I felt the need for lighter fare than I've been posting lately. Here's my personal all-time favourite poem. What's yours?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Love is...

Love is feeling cold in the back of vans
Love is a fanclub with only two fans
Love is walking holding paintstained hands
Love is

Love is fish and chips on winter nights
Love is blankets full of strange delights
Love is when you don't put out the lights
Love is

Love is the presents in Christmas shops
Love is when you're feeling Top of the Pops
Love is what happens when the music stops
Love is

Love is white panties lying all forlorn
Love is a pink nightdress still slightly warm
Love is when you have to leave at dawn
Love is

Love is you and love is me
Love is a prison and love is free
Love's what's there when you're away from me
Love is...

Adrian Henri</font>

------------------
Breeding Per Dementia Unto Something Jolly Big, Toodle-pip

John Masefield was probably better known for his many poems about ships and the sea but he wrote one "On Growing Old" which I have always found very thought-provoking.

Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying;
My dog and I are old, too old for roving.
Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying,
Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving.
I take the book and gather to the fire,
Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute
The clock ticks to my heart. A withered wire,
Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet.
I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander
Your cornland, nor your hill-land, nor your valleys
Ever again, nor share the battle yonder
Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies.
Only stay quiet while my mind remembers
The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers.

One of them is Robert Frost's -
"Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening."

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
But I have promises to keep.
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Lighter fare Huggie? There's nothing light about poetry!

Being a bit of a rebel my favourite poets are Burns and Shelley. In the end I vote 'Ozymandias' as the tops. Every man or woman who becomes 'Head of State' anywhere ought to learn it by heart and recite it publicly at least once a year.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works ye mighty and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Runner up is Robert Burns' "For a'that and a' that"

Is there, for honest Poverty
That hings his head, and a' that;
The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that;
Our toils obscure, and a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The Man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, and a' that.
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A Man's a Man for a' that.
For a' that, and a' that;
Their tinsel show, and a' that;
The Honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon Birkie ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, and a' that,
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that.
For a' that, and a' that;
His ribband star and a' that.
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at a' that.

A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke and a' tha;
But an honest man's aboon his might,
Gude faith he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Their dignities, and a' that,
The pith o' Sense, and pride o' Worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that,
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth
Shall bear the gree, and a' that,
For a' that, and a' that,
It's comin yet for a' that,
That Man to Man the warld o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.

I hope Robert turns out to be right. Not in my lifetime perhaps, but one day...

**********************************
Through difficulties to the cinema

[This message has been edited by Blacksheep (edited 25 February 2001).]

John Donne - The Flea 1633

Mark but this flea, and mark in this
How little that which thou deny'st me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
and in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, now loss of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
Though use {custom} make you apt to kill me,
Let not that, self-murder added be,
And sacrelige, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself, nor me, the weaker now;
'Tis true; then learn how false, fears be;
Just so much honor, when thou yeild'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

My All-time favourite:
The Second Coming - W.B. Yeats. 1921

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Seconf Coming is at hand;
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere out in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Jock A;

I was going to post that myself. The first seven lines sum up Ireland then, now, and, probably, for the future.

Unwell_Raptor

Verily, and other countries as well.

Alas ’tis true I have gone here and there
And made myself a motley to the view,
Gor’d mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new;
Most true it is that I have look’d on truth
Askance and strangely; but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays prov’d thee my best of love.
Now all is done, have what shall have no end:
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am confin’d.
Now give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

Sonnet 110.

It still gives me a catch in the throat, as one of the many who looks back on his youth with thoughts of what might have been.

Huggie

I am rather fond of the piece your brother wrote about Biggles, you know, the one you've nicked ... breeding dementia into something jolly big - toodle-pip :)

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

WB Yeats

More poignant if you've been there:

In Flanders Fields
by
John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

and this one has to be here:

High Flight
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Joint Favourite:

Epitaph To An Army Of Mercenaries, by A E Houseman

These, in the day when Heaven was falling,
The hour when Earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling,
And took their wages and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky suspended,
They stood, and Earth's foundations stay.
What God abandoned, these defended
And saved the sum of things for pay.

Frish weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?

'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
-Yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

Oed' un leer das Meer.

TS Eliot, an excerpt from 'The Waste Land.'

