carroll, Lewis (1832–98) 290

6. Carson, Ciaran (b.1948) 592

7. Causley, Charles (1917–2003) 505

8. Cavendish, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle (1623–73) 158

9. Chamberlain, Brenda (1912–71) 472

10. Chaucer, Geoffrey (1340–1400) 41, 42, 43

11. Chesterton, G. K. (1874–1936) 338

12. Clancy, Joseph P. (b.1928) 9, 450

13. Clare, John (1793–1864) 244, 247

14. Clarke, Austin (1896–1974) 65

15. Coghill, Nevill (1899–1980) 42, 43

16. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772–1834) 232, 235

17. Conran, Anthony (Tony) (1931–2013) 3, 11, 45, 59, 63, 545

18. Constantine, David (b.1944) 581

19. Cope, Wendy (b.1945) 588

20. Copeland, James (1918–2002) 471

21. Cornford, Frances (1886–1960) 399

22. Cowper, William (1731–1800) 187, 188

23. Crabbe, George (1754–1832) 205

24. Crawford, Robert (b.1959) 637

25. Crichton Smith, Ian (1928–98) 534, 535, 536

26. Crossley-Holland, Kevin (b.1941) 13

27. Crotty, Patrick 4

28. Cruickshank, Helen B. (1886–1975) 400

1. Dafydd ab Edmwnd (fl.1450–80) 59

2. Dafydd ap Gwilym (c.1340) 44, 45

3. Davies, Idris (1905–53) 391, 392

4. Davies, W. H. (1871–1940) 336

5. de la Mare, Walter (1873–1956) 336, 337

6. Dharker, Imtiaz (b.1954) 622

7. Donne, John (1572–1632) 115, 116, 117

8. Dooley, Maura (b.1957) 636

9. Douglas, Keith (1920–44) 432

10. Downie, Freda (1929–93) 537

11. Draycott, Jane (b.1954) 52

12. Drayton, Michael (1563–1631) 94

13. Duhig, Ian (b.1954) 620

14. Dunbar, William (?1456–?1513) 61

15. Dunn, Douglas (b.1942) 575

16. Durcan, Paul (b.1944) 583

1. Earle, Jean (1909–2002) 385

2. Edgar, Marriott (1880–1951) 346

3. Eliot, T. S. (1888–1965) 369, 374

4. Elizabeth I (1553–1603) 78, 79

5. Evans, Margiad (1909–58) 461

1. Fainlight, Ruth (b.1931) 561

2. Fanshawe, Catherine Maria (1765–1834) 211

3. Fanthorpe, U. A. (1929–2009) 539

4. Farley, Paul (b.1965) 658

6. Fergusson, Robert (1750–75) 196, 199

7. Fisher, Roy (b.1930) 560

8. Fitzgerald, Earl Gerald (1335–98) 49

9. Francis, Matthew (b.1956) 30

10. Fyge, Sarah (1670–1723) 168

1. Garioch, Robert (1909–81) 463, 464, 465

2. Gascoyne, David (1916–2001) 429

3. Gay, John (1685–1732) 174

4. Gershon, Karen (1923–93) 526

5. Glyn, Ifor ap (b.1961) 643

6. Godley, A. D. (1856–1925) 312

7. Graham, W. S. (1918–86) 491, 494, 495

8. Graves, Robert (1895–1985) 443, 444

9. Gray, Thomas (1716–71) 184

10. Greene, Robert (1558–82) 93

11. Greenlaw, Lavinia (b.1962) 648

12. Greenwell, Dora (1821–82) 283

13. Gregory, Lady Augusta (1852–1932) 35

14. Gunn, Thom (1929–2004) 538

15. Gurney, Ivor (1890–1937) 358, 359, 359

16. Gwenallt Jones, D. (1899–1968) 446

1. Hamer, Richard 11, 20

2. Hamilton, Janet (1795–1873) 248, 250

3. Hardy, Thomas (1840–1928) 294, 296, 297

4. Harvey, F. W. (1888–1957) 382

5. Heaney, Seamus (1939–2013) 6, 12, 17, 28, 33, 54, 57, 62, 138, 164, 171, 195, 550, 552, 553, 554

6. Heath-Stubbs, John (1918–2006) 506

7. Henri, Adrian (1932–2000) 481

8. Henry, Paul (b.1959) 638

9. Henryson, Robert (1425–1500) 54, 57

10. Herbert, George (1593–1633) 129, 130, 131

11. Herbert, W. N. (b.1961) 642

12. Herrick, Robert (1591–1674) 124, 127, 128

13. Hill, Geoffrey (1932–2016) 547

14. Hogg, James (1770–1835) 221, 222

15. Hollis, Matthew (b.1971) 16

16. Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1844–89) 299, 300, 301, 302

