Category Archives: poetry

Week 36: Carentan O Carentan, by Louis Simpson

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Carentan O Carentan

Trees in the old days used to stand
And shape a shady lane
Where lovers wandered hand in hand
Who came from Carentan.

This was the shining green canal
Where we came two by two
Walking at combat-interval.
Such trees we never knew.

The day was early June, the ground
Was soft and bright with dew.
Far away the guns did sound,
But here the sky was blue.

The sky was blue, but there a smoke
Hung still above the sea
Where the ships together spoke
To towns we could not see.

Could you have seen us through a glass
You would have said a walk
Of farmers out to turn the grass,
Each with his own hay-fork.

The watchers in their leopard suits
Waited till it was time,
And aimed between the belt and boot
And let the barrel climb.

I must lie down at once, there is
A hammer at my knee.
And call it death or cowardice,
Don’t count again on me.

Everything’s all right, Mother,
Everyone gets the same
At one time or another.
It’s all in the game.

I never strolled, nor ever shall,
Down such a leafy lane.
I never drank in a canal,
Nor ever shall again.

There is a whistling in the leaves
And it is not the wind,
The twigs are falling from the knives
That cut men to the ground.

Tell me, Master-Sergeant,
The way to turn and shoot.
But the Sergeant’s silent
That taught me how to do it.

O Captain, show us quickly
Our place upon the map.
But the Captain’s sickly
And taking a long nap.

Lieutenant, what’s my duty,
My place in the platoon?
He too’s a sleeping beauty,
Charmed by that strange tune.

Carentan O Carentan
Before we met with you
We never yet had lost a man
Or known what death could do.

Louis Simpson

This great antiwar ballad is all the more devastating for its surface naivety, the broken rhythms and stumbling rhymes mirroring the mind of a young soldier faced for the first time with the realities of combat.

Week 35: The Thespians at Thermopylae, by Norman Cameron

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The Thespians at Thermopylae

The honours that the people give always
Pass to those use-besotted gentlemen
Whose numskull courage is a kind of fear,
A fear of thought and of the oafish mothers
(‘Or with your shield or on it’) in their rear.
Spartans cannot retreat. Why, then, their praise
For going forward should be less than others.

But we, actors and critics of one play,
Of sober-witted judgment, who could see
So many roads, and chose the Spartan way,
What has the popular report to say
Of us, the Thespians at Thermopylae?

Norman Cameron

A poem finely balanced on a knife-edge of irony. The answer to the question in the last two lines seems to be ‘Not a lot!’, so I take Cameron’s meaning to be that a rational man should view the martial virtues with deep distrust; that sometimes, nonetheless, one must suspend one’s own judgment in a greater cause and follow the Spartan path, as Cameron did by serving in World War II; and that one should expect in return little recognition for this sacrifice of principle and life. The poem makes an interesting comparison with Keith Douglas’s ‘Aristocrats’, that great elegy for a ‘gentle/Obsolescent breed of heroes’.

Week 34: Sandpiper, by Elizabeth Bishop

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Sandpiper

The roaring alongside he takes for granted
and that every so often the world is bound to shake.
He runs, he runs to the south, finical, awkward,
in a state of controlled panic, a student of Blake.

The beach hisses like fat. On his left, a sheet
of interrupting water comes and goes
and glazes over his dark and brittle feet.
He runs, he runs straight through it, watching his toes.

– Watching, rather, the spaces of sand between them,
where (no detail too small) the Atlantic drains
rapidly backwards and downwards. As he runs
he stares at the dragging grains.

The world is a mist. And then the world is
Minute and vast and clear. The tide
Is higher or lower. He couldn’t tell you which.
His beak is focused; he is preoccupied,

Looking for something, something, something.
Poor bird, he is obsessed!
The millions of grains are black, white, tan, and gray,
Mixed with quartz grains, rose and amethyst.

Elizabeth Bishop

The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke speaks of ‘that blissful precision at the core of art’, and there is certainly a blissful precision at the core of Elizabeth Bishop’s art: having watched sandpipers on a beach behave in exactly the fashion described I can vouch for the exquisite detail underpinning the metaphysics here.

Week 33: Rising Damp, by U.A.Fanthorpe

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Rising Damp

At our feet they lie low,
The little fervent underground
Rivers of London

Effra, Graveney, Falcon, Quaggy,
Wandle, Walbrook, Tyburn, Fleet

Whose names are disfigured,
Frayed, effaced.

These are the Magogs that chewed the clay
To the basin that London nestles in.
These are the currents that chiselled the city,
That washed the clothes and turned the mills,
Where children drank and salmon swam
And wells were holy.

