Poetry

I'm not really a huge fan of poetry, obvious I studied it at GCSE and there were some not bad ones but it's never been a huge passion of mine, however there's one poem which I love and I think is bloody brilliant

The sparrow dips in his wheel-rut bath,
The sun grows passionate-eyed,
And boils the dew to smoke by the paddock-path;
As strenuously we stride, —
Five of us; dark He, fair He, dark She, fair She, I,
All beating by.

The air is shaken, the high-road hot,
Shadowless swoons the day,
The greens are sobered and cattle at rest; but not
We on our urgent way, —
Four of us; fair She, dark She, fair He, I, are there,
But one - elsewhere.

Autumn moulds the hard fruit mellow,
And forward still we press
Through moors, briar-meshed plantations, clay-pits yellow,
As in the spring hours - yes,
Three of us; fair He, fair She, I, as heretofore,
But - fallen one more.

The leaf drops: earthworms draw it in
At night-time noiselessly,
The fingers of birch and beech are skeleton-thin
And yet on the beat are we, —
Two of us; fair She, I. But no more left to go
The track we know.

Icicles tag the church-aisle leads,
The flag-rope gibbers hoarse,
The home-bound foot-folk wrap their snow-flaked heads,
Yet I still stalk the course —
One of us..... Dark and fair He, dark and fair She, gone:
The rest - anon.

It's so evocative and so powerfully represents that change from youth to old age, as represented by the four seasons and five walkers. It's quite sad in a way, the way all the travellers disappear one by one, leaving behind just one.

Are there any poems you particularly like?

 

I write poems every now and then as a hobby but if I had to pick any poem from anyone off the top of my head that I particularly like it would be this one. I was hoping to find a clip of him reciting it online - because its so much better to see him perform it than just to read it - but it looks like its been pulled for copyright reasons:

THE BIRDS AND THE BEES
by
Benny Hill

I'd reached the age of fourteen and I hadn't started courting,
And my mum was getting worried about me.
She said, "Dad, it's time you told him all about the birds and bees,"
He said, "The birds and bees," and sat me on his knee.

He said, "Now, remember Uncle Joe and that picnic a while ago,
How he went off into the woods with Auntie Pat?
And how I chased O'Reily's daughter and what happened when I caught her?"
I said, "Yeah," he said, "Well birds and bees does that."

Dad works very hard indeed, well he got ten kids to feed,
Well ten and seven ninths to be precise.
And we all wear hand-me-downs, and as I am the youngest,
And the others are all girls, it ain't very nice.

Dad said, "It's time that you got wed," I said, "I'd rather drop down dead,"
He said, "Now how about old Maude from Ikely down?"
I said, "Maude? Not bloody like, she's been out by half the chaps in Ikely,"
He said, "Well Ikely's really quite a little town."

He said, "You've got to get a wife, you can't go on enjoying life,
Or folks with think you're strange and start to frown."
I said to him, "Look, why should I buy a book?
When there's a thriving, lending library in the town."

One day I found a friend, he was up by Badgers End,
A little pigeon fell down by my feet.
His feathers was flecked with red and at first I thought he was dead,
Then I knelt and I felt his little heart still beat.

I cupped him in my hands and I ran home to my mam,
And she said, "Son, I'm as proud of you as I can be.
You're thoughtful and you're kind, and you've got a gentle mind,
And that will do a treat for your old father's tea.

I said, "You shall not touch my bird," and without another word,
I took him in my room and I shut the door,
And then I bathed and I warmed him and I nursed him back to health,
'Cause you see, I'd never really had a friend before.

I taught him little tricks, like playing dead and picking up sticks,
And the village girls, they brought bird seed every day. Oo!
"Dad, you can't come in," I'd shout, "Or my birdie will fly out,"
But of course I let the village girls all stay.

Well there was Mable from the stable, and Mary from the dairy,
We had a visit by our beauty queen.
And that great big Betty Mavery, and she's got her own avery,
She's got the biggest parakeets I've ever seen.

Dad said, "You ought to let him go," and Mum, she said, "Oh no,
You just want to get some shooting practice in."
But the vicar said, "My son, it really isn't done,
And to lock up a wild thing, that's a sin."

One morning when it was all still, I took him up to Badgers Hill,
I lost the only little friend I had that day.
Not a word I said, I just kissed his little head,
And I opened my hands and I watched him fly away.

He circled up and 'round, and then he settled on the ground,
And off he went straight up to the sky.
And then I looked and I could see he was flying back to me,
And then he swooped and he pooped right in my eye.

I thought, "That's bloody rude!" and, "Cor, there's gratitude!"
And, "I hope they never cross a pigeon with a cow!"
And Dad said, "Here, there's I see a caper, I'll go get a bit of paper,
I said, "Don't be daft, he's miles away by now!"

Dad said, "I know you lost a friend, but it's really not the end,
You'll be married and have a family of your own quite soon."
Well I never said a word, but you see, that little bird
Has lured eighteen little ravers up to my room!

So if anyone's got a spare cockatoo or an old crow they don't want,
I'd be very much obliged, because you know, I could put them to good use.
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I have always liked the poems of Rupert Brooke and this one I find to be one of his best

The Soldier


IF I should die, think only this of me;
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

 

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Some peoms rhyme
This one doesn't

 

The Dell?

 

Walter de la Mare's The Listener's is an all time favourite of mine.......a poem full of atmosphere and a sub-story to be imagined.

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.