17. Housman, A. E. (1859–1936) 314, 315

18. Hughes, Ted (1930–98) 540, 541, 542

19. Humphreys, Emyr (b.1919–) 456

1. Ingelow, Jean (1830–97) 284

1. Jackson, Kenneth Hurlstone (1909–91) 22, 25, 49

2. Jacob, Violet (1863–1946) 315

3. Jamie, Kathleen (b.1962) 647

4. Jennings, Elizabeth (1926–2001) 531, 532, 533

5. Johnson, Linton Kwesi (b.1952) 614

6. Jones, David (1895–1974) 403

7. Jones, Gwyn (1871–1949) 34, 309

8. Jonson, Ben (1572–1637) 106, 108, 111

9. Joyce, James (1882–1941) 378

1. Kavanagh, Patrick (1904–67) 454, 456

2. Kay, Jackie (b.1961) 639

3. Keats, John (1795–1821) 251, 255, 256

4. Kennelly, Brendan (b.1936) 564

5. Kipling, Rudyard (1863–1936) 316

6. Kitchener Davies, J. (1902–53) 450

7. Kunial, Zaffar (b.1972) 668

1. Langland, William (1332–86) 47

2. Larkin, Philip (1922–85) 522, 523

3. Lawrence, D. H. (1885–1930) 394, 395, 397

4. Lear, Edward (1812–88) 285, 287

5. Ledwidge, Francis (1887–1970) 407

6. Leonard, Tom (b.1944) 587

7. Lewis, Alun (1915–44) 425, 426, 428

8. Lochhead, Liz (b.1947) 589

9. Logue, Christopher (1926–2011) 480

10. Longley, Michael (b.1939) 181, 619, 565

11. Lowry, Malcolm (1909–57) 420, 421, 422

1. Mac an Bhaird, Laoiseach (fl.late 16th c.) 138

2. Mac Cuarta, Séamas dall (1650–1733) 164

3. Macaulay, Rose (1881–1958) 357

4. MacCaig, Norman (1910–96) 497, 498, 499

5. MacDiarmid, Hugh (1892–1978) 386, 387

6. MacDonald, Alexander (1695–1770) 178

7. McGonagall, William (1825–1902) 281

8. McGuckian, Medbh (b.1950) 596

9. Mackinnon, Lachlan (b.1956) 628

10. MacLeod, Mary (c.1616–c.1706) 144

11. MacNeacail, Aonghas (b.1942) 578, 578

12. MacNeice, Louis (1907–63) 417, 419, 420

13. Maguire, Sarah (b.1957) 633

14. Mahon, Derek (b.1941) 26, 568

15. Maitland, Sir Thomas (1522–72) 77

16. Marlowe, Christopher (1564–93) 96

17. Marvell, Andrew (1621–78) 146, 148

18. Maxwell, Glyn (b.1962) 645

19. Meehan, Paula (b.1955) 626

20. Mew, Charlotte (1869–1928) 327, 329, 332, 333

21. Meynell, Alice (1847–1922) 307

22. Milton, John (1608–74) 142

23. Minhinnick, Robert (b.1952) 616

24. Mitchell, Adrian (1932–2008) 483

25. Mitchell, Elma (1919–2000) 509

26. Monro, Harold (1879–1932) 344, 345

27. Morgan, Edwin (1920–2010) 510, 511, 513

28. Morrissey, Sinéad (b.1972) 666

29. Morus, Huw (1622–1709) 155

30. Muir, Edwin (1887–1959) 401, 402

31. Muldoon, Paul (b.1951) 3, 598

1. Nagra, Daljit (b.1966) 660

2. Ní Chuilleanáin, Eiléan (b.1942) 578

3. Ní Dhomnaill, Nuala (b.1952) 619

4. Nicholson, Norman (1914–87) 503

5. Norris, Leslie (1921–2006) 44, 515, 517

1. O’Brien, Sean (b.1952) 618

2. O’Connor, Frank (1903–66) 15, 20, 24, 27, 170

3. O’Donoghue, Bernard (b.1945) 47

4. Ó Dornín, Peadar (1700–69) 181

5. O’Kelly, Pat (1754–1812) 202

6. Ó Rathaille, Aodhágan (1670–1729) 170, 171

7. Ó Súilleabháin, Eoghan Rua (1748–84) 195

8. Oliphant, Caroline (1766–1845) 219, 220

9. Orr, James (1779–1852) 237

10. Oswald, Alice (b.1966) 661

11. Owen, Wilfred (1893–1918) 360, 361, 363, 364

1. Paterson, Don (b.1963) 654

2. Philips, Katherine (1632–64) 160

3. Pitter, Ruth (1897–1992) 445

4. Plath, Sylvia (1932–63) 473, 476

5. Pope, Alexander (1688–1744) 177

6. Potter, Clare 643

7. Pugh, Sheenagh (b.1950) 597

1. Radford, Dollie (1858–1920) 313

2. Raine, Kathleen (1908–2003) 459

3. Read, Herbert (1893–1968) 408

4. Reed, Henry (1914–86) 422

5. Rees Jones, Deryn (b.1968) 662

6. Reid, Alastair (1926–2014) 531

7. Richmond, E. B. 41

8. Ridler, Anne (1912–2001) 469

9. Riley, Denise (b.1948) 593

10. Riordan, Maurice (b.1953) 22

11. Roberts, Lynette (1909–95) 466, 468

12. Robinson, Mary (1758–1800) 209

13. Rosenberg, Isaac (1890–1918) 355, 356

14. Rossetti, Christina (1830–94) 278, 280

1. Sackville-West, Vita (1892–1962) 378

2. Sassoon, Siegfried (1886–1967) 352, 353, 354

3. Scovell, E. J. (1907–99) 457

4. Seager, Jane (fl.1589) 80

5. Sempill, Francis (c.1616–82) 143

6. Shakespeare, William (1564–1616) 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103

7. Shapcott, Jo (b.1954) 621

8. Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792–1822) 239, 240

9. Sidney, Philip (1554–86) 90, 93

10. Singer, Elizabeth (1674–1737) 173

11. Sitwell, Edith (1887–1964) 404, 405

12. Smart, Christopher (1722–71) 185

13. Smith, Charlotte (1749–1806) 195

14. Smith, Stevie (1902–71) 452, 453

16. Spenser, Edmund (c.1552–99) 84