(I believe the initial quotations in German are from Tristan und Isolde (Wagner); the last one, (roughly 'dead and empty is the sea' ) places the extreme display of love firmly in the context of mortality. Beautiful, however. The whole poem is stunning.)

isn't this breaking copyright law or something?
anyhow, one of my favs is (not sure of the title but it starts 'oh i am a cat that likes to gallop about doing good...etc') by stevie smith. and most things by wendy mope. and of course everything i've ever written :)

Copyright? Its a Dead Poets Society. :rolleyes:

We'll be safe enough as long as we stick to dead poets. :)

**********************************
Through difficulties to the cinema

Favourite poems (I dont intend to type them out so titles and authors only Im afraid):-

Kipling "The Disciple" (OCB should read it and reflect)

"Recessional"
"Ulster"
"The Mother Lodge"

Robert Burns

"Holy Willie's Prayer"
"Death and Doctor Hornbook"
"To a Mouse"
"To a Mountain Daisy"
"To a Louse"
"The Selkirk Grace"
"The Jolly Beggars" especially the verse

"A fig for those by law protected,Liberty's a glorious feast, Courts for Cowards were erected, Churches built to please the Priest"

Gray "Elegy in a Country Churchyard"

Omar Khayyam / Edward Fitzgerald "Rubaiyat"

Samuel Taylor Coleridge "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

Longfellow "The Slave's Dream"

Andrew Marvell "A Horation Ode upon Cromwell's return from Ireland"

To name but a few.



[This message has been edited by Tartan Gannet (edited 26 February 2001).]

huggy ...not strictly a poem but what about a bit of Don Giovanni by Mozart?


My peace depends upon hers;
what pleases her gives me life ,
that which pains her gives me death.
If she sighs ,I will sigh as well,
her anger and her sorrows are mine
and I have no joy unless she shares it.

Sounds great sung !!

DULCE ET DECORUM EST - Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge,
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick boys!--An ecstacy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime,--
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning,

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori

I'm not sure but I think in most English speaking countries copyright protection does not apply when quoting a work for purposes of criticism or review. Which are precisely our purposes here. In any case internet/ copyright is the ultimate oxymoron.

To the poem; and I think Tartan Gannet (the walking encyclopaedia) can help me here as he quotes a Kipling title as the first of his multitudes of favourites.

Was it Kipling who wrote "Harp Song of the Dane Woman"? (We are literally underfunded here.) The poem begins something like this:

"What is a woman that you forsake her,
The hearth fire and the home acre,
To go with the old grey widow maker...."

Can't recall the rest, or even if any of the above is accurate, but I would like to rediscover the poem if anyone can help.

You are accurate, apart from a hyphen and a capital of no great consequence.

Try Puck of Puck's Hill or The Definitive Edition. I'd give it but I hesitate to intrude any more on a request to TG. If he does not have it, let me know.

Correction. Negative Puck. Affirmative Pook.

Well, anyway, the second Puck. Or Pook.

Davaar and Rainbow, yes I have that Kipling Poem in a very good book "Rudyard Kipling -The Complete Verse" from Kyle Cathie Publishing ISBN 1 85626 007 0 (the hardback version is 1 85626 009 7.

HARP SONG OF THE DANE WOMEN

What is a woman that you forsake her,
and the hearth fire and the home acre,
to go with the old grey Widow Maker?

She has no house to lay a guest in
but one chill bed for all to rest in,
that the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,
but the ten times fingering weed to hold you
Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,
and the ice breaks, and the birch buds quicken,
yearly you turn from our side and sicken.

Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters.
You steal away to the lapping waters,
and look at your ship in her winter quarters.

You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,
the kine in the shed and the horse in the stables.
To pitch her sides and go over her cables.

The you drive out where the storm clouds swallow,
and the sound of your oar blades, falling hollow,
is all we have left through the months to follow.

Ah, what is a woman that you forsake her,
and the hearth fire and the home acre,
to go with the old grey Widow Maker?

********************************************


best regards, hope this is of assistance,

have a nice day,

TG

[This message has been edited by Tartan Gannet (edited 27 February 2001).]

Does anyone want me to recite Jabberwocky again? Thought not... Can't remember the title, but here's a cracker from Robert Frost...


The witch that came, the withered hag,
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the beauty, Abishag.

The Picture Pride of Hollywood!
(Too many fall from grace and good,
for you to doubt the likelihood).

Die early and avoid the fate,
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die 'In State'.

Some have relied on what they knew,
Some on being always true,
What worked for them might work for you.

Better to go out dignified,
With boughten friendship by your side,
Than to die alone: Provide! Provide!


... and there we all were thinking that Robert Frost only ever wrote sentimental poems about roads, woods and snow. He might have been feeling just a tad on the jaded side when he scribbled this one out.

Tricky Woo. I always liked his poem "Mending Wall" with its line "good fences make good neighbours" a principle I have found to be true in life.

Did he also write a poem "The Bear" with the final line ".. a baggy figure, equally pathetic, when sedentary or peripatetic?" I believe this was an allegory for humanity? Perhaps one of the literary types such as Davaar may have the full words of this poem , (or can you supply them yourself)?

