by Allie Esiri
Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard,
To give the poor dog a bone;
When she came there,
The cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog got none.
She went to the baker’s
To buy him some bread;
But when she got back
The poor dog was dead.
She went to the joiner’s
To buy him a coffin;
But when she got back
The doggie was laughing.
She took a clean dish
To get him some tripe;
But when she came back
He was smoking his pipe.
She went to the fishmonger’s
To buy him some fish;
And when she came back
He was licking the dish.
She went to the tavern
For white wine and red;
But when she came back
The dog stood on his head.
She went to the hatter’s
To buy him a hat;
But when she came back
He was feeding the cat.
She went to the cobbler’s
To buy him some shoes;
But when she came back
He was reading the news.
The Dame made a curtsy,
The dog made a bow;
The Dame said, ‘Your servant,’
The dog said, ‘Bow-wow.’
This wonderful dog
Was Dame Hubbard’s delight;
He could sing, he could dance,
He could read, he could write.
She gave him rich dainties
Whenever he fed,
And erected a monument
When he was dead.
7 April • from The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales • Geoffrey Chaucer
These are the opening lines to one of the greatest works in English literature, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Written in Middle English, it is sometimes easier to make sense of the language when speaking it aloud. The narrator speaks of the day in April when he first joins pilgrims at a Southwark pub to set out on the road to Canterbury.
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
(So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
Bifil that in that seson on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At nyght were come into that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
Of sondry folk, by áventure y-falle
In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde.
The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
And wel we weren esed atte beste.
And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,
So hadde I spoken with hem everichon,
That I was of hir felaweshipe anon,
And made forward erly for to ryse,
To take oure wey, ther as I yow devyse.
7 April • Mrs Darwin • Carol Ann Duffy
In 1859, Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking theory of evolution The Origin of the Species, which argues that the human race shares a common ancestor with other primates such as gorillas, chimpanzees, monkeys and bonobos. In dating this poem 7 April 1852, Carol Ann Duffy is making the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the idea may have come from Mrs Darwin.
7 April 1852.
Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him –
Something about that Chimpanzee over there
reminds me
of you.
8 April • Home-Thoughts from Abroad • Robert Browning
Browning wrote this poem during his 1845 travels around Italy. This is a poem of nostalgia in its truest sense – it comes from the Greek word ‘nostos’, which means home-coming. Browning might be on holiday, but all he can think of is the beauty of England in springtime, where birds are chirping, flowers blossoming, and nature is coming back to life.
Oh, to be in England
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!
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!
8 April • Awakening • Tony Mitton
The poet himself has written this illuminating paragraph about his poem:
‘The story has been passed down that the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) achieved a sudden and powerful experience of understanding after many years of study and practice. Exhausted by the efforts he had made to get to grips with the meaning of his life, he gave up and sat down in meditation under the Bodhi tree, vowing not to get up until some answer presented itself to him. After sitting all night in meditation he caught sight of the morning star rising. The clarity and power of the moment that followed is sometimes called his Enlightenment (or Awakening). In spite of his already great learning and wisdom, all he could say in response to the experience was, “What is this?”’
The Buddha sat silently
under a tree.
He sat and he waited
determinedly.
He sat like a statue
and scarcely stirred.
Out of his lips
came never a word.
He sat through the hours
of an Orient night,
and, just at the edges
of opening light,
up in the heaven,
so sharp and so far,
glimmered the spark
of a wakening star.
Sitting in stillness,
the sight that he saw
pierced him through
to the innermost core.
And all he could say
in his moment of bliss
was simply and purely,
‘What is this?’
9 April • The Ballad of Semmerwater • William Watson
Semmerwater, more usually spelt ‘Semerwater’, is one of the largest lakes in Yorkshire, and a home to many great poets over the centuries. Sir William Watson was one such poet, and he uses Semerwater as the basis for a story about poverty, charity and selfishness. The moral of the story is that even the proudest of empires will fall if it earn
s the curse of its poor and vulnerable.
Deep asleep, deep asleep,
Deep asleep it lies,
The still lake of Semmerwater,
Under the still skies.
And many a fathom, many a fathom,
Many a fathom below,
In a king’s tower and a queen’s bower
The fishes come and go.
Once there stood by Semmerwater
A mickle town and tall;
King’s tower and queen’s bower,
And the wakeman on the wall.
Came a beggar halt and sore:
‘I faint for lack of bread.’
King’s tower and queen’s bower
Cast him forth unfed.
He knocked at the door of the herdsman’s cot,
The herdsman’s cot in the dale.
They gave him of their oat-cake,
They gave him of their ale.
He cursed aloud that city proud,
He cursed it in its pride;
He cursed it into Semmerwater
Down the brant hillside;
He cursed it into Semmerwater,
There to bide.
