The Old Vicarage, Granchester

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1. Strong Beer “What do you think The bravest drink Under the sky?” “Strong beer,” said I. “There’s a place for everything, Everything, anything, There’s a place for everything Where it ought to be: For a chicken, the hen’s wing; For poison, the bee’s sting; For almond-blossom, Spring; A beerhouse for me.” “There’s a prize for every one […]...
2. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 11. Calm is the morn without a sound Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only thro’ the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground: Calm and deep peace on this high wold, And on these dews that drench the furze. And all the silvery gossamers That twinkle into green and gold: Calm and […]...
3. Dedication for Moremi, 1963 Earth will not share the rafter’s envy; dung floors Break, not the gecko’s slight skin, but its fall Taste this soil for death and plumb her deep for life As this yam, wholly earthed, yet a living tuber To the warmth of waters, earthed as springs As roots of baobab, as the […]...
4. The Poor Singing Dame Beneath an old wall, that went round an old Castle, For many a year, with brown ivy o’erspread; A neat little Hovel, its lowly roof raising, Defied the wild winds that howl’d over its shed: The turrets, that frown’d on the poor simple dwelling, Were rock’d to and fro, when the Tempest would roar, And […]...
5. Nurses Song (Experience) When the voices of children. are heard on the green And whisprings are in the dale: The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, My face turns green and pale. Then come home my children. the sun is gone down And the dews of night arise Your spring & your day. are wasted […]...
6. Sonnet LXIII: The Gossamer O’er faded heath-flowers spun, or thorny furze, The filmy Gossamer is lightly spread; Waving in every sighing air that stirs, As Fairy fingers had entwined the thread: A thousand trembling orbs of lucid dew Spangle the texture of the fairy loom, As if soft Sylphs, lamenting as they flew, Had wept departed Summer’s transient bloom: […]...
7. Summer Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come, For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom, And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest, And love is burning diamonds in my true lover’s breast; She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair, And […]...
8. Novel I. No one’s serious at seventeen. On beautiful nights when beer and lemonade And loud, blinding cafés are the last thing you need You stroll beneath green lindens on the promenade. Lindens smell fine on fine June nights! Sometimes the air is so sweet that you close your eyes; The wind brings sounds the town […]...
9. Holy Sonnet XI: Spit In My Face You Jews, And Pierce My Side Spit in my face you Jews, and pierce my side, Buffet, and scoff, scourge, and crucify me, For I have sinned, and sinned, and only he Who could do no iniquity hath died: But by my death can not be satisfied My sins, which pass the Jews’ impiety: They killed once an inglorious man, but […]...
10. Drunk Too far away, oh love, I know, To save me from this haunted road, Whose lofty roses break and blow On a night-sky bent with a load Of lights: each solitary rose, Each arc-lamp golden does expose Ghost beyond ghost of a blossom, shows Night blenched with a thousand snows. Of hawthorn and of lilac […]...
11. On the Wye in May Now is the perfect moment of the year. Half naked branches, half a mist of green, Vivid and delicate the slopes appear; The cool, soft air is neither fierce nor keen, And in the temperate sun we feel no fear; Of all the hours which shall be and have been, It is the briefest as […]...
12. To My Brother George Many the wonders I this day have seen: The sun, when first he kissed away the tears That filled the eyes of Morn;-the laurelled peers Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;- The ocean with its vastness, its blue green, Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears, Its voice mysterious, which […]...
13. At The Golden Pig Where once with lads I scoffed my beer The landlord’s lass I’ve wed. Now I am lord and master here; Thank God! the old man’s dead. I stand behind a blooming bar With belly like a tub, And pals say, seeing my cigar: ‘Bill’s wed a pub.’ I wonder now if I did well, My […]...
14. The Open Sea From my window I can see, Where the sandhills dip, One far glimpse of open sea. Just a slender slip Curving like a crescent moon – Yet a greater prize Than the harbour garden-fair Spread beneath my eyes. Just below me swings the bay, Sings a sunny tune, But my heart is far away Out […]...