They have gone under.
Boxed, like the magician’s assistant.
Buried alive in earth.
Forgotten, like the dead.

They return spectrally after heavy rain,
Confounding suburban gardens. They infiltrate
Chronic bronchitis statistics. A silken
Slur haunts dwellings by shrouded
Watercourses, and is taken
For the footing of the dead.

Being of our world, they will return
(Westbourne, caged at Sloane Square,
Will jack from his box),
Will deluge cellars, detonate manholes,
Plant effluent on our faces,
Sink the city.

Effra, Graveney, Falcon, Quaggy,
Wandle, Walbrook, Tyburn, Fleet

It is the other rivers that lie
Lower, that touch us only in dreams
That never surface. We feel their tug
As a dowser’s rod bends to the source below

Phlegethon, Acheron, Lethe, Styx.

U.A. Fanthorpe

Ursula Fanthorpe once said that using rhyme and strict form in poetry was like writing in corsets, to which I say fine, so long as the lack of corsets doesn’t result in flab everywhere. Well, no flab on this one: a brilliant idea for a poem brilliantly executed.

Week 32: Birkett’s Eagle, by Dorothy S. Howard

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Birkett’s Eagle

Adam Birkett took his gun
And climbed from Wasdale Head;
He swore he could spare no more lambs
To keep an eagle fed.

So Birkett went along the Trod
That climbs by Gavel Neese
Till on his right stood Gavel Crag
And leftward fell the screes.

The mist whirled up from Ennerdale
And Gavel Crag grew dim,
And from the rocks on Birkett’s right
The eagle spoke to him.

‘What ails you, Adam Birkett,
That you have climbed so far
To make an end of Lucifer
That was the Morning Star?

If there’s a heaven, Birkett,
There’s certainly a hell;
And he who would kill Lucifer
Destroys himself as well.’

The mist whirled off from Gavel Crag,
And swept towards Beck Head,
And Adam Birkett took his aim
And shot the eagle dead.

He looked down into Ennerdale
To where its body fell
And at his back stood Gavel Crag,
And at his feet lay Hell.

Birkett scrambled off the rocks,
And back onto the Trod,
And on his right lay Ennerdale,
And on his left stood God.

‘What was it, Adam Birkett,
That fell onto the scree?
For I feared it might be Lucifer
That once was dear to me.

‘And from Carlisle to Ravenglass,
From Shap to St Bees Head,
There’s nobody worth vanquishing
If Lucifer is dead.’

Birkett’s dogs leapt all about
As he came off the fell,
But he said ‘I have killed Lucifer
And I am dead as well.’

But Lucifer the Morning Star
Walked thoughtfully away
From the screes beyond the Gavel
Where the eagle’s body lay.

And as he went by Black Sail Pass
And round below Kirk Fell,
He looked like young Tom Ritson
Who knew the Birketts well.

And he came down to Wasdale Head,
Young Ritson to the life,
With an apple in his pocket
Which he gave to Birkett’s wife.

Dorothy S. Howard

I have been quite unable to find out anything about Dorothy S. Howard nor whether she wrote anything else, but if this enigmatic ballad is a one-off it strikes me as remarkably accomplished. The place-names belong to the English Lake District.

Week 31: Woak Hill, by William Barnes

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Woak Hill

When sycamore leaves wer a-spreadèn
    Green-ruddy, in hedges,
Bezide the red doust o’ the ridges,
    A-dried at Woak Hill;

I packed up my goods all a-sheenèn
    Wi’ long years o’ handlèn,
On dousty red wheels ov a waggon,
    To ride at Woak Hill.

The brown thatchen ruf o’ the dwellèn,
    I then wer a-leävèn,
Had shelter’d the sleek head o’ Meäry,
    My bride at Woak Hill.

But now vor zome years, her light voot-vall
    ‘S a-lost vrom the vloorèn.
Too soon vor my jäy an’ my childern,
    She died at Woak Hill.

But still I do think that, in soul,
    She do hover about us;
To ho vor her motherless childern,
    Her pride at Woak Hill.

Zoo–lest she should tell me hereafter
    I stole off ‘ithout her,
An’ left her, uncall’d at house-riddèn,
    To bide at Woak Hill–

I call’d her so fondly, wi’ lippèns
    All soundless to others,
An’ took her wi’ aïr-reachèn hand,
    To my zide at Woak Hill.

On the road I did look round, a-talkèn
    To light at my shoulder,
An’ then led her in at the door-way,
    Miles wide vrom Woak Hill.