17. Stevenson, Anne (b.1933) 562

18. Stuart, Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–87) 82

19. Swift, Jonathan (1667–1745) 167

1. Taliesin (fl.6th c.) 11

2. Tennyson, Alfred, Lord (1809–92) 263, 266, 268

3. Thomas, Dylan (1914–53) 435, 437, 441

4. Thomas, Edward (1878–1917) 340, 341, 343, 344

5. Thomas, R. S. (1913–2000) 500, 502

6. Thomson, Derick (1921–2012) 178

7. Tobin, Barry 398

8. Tonks, Rosemary (1928–2014) 477, 478

9. Townsend Warner, Sylvia (1893–1978) 442

1. Vaughan, Henry (1621–95) 150, 151, 153

1. Waller, Edmund (1606–84) 141

2. Wedderburn, James (d.1553), John (d.1554) and Robert (d.1557) 83

3. Whitney, Isabella (1553–1603) 81

4. Wickham, Anna (1884–1947) 351

5. Wilde, Oscar (1854–1900) 311

6. Williams, Gwyn (1904–90) 155

7. Williams, Hugo (b.1944) 579

8. Williams, Rowan (b.1950) 446

9. Williams, Waldo (1904–71) 456

10. Williams Parry, Robert (1884–1956) 398

11. Wordsworth, Dorothy (1771–1855) 231

12. Wordsworth, William (1770–1850) 227, 229

13. Wright, Kit (b.1944) 586

14. Wright, Mehetabel (1697–1750) 179

15. Wroth, Lady Mary (1586–c.1652) 122, 123

16. Wyatt, Thomas (1503–42) 75

1. Yeats, W. B. (1869–1939) 321, 322, 323, 324, 326

INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES

1. A— B— on the learned Bartholo Sylva 78

2. A child at Brighton has been left to drown 334

3. A drear, wind-weary afternoon 336

4. A hundred yards from the peak, while the bells 398

5. A hunner funnels bleezin’, reekin’ 248

6. A single thought which benefits and harms me 82

7. A soldier passed me in the freshly fallen snow 408

8. A sweet disorder in the dress 127

9. A wall of forest looms above 29

10. A weekday haar 627

11. According to Dineen, a Gael unsurpassed 620

12. Achill Woman, The 584

13. Addiction to an Old Mattress 477

14. Adlestrop 340

15. Advice to Lovers 27

16. Ae Fond Kiss 213

17. Ae fond kiss, and then we sever 213

18. Æthelstan, the King, ruler of earls 13

19. After a Journey 294

20. After the dread tales and red yarns of the Line 359

21. Ah, he was a grand man 583

22. Akond of Swat, The 287

23. Alas! for all the pretty women who marry dull men 351

24. Alas! how dismal is my Tale 202

25. Alas, my love, they knocked you down 73

26. Alas! Poor Queen 389

27. Alien 595

28. All Day it has Rained … 426

29. All day it has rained, and we on the edge of the moors 426

30. All night I clatter upon my creed 67

31. Already someone’s set their dogs among the swans 667

32. An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king 239

33. An omnibus across the bridge 311

34. And are ye sure the news is true 181

35. And now they turn poor poetry outdoors 421

36. And so, strangely enough, to Florida 663

38. And They Call It Lovely Derry 663

39. Angry Summer, The 392

40. Anne Donne 442

41. Another Westminster Bridge 661

42. Answer to another persuading a Lady to Marriage, An 160

43. Anthem for Doomed Youth 360

44. Antony and Cleopatra 99

45. Are you to say goodnight 491

46. Argument of His Book, The 124

47. As for you loud Greenock long ropeworking 494

48. As I did the washing one day 63

49. As I was walking all alane 140

50. As the poor end of each dead day drew near 422

51. As you plaited the harvest bow 552

52. At the top of a low hill 538

53. Aubade (‘It’s all the same to morning what it dawns on’) 619

54. Aubade (‘Jane, Jane’) 404

55. August 1914 355

56. Auld Mither Scotlan’ 250

57. Avarice 130

1. Back Bedroom 387

2. Back in the same room that an hour ago 654

3. Bagpipe Muzak, Glasgow 1990 589

4. Ballad of Persse O’Reilly, The 378

5. Ballad which Anne Askew Made and Sang when She was in Newgate, The 76

6. Ballade of Genuine Concern 334

7. Ballade of Liquid Refreshment 339

8. Barn Owl 515

9. Battle of Brunanburh, The 13

10. Battle of Inverlochy, The 132

11. Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay 281

12. Because I turned up from Bombay 622

13. Because they would not let you ford the river Jordan 633

14. Bede’s Death Song 11

15. Bee Meeting, The 473

16. Before the journey that awaits us all 11

17. Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode 338

18. Begin 564

19. Begin again to the summoning birds 564

20. Belfast Confetti 592

21. Bells of Rhymney, The 391

23. Bent double, like old beggars under sacks 363

24. Beowulf 6

25. Between now and then, I will offer you 466

