Tag: Poetry

The Burning of the Leaves by Laurence Binyon

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I have written before about the way in which familiar novels, stories and poems have taken on new meanings with the unforeseen events that we have all been living through this year.

This poem is a new discovery for me. How did I not find it until now? It is regarded as one of the best about the impact of the blitz on London in 1941, yet lines leap out from it as if they were written recently about what has been going on these last few months.

It is a long poem in five sections, too long to quote in full here, so I have just included the first two sections. There are lines that seem to me startlingly appropriate for the situation we find ourselves in now. I think that Binyon, who was not a young man at this point, poured all his dismay at what he saw happening around him in London into this poem.

The second part describes the sadness of the closed and empty theatres during the blitz. It is sobering to read this during a week when it seems that cinemas may have closed forever.

A poem for this season of autumn then, and truly a poem whose time has come again.

The Burning of the Leaves by Laurence Binyon

I
Now is the time for the burning of the leaves.
They go to the fire; the nostril pricks with smoke
Wandering slowly into a weeping mist.
Brittle and blotched, ragged and rotten sheaves!
A flame seizes the smouldering ruin and bites
On stubborn stalks that crackle as they resist.

The last hollyhock’s fallen tower is dust;
All the spices of June are a bitter reek,
All the extravagant riches spent and mean.
All burns! The reddest rose is a ghost;
Sparks whirl up, to expire in the mist: the wild
Fingers of fire are making corruption clean.

Now is the time for stripping the spirit bare,
Time for the burning of days ended and done,
Idle solace of things that have gone before:
Rootless hope and fruitless desire are there;
Let them go to the fire, with never a look behind.
The world that was ours is a world that is ours no more.

They will come again, the leaf and the flower, to arise
From squalor of rottenness into the old splendour,
And magical scents to a wondering memory bring;
The same glory, to shine upon different eyes.
Earth cares for her own ruins, naught for ours.
Nothing is certain, only the certain spring.

II
Never was anything so deserted
As this dim theatre
Now, when in passive greyness the remote
Morning is here,
Daunting the wintry glitter of the pale,
Half-lit chandelier.

Never was anything disenchanted
As this silence!
Gleams of soiled gilding on curved balconies
Empty; immense
Dead crimson curtain, tasselled with its old
And staled pretence.

Nothing is heard but a shuffling and knocking
Of mop and mat,
Where dustily two charwomen exchange
Leisurely chat.
Stretching and settling to voluptuous sleep
Curls a cat.

The voices are gone, the voices
That laughed and cried.
It is as if the whole marvel of the world
Had blankly died,
Exposed, inert as a drowned body left
By the ebb of the tide.

Beautiful as water, beautiful as fire,
The voices came,
Made the eyes to open and the ears to hear,
The hand to lie intent and motionless,
The heart to flame,
The radiance of reality was there,
Splendour and shame.

Slowly an arm dropped, and an empire fell.
We saw, we knew.
A head was lifted, and a soul was freed.
Abysses opened into heaven and hell.
We heard, we drew
Into our thrilled veins courage of the truth
That searched us through.

But the voices are all departed,
The vision dull.
Daylight disconsolately enters
Only to annul.
The vast space is hollow and empty
As a skull.



Nashe’s Elegy

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I have seen this poem by Thomas Nashe (1567–1601) given several titles; the one at the head of this piece, “Adieu, farewell earth’s bliss”, or “Elegy in Plague Time”.

I think I first came across it in the anthology 100 Poems by 100 Poets.

I once heard it read on the radio by Andrew Motion when he was the poet laureate. He brought it wonderfully to life, with his slightly gloomy voice making the refrain at the end of each verse sound as if it were being pronounced by a vicar in church.

I never imagined that I would live through a time when a poem about the plague took on a new immediacy. It comes from an age when people believed in Christianity as we believe in science today. We like to think we are much more rational these days, but some of the events of this strange last few months have made me wonder if that is really true.

Some things never change, as the poem reminds us.

