Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England – now!
II
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops – at the bent spray’s edge –
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
– Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
From A Shropshire Lad (Poem II)
by A. E. Housman
(1859–1936)
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
Summer
An August Midnight
by Thomas Hardy
(1840–1928)
I
A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter – winged, horned, and spined –
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
While ’mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands …
II
Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space.
– My guests besmear my new-penned line,
Or bang at the lamp and fall supine.
‘God’s humblest, they!’ I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.
Settling
by Denise Levertov
(1923–97)
I was welcomed here – clear gold
of late summer, of opening autumn,
the dawn eagle sunning himself on the highest tree,
the mountain revealing herself unclouded, her snow
tinted apricot as she looked west,
Tolerant, in her steadfastness, of the restless sun
forever rising and setting.
Now I am given
a taste of the grey foretold by all and sundry,
a grey both heavy and chill. I’ve boasted I would not care,
I’m London-born. And I won’t. I’ll dig in,
into my days, having come here to live, not to visit.
Grey is the price
of neighboring with eagles, of knowing
a mountain’s vast presence, seen or unseen.
Blackberry-Picking
by Seamus Heaney
(1939–2013)
for Philip Hobsbaum
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up, and that hunger
Sent us out with milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills,
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush,
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.
Autumn
To Autumn
by John Keats
(1795–1821)
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’erbrimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, –
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Winter
The Darkling Thrush
by Thomas Hardy
(1840–1928)
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled
plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost
(1874–1963)
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.
Christmas
little tree
by E. E. Cummings
(1894–1962)fn1
little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don’t be afraid
look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,
put up your little arms
and i’ll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won’t be a single place dark or unhappy
then when you’re quite dressed
you’ll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they’ll stare!
oh but you’ll be very proud
and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we’ll dance and sing
‘Noel Noel’
Another Christmas Poem
by Wendy Cope
(born 1945)
Bloody Christmas, here again.
Let us raise a loving cup:
Peace on earth, goodwill to men,
And make them do the washing-up.
Talking Turkeys!!
by Benjamin Zephaniah
(born 1958)fn2
Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas
Cos turkeys just wanna hav fun
Turkeys are cool, turkeys are wicked
An every turkey has a Mum.
Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas,
Don’t eat it, keep it alive,
It could be yu mate, an not on yu plate
Say, Yo! Turkey I’m on your side.
I got lots of friends who are turkeys
An all of dem fear christmas time,
Dey wanna enjoy it, dey say humans destroyed it
An humans are out of dere mind,
Yeah, I got lots of friends who are turkeys
Dey all hav a right to a life,
Not to be caged up an genetically made up
By any farmer an his wife.
Turkeys just wanna play reggae
Turkeys just wanna hip-hop
Can yu imagine a nice young turkey saying,
‘I cannot wait for de chop’?
Turkeys like getting presents, dey wanna watch christmas TV,
Turkeys hav brains an turkeys feel pain
In many ways like yu an me.
I once knew a turkey called Turkey
He said ‘Benji explain to me please,
Who put de turkey in christmas
An what happens to christmas trees?’
I said, ‘I am not too sure turkey
But it’s nothing to do wid Christ Mass
Humans get greedy an waste more dan need be
An business men mek loadsa cash.’
Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
Invite dem indoors fe sum greens
Let dem eat cake an let dem partake
In a plate of organic grown beans,
Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas
An spare dem de cut of de knife,
Join Turkeys United an dey’ll be delighted
An yu will mek new friends ‘for life’.
Christmas Day in the Workhouse
by Ronnie Barker
(1929–2005)
Inspired by George R. Sims (1847–1922)fn3
It was Christmas Day in the workhouse,
The merriest day of the year,
The paupers and the prisoners
Were all assembled there.
In came the Christmas pudding,
When a voice that shattered glass
Said, ‘We don’t want your Christmas pudding,
So stick it there with the rest of the unwanted presents.’
The workhouse master then arose
And prepared to carve the duck.
He said, ‘Who wants the parson’s nose?’
And the prisoners shouted, ‘You have it yourself, sir!’
The vicar brought his bible
And read out little bits.
Said one old crone at the back of the hall,
‘This man gets on very well with everybody.’
The master rose to make a speech,
But just before he started,
The mistress, who was fifteen stone,
Gave three loud cheers and nearly choked herself.
And all the paupers then began
To pull their Christmas crackers.
One pauper held his too low down
And blew off both his paper hat and the man’s next to him.
The mistress, dishing out the food,
Dropped custard down her front.
She cried, ‘Aren’t I a silly girl?’
And they answered ‘You’re a perfect picture as always ma’am!’
So then they all began to sing
Which shook the workhouse walls.
‘Merry Christmas!’ cried the master
And the inmates shouted: ‘Best of luck to you as well sir!’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Thirty Days Hath SeptemberUseful poetry
Here are a few poems that are easy to learn – and so practical. Almost certainly, you will know a version of the first already.
The days in the month
Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November;
February has twenty-eight alone
All the rest have thirty-one
Except in Leap Year, that’s the time
When February’s Days are twenty-nine
The Kings and Queens of England
There have been quite a few English sovereigns since the overthrow of King Harold by William the Conqueror in 1066. Remembering them in the correct order isn’t easy, unless you have mastered the verse that follows. It takes you from the Norman Conquest to the present day, but ignores Lady Jane Grey, who was so briefly Queen of England and Ireland (from 10 to 19 July 1553) that she doesn’t count, and Oliver Cromwell and his son, Richard, who ruled during the so-called ‘Commonwealth’ between 1653 and 1659, but whose ascendancy didn’t last because they weren’t the real thing.
To work out who is who, you must know that ‘Willy’ is a diminutive of ‘
William’, ‘Harry’ a diminutive of ‘Henry’, ‘Ste’ is ‘Stephen’, ‘Ned’ is ‘Edward’, ‘Dick’ is ‘Richard’, and ‘Bessie’ and ‘Lizzie’ both diminutives of ‘Elizabeth’. When a name is first mentioned that is the first monarch of that name.
Willy, Willy, Harry, Ste,
Harry, Dick, John, Harry three,
One, two, three Neds, Richard two,
Henries four, five, six – then who?
Edwards four, five, Dick the bad,
Harries twain and Ned the lad,
Mary, Bessie, James the vain,
Charlie, Charlie, James again,
William & Mary, Anna Gloria,
Four Georges, William and Victoria,
Edward the Seventh next, and then
George the Fifth in 1910.
Edward the Eighth soon abdicated
And so a George was reinstated.
After Lizzie Two (who’s still alive)
Comes Charlie Three and Willie Five.
And when they’re all gone and up in heaven
If it’s still going it will be George Seven.
That’s the way our monarchs lie
Since Harold got it in the eye!
Inspired by the poem that has helped British children remember the names and order of English kings and queens, Genevieve Madeline Ryan decided to do something similar for the presidents of the United States. She contacted Hugh Sidey, Presidential historian and White House correspondent, for help with historical accuracy, and composed a poem that has since been set to music. It is a long poem, but easily accessed online.
Professor Thomas Andrew Lehrer is a mathematician who taught at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Santa Cruz, and achieved international popularity in the 1950s and 1960s as Tom Lehrer, writer and performer of humorous songs. In this one, written in 1959, he set the names of the 102 chemical elements known at the time to the tune of the ‘Major-General’s Song’ from the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, The Pirates of Penzance.
The Elements
by Tom Lehrer
(born 1928)
There’s antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,