TTFN, TG (relaxed for a change on vacation).

TG,

I've never read The Bear but I did find this one on the Web...

THE BEAR

The bear puts both arms around the tree above her
And draws it down as if it were a lover
And its choke cherries lips to kiss good-bye,
Then lets it snap back upright in the sky.
Her next step rocks a boulder on the wall
(She's making her cross-country in the fall).
Her great weight creaks the barbed-wire in its staples
As she flings over and off down through the maples,
Leaving on one wire moth a lock of hair.
Such is the uncaged progress of the bear.
The world has room to make a bear feel free;
The universe seems cramped to you and me.
Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage
That all day fights a nervous inward rage
His mood rejecting all his mind suggests.
He paces back and forth and never rests
The me-nail click and shuffle of his feet,
The telescope at one end of his beat
And at the other end the microscope,
Two instruments of nearly equal hope,
And in conjunction giving quite a spread.
Or if he rests from scientific tread,
'Tis only to sit back and sway his head
Through ninety odd degrees of arc, it seems,
Between two metaphysical extremes.
He sits back on his fundamental butt
With lifted snout and eyes (if any) shut,
(lie almost looks religious but he's not),
And back and forth he sways from cheek to cheek,
At one extreme agreeing with one Greek
At the other agreeing with another Greek
Which may be thought, but only so to speak.
A baggy figure, equally pathetic
When sedentary and when peripatetic.

http://www.robertfrost.org

Thanks Tricky Woo, last read that in its entirety in 1966 in school.

What aviator with a love of machinery could fail to be moved by Kipling's "Mc Andrew's Hymn"

TG, over to you!

My two favourites I cannot transcribe here, because I don't have copies with me, but they are 'I Want To Die a Young Man's Death' by the great Roger McGough and 'The Old Vicarage, Grantchester' by the delightful Rupert Brooke.

'An Irish Airman Forsees his Death' by Yeats and 'In Flanders Fields' by John McCrae are beautiful poems, but a little depressing, so I shall leave you on a cheerful note.


Birds, Bags, Bears and Buns

The common cormorant or shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag
The reason you will see, no doubt,
It is to keep the lightning out,
But what these unobservant birds
Have never noticed is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

ANON, from Field-Marshall Lord Wavell's wonderful anthology, 'Other Men's Flowers'.

------------------
'Me here at last on the ground, you in mid air'


[This message has been edited by Send Clowns (edited 27 February 2001).]

I'd vote for that one written by I think a Canadian Spitfire pilot. Starts something like:

I have slipped the surley bonds of earth,
and danced the skies on laughter silvered wings....

It really is brilliant, comes closer than anything I have ever seen to putting what it feels like to fly into words. I'll see if I can find it...

Pinger hope this is of use to you.