Nashe’s Elegy

Adieu, farewell earth’s bliss,
This world uncertain is;
Fond are life’s lustful joys,
Death proves them all but toys,
None from his darts can fly.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

Rich men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health;
Physic himself must fade,
All things to end are made.
The plague full swift goes by.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty is but a flower
Which wrinkles will devour;
Brightness falls from the air,
Queens have died young and fair,
Dust hath clos’d Helen’s eye.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

Strength stoops unto the grave,
Worms feed on Hector brave,
Swords may not fight with fate,
Earth still holds open her gate.
Come! come! the bells do cry.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

Wit with his wantonness
Tasteth death’s bitterness;
Hell’s executioner
Hath no ears for to hear
What vain art can reply
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

Haste, therefore, each degree,
To welcome destiny.
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player’s stage;
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
    Lord, have mercy on us!

100 Poems by 100 Poets

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What a great idea this is, 100 Poems by 100 Poets, an anthology published in 1986. The earliest poet is John Skelton (b1460) and the latest Sylvia Plath (b1932) but the poems are arranged alphabetically by the poet’s name, so the older ones are mixed in with the more modern, the British with the American.

For those new to reading poems, it’s a great introduction to some wonderful poetry, a slender volume that’s more accessible in every way than some bulkier anthologies. It was compiled by Harold Pinter, Anthony Astbury and Geoffrey Godbert. Their criteria for inclusion were that the poem should have been written in English, no living poets would be included and that the poem selected should be representative of the poet’s work as a whole.

For those more familiar with poetry, some of the choices, both of poet and poem, may be surprising, but an exercise like this was not intended to be definitive nor could it be. It’s rather reminiscent of those list programmes that used to be on the television, a good starting point for a discussion. Every poetry enthusiast could make their own choice and each would be equally valid.

I myself would choose different poems to represent A E Housman, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and Louis Macneice than the ones here, but that sort of proves my point. I think on the whole it is a bit of a case of “right poet, wrong poem”. Everyone will find one of their favourite poets missing. For me, Walter de la Mare is a serious omission.

Perhaps the best thing is the inclusion of some poems by poets who are known for just one or two poems today, such as “Adieu, Farewell Earth’s Bliss” by Thomas Nashe, “Madam Life’s A Piece in Bloom” by W E Henley and “The Latest Decalogue” by Arthur Hugh Clough.

In fact, this was one of the books that started me on my poetic journey. I would not be able to make these judgments today if this book had not pointed me in the right direction years ago. In fact, I might not be writing this piece at all if I had not come across this book.

If you want to start reading poetry, and are looking for a guide to some of the best written in English over the last 500 years or so, then this book is a very good place to begin.

I’m still working on my own list!

There is one strange and haunting poem included here that I’ve not come across anywhere else, so here it is.

Let it Go by William Empson (1906-1984)

It is this deep blankness is the real thing strange.
   The more things happen to you the more you can’t
      Tell or remember even what they were.

The contradictions cover such a range.
   The talk would talk and go so far aslant.
     You don’t want madhouse and the whole thing there.

Deer by John Drinkwater

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It feels like it happened to someone else now, but just before the lockdown started I had a temporary job. To get there, I took a train down a rural railway line, a sort of reverse commute, if you like, going away from town.

I was sitting in a modern electric train yet passing through countryside that couldn’t have changed too much since the line was built over one hundred years ago.

Every morning in the pale March sunshine, I saw scenes that reminded me of the paintings of Eric Ravilious. Where was that rusting water tank on a muddy track? Where exactly was that row of ancient cottages, or those fields accessible only by footpath? I made a mental note to look on the map and visit them one day.

I saw kestrels and buzzards flying over fields that were full of rabbits and pheasants. There were sheep, horses and, to my great surprise, deer. Did someone own these creatures, or were they wild? One evening, I saw a lone deer exploring the woods on the bank of a narrow river, and I decided they must be wild.

That brings me rather neatly to the poem below. John Drinkwater (1882-1937) was one of the group of poets who lived in or visited the Gloucestershire village of Dymock in the years just before the first world war. Others included Rupert Brooke and Edward Thomas. I don’t know exactly when this poem was written, but it does capture rather well what I felt when I saw the deer.