15. There Are Those Who Love To Get Dirty There are those who love to get dirty and fix things. They drink coffee at dawn, beer after work, And those who stay clean, just appreciate things, At breakfast they have milk and juice at night. There are those who do both, they drink tea....
16. Leda Where the slow river Meets the tide, A red swan lifts red wings And darker beak, And underneath the purple down Of his soft breast Uncurls his coral feet. Through the deep purple Of the dying heat Of sun and mist, The level ray of sun-beam Has caressed The lily with dark breast, And flecked […]...
17. Boo to Buddha So it is eighteen years, Helena, since we met! A season so endears, Nor you nor I forget The fresh young faces that once clove In that most fiery dawn of love. We wandered to and fro, Who knew not how to woo, Those eighteen years ago, Sweetheart, when I and you Exchanged high vows […]...
18. This night is irredeemable This night is irredeemable. Where you are, it is still bright. At the gates of Jerusalem, A black sun is alight. The yellow sun is hurting, Sleep, baby, sleep. The Jews in the Temple’s burning Buried my mother deep. Without rabbi, without blessing, Over her ashes, there, The Jews in the Temple’s burning Chanted the […]...
19. The Mother Here I lean over you, small son, sleeping Warm in my arms, And I con to my heart all your dew-fresh charms, As you lie close, close in my hungry hold. . . Your hair like a miser’s dream of gold, And the white rose of your face far fairer, Finer, and rarer Than all […]...
20. Lines With many a pause and oft reverted eye I climb the Coomb’s ascent: sweet songsters near Warble in shade their wild-wood melody: Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear. Up scour the startling stragglers of the flock That on green plots o’er precipices browze: From the deep fissures of the naked rock The Yew-tree […]...
21. For the Moore Centennial Celebration I ENCHANTER of Erin, whose magic has bound us, Thy wand for one moment we fondly would claim, Entranced while it summons the phantoms around us That blush into life at the sound of thy name. The tell-tales of memory wake from their slumbers, I hear the old song with its tender refrain, What passion […]...
22. Flowers in Winter How strange to greet, this frosty morn, In graceful counterfeit of flower, These children of the meadows, born Of sunshine and of showers! How well the conscious wood retains The pictures of its flower-sown home, The lights and shades, the purple stains, And golden hues of bloom! It was a happy thought to bring To […]...
23. The Spirit of Air Coral and clear emerald, And amber from the sea, Lilac-coloured amethyst, Chalcedony; The lovely Spirit of Air Floats on a cloud and doth ride, Clad in the beauties of earth Like a bride. So doth she haunt me; and words Tell but a tithe of the tale. Sings all the sweetness of Spring Even in […]...
24. Brockley Coomb Lines composed while climbing the left ascent of Brockley Coomb, May 1795 With many a pause and oft reverted eye I climb the Coomb’s ascent: sweet songsters near Warble in shade their wild-wood melody: Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear. Up scour the startling stragglers of the flock That on green plots o’er […]...
25. Wine Bibber I would rather drink than eat, And though I superbly sup, Food, I feel, can never beat Delectation of the cup. Wine it is that crowns the feast; Fish and fowl and fancy meat Are of my delight the least: I would rather drink than eat. Though no Puritan I be, And have doubts of […]...
26. The Shakespeare Memorial Lord Lilac thought it rather rotten That Shakespeare should be quite forgotten, And therefore got on a Committee With several chaps out of the City, And Shorter and Sir Herbert Tree, Lord Rothschild and Lord Rosebery, And F. C. G. and Comyn Carr Two dukes and a dramatic star, Also a clergy man now dead; […]...
27. Sonnet 24 – Let the world's sharpness, like a clasping knife Let the world’s sharpness, like a clasping knife, Shut in upon itself and do no harm In this close hand of Love, now soft and warm, And let us hear no sound of human strife After the click of the shutting. Life to life- I lean upon thee, Dear, without alarm, And feel as safe […]...
