Tag Archives: British Poetry

Rhapsody on a Windy Night by T.S. Eliot [w/ Audio]

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Twelve o'clock.
 Along the reaches of the street
 Held in a lunar synthesis,
 Whispering lunar incantations
 Dissolve the floors of memory
 And all its clear relations,
 Its divisions and precisions,
 Every street lamp that I pass
 Beats like a fatalistic drum,
 And through the spaces of the dark
 Midnight shakes the memory
 As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,
 The street lamp sputtered,
 The street lamp muttered,
 The street lamp said, 'Regard that woman
 Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door
 Which opens on her like a grin.
 You see the border of her dress
 Is torn and stained with sand,
 And you see the corner of her eye
 Twists like a crooked pin.'

The memory throws up high and dry
 A crowd of twisted things;
 A twisted branch upon the beach
 Eaten smooth, and polished
 As if the world gave up
 The secret of its skeleton,
 Stiff and white.
 A broken spring in a factory yard,
 Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
 Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,
 The street lamp said,
 'Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
 Slips out its tongue
 And devours a morsel of rancid butter.'
 So the hand of a child, automatic,
 Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
 I could see nothing behind that child's eye.
 I have seen eyes in the street
 Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
 And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
 An old crab with barnacles on his back,
 Gripped the end of a stick which I held him. 

Half-past three,
 The lamp sputtered,
 The lamp muttered in the dark.
 The lamp hummed:
 'Regard the moon,
 La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
 She winks a feeble eye,
 She smiles into corners.
 She smoothes the hair of the grass.
 The moon has lost her memory.
 A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
 Her hand twists a paper rose,
 That smells of dust and old Cologne,
 She is alone
 With all the old nocturnal smells
 That cross and cross across her brain.'
 The reminiscence comes
 Of sunless dry geraniums
 And dust in crevices,
 Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
 And female smells in shuttered rooms,
 And cigarettes in corridors
 And cocktail smells in bars.

The lamp said,
 'Four o'clock,
 Here is the number on the door.
 Memory!
 You have the key,
 The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair;
 Mount.
 The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
 Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.'
 
The last twist of the knife.

St. Crispin’s Day Speech [from HENRY V] by William Shakespeare [w/ Audio]

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This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
 He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
 Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is nam'd,
 And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
 He that shall live this day, and see old age,
 Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
 And say "Tomorrow is Saint Crispian."
 Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
 And say "These wounds I had on Crispian's day."
 Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
 But he'll remember, with advantages,
 What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
 Familiar in his mouth as household words --
 Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
 Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester --
 Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
 This story shall the good man teach his son;
 And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
 From this day to the ending of the world,
 But we in it shall be remembered --
 We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
 For he today that sheds his blood with me
 Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
 This day shall gentle his condition;
 And gentlemen in England now a-bed
 Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
 And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
 That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day.

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick [w/ Audio]

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Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
   Old Time is still a-flying;
 And this same flower that smiles today
   Tomorrow will be dying. 

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
   The higher he's a-getting,
 The sooner will his race be run,
   And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
   When youth and blood are warmer;
 But being spent, the worse, and worst
   Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
   And while ye may, go marry;
 For having lost but once your prime,
   You may forever tarry.

London by William Blake [w/ Audio]

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I wander thro' each charter'd street,
 Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
 And mark in every face I meet
 Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
 In every Infant's cry of fear,
 In every voice, in every ban,
 The mind-forged manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
 Every black'ning Church appalls;
 And the hapless Soldier's sigh
 Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
 How the youthful Harlot's curse
 Blasts the new born Infant's tear,
 And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

Ariel’s Song by William Shakespeare [from The Tempest]

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Full fathom five thy father lies,
   Of his bones are coral made;
 Those are pearls that were his eyes:
   Nothing of him that doth fade,
 But doth suffer a sea-change
   Into something rich and strange:
 Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell.
          Ding-dong!
     Hark! Now I hear them,
          Ding-dong, bell!