 

Deer by John Drinkwater  

Shy in their herding dwell the fallow deer.
They are spirits of wild sense. Nobody near
Comes upon their pastures. There a life they live,
Of sufficient beauty, phantom, fugitive,
Treading as in jungles free leopards do,
Printless as evelight, instant as dew.
The great kine* are patient, and home-coming sheep
Know our bidding. The fallow deer keep
Delicate and far their counsels wild,
Never to be folded reconciled
To the spoiling hand as the poor flocks are;
Lightfoot, and swift, and unfamiliar,
These you may not hinder, unconfined
Beautiful flocks of the mind.

 

*old word for cattle

 

 

 

 

Madam Life’s a Piece in Bloom by W E Henley

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I have to apologise for the lack of posts recently. I’ve been in hospital having some rather serious surgery. Face masks all round, no visitors,  and Covid swab tests; it’s hardly surprising that the poem below popped into my mind. W E Henley wrote this in 1877. His Invictus is probably better known today, but I prefer this one. After all, we’ve all been trying to avoid meeting the ruffian on the stair recently, haven’t we.

 

Madam Life’s a Piece in Bloom by W E Henley

Madam Life’s a piece in bloom
Death goes dogging everywhere:
She’s the tenant of the room,
He’s the ruffian on the stair.

You shall see her as a friend,
You shall bilk him once or twice;
But he’ll trap you in the end,
And he’ll stick you for her price.

With his kneebones at your chest,
And his knuckles in your throat,
You would reason — plead — protest!
Clutching at her petticoat;

But she’s heard it all before,
Well she knows you’ve had your fun,
Gingerly she gains the door,
And your little job is done.

 

Battle of Britain by C Day Lewis

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The skies over South East England have been quieter and emptier than we are used to of late. Eighty years ago they were full of warplanes as the Battle of Britain began.

This poem was written in 1970 by the then poet laureate, Cecil Day Lewis, for the thirtieth anniversary.

The big-budget cinematic re-enactment of the battle was released around that time, and if my memory is correct, this poem was printed in the programme for the film.

I like the way the narrator of the poem is a witness to the real events, speaking to someone younger for whom they are history. It deserves to be better known, I think.

 

Battle of Britain by C Day Lewis

What did we earth-bound make of it? A tangle
Of vapour trails, a vertiginously high
Swarming of midges, at most a fiery angel
Hurled out of heaven, was all we could descry.

How could we know the agony and pride
That scrawled those fading signatures up there,
And the cool expertise of those who died
Or lived through that delirium of the air?

Grounded on history now, we re-enact
Such lives, such deaths. Time, laughing out of court
The newspaper heroics and the faked
Statistics, leaves us only to record

What was, what might have been: fighter and bomber,
The tilting sky, tense moves and counterings;
Those who outlived that legendary summer;
Those who went down, its sunlight on their wings.

And you, unborn then, what will you make of it—
This shadow-play of battles long ago?
Be sure of this: they pushed to the uttermost limit
Their luck, skill, nerve. And they were young like you.

 

 

 

Ha’nacker Mill by Hilaire Belloc

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I knew who Belloc was, but I did not know much about him. One of the giants of Edwardian writing and friend of G K Chesterton. I was familiar with Cautionary Tales for Children, of course, perhaps his most famous work today. And then there is that poem The South Country, with its repeated references to “the men who were boys when I was a boy”.

But it wasn’t until I saw a television programme about writers in Sussex that I began to realise the depth of Belloc’s attachment to the Sussex countryside over many years.

That led me to the poem below, from 1923. The ruined windmill and the desolate field suggest the end of a rural way of life that was coming to a close at that time. It’s a lament, really, and a poem that needs to be heard to get the full effect.

 

Ha’nacker Mill by Hilaire Belloc 

Sally is gone that was so kindly,
Sally is gone from Ha’nacker Hill.
And the Briar grows ever since then so blindly
And ever since then the clapper is still. . .
And the sweeps have fallen from Ha’nacker Mill.

Ha’nacker Hill is in Desolation:
Ruin a-top and a field unploughed.
And Spirits that call on a fallen nation,
Spirits that loved her calling aloud,
Spirits abroad in a windy cloud.

Spirits that call and no one answers;
Ha’nacker’s down and England’s done.
Wind and Thistle for pipe and dancers,
And never a ploughman under the Sun.
Never a ploughman. Never a one.

