Holiday Books

Pointless History of the World, Laurence Rees on The Holocaust, Mark Forsyth's Etymologicon, Short Poems, John Knox, Welwyn Esther and George Eliot's Clerical Life -All Christmas Gifts

Lament for the 82 bus

O bus! Red bus sublime!
Up whose steep steps I'd climb,
Looking for a seat (having stood before);
When again will you arrive on time?
No more - No, never more!

Not in the day or night,
Our bus has taken flight;
In spring and summer, and winter hoar,
The 82 that used to come – delight!
No more - No, never more!

(From April 1 the 82 bus has stopped running).

Skip Hire

I saw a sign, it said skip hire

So I did a hop, a step, then tried again
To make it that much higher.

As ithers see us

We didn't keep Burns night the other week here (we didn't even keep Dydd Santes Dwynwen if truth be told) but I am aware of the final verse of Burns poem "To a louse". Burns wrote it apparently on seeing a louse crawl across the fine bonnet of a lady in the pew in front. My recollection was prompted by a remark over on Refomation21 by Carl Trueman following the Affinity conference.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad frae mony a blunder free us,

An' foolish notion:

What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,

An' ev'n devotion!

("Then, there was Gary Brady, famous opponent of jeans*, surprisingly sporting smart trousers and a pair of moth eaten gym shoes, apparently in an unsuccessful attempt to fuse Reformed Baptist theology, Welsh mysticism, and an emergent ..."

[*I once remarked, obviously in Carl's presence, that jeans are a sign of teenage rebellion and so inappropriate for certain situations. I did notice that Brian Edwards wore jeans throughout so may be I have a point!])

VSP10 And the days are not full enough

And the days are not full enough

And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass.
Ezra Pound

(I'm thinking that 10 is a good length for a series so this is the last of these for a while)

VSP9 Diary

Got up, went to school,

did homework, went to bed.

All that is net: life's

quick fish escaped.

M J Wilson

VSP8 If I walked straight slap

If I walked straight slap

Headlong down the road
Toward the two-wood gap
Should I hit that cloud?

Ivor Gurney

VSP7 Season Song

Derek Harper / Melting snow, Great Hill Road

(https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1161770)

Spring stirs slowly, shuffles, hops;
Summer dances close behind.
Autumn is a jostling crowd
but Winter creeps into your mind.
Judith Nicholls

VSP6 They might not need me

Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Daguerreotype of the poet Emily Dickinson, taken c 1848. (Restored version.) From the Todd-Bingham Picture Collection and Family Papers, 

Yale University Manuscripts & Archives Digital Images Database, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

They might not need me but; they might.
I'll let my Head be just in sight;
A smile as small as mine might be
Precisely their necessity.

Emily Dickinson

VSP5 A sum

Lewis Carroll 1863 by Oscar G Rejlander (d 1875)
Publidc Domain via Wikimedia

I give thee all, I can no more,

Though small thy share may be:
Two halves, three thirds, and quarters four,
Is all I bring to thee!
Lewis Carroll

VSP4 Radish

Self, en:User:Jengod, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

The radish
is the only dish
that isn't flat
but spherical.

Eating small
green peas off it
could make you quite
hysterical.

N M Bodecker

VSP3 When I was three

When I was three, I had a friend
Who asked me why bananas bend,
I told him why, but now I'm four
I'm not so sure ...

Richard Edwards

VSP2 Thaw

This second poem is a little premature in that winter is surely far from over. There is a thaw going on, however. My wife's side of the family are distantly related to Edward Thomas. He originally wrote under the name Eastaway, which was Eleri's grandfather's middle name.

Over the land half freckled with snow half-thawed
The speculating rooks at their nests cawed,
And saw from elm-tops, delicate as a flower of grass,
What we below could not see, Winter pass.

VSP1 Winter wise

I've had a series of short poems in the past. I came across a book of Very short poems recently. See here.

I thought we could reproduce some of these here.

First, a seasonal one, a bit of traditional advice.

Walk fast in snow, in frost walk slow

And still as you go, tread on your toe.

When frost and snow are both together

Sit by the fire and spare shoe leather.

Nothing gold can stay

Autumn's acoming and I came across this Robert Frost poem the other day

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Short Poem 30

Robert Herrick (1591-16) was a cavalier poet. Read more here. He also wrote Cherry ripe and lines such as 'gather ye rosebuds while ye may' and 'But ne'er the rose wothout the thorn'.
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.

Short Poem 29

William Hilton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It's about the right time of year now for this poem by John Keats from around 1820. Keats lived just over from here in Hampstead. His house is open to the public (next to the Library). What poetic potential he showed. Ode To Autumn is known as the subtlest and most beautiful of all Keats odes. More here.

Ode To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Short Poem 28

The short poems series has been on the back burner over the summer and may not be revived but this epitomising poem by Steve Turner simply has to be included.

Short Poem

Short poems

are fun.

You can see at a glance

whether you

like them

or not.

Short Poem 27

The last verse of this poem is famous - more famous than its author, the Cavalier poet Richard Lovelace (1618-1657). More here and here.

To Althea from prison by Richard Lovelace

When Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fetter'd to her eye,
The gods, that wanton in the air,
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deep,
Know no such liberty.

When (like committed linnets) I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my king;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

Short Poem 26

It is sometimes suggested that the parson was a Lollard. Sounds like.

The Canterbury Tales povre persoun of a toun by Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400)
A good man was ther of religioun,
And was a povre PERSOUN OF A TOUN,
But riche he was of hooly thoght and werk.
He was also a lerned man, a clerk,
That Cristes gospel trewely wolde preche;
His parisshens devoutly wolde he teche.
Benynge he was, and wonder diligent,
And in adversitee ful pacient,
And swich he was ypreved ofte sithes.
Ful looth were hym to cursen for his tithes,
But rather wolde he yeven, out of doute,
Unto his povre parisshens aboute
Of his offryng and eek of his substaunce.
He koude in litel thyng have suffisaunce.
Wyd was his parisshe, and houses fer asonder,
But he ne lefte nat, for reyn ne thonder,
In siknesse nor in meschief to visite
The ferreste in his parisshe, muche and lite,
Upon his feet, and in his hand a staf.
This noble ensample to his sheep he yaf,
That first he wroghte, and afterward he taughte.
Out of the gosple he tho wordes caughte,
And this figure he added eek therto,
That if gold ruste, what shal iren do?
For if a preest be foul, on whom we truste,
No wonder is a lewed man to ruste;
And shame it is, if a prest take keep,
A shiten shepherde and a clene sheep.
Wel oghte a preest ensample for to yive,
By his clennesse, how that his sheep sholde lyve.
He sette nat his benefice to hyre
And leet his sheep encombred in the myre
And ran to Londoun unto Seinte Poules
To seken hym a chaunterie for soules,
Or with a bretherhed to been witholde;
But dwelt at hoom, and kepte wel his folde,
So that the wolf ne made it nat myscarie;
He was a shepherde and noght a mercenarie.
And though he hooly were and vertuous,
He was to synful men nat despitous,
Ne of his speche daungerous ne digne,
But in his techyng discreet and benygne;
To drawen folk to hevene by fairnesse,
By good ensample, this was his bisynesse.
But it were any persone obstinat,
What so he were, of heigh or lough estat,
Hym wolde he snybben sharply for the nonys.
A bettre preest I trowe, that nowher noon ys.
He waited after no pompe and reverence,
Ne maked him a spiced conscience,
But Cristes loore, and Hise apostles twelve
He taughte, but first he folwed it hymselve.