--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Rudyard Kipling
Poems

M'ANDREW'S HYMN


Lord, Thou hast made this world below the shadow of a dream,
An', taught by time, I tak' it so -- exceptin' always Steam.
From coupler-flange to spindle-guide I see Thy Hand, O God --
Predestination in the stride o' yon connectin'-rod.
John Calvin might ha' forged the same -- enorrmous, certain, slow --
Ay, wrought it in the furnace-flame -- ~my~ "Institutio".
I cannot get my sleep to-night; old bones are hard to please;
I'll stand the middle watch up here -- alone wi' God an' these
My engines, after ninety days o' race an' rack an' strain
Through all the seas of all Thy world, slam-bangin' home again.
Slam-bang too much -- they knock a wee -- the crosshead-gibs are loose;
But thirty thousand mile o' sea has gied them fair excuse. . . .
Fine, clear an' dark -- a full-draught breeze, wi' Ushant out o' sight,
An' Ferguson relievin' Hay. Old girl, ye'll walk to-night!
His wife's at Plymouth. . . . Seventy --
One -- Two -- Three since he began --
Three turns for Mistress Ferguson. . .and who's to blame the man?
There's none at any port for me, by drivin' fast or slow,
Since Elsie Campbell went to Thee, Lord, thirty years ago.
(The year the ~Sarah Sands~ was burned. Oh roads we used to tread,
Fra' Maryhill to Pollokshaws -- fra' Govan to Parkhead!)
Not but they're ceevil on the Board. Ye'll hear Sir Kenneth say:
"Good-morrn, M'Andrew! Back again? An' how's your bilge to-day?"
Miscallin' technicalities but handin' me my chair
To drink Madeira wi' three Earls -- the auld Fleet Engineer,
That started as a boiler-whelp -- when steam and he were low.
I mind the time we used to serve a broken pipe wi' tow.
Ten pound was all the pressure then -- Eh! Eh! -- a man wad drive;
An' here, our workin' gauges give one hunder fifty-five!
We're creepin' on wi' each new rig -- less weight an' larger power:
There'll be the loco-boiler next an' thirty knots an hour!
Thirty an' more. What I ha' seen since ocean-steam began
Leaves me no doot for the machine: but what about the man?
The man that counts, wi' all his runs, one million mile o' sea:
Four time the span from earth to moon. . . . How far, O Lord, from Thee?
That wast beside him night an' day. Ye mind my first typhoon?
It scoughed the skipper on his way to jock wi' the saloon.
Three feet were on the stokehold-floor -- just slappin' to an' fro --
An' cast me on a furnace-door. I have the marks to show.
Marks! I ha' marks o' more than burns -- deep in my soul an' black,
An' times like this, when things go smooth, my wickudness comes back.
The sins o' four and forty years, all up an' down the seas,
Clack an' repeat like valves half-fed. . . . Forgie's our trespasses.
Nights when I'd come on deck to mark, wi' envy in my gaze,
The couples kittlin' in the dark between the funnel stays;
Years when I raked the ports wi' pride to fill my cup o' wrong --
Judge not, O Lord, my steps aside at Gay Street in Hong-Kong!
Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I abode --
Jane Harrigan's an' Number Nine, The Reddick an' Grant Road!
An' waur than all -- my crownin' sin -- rank blasphemy an' wild.
I was not four and twenty then -- Ye wadna judge a child?
I'd seen the Tropics first that run -- new fruit, new smells, new air --
How could I tell -- blind-fou wi' sun -- the Deil was lurkin' there?
By day like playhouse-scenes the shore slid past our sleepy eyes;
By night those soft, lasceevious stars leered from those velvet skies,
In port (we used no cargo-steam) I'd daunder down the streets --
An ijjit grinnin' in a dream -- for shells an' parrakeets,
An' walkin'-sticks o' carved bamboo an' blowfish stuffed an' dried --
Fillin' my bunk wi' rubbishry the Chief put overside.
Till, off Sambawa Head, Ye mind, I heard a land-breeze ca',
Milk-warm wi' breath o' spice an' bloom: "M'Andrew, come awa'!"
Firm, clear an' low -- no haste, no hate -- the ghostly whisper went,
Just statin' eevidential facts beyon' all argument:
"Your mither's God's a graspin' deil, the shadow o' yoursel',
Got out o' books by meenisters clean daft on Heaven an' Hell.
They mak' Him in the Broomielaw, o' Glasgie cold an' dirt,
A jealous, pridefu' fetich, lad, that's only strong to hurt,
Ye'll not go back to Him again an' kiss His red-hot rod,
But come wi' Us" (Now, who were ~They~?) "an' know the Leevin' God,
That does not kipper souls for sport or break a life in jest,
But swells the ripenin' cocoanuts an' ripes the woman's breast."
An' there it stopped: cut off: no more; that quiet, certain voice --
For me, six months o' twenty-four, to leave or take at choice.
'Twas on me like a thunderclap -- it racked me through an' through --
Temptation past the show o' speech, unnameable an' new --
The Sin against the Holy Ghost? . . . An' under all, our screw.
That storm blew by but left behind her anchor-shiftin' swell,
Thou knowest all my heart an' mind, Thou knowest, Lord, I fell.
Third on the ~Mary Gloster~ then, and first that night in Hell!
Yet was Thy hand beneath my head, about my feet Thy care --
Fra' Deli clear to Torres Strait, the trial o' despair,
But when we touched the Barrier Reef Thy answer to my prayer!
We dared not run that sea by night but lay an' held our fire,
An' I was drowsin' on the hatch -- sick -- sick wi' doubt an' tire:
"~Better the sight of eyes that see than wanderin' o' desire!~"
Ye mind that word? Clear as our gongs -- again, an' once again,
When rippin' down through coral-trash ran out our moorin'-chain;
An' by Thy Grace I had the Light to see my duty plain.
Light on the engine-room -- no more -- bright as our carbons burn.
I've lost it since a thousand times, but never past return.

. . . . .