 

 

 

The Belfry by Laurence Binyon

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Like most people, I suppose, I knew Laurence Binyon for the famous lines from his 1914 poem For the Fallen: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old/Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn/At the going down of the sun and in the morning/We will remember them.”

The poem below is in a rather different vein and is completely new to me. I found it in Walter de la Mare’s wonderful anthology Come Hither, which has been a source of inspiration to me for some time now, as it’s full of exactly the sort of poetry I like. The Belfry is rather reminiscent of the style of de la Mare’s own poetry, I feel. It really comes to life if you read it aloud. I don’t know exactly when it was written.

I think it also appeals to me, partly because I too had the childhood experience of climbing up inside an ancient church tower.

 

The Belfry

Dark is the stair, and humid the old walls
Wherein it winds, on worn stones, up the tower.
Only by loophole chinks at intervals
Pierces the late glow of this August hour.

Two truant children climb the stairway dark,
With joined hands, half in glee and half in fear,
The boy mounts brisk, the girl hangs back to hark
If the gruff sexton their light footstep hear.

Dazzled at last they gain the belfry-room.
Barred rays through shutters hover across the floor
Dancing in dust; so fresh they come from gloom
That breathless they pause wondering at the door.

How hushed it is! What smell of timbers old
From cobwebbed beams! The warm light here and there
Edging a darkness, sleeps in pools of gold,
Or weaves fantastic shadows through the air.

How motionless the huge bell! Straight and stiff,
Ropes through the floor rise to the rafters dim.
The shadowy round of metal hangs, as if
No force could ever lift its gleamy rim.

A child’s awe, a child’s wonder, who shall trace
What dumb thoughts on its waxen softness write
In such a spell-brimmed, time-forgotten place,
Bright in that strangeness of approaching night?

As these two gaze, their fingers tighter press;
For suddenly the slow bell upward heaves
Its vast mouth, the cords quiver at the stress,
And ere the heart prepare, the ear receives

Full on its delicate sense the plangent stroke
Of violent, iron, reverberating sound.
As if the tower in all its stones awoke,
Deep echoes tremble, again in clangour drowned,

That starts without a whir of frighted wings
And holds these young hearts shaken, hushed, and thrilled,
Like frail reeds in a rushing stream, like strings
Of music, or like trees with tempest filled,

And rolls in wide waves out o’er the lone land,
Tone following tone toward the far-setting sun,
Till where in fields long-shadowed reapers stand
Bowed heads look up, and lo, the day is done. . . .

 

 

 

The Coombe by Edward Thomas

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I don’t know what brought this one to mind again; perhaps walking in the woods, as I have done so often recently, listening to the birds singing. It’s one of Edward Thomas’ earliest poems, from 1914, I believe.

 

The Coombe

The Combe was ever dark, ancient and dark.
Its mouth is stopped with bramble, thorn, and briar;
And no one scrambles over the sliding chalk
By beech and yew and perishing juniper
Down the half precipices of its sides, with roots
And rabbit holes for steps. The sun of Winter,
The moon of Summer, and all the singing birds
Except the missel-thrush that loves juniper,
Are quite shut out. But far more ancient and dark
The Combe looks since they killed the badger there,
Dug him out and gave him to the hounds,
That most ancient Briton of English beasts.

 

The Way Through the Woods by Rudyard Kipling

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I’m lucky enough to live within ten minutes’ walk of some woods that I’ve known since I was a boy. It’s been a life saver to be able to go there during the lockdown. The place has been transformed, with no planes overhead and much less traffic noise.

Everything smells fresh and the birds all sing at the same time so it’s hard to tell the calls apart. Today we went a little further off the beaten track and surprised a bird in a hole in a tree trunk.

So many trees have grown up since I first knew the place. It’s a nature reserve now and allowed to run wild. It’s hard to pick out the features I knew so long ago and the paths seem to lead in different directions from how I remember them. I found the sunken field with a concrete retaining wall, where they used to race bicycles. It’s completely overgrown now.

As I wander the paths, trying to orientate myself, the opening words of Kipling’s poem come into my mind.

 

The Way Through the Woods

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods.
But there is no road through the woods.