Poetry, Jingles, Doggerel and Song Lyrics

[Spitfire]

I always loved Wordsworth's 'Upon Westminster Bridge' when I was younger, and whenever I'm out early in the morning, when the air is sweet and vibrant and gossamer-fine, some of it involuntarily springs to mind, especially the line: 'This City now doth, like a garment, wear the beauty of the morning...'

A great contrast to it is Claude McKay's observation of the city that never sleeps at the same early hour:

The Dawn! The Dawn! The crimson-tinted, comes
Out of the low still skies, over the hills,
Manhattan's roofs and spires and cheerless domes!
The Dawn! My spirit to its spirit thrills.
Almost the mighty city is asleep,
No pushing crowd, no tramping, tramping feet.
But here and there a few cars groaning creep
Along, above, and underneath the street,
Bearing their strangely-ghostly burdens by,
The women and the men of garish nights,
Their eyes wine-weakened and their clothes awry,
Grotesques beneath the strong electric lights.
The shadows wane. The Dawn comes to New York.
And I go darkly rebel to my work.

-'Dawn in New York', Claude McKay, circa 1922.

And for comparison's sake, though I know it's been quoted here before:

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in it's 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!

-'Upon Westminster Bridge', William Wordsworth, 1802

[Domino]

How about these?

WASTE by Harry Graham

I had written to Aunt Maud,
Who was on a trip abroad,
When I learned she'd died of cramp
Just too late to save the stamp.

SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN by Edmund Clerihew Bentley

Sir Christopher Wren
Said "I'm going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls,
Say I'm designing St. Pauls."

THE BUDDING BRONX (Anon)

Der spring is sprung.
Der grass is riz.
I wonder where dem boidies is.

Der little boids is on der wing.
But dat's absoid!
Der wings is on der boid!

[Spitfire]

I heard this read on Radio 4 this afternoon:

The Coming

And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look, he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent, a river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.

-R.S. Thomas

I had never heard of RS Thomas before and feel as though I have discovered a literary casket of jewels. Here's another one that was read:

A Welsh Landscape

To live in Wales is to be conscious
At dusk of the spilled blood
That went into the making of the wild sky,
Dyeing the immaculate rivers
In all their courses.
It is to be aware,
Above the noisy tractor
And hum of the machine
Of strife in the strung woods,
Vibrant with sped arrows.
You cannot live in the present,
At least not in Wales.
There is the language for instance,
The soft consonants
Strange to the ear.
There are cries in the dark at night
As owls answer the moon,
And thick ambush of shadows,
Hushed at the fields’ corners.
There is no present in Wales,
And no future;
There is only the past,
Brittle with relics,
Wind-bitten towers and castles
With sham ghosts;
Mouldering quarries and mines;
And an impotent people,
Sick with inbreeding,
Worrying the carcase of an old song.

R.S. Thomas, 1913 - 2000.

Powerful, evocative, each line an arrow which hits the mark... uncomfortable reading in places...I'm really looking forward to reading more...

[Domino]

A GENTLEMAN OF LEISURE

I plant no earth with cotton, I dig no earth for oil,
For I am just a simple man who does not like to toil.
Say not that I am lazy, declare not that I shirk.
Merely describe me as a man who does not like to work.

I'm useless selling brushes, I cannot lay a brick,
And every form of work I've tried has always made me sick.
State not that I am slothful, assert not that I slack.
Merely describe me as a man who liKes to be laid-back.

[Katharine]

If I was Welsh, I think I'd be taking offence at the 'sick with inbreeding' comment. What a sad poem. I've only been to Wales a couple of times, but have always thought it a really beautiful place, not at all the image conjured up by that poem.

After reading that, I feel the need to go and hunt out my Enid Blyton Treasury of Verse and read something cheerful about the seaside or flowers.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I grew up in North Wales and the hilly scenery is for the most part uplifting and inspiring, but it has other moods and on a dull day the steep, craggy landscape may take on a brooding quality and cause you to feel suddenly hemmed-in by the peaks and their shadows. There is indeed a strong sense of the past, but where I grew up (in Colwyn Bay on the North Wales coast) inbreeding certainly wasn't a problem - families had settled there from all parts of Britain. R. S. Thomas may be thinking of the isolated valley and mountain communities which were more common in the past, before the days of greater social and geographical mobility. Susan Cooper's 'The Dark is Rising' series and even Enid Blyton's Five Get Into a Fix convey the slightly suffocating and insular atmosphere that can permeate remote communities (e.g. agricultural or mining) where the same families have lived cheek by jowl generation after generation, totally reliant on one another, sharing experiences and tales and superstitions. Add to that feelings of uncertainty and bitterness, when communities like that are put under pressure as society changes. 'A Welsh Landscape' is a harsh poem but the language is beautiful and I sense that Thomas feels a strong attachment to Wales, despite the use of words like "mouldering" and "impotent" and a suggestion that people can't/won't move on.