Obsairve. Per annum we'll have here two thousand souls aboard --
Think not I dare to justify myself before the Lord,
But -- average fifteen hunder souls safe-borne fra' port to port --
I ~am~ o' service to my kind. Ye wadna blame the thought?
Maybe they steam from grace to wrath -- to sin by folly led, --
It isna mine to judge their path -- their lives are on my head.
Mine at the last -- when all is done it all comes back to me,
The fault that leaves six thousand ton a log upon the sea.
We'll tak' one stretch -- three weeks an' odd by any road ye steer --
Fra' Cape Town east to Wellington -- ye need an engineer.
Fail there -- ye've time to weld your shaft -- ay, eat it, ere ye're spoke;
Or make Kerguelen under sail -- three jiggers burned wi' smoke!
An' home again, the Rio run: it's no child's play to go
Steamin' to bell for fourteen days o' snow an' floe an' blow --
The bergs like kelpies overside that girn an' turn an' shift
Whaur, grindin' like the Mills o' God, goes by the big South drift.
(Hail, snow an' ice that praise the Lord: I've met them at their work,
An' wished we had anither route or they anither kirk.)
Yon's strain, hard strain, o' head an' hand, for though Thy Power brings
All skill to naught, Ye'll understand a man must think o' things.
Then, at the last, we'll get to port an' hoist their baggage clear --
The passengers, wi' gloves an' canes -- an' this is what I'll hear:
"Well, thank ye for a pleasant voyage. The tender's comin' now."
While I go testin' follower-bolts an' watch the skipper bow.
They've words for every one but me -- shake hands wi' half the crew,
Except the dour Scots engineer, the man they never knew.
An' yet I like the wark for all we've dam' few pickin's here --
No pension, an' the most we earn's four hunder pound a year.
Better myself abroad? Maybe. ~I'd~ sooner starve than sail
Wi' such as call a snifter-rod ~ross~. . .French for nightingale.
Commeesion on my stores? Some do; but I can not afford
To lie like stewards wi' patty-pans --. I'm older than the Board.
A bonus on the coal I save? Ou ay, the Scots are close,
But when I grudge the strength Ye gave I'll grudge their food to ~those~.
(There's bricks that I might recommend -- an' clink the fire-bars cruel.
No! Welsh -- Wangarti at the worst -- an' damn all patent fuel!)
Inventions? Ye must stay in port to mak' a patent pay.
My Deeferential Valve-Gear taught me how that business lay,
I blame no chaps wi' clearer head for aught they make or sell.
~I~ found that I could not invent an' look to these -- as well.
So, wrestled wi' Apollyon -- Nah! -- fretted like a bairn --
But burned the workin'-plans last run wi' all I hoped to earn.
Ye know how hard an Idol dies, an' what that meant to me --
E'en tak' it for a sacrifice acceptable to Thee. . . .
~Below there! Oiler! What's your wark? Ye find it runnin' hard?
Ye needn't swill the cap wi' oil -- this isn't the Cunard!
Ye thought? Ye are not paid to think. Go, sweat that off again!~
Tck! Tck! It's deeficult to sweer nor tak' The Name in vain!
Men, ay an' women, call me stern. Wi' these to oversee
Ye'll note I've little time to burn on social repartee.
The bairns see what their elders miss; they'll hunt me to an' fro,
Till for the sake of -- well, a kiss -- I tak' 'em down below.
That minds me of our Viscount loon -- Sir Kenneth's kin -- the chap
Wi' Russia leather tennis-shoon an' spar-decked yachtin'-cap.
I showed him round last week, o'er all -- an' at the last says he:
"Mister M'Andrew, don't you think steam spoils romance at sea?"
Damned ijjit! I'd been doon that morn to see what ailed the throws,
Manholin', on my back -- the cranks three inches off my nose.
Romance! Those first-class passengers they like it very well,
Printed an' bound in little books; but why don't poets tell?
I'm sick of all their quirks an' turns -- the loves an' doves they dream --
Lord, send a man like Robbie Burns to sing the Song o' Steam!
To match wi' Scotia's noblest speech yon orchestra sublime
Whaurto -- uplifted like the Just -- the tail-rods mark the time.
The crank-throws give the double-bass, the feed-pump sobs an' heaves,
An' now the main eccentrics start their quarrel on the sheaves:
Her time, her own appointed time, the rocking link-head bides,
Till -- hear that note? -- the rod's return
whings glimmerin' through the guides.
They're all awa'! True beat, full power, the clangin' chorus goes
Clear to the tunnel where they sit, my purrin' dynamos.
Interdependence absolute, foreseen, ordained, decreed,
To work, Ye'll note, at any tilt an' every rate o' speed.
Fra' skylight-lift to furnace-bars, backed, bolted, braced an' stayed,
An' singin' like the Mornin' Stars for joy that they are made;
While, out o' touch o' vanity, the sweatin' thrust-block says:
"Not unto us the praise, or man -- not unto us the praise!"
Now, a' together, hear them lift their lesson -- theirs an' mine:
"Law, Orrder, Duty an' Restraint, Obedience, Discipline!"
Mill, forge an' try-pit taught them that when roarin' they arose,
An' whiles I wonder if a soul was gied them wi' the blows.
Oh for a man to weld it then, in one trip-hammer strain,
Till even first-class passengers could tell the meanin' plain!
But no one cares except mysel' that serve an' understand
My seven thousand horse-power here.
Eh, Lord! They're grand -- they're grand!
Uplift am I? When first in store the new-made beasties stood,
Were Ye cast down that breathed the Word declarin' all things good?
Not so! O' that warld-liftin' joy no after-fall could vex,
Ye've left a glimmer still to cheer the Man -- the Arrtifex!
~That~ holds, in spite o' knock and scale, o' friction, waste an' slip,
An' by that light -- now, mark my word -- we'll build the Perfect Ship.
I'll never last to judge her lines or take her curve -- not I.
But I ha' lived an' I ha' worked. 'Be thanks to Thee, Most High!
An' I ha' done what I ha' done -- judge Thou if ill or well --
Always Thy Grace preventin' me. . . .
Losh! Yon's the "Stand by" bell.
Pilot so soon? His flare it is. The mornin'-watch is set.
Well, God be thanked, as I was sayin', I'm no Pelagian yet.
Now I'll tak' on. . . .
~'Morrn, Ferguson. Man, have ye ever thought
What your good leddy costs in coal? . . . I'll burn 'em down to port.~