28. Cows In Art Class good weather Is like Good women- It doesn’t always happen And when it does It doesn’t Always last. Man is More stable: If he’s bad There’s more chance He’ll stay that way, Or if he’s good He might hang On, But a woman Is changed By Children Age Diet Conversation Sex The moon The absence […]...
29. Brignall Banks O, Brignall banks are wild and fair, And Greta woods are green, And you may gather garlands there, Would grace a summer queen: And as I rode by Dalton Hall, Beneath the turrets high, A Maiden on the castle wall Was singing merrily:- ‘O, Brignall banks are fresh and fair, And Greta woods are green! […]...
30. Women And Roses I. I dream of a red-rose tree. And which of its roses three Is the dearest rose to me? II. Round and round, like a dance of snow In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go Floating the women faded for ages, Sculptured in stone, on the poet’s pages. Then follow women fresh and gay, […]...
31. Rules and Regulations A short direction To avoid dejection, By variations In occupations, And prolongation Of relaxation, And combinations Of recreations, And disputation On the state of the nation In adaptation To your station, By invitations To friends and relations, By evitation Of amputation, By permutation In conversation, And deep reflection You’ll avoid dejection. Learn well your grammar, […]...
32. Correspondences Nature is a temple where the living pillars Let go sometimes a blurred speech- A Forest of symbols passes through a man’s reach And observes him with a familiar regard. Like the distant echoes that mingle and confound In a unity of darkness and quiet Deep as the night, clear as daylight The perfumes, the […]...
33. Alone With Everybody the flesh covers the bone And they put a mind In there and Sometimes a soul, And the women break Vases against the walls And the men drink too Much And nobody finds the One But keep Looking Crawling in and out Of beds. Flesh covers The bone and the Flesh searches For more than […]...
34. Dolor of Autumn The acrid scents of autumn, Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear Everything, tear-trembling stars of autumn And the snore of the night in my ear. For suddenly, flush-fallen, All my life, in a rush Of shedding away, has left me Naked, exposed on the bush. I, on the bush of the globe, Like a […]...
35. Burial Mine is a body that should die at sea! And have for a grave, instead of a grave Six feet deep and the length of me, All the water that is under the wave! And terrible fishes to seize my flesh, Such as a living man might fear, And eat me while I am firm […]...
36. No Beer, No Work The shades of night was fallin’ slow As through New York a guy did go And nail on ev’ry barroom door A card that this here motter bore: “No beer, no work.” His brow was sad, his mouth was dry; It was the first day of July, And where, all parched and scorched it hung, […]...
37. Absence Your words dropped into my heart like pebbles into a pool, Rippling around my breast and leaving it melting cool. Your kisses fell sharp on my flesh like dawn-dews from the limb, Of a fruit-filled lemon tree when the day is young and dim. But a silence vasty-deep, oh deeper than all these ties Now, […]...
38. Song of the Moon The moonlight breaks upon the city’s domes, And falls along cemented steel and stone, Upon the grayness of a million homes, Lugubrious in unchanging monotone. Upon the clothes behind the tenement, That hang like ghosts suspended from the lines, Linking each flat to each indifferent, Incongruous and strange the moonlight shines. There is no magic […]...
39. It's Forth Across The Roaring Foam IT’S forth across the roaring foam, and on towards the west, It’s many a lonely league from home, o’er many a mountain crest, From where the dogs of Scotland call the sheep around the fold, To where the flags are flying beside the Gates of Gold. Where all the deep-sea galleons ride that come to […]...
40. EPIPHANIAS THE three holy kings with their star’s bright ray, They eat and they drink, but had rather not pay; They like to eat and drink away, They eat and drink, but had rather not pay. The three holy kings have all come here, In number not four, but three they appear; And if a fourth […]...