Who knew?? http://www.theguardian.com/books/bo...ems-we-know-by-heart-our-readers-recite-video So can any of us recite a favourite poem? I used to know the first few verses of The Jabberwocky, mainly cos Raggy at school drummed it into me. I use to be able to recite all the lines of Chance by Big Country......
Can usually get through most of Leisure, by WH Davies WHAT is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?— No time to stand beneath the boughs, And stare as long as sheep and cows: No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass: No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night: No time to turn at Beauty's glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance: No time to wait till her mouth can Enrich that smile her eyes began? A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.
I heard Alan Bennett reading Larkin on the wireless this morning, but didn't twig. This is one of my faves: [video=youtube;WkNp56UZax4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkNp56UZax4[/video]
Oh yes. Went through The Jabberwocky , The 39 Steps and Shane with Raggy. He's knocking on now but pretty sure he's still around. Saw him at a City game couple of years back. just thought there's a little poem about Raggy. Can you remember it Balkan?
A Sane Revolution David Herbert Lawrence If you make a revolution, make it for fun, don't make it in ghastly seriousness, don't do it in deadly earnest, do it for fun. Don't do it because you hate people, do it just to spit in their eye. Don't do it for the money, do it and be damned to the money. Don't do it for equality, do it because we've got too much equality and it would be fun to upset the apple-cart and see which way the apples would go a-rolling. Don't do it for the working classes. Do it so that we can all of us be little aristocracies on our own and kick our heels like jolly escaped asses. Don't do it, anyhow, for international Labour. Labour is the one thing a man has had too much of. Let's abolish labour, let's have done with labouring! Work can be fun, and men can enjoy it; then it's not labour. Let's have it so! Let's make a revolution for fun!
****** I’m a goblin Tommy Cooper ****** I can do tricks with a hat ****** I can walk upside down with a barrow ****** So they made me a water rat. ****** I can juggle with seventy skittles ****** Dive through a rubber tyre ****** I can sleep on the bottom of the Channel ****** Did somebody call me a liar? ****** I’m a goblin Tommy Cooper ****** I fly round the room on a mat ****** You ask me how do I do it ****** I’ll tell you – ‘JUST LIKE THAT.’
Spring is sprung The grass is griz I wonder where the boidies is? The boids is on the wing But that's abzoid The wings is on the boid Anon
I know this one off by heart. Learnt it at University with a lot of Larkin's stuff. The Old Fools What do they think has happened, the old fools, To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools, And you keep on pissing yourself, and can't remember Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose, They could alter things back to when they danced all night, Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September? Or do they fancy there's really been no change, And they've always behaved as if they were crippled or tight, Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming Watching the light move? If they don't (and they can't), it's strange; Why aren't they screaming? At death you break up: the bits that were you Start speeding away from each other for ever With no one to see. It's only oblivion, true: We had it before, but then it was going to end, And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour To bring to bloom the million-petalled flower Of being here. Next time you can't pretend There'll be anything else. And these are the first signs: Not knowing how, not hearing who, the power Of choosing gone. Their looks show that they're for it: Ash hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines - How can they ignore it? Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms Inside you head, and people in them, acting People you know, yet can't quite name; each looms Like a deep loss restored, from known doors turning, Setting down a lamp, smiling from a stair, extracting A known book from the shelves; or sometimes only The rooms themselves, chairs and a fire burning, The blown bush at the window, or the sun's Faint friendliness on the wall some lonely Rain-ceased midsummer evening. That is where they live: Not here and now, but where all happened once. This is why they give An air of baffled absence, trying to be there Yet being here. For the rooms grow farther, leaving Incompetent cold, the constant wear and tear Of taken breath, and them crouching below Extinction's alp, the old fools, never perceiving How near it is. This must be what keeps them quiet: The peak that stays in view wherever we go For them is rising ground. Can they never tell What is dragging them back, and how it will end? Not at night? Not when the strangers come? Never, throughout The whole hideous inverted childhood? Well, We shall find out. I was working as a porter in the Nuffield Nursing Home when Larkin was in there towards the end of his life. Talked cricket with him. He was a big fan of David Gower.
I woke early one morning, The earth lay cool and still When suddenly a tiny bird Perched on my window sill, He sang a song so lovely So carefree and so gay, That slowly all my troubles Began to slip away. He sang of far off places of laughter and of fun, It seemed his very trilling, brought up the morning sun. I stirred beneath the covers Crept slowly out of bed, Then gently shut the window And crushed his little head ... I'm not a morning person
The Spring is sprung The grass is riz I wonder where the boidies is? They say the boid is on the wing But that's just plain abzoid Everybody knows that the wing is on the boid Anon[/QUOTE]
Stan, I studied Larkin quite seriously as an undergrad and I thought Bennett's reading of Larkin this morning was absolutely super. Made the journey to Lincoln feel easier I can tell you. I hope you're well old boy?