26. Between plunging valleys, on a bareback of hill 540

27. Bird in the House, A 533

28. ‘Birdsong from a willow tree’ 12

29. Birdsong from a willow tree 12

30. Birthnight, The 337

31. Black Friday 471

32. Blackberrying 476

33. Blackbird of Derrycairn, The 64

34. Blackbird of Glanmore, The 554

35. Blackwater 648

36. Blue Jacket, The 388

37. Blue Song 144

38. Boasts of Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd, The 527

39. Bonnie Broukit Bairn, The 386

40. Bonnie Charlie’s now awa 219

41. Brag, sweet tenor bull 483

42. Breach in the Wall, The 73

43. Break of Day in the Trenches 356

44. Briggflatts 483

45. Bright Field, The 500

46. Bright shadows of true rest! some shoots of bliss 150

47. ‘Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art’ 256

48. Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art 256

49. Brightening brightness, alone on the road, she appears 171

50. Bring Us in Good Ale 68

51. Bring us in good ale, and bring us in good ale 68

52. Brither Worm 463

53. Brothers 138

54. Busy old fool, unruly sun 116

55. ‘But why do you go?’ said the lady, while both sate under the yew 259

56. Butter 519

57. By this title, the book declares itself, and the amount of riches that it conceals 78

1. Caedmon’s Hymn 3

2. Caller Oysters 196

3. Camp, The 209

4. Canedolia 513

5. Canker’d, cursed creature, crabbed, corbit kittle 77

7. Canoe 432

8. Carrickfergus 417

9. Cascando 393

10. Cauld are the ghaisties in yon kirkyaird 465

11. Celia, Celia 483

12. Charge of the Light Brigade, The 266

13. Childhood 399

14. Child’s Story, The 531

15. Christmas Carol, A 278

16. Christmas Robin, The 444

17. Cock Robbin 192

18. Cold, cold, chill tonight is wide Moylurg 25

19. ‘Come, darkest night, becoming sorrow best’ 123

20. Come, darkest night, becoming sorrow best 123

21. ‘Come into the garden, Maud’ 263

22. Come into the garden, Maud 263

23. Come live with me, and be my love 96

24. Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy 117

25. Communication Which the Author Had to London, Before She Made Her Will, A 81

26. Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 227

27. Convergence of the Twain, The 297

28. Corinna’s Going a-Maying 124

29. Correspondence between Mr Harrison in Newcastle and Mr Sholto Peach Harrison in Hull 452

30. Cousin Coat 618

31. Crossing the Bar 268

1. Daft-Days, The 199

2. Dead ponies 472

3. ‘Dear, if you change, I’ll never choose again’ 65

4. Dear, if you change, I’ll never choose again 65

5. Dearest, it was a night 337

6. Death is the cook of nature, and we find 158

7. Death Song for Owain ab Urien 11

8. Deceptions? 499

9. Delight in Disorder 127

10. ‘Derry I cherish ever’ 33

11. Derry I cherish ever 33

12. Description of Sir Geoffrey Chaucer, The 93

13. Design or Chance makes others wive 141

14. Desire in Spring 407

15. Dinogad’s smock is pied, pied 3

17. Disabled 361

18. Do you hear the bells 447

19. Doubt of Future Foes, The 78

20. Dover Beach 277

21. Downfall of Charing Cross, The 161

22. Dreams of a Summer Night 568

23. Drink to me, only, with thine eyes 111

24. Driving the perfect length of Ireland 596

25. Drowned Blackbird, The 164

26. Ducks 382

27. Dulce et Decorum Est 363

28. Dulled by the slow glare of the yellow bulb 429

29. Durham 26

30. D’ye ken the big village of Balmaquhapple 222

1. Earth has not anything to show more fair 227

2. Easter, 1916 324

3. Echo 90

4. Eden Rock 505

5. Eh’ve wurkt oot a poetic map o thi warld 642

6. Electric Poly-Olbion, The 658

7. Elegy for the Welsh Dead, in the Falkland Islands, 1982 545

8. Elegy: To his Mistress Going to Bed 117

9. Elevation 643

10. Elm Decline, The 503

11. End of Clonmacnois, The 24

12. Ends Meet 448

13. Englan Voice 559

14. England in 1819 239

15. Epic 456

16. Epiphany 542

17. Epithalamion 528

18. Ernie Morgan found him, a small 515

19. Everyone Sang 353

20. Everyone suddenly burst out singing 353

21. Exile 20

22. Extra Helpings 575

1. Faerie Queene, The 84

2. Fair rocks, goodly rivers, sweet woods, when shall I see peace? Peace 90

3. Falling Asleep 354

4. Far spread the moory ground, a level scene 244

6. Farmer’s Bride, The 327

7. Father in the Railway Buffet 539

8. Feeding Ducks 497

9. Felix Randal 299

10. Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then? my duty all ended 299

