Poetry Please - A Little Culture For The Masses

[cressida]

16 minutes ago, Hecate said:

I remember enjoying trying to tease apart The Wasteland at college.  This is my favourite though:

 

This Be The Verse - Philip Larkin

 

They **** you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

 

But they were ****ed up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

 

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

My brother once said to me 'do you think our mother gave us a complex about spiders,' I didn't remember that but I know she was afraid of mice,

she saw one once and jumped on a chair.

[hackey lad]

8 hours ago, trastrick said:

Not even such literary works as

 

12 pence one shilling
20 pence one and eightpence
30 pence 2 and sixpence
40 pence 3 and fourpence
50 pence 4 and tuppence
60 pence 5 shillings

 

and

 

30 days hath September.....?
 

30 day hath September, my Dad taught me . Is that really a poem? 

[trastrick]

1 hour ago, hackey lad said:

30 day hath September, my Dad taught me . Is that really a poem? 

Well at least it rhymes. Not like today's Poetry Prize Winning self absorbed dissonant crap.

 

THIS is a poem! By a master of the language.

 

LOCHINVAR

By Sir Walter Scott

 

O young Lochinvar is come out of the west,

Through all the wide Border his steed was the best;

And save his good broadsword he weapons had none,

He rode all unarm’d, and he rode all alone.

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,

There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

 

He staid not for brake, and he stopp’d not for stone,

He swam the Eske river where ford there was none;

But ere he alighted at Netherby gate,

The bride had consented, the gallant came late:

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,

Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

 

So boldly he enter’d the Netherby Hall,

Among bride’s-men, and kinsmen, and brothers and all:

Then spoke the bride’s father, his hand on his sword,

(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,)

“O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,

Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?”

 

“I long woo’d your daughter, my suit you denied;—

Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide—

And now I am come, with this lost love of mine,

To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.

There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,

That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.”

 

The bride kiss’d the goblet: the knight took it up,

He quaff’d off the wine, and he threw down the cup.

She look’d down to blush, and she look’d up to sigh,

With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.

He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,—

“Now tread we a measure!” said young Lochinvar.

 

So stately his form, and so lovely her face,

That never a hall such a galliard did grace;

While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,

And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;

And the bride-maidens whisper’d, “’twere better by far

To have match’d our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.”

 

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,

When they reach’d the hall-door, and the charger stood near;

So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,

So light to the saddle before her he sprung!

“She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur;

They’ll have fleet steeds that follow,” quoth young Lochinvar.

 

There was mounting ’mong Graemes of the Netherby clan;

Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran:

There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee,

But the lost bride of Netherby ne’er did they see.

So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,

Have ye e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?

 

I can still recite it from memory, Inspired me, it did.

 

.

Edited November 28, 2023 by trastrick

[cressida]

I'm liking young Lochinvar❤️

[echo beach]

3 hours ago, carosio said:

Poetry is the highest form of language.

Not in my eyes it isn’t, especially  if it contains loads of expletives like some of the examples quoted on here have!

 

echo.

[cressida]

14 hours ago, KP Nuts 2 said:

Not sure where this came from or how I came across it, I'm sure someone will know.

 

As a rule,

Man's a fool,

When it's hot he wants it cool,

When it's cool he wants it hot,

Always wanting, what is not.

It's true,  some people are perverse.🙂

[KP Nuts 2]

6 hours ago, aardvark6535 said:

A quote by "Benjamin Disraeli"

OK, no need to shout.😀

[wearysmith]

This is one of my favourite seasonal poems.

 

It's by Dr John Cooper Clarke, entitled 'Christmas '73'.  I think those of us of a certain vintage have been there......

 

 

"The K-Tel collection was ready to spin, we were left with Martini without any gin,
and beer within this impregnable tin.
Where can that can-opener be?

I'll improvise, leave it to me.
All the way to the A&E with half a gallon of Worthington E and a 9" nail sticking out of my knee ....
With a "Ho-ho-ho..." and a "Tee-he-he..."
Christmas....'73".

[horribleblob]

Oh yes, Wearysmith. The good Dr JCC. 👍

 

Poetry at school for me meant learning by rote: works such as Alfred Noyes’, The Highwayman, and Tennyson’s, The Charge of the Light Brigade. No meaningful learning involved, just a boring exercise in memory. Although, as a romantic, pubescent boy I was rather fixated on the latter’s, The Lady of Shalott.  

 

Thank goodness we didn’t have to memorise the 36,000 lines/4,000 stanzas of Spenser’s, The Faerie Queene. Decades later, I still haven’t reached the end.

 

 

[RJRB]

Stirring stuff,

Invictushttps://poets.org/poem/invictus

And another  Vitaï Lampadaone for inspirationhttps://net.lib.byu.edu/english/wwi/influences/vitai.html

Should read Vitaï Lampada

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by RJRB