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tripps
Senior Member


1404 Posts
Posted -  11/05/2009  :  21:32
It's national poetry week or some such, and we have a new poet laureate. I like this one.  The title loosely translated from the Irish, means 'Trust in Drink'.  I suspect it might chime with one or two on here - cheers........


Preab San Ol
 
Why spend your leisure bereft of pleasure
A massing treasure why scrape and save?
Why look so canny at ev'ry penny?
You'll take no money within the grave
Landlords and gentry with all their plenty
Must still go empty where e'er they're bound
So to my thinking we'd best be drinking
Our glasses clinking and round and round

King Solomon's glory, so famed in story
Was far outshone by the lillies guise
But hard winds harden both field and garden
Pleading for pardon, the lily dies
Life's but a bauble of toil and trouble
The feathered arrow, once shot ne'er found
So, lads and lasses, because life passes
Come fill your glasses for another round

The huckster greedy, he blinds the needy
Their strifes unheeding, shouts "Money down!"
This special vices, his fancy prices
For a florin value he'll charge a crown
With hump for tramel, the scripture's chamel
Missed the needle's eye and so came to ground
Why pine for riches, while still you've stitches
To hold your britches up? Another round!



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Gloria
Senior Member


3581 Posts
Posted - 11/05/2009 : 21:49
 I like this one.

 

Walter de la Mare

The Listeners

‘IS there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champ’d 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
Lean’d over and look’d into his grey eyes,
    Where he stood perplex’d 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 stirr’d 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 starr’d and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
    Louder, and lifted his head:—
’Tell them I came, and no one answer’d,
    ’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.
 


Edited by - Gloria on 11/05/2009 9:51:23 PM


I'd be dangerous with a brain!!!!!
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tripps
Senior Member


1404 Posts
Posted - 11/05/2009 : 22:38
I really like that one too.  Quite a mystery isn't it, and very atmospheric.  Who are the listeners, and why did the traveller have to call? Anyone know?


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 12/05/2009 : 07:31
I found tis....
Comments on "The Listeners"

Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to share the significance of a
truly great poem.

This is a magical poem that moves me profoundly each time I read it.
Indeed, I have been inspired many times to the challenge of using my own
words to paint the vivid and lush atmosphere that The Listeners evokes in
me. It is a clear commentary on the struggle for us all to "be heard" and
to understand our role in Life. For me, this poem leaves me numbed with
each reading, and a little off balance from the powerful imagery and real
emotion that it nurtures. This is a classic work!

Regards
Andrew
Like all good oetry it invites you to make your own associations. Good stuff. 
 


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Gloria
Senior Member


3581 Posts
Posted - 12/05/2009 : 08:20
The one and only time I ever played wag from school, I got found out and had to learn "The Listeners". It has stuck in my mind ever since, I find it very thoughtful, possibly that was the reacton my headmaster wanted. Sad thing, I had to go back to recite it to him the day after and he wasn't  there, so never got to do it.


I'd be dangerous with a brain!!!!!
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tripps
Senior Member


1404 Posts
Posted - 12/05/2009 : 08:27
"and he wasn't  there"

I hope you cried out     "’Tell them I came, and no one answer’d"      Smile


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belle
VIP Member


6502 Posts
Posted - 12/05/2009 : 09:05
what a shame we are only having poetry week, it should be a whole year...now which is my all time favourite, there are so many...
start at the begining:
 Sonnet cxvi
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
admit impedements. Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds
or bends with the remover to remove:
O no it is an ever fix-ed mark
which looks on tempests and is never shaken
the star to every wandring bark
whose worths unknown although his height be taken.
Loves not times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
but bear it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and  upon me proved
I never writ nor, no man ever loved.
W. shakespear


Good old Will, the very essence of love distilled and a little joke at himself at the end.


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 12/05/2009 : 10:16
Tripps. Brilliant reply!


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
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Gloria
Senior Member


3581 Posts
Posted - 12/05/2009 : 13:03
Brilliant  Tripps.
I had to go to his study for 12o'clock and he wasn' t there, his secretary said he would send for me---I am still waiting.


I'd be dangerous with a brain!!!!!
www.briercliffesociety.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 13/05/2009 : 06:58
Gloria, you need to consult that part of common law regarding transport which deals with the concept of 'demurrage'. Under this law the waitee is allowed to claim compensation for the time lost in waiting. Reckon it up at the average industrial wage and put a claim in!


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page


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