11. Fern Hill 435

12. Fired Pot, The 351

13. First Time In 359

14. Five years have past; five summers, with the length 229

15. Flea, The 115

16. Floating Island 231

17. Flood Before and After 645

18. Flying over Wales, suspended 643

19. Football at Slack 540

20. For a Child Expected 469

21. For the doubling of flowers is the improvement of the gardners talent 185

22. Forbear, bold youth, all’s Heaven here 160

23. Forty boys on benches with their quills 588

24. Fox, The 398

25. Friends Departed 153

26. From Dublin to Ramallah 633

27. From the Irish 620

28. From this high quarried ledge I see 428

29. From troubles of the world 382

30. Frost at Midnight 232

31. Full Moon 378

1. gaelic is alive 578

2. Gather ye rose-buds while ye may 128

3. General Prologue, The 42

4. General, The 353

5. Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morn 124

6. Ghaisties 465

7. Ghosts in New Houses 420

8. Girl’s Hair, A 59

9. Glamoured, The 171

10. Glance, The 131

11. go and glimpse the lovely inattentive water 661

12. God send euerie Preist ane wyfe 83

13. God send euerie Preist ane wyfe 83

14. God, consider the soul’s need 11

15. God’s Grandeur 300

17. Gododdin, The 9

18. Godspeed our flashy myths that last five minutes 658

19. Going, Going 523

20. Gone are the drab monosyllabic days 443

21. ‘Good-morning; good-morning!’ the General said 353

22. Green Grow the Rashes 215

23. Green grow the rashes, O 215

24. Green Man’s Last Will and Testament, The 506

25. Greenock at Night I Find You 494

26. Greensleeves was all my joy 119

27. Grey Eye Weeping, A 170

28. Grief 257

29. Grief fills the room up of my absent child 98

30. Guttural Muse, The 553

1. Had we but world enough, and time, 146

2. Haddock Fishermen 521

3. Half a league, half a league 266

4. Hamnavoe Market 519

5. Hampstead: the Horse Chestnut Trees 538

6. Handbag 561

7. Hannaker Mill 335

8. Happy are men who yet before they are killed 364

9. Happy the man, whose wish and care 177

10. Hark! ’tis the twanging horn o’er yonder bridge 188

11. Harmonious powers with nature work 231

12. Harvest Bow, The 552

13. Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty 378

14. Have you seen Hugh 15

15. Hay Making 217

16. He disappeared in the dead of winter 414

17. He Liked the Dead 422

18. He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark 361

19. Heart of the Wood, The 35

20. Henry V 101

21. ‘Here dead lie we because we did not choose’ 315

22. Here dead lie we because we did not choose 315

23. Here is the soundless cypress on the lawn 344

24. Here the seagulls stay in off the Lough all day 666

25. Hereto I come to view a voiceless ghost 294

26. ‘Hey Jude’ was the longest single, up to that time 628

27. His stature was not very tall 93

28. Hóireann o 144

30. Holy Thursday 208

31. Home-Thoughts, from Abroad 270

32. How brave is the hunter who nobly will dare 306

33. How comes it, Flora, that, whenever we 280

34. ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways’ 258

35. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways 258

36. How foolish the man 23

37. ‘How like a winter hath my absence been’ 99

38. How like a winter hath my absence been 99

39. How the Wild South East was Lost 586

40. Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore 195

41. Hurrahing in Harvest 301

1. I am homesick now for middle age, as then 457

2. I am Taliesin 34

3. I am walking backwards into the future like a Greek 565

4. I can feel the tug 550

5. I have lived in important places, times 456

6. I have lived it, and lived it 478

7. I have met them at close of day 324

8. I have never returned 595

9. I have seen the sun break through 500

10. I keep the queen, she is long in my hand 665

11. I know that I shall meet my fate 326

12. I lay in in London 442

13. I love the cradle songs the mothers sing 407

14. I love to rise in a summer morn 207

15. I may be smelly and I may be old 452

16. I mind o’ the Ponnage Pule 400

17. I pick a daimen icker from the thrave 511

18. I prepare – an prepare well – fe Englan 559

19. I remember rooms that have had their part 333

20. I saw a garden, full of blossoming trees 41

21. I saw a lang worm snoove throu the space atween twa stanes 463

22. ‘I saw eternity the other night’ 150

23. I saw eternity the other night 150

24. I Shall Vote Labour 480

25. I shall vote Labour because 480

26. I sing my own true story, tell my travels 20

27. ‘I sing of a maiden’ 62

28. I sing of a maiden beyond compare 62

29. I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers 124

30. I sing this poem full of grief 17

32. I swear 622

33. I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless 257

34. I think someone might write an elegy 597

35. I think someone might write an elegy 597

36. I thought it would last my time 523

37. I thought of you tonight, a leanbh, lying there in your long barrow 598

38. I used to think that grown-up people chose 399

39. I wad ha’e gi’en him my lips tae kiss 388

40. ‘I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day’ 302

41. I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day 302

42. I was born in Belfast between the mountain and the gantries 417

43. I Was Not There 526

44. I went down to the railway 562

45. I went out to the hazel wood 322

46. I wish, O son of the Living God, ancient eternal King 22

47. ‘If all the world were paper’ 162

48. If all the world were paper 162

49. If I were called in 523

50. If you ask me, us takes in undulations 668

51. I’m Neutral 464

52. I’m standing here inside my skin 621

53. I’m wearin’ awa’, John 220

54. Immigrant 564

55. In a ragged spinney (scheduled 506

56. In a solitude of the sea 297

57. In Belfast 666

58. In Defence of Women 49

59. In Hospital: Poona (I) 425

60. In Memory of W. B. Yeats 414

61. In merry old England, it once was a rule 186

62. In my Craft or Sullen Art 441

63. In my craft or sullen art 441

64. In our primary school 575

65. In our town, people live in rows 351

66. In Parenthesis 403

67. In Praise of a Girl 155

68. In the bleak mid-winter 278

69. In the mustardseed sun 437

70. In the season of summer with the sun at its highest 47

71. Incantata 598

72. Infelice 453

74. Inglan is a Bitch 614

75. Innocent England 395

76. Insensibility 364

77. Interrogation, The 401

78. Inviting a Friend to Supper 106

79. Irish Airman Foresees his Death, An 326

80. Is this a holy thing to see 208

81. It reeled across the North, to the extent 645

82. It’s all the same to morning what it dawns on 619

83. It’s difficult with the weight of the rifle 403

84. It’s little more than a bump in the land, a footnote 30

85. It was a day peculiar to this piece of the planet 531

86. It was a yellow voice, a high, shrill treble in the nursery 533

87. It was the garden of the golden apples 454

1. Jane, Jane 404

2. Jesus and the Sparrows 4

3. Jubilate Agno 185

4. Julia in Silks 128

5. Just for the sake of recovering 495

1. Keen for the Coins, A 554

2. King John 98

3. King of Connacht, The 15

4. King of the perennial holly-groves, the riven sandstone 547

5. King Richard II 103

6. Known throughout Britain this noble city 26

1. Lady Greensleeves 119

2. Lady Poverty, The 307

3. Lament for Culloden 216

4. Land o’ the Leal, The 220

5. Last night I did not fight for sleep 425

6. Last night in Scotland Street I met a man 464

7. Last night we started with some dry vermouth 339