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Glad to have been of service.

TG

"Get Drunk!"

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters;that's our one imperative need.
So as not to feel Time's horrible burden one which breaks your shoulders and bows you down, you must get drunk without cease.

But with what?
With wine, poetry, or virtue as you choose.
But get drunk.

And if, at some time,
on steps of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the bleak solitude of your room,
you are waking and the drunkenness has already abated,
ask the wind, the wave, the stars, the clock,
all that which flees,
all that which groans,
all that which rolls,
all that which sings,
all that which speaks,
ask them, what time it is;
and the wind, the wave, the stars, the birds, and the clock,
they will all reply:

It is time to get drunk!

So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time,
get drunk, get drunk,
and never pause for rest!
With wine, poetry, or virtue,as you choose!"

Charles Baudelaire

Wonderful

Thankyou both Davaar and Tartan Gannet for that input re "Harp Song of the Dane Women" even if each of you abhor being associated with the other in the same sentence.

That poem came to my mind while navigating a long boat with friends here among the reefs and remembering a novel "Go to the Widow Maker" by James Jones..(about men/women, life/death, loyalty/betrayal, love/hate, scuba and seafood).

The poem introduces the novel. And after some decades I wonder if it is worth reading again; that is if a copy is still around!

Best wishes,
rainbow.

As someone with more than a passing interest in ancient Egypt:

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

As someone who also likes McGonnagal:

The Tay, the Tay,
The Silvery Tay
It runs from Perth to Dundee every day

Simple yet brilliant!

An old favourite of mine, "be still my beating heart"..............


Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
bids me wear them, warm them, until evening
when I'll brush her hair. At six, I place them
round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,

resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk
or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself
whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering
each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.

She's beautiful. I dream about her
in my attic bed; picture her dancing
with tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent
beneath her French perfume, her milky stones.

I dust her shoulders with a rabbit's foot,
watch the soft blush seep through her skin
like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass
my red lips part as though I want to speak.

Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see
her every movement in my head....Undressing,
taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching
for the case, slipping naked into bed, the way

she always does....And I lie here awake,
knowing the pearls are cooling even now
in the room where my mistress sleeps. All night I feel their absence and I burn.

C.A.Duffy


------------------
'I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend, to the death, your right to say it' - Voltaire

If you have flown "The North" in winter or lived in the prairies of Canada then you might already know this one.


The Cremation of Sam McGee

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.


Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam
'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold
seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way
that he'd "sooner live in hell".


On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold
it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze
till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.


And that very night, as we lay packed tight
in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead
were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."


Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no;
then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold
till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread
of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair,
you'll cremate my last remains."


A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn;
but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day
of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.


There wasn't a breath in that land of death,
and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid,
because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say:
"You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you
to cremate those last remains."


Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb,
in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight,
while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows --
O God! how I loathed the thing.


And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent
and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad,
but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.


Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice
it was called the "Alice May".
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit,
and I looked at my frozen chum
Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."


Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared --
such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.


Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled,
and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled
down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.


I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about
ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said:
"I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked";. . .
then the door I opened wide.


And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm,
in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile,
and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear
you'll let in the cold and storm --
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee,
it's the first time I've been warm."


There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.


- Robert Service

Soaring Sprog....

'Yur 'Tis ........

HIGH FLIGHT

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings
sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbled mirth
of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
you have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
high in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee Jr.

--------------------
Through Adversity to the Milk-Maid

32 years ago I proposed to my wife and quoted from Christopher Marlowe 'The Passionate Shepherd to his Love'

"Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields."