An’ that’s why vo’k thought, vor a season,
    My mind wer a-wandrèn
Wi’ sorrow, when I wer so sorely
    A-tried at Woak Hill.

But no; that my Meäry mid never
    Behold herzelf slighted,
I wanted to think that I guided
    My guide vrom Woak Hill.

William Barnes

The beloved wife of the Dorset poet William Barnes died in early middle age, leaving him with several young children. The Dorset dialect may make it look odd at first, but I think that in its aching purity of loss this poem along with his ‘The Wife A-lost’ are two of the great poems of grief in our language.

Week 30: Commuter, by P.J.Kavanagh

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Commuter

Deaf and dumb lovers in a misty dawn
On an open railway platform in the Dordogne
Watched each other’s hands and faces,
Making shapes with their fingers, tapping their palms,
Then stopped and smiled and threw themselves
Open-mouthed into each other’s arms

While the rest of us waited, standing beside our cases.
When it arrived she left him and climbed on the train
Her face like dawn because of their conversation.
Then she stepped down, grabbed his neck in the crook of her arm,
Gave him the bones of her head, the bones of her body violently.
Then climbed on again alone. Her face hardened
In seconds as we moved away from her island.
Tight-lipped she looked around for a seat on the sea.

P.J.Kavanagh

A complex, beautifully observed poem: there is reticent compassion here but more than that an almost envious acknowledgment of an unshared intimacy.

Week 29: To The Etruscan Poets, by Richard Wilbur

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Some poets can say more in six lines than others manage in six hundred…

To The Etruscan Poets

Dream fluently, still brothers, who when young
Took with your mothers’ milk the mother tongue,

In which pure matrix, joining world and mind,
You strove to leave some line of verse behind

Like a fresh track across a field of snow,
Not reckoning that all could melt and go.

Richard Wilbur

 

Week 28: The Coiner, by Rudyard Kipling

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The Coiner

(Circa 1611)

Against the Bermudas we foundered, whereby
This Master, that Swabber, yon Bo’sun and I
(Our pinnace and crew being drowned in the main)
Must beg for our bread through old England again.

For a bite and a sup, and a bed of clean straw,
We’ll tell you such marvels as man never saw,
On a Magical Island which no one did spy
Save this Master, that Swabber, yon Bo’sun and I.

Seven months among Mermaids and Devils and Sprites,
And Voices that howl in the cedars o’ nights,
With further enchantments we underwent there.
Good Sirs, ’tis a tale to draw guts from a bear!

’Twixt Dover and Southwark it paid us our way,
Where we found some poor players were labouring a play;
And, willing to search what such business might be,
We entered the yard, both to hear and to see.

One hailed us for seamen and courteous-ly
Did guide us apart to a tavern near by
Where we told him our tale (as to many of late)
And he gave us good cheer, so we gave him good weight.

Mulled sack and strong waters on bellies well-lined
With beef and black pudding do strengthen the mind;
And seeing him greedy for marvels, at last
From plain salted truth to flat leasing we passed.

But he, when on midnight our reckoning he paid,
Says, ‘Never match coins with a Coiner by trade,
Or he’ll turn your lead pieces to metal so rare
As shall fill him this globe, and leave something to spare…’

We slept where they laid us, and when we awoke
’Was a crown or five shilling in every man’s poke.
We bit them and rang them, and, finding them good,
We drank to that Coiner as honest men should!

Rudyard Kipling

I don’t go much for the more strident side of Kipling, but I do like his ventures down the byways of English history, such as this idiosyncratic take on the possible genesis of ‘The Tempest’.

Week 27: Epitaph for Anton Schmidt, by Thom Gunn

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Epitaph for Anton Schmidt

The Schmidts obeyed, and marched on Poland,
And there an Anton Schmidt, Feldwebel,
Performed uncommon things, not safe,
Nor glamorous, nor profitable.

Was the expression on his face
‘Reposeful and humane good nature’,
Or did he look like any Schmidt
Of slow and undisclosing feature?

I know he had unusual eyes
Whose powers no orders might determine,
Not to mistake the men he saw,
As others did, for gods or vermin.

For five months, till his execution,
Aware that action has its dangers,
He helped the Jews to get away,
– Another race at that, and strangers.

He never did mistake for bondage
The military job, the chances,
The limits; he did not submit
To the blackmail of his circumstance.

I see him in the Polish snow,
His muddy wrappings small protection,
Breathing the cold air of his freedom
And treading a distinct direction.

Thom Gunn

I don’t think this fine poem needs any comment from me.