8. Late summer, and at midnight 553

9. Late Wasp, The 402

10. Laughter, with us, is no great undertaking 350

11. Lessons of the War 422

12. Let in the wind 459

13. Let us go then, you and I 369

14. let’s put aside 578

15. Liberty, The 168

16. Life and Death 136

18. Like as the armed knight 76

19. ‘Like as the damask rose you see’ 134

20. Like as the damask rose you see 134

21. Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey 229

22. Lion and Albert, The 346

23. Listen Mr Oxford Don 593

24. Listening to Collared Doves 457

25. Litany for Doneraile, The 202

26. Liverpool Blues 662

27. Lo thus in brief (most sacred Majesty) 80

28. Loch Thom 495

29. London Eye, The 658

30. London Snow 303

31. London. The grimy lilac softness 542

32. Long Garden, The 454

33. Lord Walter’s Wife 259

34. Lost Woman, The 529

35. Love 129

36. Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back 129

37. Love is like a dizziness 221

38. ‘Love like a juggler comes to play his prize’ 122

39. Love like a juggler comes to play his prize 122

40. Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The 369

41. Love’s Labour’s Lost 100

42. Lovely daughter of Conn O’Neill 164

43. Lovers are Separate 447

44. Lovers whose lifted hands are candles in winter 469

45. Lunch Hour 357

1. Mabinogi: Rhiannon, The 30

2. Maggie Lauder 143

3. Manly Sports 306

4. Mappamundi 642

5. Mark but this flea, and mark in this 115

6. Marriage of the Dwarfs 141

7. Mars is braw in crammasy 386

8. Mary Morison 212

9. Mary’s Song 388

10. May Poem 66

11. Me not no Oxford don 593

12. Meditation at Kew 351

13. Meeting at Night 271

14. Men went to Catraeth, keen their war-band 9

16. Men went to Catraeth. The luxury liner 545

17. Mercian Hymns 547

18. Midge 510

19. Midnight. The wind yawing nor-east 521

20. Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead 647

21. Mrs Evans fach, you want butter again 392

22. Mrs Reece Laughs 350

23. Money 522

24. Money, thou bane of bliss, and source of woe 130

25. Month of plants and of honey 178

26. Moon in Lleyn, The 500

27. Moors, The 244

28. Mother’s Lament for Her Child, The 181

29. Motor Bus, The 312

30. Mountain over Aberdare, The 428

31. Mower to the Glow-Worms, The 148

32. Music of a thrush, clearbright 45

33. My dearest, you may pray now it is Lent 149

34. My Grandmother 532

35. My grandmother came down the steps into the garden 448

36. My hope and my love 35

37. My life is my own bible 629

38. My luve is like a red, red rose 213

39. My mother went with no more warning 529

40. My mother’s old leather handbag 561

41. My passion is as mustard strong 174

1. Na, na, I wunna pairt wi’ that 250

2. Nation, The 560

3. Nature and Time are against us now 461

4. Nature’s Cook 158

5. Neutral Tones 296

6. New Song of New Similes, A 174

7. New Year Behind the Asylum 581

8. Night Mail 411

9. Nightingale Near the House, The 344

10. No 336

11. No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and strain 352

12. No Second Troy 323

13. No, this is not my life, thank God 477

14. Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries 476

15. ‘Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds’ 187

16. Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds 187

18. Northumbrian Sequence: IV 459

19. November ’63: eight months in London 564

20. Now as Heaven is my Lot, they’re the Pests of the Nation 235

21. Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs 435

22. Now let me turn again to tell my tale 43

23. Now mirk December’s dowie face 199

24. Now we must praise to the skies, the Keeper of the heavenly kingdom 3

25. ‘Now winter nights enlarge’ 104

26. Now winter nights enlarge 104

27. Now, disbelieving, I will go 616

28. Numties, The 637

29. Nun’s Priest’s Tale, The 43

30. Nymph, nymph, what are your beads 345

1. O Cambridge, attend 184

2. O henny penny! Oh horsed half-crown 554

3. O, I have been wounded 132

4. O Jean, my Jean, when the bell ca’s the congregation 315

5. O, love, love, love 221

6. O lusty May, with Flora queen 66

7. O Mary, at thy window be 212

8. O pleasant exercise of hope and joy 227

9. O Robertson of Inverawe 159

10. O what can you give me 391

11. O why do you walk through the fields in gloves 399

12. O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being 240

13. O women of the Merrie England Coffee Houses, Huddersfield 651

14. oa! hoy! awe! ba! mey 513

15. Ode on Solitude 177

16. Ode to the West Wind 240

17. Of a’ the waters that can hobble 196

18. Oh that my soul a marrow-bone might seize 310

19. Oh, to be in England 270

20. Oh what a pity, Oh! don’t you agree 395

21. Old Peter Grimes made Fishing his employ 205

22. Old Woman Speaks of the Moon, An 445

23. On a Dead Child 304

24. On ear and ear two noises too old to end 301

25. On hot summer mornings my aunt set glasses 517

26. On Inclosures 180

27. On the civic amenity landfill site 647

28. On the grass when I arrive 554

30. On the Grasshopper and the Cricket 255

31. On the New Laureate 186

32. On the Road to the Sea 329

33. On the Roof of the World 628

34. Once I loved a woman 638

35. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more 101

36. One duck stood on my toes 497

37. One thing I know for certain: that she 52

38. Oor Location 248

39. Oot behind a lorry 471

40. Orchids at Cwm y Gaer, The 616

41. Our town in England with the whole of India sundering 660

42. Our Town with the Whole of India! 660

43. Out of us all 341

44. Overheard on a Saltmarsh 345

45. Owl and Mouse 535

46. Owl and the Pussy-Cat, The 285

1. Paradise Lost 142

2. Parliament of Fowls, The 41

3. Passionate Shepherd to his Love, The 96

4. Pearl 52

5. Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee 304

6. Peter Grimes 205

7. Phrase Book 621

8. Piano 394

9. Piers Plowman 47

10. Pleasant Sounds 244

11. Poem 468

12. Poem From Llanybri 466

13. Poem on His Birthday 437

14. Poet to Blacksmith 195

15. Poetry is a loose term and only 537

16. Poly-Olbion 94

17. Ponnage Pool, The 400

18. Poor Snow 593

19. Porphyria’s Lover 272

20. Post-Boy, The 188

21. Praises of God, The 23

22. Prayer 131

23. Prayer the Church’s banquet, Angels’ age 131

24. Prelude, The 227

25. Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan 624

27. Pride 639

28. Private Bottling, A 654

29. Prologue, The 54

30. Proud Songsters 294

31. Punishment 550

1. Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me 522

2. Queen of Hearts, The 280

3. Question Answered, A 209

1. Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay, The 281

2. Red, Red Rose, A 213

3. Refugee Blues 409

4. Riddle, A 211

5. River & Fountain 565

6. River God of the River Mimram in Hertfordshire, The 452

7. Rolling English Road, The 338

8. Rooms 333

1. Sally is gone that was so kindly 335

2. Satire upon the Heads; or, Never a Barrel the Better Herring 184

3. Saturday in the ’20s, A 385

4. Satyr upon Sir Niel Laing 77

5. Say this city has ten million souls 409

6. Scherzo (a Shy Person’s Wishes), A 283

7. School Boy, The 207

8. Scotland 531

9. Sea and the Skylark, The 301

10. Seafarer, The 20

11. Seagull, The 44

12. Seamus, make me a side-arm to take on the earth 195

13. See, I was raised on the wild side, border country 586

14. Seed 626

15. Seven Times One: Exultation 284

16. Shakespeare at School 588

17. Shall I be one of those obsequious fools 168