After a few days she accepted and replied to my delight with Sir Walter Ralegh's response...
"If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love."

We had 24 wonderful years together.

sigh, The Lady of Shalott of course by Tennyson.

I first saw this piece performed by a well known actress whos name escapes me right now. Rodney Dangerfeilds "Back to School" a stupid Us High School Romp, but the english teacher sweeps into the classroom and PERFORMS this peice and it bewitched me...

He writes in a running style of just laying it on paper as the thoughs go, without sentence structure or punctuation, a passionate style.

James Joyce - An extract from "Penelope"

....I was a Flower of the mountain yes
when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and L thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him
down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

-----------------------------------

PABLO NERUDA

POETRY
And it was at that age...
Poetry arrived n search of me.
I don't know,
I don't know where it came from,
from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no,
they were not voices,
they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating planations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesmal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.


Online Poetry (http://www.spyderworks.fnq.net/home/poems/)

For you then, Damsel:

The Lady of Shalott (http://fmc.utm.edu/~geverett/465/shalott.htm)

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek and o'er the brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

Lord Byron

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, always great weather you are half stoned or not
Brgds
Doc

This was in a children's book (circa 1915)my mother had, I have been trying to trace it for years, but with no success:

A little lass with golden hair,
A little lass with brown,
A little maid with raven locks,
Went tripping into town.

Not Milton, granted, but if anyone knows the rest or can refer me to a source, I'd be grateful.

gotta be a Welsh one - Dylan Thomas!

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

PAAA- Cheers, thats the one. Brilliant.

`Twas brillig and the slithy tove
did gyre and gimbal in the wabes
all mimsy were the borrogroves
and the mome wraths outgrabe

(Whee..... Jabberwocky!)

Beware the Jabberwock, my son,
The jaws that bite, The claws that catch,
Beware the Jub-Jub bird and shun
The frumious bandersnatch.

(No cheating, you lot, from memory only)

and another Welsh one:

When I hear Richard Burton
A shivver's on my spine
His velvet voice is heaven
As he rasps out every line.

When I read Dylan Thomas
The feeling's just the same
A drunken foolish gentleman
A genius in pain

When I see Gareth Edwards
I always feel the pride
some say he was the greatest player
In the greatest side.

When I look at the steelworks
The coalface and the Docks
I cry "Hen Wlad Fy Naddau"
My country, on the rocks.

Who wanted "Let Me Die a Youngman's Death"?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">
Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death

When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death

Roger McGough
</font>

pjdj, thanks very much for the Thomas - that's one of my favourites as well. In return, let me offer you another Roger McGough, from "Sporting Relations":-

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">
Big Arth from Penarth
was a forward and a half.
Though built like a peninsula
with muscles like pink slagheaps
and a face like a cheese grater
he was as graceful and fast
as a greased cheetah.

A giraffe in the lineout
a rhino in the pack
he never passed forward
when he should've passed back
and once in possession
slaalomed his way
through the opposition.

And delicate?
Once for a lark
at Cardiff Arms Park
Big Arth
converted a softboiled egg
from the halfway line.
</font>

And does anyone have the full text of "The Smugglers' Song" by Rudyard Kipling? The one that goes:-

"Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark,
Brandy for the parson,
Baccy for the clerk,
Laces for a lady,
Letters for a spy;
So watch the wall, my darling,
As the gentlemen trot by..."

?

Tae a Fert

Oh what a sleekit, horrible beastie
Lurks in yer stomach efter a feastie.
Just as ye sit doon among yer kin,
There starts tae stir an enormous wind.

The neeps an' tatties an' mushy peas
Stert workin like a gentle breeze.
But soon the puddin' wi' the sonsie face
Will huv ye blawin' a' ower the place.

Nae matter whit the hell ye dae
A'bodys gonna huv tae pay.
Even if ye try tae stifle.
It's like a bullet oot a rifle.

Haud yer bum tight tae the chair
Tae try an' stop it leakin' air.
Shift yersel' fae cheek tae cheek
An' pray tae God it disnae reek.

But a' yer efforts go asunder,
Oot it comes, like a clap o' thunder.
It ricochets aroon' the room,
Michty me! A sonic boom!

God almighty, it fairly reeks
(Ah hope ah huvnae **** ma breeks!)
Straight tae the bog ah better scurry,
Aw, whit the hell, it's no' ma worry.

A'body roon' aboot me's chokin',
Wan or two are nearly boakin'.
Ah'll feel much better fur a while,
Ah cannae help but raise a smile.

"Wis him!!" ah shout, wi' accusin' glower.
Alas, too late. He's just keeled ower.
"Ya dirty bugger!" they shout and stare.
Ah dinnae feel welcome ony mair.