NOTE: From The Tempest Act 1: Scene 2

Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge [w/ Audio]

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In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
     A stately pleasure-dome decree:
 Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
 Through caverns measureless to man
     Down to a sunless sea.
 So twice five miles of fertile ground
 With walls and tower were girdled round:
 And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
 Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;
 And here were forests ancient as the hills,
 Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But O, that deep romantic chasm which slanted
 Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
 A savage place! as holy and enchanted
 As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
 By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
 And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
 As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
 A mighty fountain momently was forced;
 Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 
 Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
 Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
 And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
 It flung up momently the sacred river.
 Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
 Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
 Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,
 And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
 And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from afar
 Ancestral voices prophesying war!

     The shadow of the dome of pleasure
     Floated midway on the waves;
     Where was heard the mingled measure
     From the fountain and the caves.
 It was a miracle of rare device,
 A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

     A damsel with a dulcimer
     In a vision once I saw:
     It was an Abyssinian maid,
     And on her dulcimer she play'd,
     Singing of Mount Abora.
     Could I revive within me,
     Her symphony and song,
     To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
 That with music loud and long,
 I would build that dome in air,
 That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
 And all who heard should see them there,
 And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
 His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
 Weave a circle round him thrice,
 And close your eyes with holy dread,
 For he on honey-dew hath fed,
 And drunk the milk of Paradise.

The Daffodils by William Wordsworth [w/ Audio]

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Source: Wikipedia [Pub Dom Image]
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.

BOOK REVIEW: Modern British Poetry ed. by Louis Untermeyer

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Modern British PoetryModern British Poetry by Louis Untermeyer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page (not the same edition)

 

This is an anthology of 183 poems written by 77 British authors. Given the title, “Modern British Poetry,” the first thing that should be stated is that the original work came out around 1920, and so the bulk of these poems are from the 19th century. That may fit perfectly with your classification of modern poetry, but if you’re looking for present-day poets, this isn’t the book you’re after.

However, the good news is that you might still find some unexpected treasures. Often collections of public domain poetry like this gather poems that are ubiquitous and which are probably already on the shelves of most poetry readers in various collections and anthologies. But of the almost 80 poets included, only a handful will be household names for a general reader—particularly if you aren’t from the UK and thus didn’t get exposed to the more obscure British poets. Of course, there are a number who have stood the test of time: Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, A.E. Housman, William Butler Yeats, Rudyard Kipling, G.K. Chesterton, Alfred Noyes, D.H. Lawrence, Edith Sitwell, and Robert Graves spring to mind. Furthermore, the poems chosen aren’t a straightforward “greatest hits” list. (e.g. “If” isn’t among the four Rudyard Kipling entries.)

As one might expect of a 230 page anthology that contains 183 poems (plus author bios and the occasional footnote), the poems selected are brief. In a few cases, excerpts from longer works are included, but for the most part these are poems that fit comfortably on a single page. This is great for someone trying to get a feel for the various poets and for those who enjoy more compact works over epic poems—which, if we’re being honest, is most of us.

The anthologist, Louis Untermeyer, includes brief bios for each of the poets in front of their entries in the anthology. Generally, each included poet has between one and four poems. While the poems are organized by poet, the poets seem to be organized chronologically (at least as near as I can tell; it begins with Thomas Hardy [1840 – 1928] and ends with Robert Graves [1895 – 1985.])

I read a Kindle version of this work and found it to be far better organized than most of these public domain compilations. It not only had an index that would take one to individual poems or poet bios, but it also contained a hyperlinked index. Unfortunately, I obtained the book some time ago and I couldn’t find the same edition when I looked for it while doing the review. Most of the Kindle editions now seem to bundle Untermeyer’s “Modern American Poetry” with his “Modern British Poetry” but the edition I had was just the British poets.

I recommend this book for poetry readers. In addition to having some exemplary short form poetry from both well-known and forgotten poets, it happens to contain the first poem I ever memorized in it—a powerful little poem by John McCrae entitled “In Flanders Fields” (if you don’t know it, read it; it’s war poetry at its finest.)

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