18. Shall I have the girl I love 59

19. She came up the hill carrying water 584

20. She kept an antique shop – or it kept her 532

21. ‘She walks in beauty, like the night’ 238

22. She walks in beauty, like the night 238

23. ‘She was poor, but she was honest’ 308

24. She was poor, but she was honest 308

25. She was skilled in music and the dance 389

27. She was urgent to speak of the moon: she offered delight 445

28. She was wearing coral taffeta trousers 378

29. Shirt of a Lad 63

30. Sholto Peach Harrison you are no son of mine 452

31. Silent is the house: all are laid asleep 269

32. Silent One, The 358

33. ‘silver swan, who living had no note, The’ 64

34. Sin 446

35. Singer, The 627

36. Singing, today I married my white girl 528

37. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 50

38. Sir James Murray 511

39. Slip of loveliness, slim, seemly 155

40. Smooth gull on the sea’s lagoon 44

41. Snow 420

42. So forth issued the Seasons of the year 84

43. So the morning dawns when man remembers 50

44. ‘So, we’ll go no more a roving’ 239

45. So, we’ll go no more a roving 239

46. So when the Queen of Love rose from the seas 173

47. Soaking, The 359

48. Soap Suds 419

49. Sofas, Fogs and Cinemas, The 478

50. Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me 394

51. Soliloquy of a Maiden Aunt 313

52. Soliloquy of the full Moon, She being in a Mad Passion –, A 235

53. Some Poetry 537

54. Son-days 150

55. Song about Myself, A 251

56. Song of a Wire Fence 638

57. Song of Sorrow, A 159

58. Song of Summer 178

59. Song of Wandering Aengus, The 322

60. Song to a Child 3

61. Song To Celia 111

62. Sonnet Found in a Deserted Mad-House 310

63. Sound of the Wind that is Blowing, The 450

64. Spotted cow that’s light and freckled 309

65. Still Falls the Rain 405

66. Still falls the Rain 405

67. Stop looking like a purse. How could a purse 498

68. Stop, stop and listen for the bough top 64

70. Suddenly as the riot squad moved in, it was raining exclamation marks 592

71. Summer ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise 301

72. Summer Evening 247

73. Sun Rising, The 116

74. Sunday, skilled in zealous verse I praise the Lord 527

75. Sunset and evening star 268

76. Survivors 352

77. Sweeney Astray 28

78. Sweet is the breath of Morn; her rising sweet 142

79. ‘Sweet kiss, thy sweets I fain would sweetly indite’ 93

80. Sweet kiss, thy sweets I fain would sweetly indite 93

81. Sweit rois of vertew and of gentilnes 61

82. Swineherd 578

83. Symphony in Yellow 311

1. Take off the business suit, the old-school tie 446

2. Taliesin. I sing perfect metre 34

3. Tall Nettles 344

4. Tall nettles cover up, as they have done 344

5. Tam i’ the Kirk 315

6. Tempest, The 97

7. 10th February: Queen 665

8. Tents, marquees, and baggage-waggons 209

9. That my old bitter heart was pierced in this black doom 170

10. The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne 99

11. The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne 374

12. The child came to the dark library 385

13. The crags crash to the tarn; slow 503

14. The darkness crumbles away 356

15. The dirty licht that through the winnock seeps 387

16. The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy 78

17. The evening is perfect, my sisters 510

18. The fables told by poets in old times 54

19. The first warm day of spring 626

20. The five old bells 397

21. The frog, half fearful, jumps across the path 247

22. The Frost performs its secret ministry 232

23. The girls are quiet now in the house upstairs 568

24. The green warl’s awa, but the white ane can charm them 237

25. The grey sea and the long black land 271

26. The ladies bow, and partners set 313

27. The Lady Poverty was fair 307

29. The land of Y Llain was on the high marsh 450

30. The last quarter of the moon 500

31. The little lad, five years of age 4

32. The loch looks away, up at the crags 667

33. The lovely lass o’ Inverness 216

34. The men of my people will hunt him as game 16

35. The moon is sixpence 636

36. The morning they set out from home 526

37. The Mournes are cold tonight 28

38. The Muses are turned gossips; they have lost 189

39. The national day 560

40. The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea 285

41. The owl wafts home with a mouse in its beak 535

42. The parsnip Numties: I was a teenager then 637

43. The poetry of earth is never dead 255

44. The Queen has lately lost a part 167

45. The rain has come, and the earth must be very glad 359

46. The rain set early in to-night 272

47. The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was 420

48. The rustling of leaves under the feet in woods and under hedges 244

49. The sea is calm to-night 277

50. The silver swan, who living had no note 64

51. The skyline in the moonlight, the river running thin 662

52. The snows of February had buried Christmas 444

53. The sun was shining on the sea 290

54. The thrushes sing as the sun is going 294

55. The time is come, I must depart 81

56. The trees are in their autumn beauty 321

57. The violet 593

58. The way to get on with a girl 27

59. The world is charged with the grandeur of God 300

60. ‘There is a garden in her face’ 105

61. There is a garden in her face 105

62. There is death enough in Europe without these 472

63. There was a naughty boy 251

64. There was the noise like when the men in droves 581

65. There’s a famous seaside place called Blackpool 346

66. ‘There’s a lady in these parts’ 22

67. There’s a lady in these parts 22

68. There’s Nae Luck about the House 181

69. There’s no dew left on the daisies and clover 284

71. There’s something dreadful about ghosts in new houses 420

72. These were hard times, heart-breaking 6

73. They are all gone into the world of light 153

74. They are cutting down the great plane-trees at the end of the gardens 332

75. They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock 505

76. They drove to the Market with ringing pockets 519

77. ‘They flee from me that sometime did me seek’ 75

78. They flee from me that sometime did me seek 75

79. They sent me a salwar kameez 624

80. They shut the road through the woods 316

81. This ae Night 36

82. This ae night, this ae night 36

83. This brand of soap has the same smell as once in the big 419

84. This house has been far out at sea all night 541

85. This is the farmer sowing his corn 74

86. This is the House That Jack Built 74

87. This is the Night Mail crossing the Border 411

88. this is thi 587

89. ‘This living hand, now warm and capable’ 251

90. This living hand, now warm and capable 251

91. This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle 103

92. Thou tyrant, whom I will not name 179

93. Thoughts after Ruskin 509

94. Three Summers since I chose a maid 327

95. Through my gold-tinted Gucci sunglasses 658

96. Thrush, The 45

97. Thus fared I through a frith . where flowers were many 136

98. Tilth 443

99. ’Tis bad enough in man or woman 180

100. To a Conscript of 1940 408

101. To a Cuckoo at Coolanlough 596

102. To a Fat Lady Seen from a Train 399

103. To a Ladye 61

104. To a very young Gentleman at a Dancing-School 173

105. To draw no envy (Shakespeare) on thy name 108

106. To hear a dripping water tap in a house 499

107. To His Coy Mistress 146

108. To my Daughter Catherine on Ashwednesday 1645, finding her weeping at prayers, because I would not consent to her fasting 149