Where e'er ye be, let yer wind gang free,
(sounds jist the job for thee and me).
Whit a fuss at Rabbie's perty,
oweer the sake o' wan wee ferty.


[This message has been edited by Ed Winchester (edited 08 March 2001).]

Thanks Huggy - made my day with the Roger McGough :)

------------------
'Me here at last on the ground, you in mid air'

Can't help you with the poem, I'm afraid Huggy - just checked. For those who do like Kipling, though, and extract (I'm not going to type all 13 stanzas) from a very astute, well-observed piece.

The Female of the Species

When the Himalayan peasant meets a he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside,
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways to avoid it if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws,
They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws.
'Twas the women not the warriors , turned those stark enthusiasts pale.
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say,
For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away;
But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms the other's tale -
The female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Rudyard Kipling

------------------
'Me here at last on the ground, you in mid air'

HugMonster, with compliments:

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,
Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark –
Brandy for the parson,
‘Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Running round the woodlump if you chance to fund
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don’t you shout to come and look, nor use ‘em for your play.
Put the brishwood back again – and they’ll be gone next day!

If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining’s wet and warm – don’t you ask no more!

If you meet King George’s men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you “pretty maid” and chuck you ‘neath the chin,
Don’t you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one’s been!

Knocks and footsteps round the house – whistles after dark –
You’ve no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty’s here, and Pincher’s here, and see how dumb they lie –
They don’t fret to follow when the gentlemen go by!

If you do as you’ve been told, ‘likely there’s a chance,
You’ll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood –
A present from the Gentlemen, along o’ being good!
Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark –
Brandy for the parson,
‘Baccy for the Clerk;
Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie –
Watch the wall my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Davaar, you're a gentleman - and there are not too many of us left! :) My thanks!

------------------
Breeding Per Dementia Unto Something Jolly Big, Toodle-pip

At a poetry recital by Roger McGough many years ago (1977? he did a wonderful one about the Queen's silver jubilee, which I can't remember) entitled:

My love life

My love life comes in fits and starts
If it fits, it starts

I'm so glad there are so many Roger McGough fans out there! He's my favourite poet, overall. Here's more:-

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Italic

ONCE I LIVED IN CAPITALS
MY LIFE INTENSELY PHALLIC

but now i'm sadly lowercase
with the occasional italic

(Roger McGough)
</font>
And another:-
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">
Scintillate

I have outlived
my youthfulness
So a quiet life for me.

Where once
I used to
Scintillate

now I sin
till ten
past three.

(Roger McGough)
</font>

------------------
Breeding Per Dementia Unto Something Jolly Big, Toodle-pip

[This message has been edited by HugMonster (edited 09 March 2001).]

Some of my favourites ( for very different reasons)

The elephant's a dainty bird,
it swings from bough to bough.
It makes its nest in rhubarb trees,
and whistles like a cow.....

(Lewis Carrol - I think)

Outside the takeaway, Saturday night,
a bald adolescent asked me out for a fight.
He was no bigger than a two penny fart,
he was a deft exponent of the martial arts.
He gave me three warnings; trod on me toes
stuck his fingers in me eyes and punched me in the nose.
Through stream of torn flesh and broken bone
I crawled half a mile to a public telephone.
Couldn't get an ambulance the phone was screwed.
The receiver fell in half- it had been kung-fu'd
( John Cooper Clark )

Finally Rudyard K. "If"
If you can keep your head when all about you,
are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look to good or talk too wise:

If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those imposters just the same;
If you can bear the words you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to , broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and -toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And-- which is more--you'll be a man, my son!

A couple I like, for differing reasons.

Lewis Carrol ( I think )

The elephant's a dainty bird,
it swings from bough to bough.
It makes its nest in rhubarb trees,
and whistles like a cow.


John Cooper Clark.

Outside the takeaway, Saturday night,
a bald adolescent asked me out for a fight.
He was no bigger than a two penny fart,
he was a deft exponent of the martial arts.
He gave me three warnings; trod on me toes,
stuck his fingers in me eyes and punched me in the nose.
Through stream of torn flesh and broken bone,
I crawled half a mile to a public telephone.
Couldn't get an ambulance, the phone was screwed.
The receiver fell in half, it had been kung-fu'd.


Rudyard K. "If"
If you can keep your head when all about you,
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all me doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good or talk too wise:

If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear the words you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them:"Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings--nor lose the common touch
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but not too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a man, my son !

A brief aside, as my head aches from all the excellent work here:

The bat (in Latin)
mica, vespertillio
quidnam agas, dubito.
supra mundum volitas
ferculumque simulas

Apart from that, the translations of Ovid's Metamorphoses or bits and pieces from Euripides or Aristophanes (Greek is good too!)

-tacc