Poetry Corner

[Bubbles]

.

[Sebastian Toe]

On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!

[Nearly Sane]

Was discussing this last week. Milton's On His Blindness


"When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

[Shaker]

One of the greatest sonnets in the English language, IMHO.

Similarly for Sonnet XXIII, his dream of his dead wife:

Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,
Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint.
Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind;
Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd
So clear as in no face with more delight.
But Oh! as to embrace me she inclin'd,
I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.

[Gonnagle]

Dear What the Frack,

Poetry Corner??

Gonnagle.

[jeremyp]

Please can we give correct attribution when quoting poems.

Here's another Milligan.

Can a parrot
Eat a carrot
Standing on its head?
If I did that
My Mum would send me
Straight upstairs to bed.

[jeremyp]

A poem so pretty
With a tune makes a ditty
And can be quite witty
But this one is shitty.

-- JeremyP

[Aruntraveller]

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.
No 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

Forever a favourite. And for reasons I'm not sure of, it links, in my mind at least, to Vaughan Williams 'The Lark Ascending'

[Shaker]

You've just mentioned in one post two things in the world I adore - Edward Thomas's poetry and Vaughan Williams's music. Happy me 🙂

There is a link, of sorts, and I don't just mean the sense of Englishness turned up to 11. Thomas wrote the poem on the brink of the war that would eventually kill him; RVW (who also served) wrote the original version of The Lark Ascending (violin and piano) at the same time. I think artists were painfully well aware of what they felt could be lost by the looming war and ramped up the English idyll element. Which is only natural. RVW's friend George Butterworth is another prime example: astonishingly lovely, quintessentially English music brought to an end on the Somme.

RVW was an ambulance orderly and in many ways had the shitty end of the stick in the war - he was one of those who had to deal with the bodies and bits of bodies of the casualties, combing the battlefields for survivors and stray arms and legs. For understandable reasons he never spoke much about his war years except through music; his last word on the subject was his Third Symphony, the 'Pastoral.' Do give it a go if you're unfamiliar - I'm biased but I think along with the Fifth (also a must-hear ... but as I say, I'm biased) it's some of the best music he ever wrote.

https://youtu.be/bAi65Fmbn0A

[Aruntraveller]

Only know the 6th symphony well which I came to by the roundabout route of an old TV series in the 70's "A Family at War" IIRC.

[Shaker]

YouTube is your friend

[Brownie]

I really like this:

Not Waving But Drowning - Poem by Stevie Smith

Autoplay next video
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

[Rhiannon]

A Moment of Happiness - Rumi

A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the verandah,
apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.
We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden's beauty
and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

[Shaker]

Beautiful.

[Nearly Sane]

Little bit different, poem with its own cartoon. Poem read by the poet. Note it it in Lallans but you should get the meaning from the sound


Sisyphus by Robert Garioch

https://scotlandonscreen.org.uk/browse-films/007-000-000-317-c

[Dicky Underpants]

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.
No 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

Forever a favourite. And for reasons I'm not sure of, it links, in my mind at least, to Vaughan Williams 'The Lark Ascending'

To continue the very English mood, I find this one very evocative:

"INTO my heart an air that kills   
  From yon far country blows:   
What are those blue remembered hills,   
  What spires, what farms are those?   
 
That is the land of lost content,           5
  I see it shining plain,   
The happy highways where I went   
  And cannot come again."

Housman - A Shropshire Lad XL

When I was 21 and full of angst, I often called this one to mind:

"The mill-stream, now that noises cease,
Is all that does not hold its peace;
Under the bridge it murmurs by,
And here are night and hell and I.

Who made the world I cannot tell;
'Tis made, and here I am in hell.
My hand, though now my knuckles bleed,
I never soiled with such a deed.

And so, no doubt, in time gone by,
Some have suffered more than I,
Who only spend the night alone
And strike my fist upon the stone."

[Rhiannon]

For me this is perfection.

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

by Christina Rossetti

[Nearly Sane]

'Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road.
Healthy, free, the world before me,
the long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.'

[Steve H]

My favourite paschal poem:

Done is a battle on the dragon black,
Our champion Christ confoundit has his force;
The yetis of hell are broken with a crack,
The sign triumphal raisit is of the cross,
The devillis trymmillis with hiddous voce,
The saulis are borrowit and to the bliss can go,
Christ with his bloud our ransonis dois indoce:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.

Dungan is the deidly dragon Lucifer,
The cruewall serpent with the mortal stang;
The auld kene tiger, with his teith on char,
Whilk in a wait has lyen for us so lang,
Thinking to grip us in his clawis strang;
The merciful Lord wald nocht that it were so,
He made him for to failye of that fang.
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.

He for our saik that sufferit to be slane,
And lyk a lamb in sacrifice was dicht,
Is lyk a lion risen up agane,
And as a gyane raxit him on hicht;
Sprungen is Aurora radious and bricht,
On loft is gone the glorious Apollo,
The blissful day departit fro the nicht:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.

The grit victour again is rissen on hicht,
That for our querrell to the deth was woundit;
The sun that wox all pale now shynis bricht,
And, derkness clearit, our faith is now refoundit;
The knell of mercy fra the heaven is soundit,
The Christin are deliverit of their wo,
The Jowis and their errour are confoundit:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.

The fo is chasit, the battle is done ceis,
The presone broken, the jevellouris fleit and flemit;
The weir is gon, confermit is the peis,
The fetteris lowsit and the dungeon temit,
The ransoun made, the prisoneris redeemit;
The field is won, owrecomen is the fo,
Dispuilit of the treasure that he yemit:
Surrexit Dominus de sepulchro.


William Dunbar

[Steve H]

My own poems on Facebook, if you'll forgive a bit of own-trumpet-blowing.

[Nearly Sane]

Was reminded of this today

http://www.bartleby.com/123/62.html

[Aruntraveller]

I look at the swaling sunset
And wish I could go also
Through the red doors beyond the black-purple bar.

I wish that I could go
Through the red doors where I could put off
My shame like shoes in the porch,
My pain like garments,
And leave my flesh discarded lying
Like luggage of some departed traveller
Gone one knows not where.

Then I would turn round,
And seeing my cast-off body lying like lumber,
I would laugh with joy.

 
David Herbert Lawrence

[Nearly Sane]

Not sure if I am convinced but certainly interesting


http://www.filtercopy.com/posts/18-nayyirah-waheed-short-poems-that-will-leave-you-in-a-maze-of-emotions

[Aruntraveller]

Due to talk of Lizards on another thread entirely I was reminded of this local lads poem:

A lizard ran out on a rock and looked up, listening
 no doubt to the sounding of the spheres.
 And what a dandy fellow!
 the right toss of a chin for you and a swirl of a tail!
 If men were as much men as lizards are lizards
 they’d be worth looking at.

[Rhiannon]

The Song of Wandering Aengus

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

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 a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone 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.