109. To my sister Sian 461

111. To My Wife at Midnight 491

112. To Queen Elizabeth 80

113. To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr William Shakespeare: And What He Hath Left Us 108

114. To the Virgins to Make Much of Time 128

115. To the Women of the Merrie England Coffee Houses, Huddersfield 651

116. Toad 498

117. Toad and the Mouse, The 57

118. To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday 422

119. Tonight at Noon 481

120. Tonight at noon 481

121. Tonight, grave sir, both my poor house, and I 106

122. Trees are Down, The 332

123. Tullynoe: Tête-à-Tête in the Parish Priest’s Parlour 583

124. Twa Corbies, The 140

125. ’Twas in heaven pronounced, and ’twas muttered in hell 211

1. Undone, undone the lawyers are 161

2. ‘Unrelated Incidents’ – No. 3 587

3. Upon a time, as Aesop makes report 57

4. Upon the grass no longer hangs the dew 217

5. Us 668

1. Verses in Italian and French, written by the Queen of Scots to the Queen of England 82

2. Verses Said to be Written on the Union 167

3. Village of Balmaquhapple, The 222

4. Villain, The 336

5. Visionary, The 269

6. Voices moving about in the quiet house 354

1. Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess 453

2. Walrus and the Carpenter, The 290

3. Wartime Dawn, A 429

4. Washing Day 189

5. Waste Land, The 374

6. Water (‘If I were called in’) 523

7. Water (‘On hot summer mornings my aunt set glasses’) 517

8. Waterfall, The 151

9. Way Through the Woods, The 316

10. We could have crossed the road but hesitated 401

11. We must uprise O my people. Though 468

13. We passed each other, turned and stopped for half an hour, then went our way 329

14. We stood by a pond that winter day 296

15. Wedlock: A Satire 179

16. Week-night Service 397

17. Well, I am thinking this may be my last 432

18. w’en mi jus’ come to Landan toun 614

19. ‘Western wind, when wilt thou blow?’ 73

20. Western wind, when wilt thou blow 73

21. Wha wadna be in love 143

22. What are you doing here, ghost, among these urns 539

23. What happier fortune can one find 20

24. What in our lives is burnt 355

25. What Is a Man? 456

26. What is it men in women do require 209

27. What is living? Finding a great hall 456

28. What is this that roareth thus 312

29. What passing bells for those who die as cattle 360

30. What shall I give my daughter the younger 343

31. What shall I give? 343

32. What the Gardener Said to Mrs Traill 421

33. What time is it 502

34. When A. and R. men hit the street 589

35. When all this is over, said the swineherd 578

36. When daisies pied and violets blue 100

37. ‘When first my way to fair I took’ 314

38. When first my way to fair I took 314

39. When first thy sweet and gracious eye 131

40. When I am Reading 534

41. When I am reading 534

42. When I am sad and weary 483

43. When I Grow Up 579

44. When I grow up I want to have a bad leg 579

45. When I looked up, the black man was there 639

46. When I Was Fair and Young 79

47. When I was fair and young, then favour graced me 79

48. When I was small and they talked about love I laughed 531

49. When in April the sweet showers fall 42

50. When men were all asleep the snow came flying 303

51. When Our Two Souls 257

52. When our two souls stand up erect and strong 257

53. When there comes a flower to the stingless nettle 388

55. When they came looking for trouble I bared my body 181

56. When Watling in his words that took but small delight 94

57. Whenas in silks my Julia goes 128

58. Whence are you, learning’s son 24

59. Where has my butter gone? The 519

60. Where the coastline doubles up on itself 648

61. While joy gave clouds the light of stars 336

62. Who are these people at the bridge to meet me? They are the villagers 473

63. Who did kill Cock Robbin 192

64. Who died on the wires, and hung there, one of two 358

65. Who or why, or which, or what 287

66. why not merely the despaired of 393

67. Why should I blame her that she filled my days 323

68. Wife of Bath Speaks in Brixton Market, The 629

69. Wife Who Would a Wanton Be, The 67

70. Wife’s Lament, The 17

71. Wild Honey 445

72. Wild Swans at Coole, The 321

73. Will Ye No Come Back Again? 219

74. Willow Song 562

75. Wind 541

76. ‘Wind fierce to-night’ 17

77. Wind fierce to-night 17

78. Winter Cold 25

79. Wish of Manchán of Liath, The 22

80. With the wasp at the innermost heart of a peach 283

81. With what deep murmurs through time’s silent stealth 151

82. Withdrawn for a little space from the confusion 357

83. Without my knowing it you are at the bottom of my mind 536

84. Woe to him who speaks ill of women 49

85. Woman of Llyn y Fan’s Call to Her Cattle, The 309

86. Women of Mumbles Head, The 636

87. Women reminded him of lilies and roses 509

88. Words 341

89. Writing Out of Doors 29

90. Written in Winter 237

91. Written near a port on a dark evening 195

92. Wulf 16

1. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves 97

2. Ye living lamps, by whose dear light 148

3. Yes. I remember Adlestrop 340

5. You Are at the Bottom of My Mind 536

6. You are my secret coat. You’re never dry 618

7. You that through all the dying summer 402

8. You, the man going along the road alone 445

9. You who opt for English ways 138

1. Zero 502

About the Editors

Carol Ann Duffy was born in Glasgow and grew up in Stafford, England. She won the 1993 Whitbread Award for Poetry and the Forward Prize for Best Collection for Mean Time. The World’s Wife received the E. M. Forster Award in America, while Rapture won the T. S. Eliot Prize 2005. She is currently Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her most recent volumes are New and Collected Poems for Children (2009) and The Bees (2011), which won the Costa Poetry Award. Her Collected Poems was published in 2015. She is Poet Laureate.

Gillian Clarke was born in Cardiff, Wales. National Poet of Wales 2008-2016, winner of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry (2010) and the Wilfred Owen Association Poetry award (2012), she is one of the best-known names in UK poetry today, as well as one of the most popular poets on the school curriculum. Poet, playwright, editor, translator, she is President of Ty Newydd writers’ centre in North Wales which she co-founded in 1990. Her collections include Making Beds for the Dead (2004) and A Recipe for Water (2009); her Selected Poems appeared in 2016.

Copyright

First published in 2016

by Faber & Faber Ltd

Bloomsbury House

74–77 Great Russell Street

London WC1B 3DA

This ebook edition first published in 2016

All rights reserved

Poems © the individual authors and estates

Selection © Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke, 2016

Preface © Carol Ann Duffy, 2016

Textual artwork © Stephan Raw, 2016

Design by Faber

Jacket illustration by Neal Murren / Breed London

The right of the individual editors to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

ISBN 978–0–571–27708–7