[Katharine]

Interesting comments Anita. Having visited Colwyn Bay a couple of times, I'd agree that it probably has a different feel to other areas of Wales. From what I can remember, a large percentage of the inhabitants of that area came from places like Birmingham and Liverpool anyway.

I might have a slightly romantic view of the world, but I always think it's sad when there's a suggestion that people should be 'moving on'. I always feel like saying 'why'??? If a community is happy to live in the same way it has done for generations, why change it. I hate the pressure people are under to conform in the rules of society. I don't mean having to obey laws like sticking to speed limits, or paying taxes, I mean things like pensioners being unable to draw their pensions out at a local post office with a pension book, because they've all been shut, because it's assumed everyone has internet access and not being able to get to shops because the local buses have been axed, because it's assumed everyone has a car.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I feel that way all the time about changes in technology, Katharine. Many of them are much too fast/expensive/dehumanising for me.

[Katharine]

Dehumanising - that's a great way to sum it up Anita. I feel we are moving towards a 'one size fits all' world. Funny really, as everyone talks about how much more choice people have nowadays compared to the past.

That's why I love poems like the ones Enid Blyton wrote about nature and wildlife. Mostly that hasn't changed. I must try and look up a good example.

[Aurélien]

Aye, Anita and Katherine, 'tis not the world you grew up in, or moi a generation earlier. One worries about changing/escalating rules and regulations - and invasive technology. Enough! Time for a poem.

• A Ferry Tale
  from 'The Admiral's Caravan' by Charles E. Carryl

Oh, come and cross over to nowhere,
And go where
The nobodies live on their nothing a day!
A tideful of tricks is this merry
Old Ferry,
And these are the things that it does by the way:

It pours into parks and disperses
The nurses;
It goes into gardens and scatters the cats;
It leaks into lodgings, disorders
The boarders,
And washes away with their holiday hats.

It soaks into shops, and inspires
The buyers
To crawl over counters and climb upon chairs;
It trickles on tailors, it spatters
On hatters,
And makes little milliners scamper up-stairs.

It goes out of town and it rambles
Through brambles;
It wallows in hollows and dives into dells;
It flows into farm-yards and sickens
The chickens,
And washes the wheelbarrows into the wells.

It turns into taverns and drenches
The benches;
It jumps into pumps and comes out with a roar;
It pounds like a postman at lodges--
Then dodges
And runs up the lane when they open the door.

It leaks into laundries and wrangles
With mangles;
It trips over turnips and tumbles down-hill;
It rolls like a coach along highways
And byways,
But never gets anywhere, go as it will!

Oh, foolish old Ferry! all muddles
And puddles--
Go fribble and dribble along on your way;
We drink to your health with molasses
In glasses,
And waft you farewell with a handful of hay!

[Anita Bensoussane]

What a wonderful rhythm - a real pleasure to read and recite!

[Domino]

[Something from the Doggerel Bank.]


UNCLE GEORGE AND HIS MORAL

When Uncle George was a hundred and ten
(He lived much longer than most other men),
The people came from both far and wide
In order to see him before he died.
The poor old man was confined to his bed
On account of the riotous life that he led.
Now Uncle had certainly led a gay life,
Though ne'er had taken a maid for his wife;
But he often had taken a wife to his bed,
Where all her propriety duly was shed.
They say there were several who suffered this fate;
I know for myself there were seven or eight.
Some village folks say there were nigh on a score.
For all that I know there may well have been more.
Speaking to relatives since I have found
That over the years he became quite renowned
For sleeping with women they were't even his;
Thus proving the moral of this story is:

If the life that you lead is both wanton and bad,
At a hundred and ten you will look very sad.

[Anita Bensoussane]

[Daisy]

I read that last one out to my husband and we both had a good laugh!

[Lucky Star]

Excellent Domino, very funny.