Having a Ulysses kind of day, I recalled a post of the same title, here on the imitable elle est belle la seine la seine elle est belle. (Yes, I've reached the end of all things new, and am having to repeat the various endings of the interwebs.)
Yes, it was a jaw-drop of a coincidence to see that this previous post had been writ almost two years ago to this day, excepting and accepting the six day gap! O, synchrony!
I doubt that anyone else in the history of reading typeface has confounded "perils" -- a good, solid,
Ulyssean, er, Odyssean poetic word -- with "penile," and did not miss a beat, a meter, a sound, a meaning!
But what really launched my ship?
The comment section!
Honorable mention, with a musical interlude midway through the sonorous reading of the citation, goes to the belovèd TW and his learnèd reference to tumblr's #whatshouldwecallpoets.
But she who takes the cake is Mary and a rant that you can tell will never be totally excised from her system. My assumption -- go ahead, buffoons, and snicker! -- is that Mary's reaction was born, not of Odysseus and Merwin, but of Anaphylaxis, Ulysses, and Tennyson, for Mary is of the Isles, and therefore inopportunely allergic to pretense.
Should she be reading THIS post, she's likely absented herself briefly for a go at a cuppa tea, despite her disabling stiff upper lip, as she waits, as patient as Penelope, for her emergency epinephrine injection to work...
Hoping Mary will again join us, and repeating the promise of a freshly-made-up guest suite here at Marlinspike Hall, decorated in her obvious preference for Victorian shabby chic! (I learned that on my final whirl around the internet, at Pinterest!)
I love poetry, although I must admit my taste is not as classical as yours. I like the English poets, Wordsworth's "Daffodils" Betjeman's "A Subaltern's Love Song" are 2 of my favourites, mostly because they are about places I know very well. The children had to learn a poem over the weekend when they were 8, which pi**ed me off considerably as I worked full time. I had more than enough to do in my free time than teach little children in my down time. So each child recited to the school on the Monday morning, Spike Milligan's (do you know him, a British legend) poem here copied in full.
They don't have any stones,
they don't have any pips,
they don't have any bones and that's why I like chips.
Regards,
Mary
They don't have any stones,
they don't have any pips,
they don't have any bones and that's why I like chips.
Regards,
Mary
And so now, today, a whole six days in advance of the anniversary of the post, and seven days before Mary's own comment (the account may settle if we take heed of the time differential), here are Betjeman's "A Subaltern's Love Song," and Wordsworth's "Daffodils," neither used with Anyone's Permission.
A Subaltern's Love Song
Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!
Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.
Her father's euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o'clock news and a lime-juice and gin.
The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.
On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.
The Hillman is waiting, the light's in the hall,
The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
And there on the landing's the light on your hair.
By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
Oh! Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!
Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.
And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.
-- John Betjeman
******************************************************************
DAFFODILS
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
--William Wordsworth
And, to honor the Honorable Mentioner, a choice at true random from Tumblr's #whatshouldwecallpoets:
How I feel when readings insist on live music in the middle
* a tip o'the hat to all of y'all (my mixed medium contribution to today's art)!
© 2013 L. Ryan
Mentioned in dispatches, sooo proud. xxxx
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