King’s tower and queen’s bower,
And a mickle town and tall;
By glimmer of scale and gleam of fin,
Folk have seen them all.
King’s tower and queen’s bower,
And weed and reed in the gloom,
And a lost city in Semmerwater
Deep asleep till Doom.
9 April • Wynken, Blynken and Nod • Eugene Field
In this poem, which is another example of nonsense verse, Eugene Field creates a kind of fantastical bedtime story.
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe,—
Sailed on a river of crystal light
Into a sea of dew.
‘Where are you going, and what do you wish?’
The old moon asked the three.
‘We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,’
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew;
The little stars were the herring-fish
That lived in the beautiful sea.
‘Now cast your nets wherever you wish,—
Never afraid are we!’
So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam,—
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home:
’Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
As if it could not be;
And some folk thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea;
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one’s trundle-bed;
So shut your eyes while Mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:—
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
10 April • The Sugar-Plum Tree • Eugene Field
This next poem by Eugene Field describes a scene just as unusual as Wynken, Blynken and Nod’s fishing excursion! Not only is the fruit of this sugar-plum tree ‘wondrously sweet’, but even the animals that live in it sound delicious: a chocolate cat and a gingerbread dog.
Have you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?
’Tis a marvel of great renown!
It blooms on the shore of the Lollypop sea
In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;
The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet
(As those who have tasted it say)
That good little children have only to eat
Of that fruit to be happy next day.
When you’ve got to the tree, you would have a hard time
To capture the fruit which I sing;
The tree is so tall that no person could climb
To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!
But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,
And a gingerbread dog prowls below –
And this is the way you contrive to get at
Those sugar-plums tempting you so:
You say but the word to that gingerbread dog
And he barks with such terrible zest
That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,
As her swelling proportions attest.
And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around
From this leafy limb unto that,
And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground –
Hurrah for that chocolate cat!
There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes,
With stripings of scarlet or gold,
And you carry away of the treasure that rains,
As much as your apron can hold!
So come, little child, cuddle closer to me
In your dainty white nightcap and gown,
And I’ll rock you away to that Sugar-Plum Tree
In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.
10 April • Do Not Stand at my Grave and Weep • Mary Elizabeth Frye
Today is the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement of 1998 – a key moment in the Northern Ireland peace process. This poem, by Mary Elizabeth Frye, became popular in Great Britain after it was read on BBC Radio by the father of a soldier killed during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Frye first wrote it on a paper shopping bag, and people quickly began to pass the poem around – and, as it grew in fame, many people tried to claim that they had composed it! Nearly seventy years passed before Frye was recognized as its true author.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sun on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn’s rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.
11 April • In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’ • Thomas Hardy
Hardy wrote this poem in 1915, around a year into the First World War. The setting is a typical rural scene: a farmer toils in a field, and a young couple walks past him. The poem seems to say that these aspects of life – love, and simple labour – are timeless, and will outlive war. Incidentally, the title echoes the line from the Book of Jeremiah in the Bible, ‘Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms.’
I
Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.
II
Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.
III
Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War’s annals will clou
d into night
Ere their story die.
11 April • The Tickle Rhyme • Ian Serraillier
Walls and caterpillars don’t usually speak, but in this rhyme by Ian Serraillier the personification is necessary: without their conversation, the mystery of who it was that was tickling the wall’s back may never have been answered!
‘Who’s that tickling my back?’ said the wall.
‘Me,’ said a small
Caterpillar.
‘I’m learning
To crawl.’
12 April • Dear Yuri • Brian Moses
On 12 April 1961, the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space. During the same flight, he was also the first person to orbit earth; when his craft, Vostok 1, was launched, he shouted out ‘Poyekhali!’ – Russian for ‘Let’s go!’
Dear Yuri, I remember you,
the man with the funny name
who the Russians sent into space,
were you desperate for fame?
There surely must have been safer ways
to get into the history books,
perhaps you couldn’t rock like Elvis
or you hadn’t got James Dean’s looks.
Perhaps you couldn’t fight like Ali
or make a political speech
so they packed you into a spaceship
and sent you out of Earth’s reach.
And Yuri, what was it like
to be way out there in space,
the first to break free of Earth’s gravity
and look down on the human race?
Dear Yuri, I wanted to say
that I remember your flight,
I remember your name, Gagarin,
and the newsreel pictures that night.
And you must have pep talked others
when they took off into the blue.
I’ve forgotten their names, but Yuri,
I’ll always remember you.
12 April • Song in Space • Adrian Mitchell
Gagarin spent 108 minutes in space before descending back into the atmosphere and parachuting to safety from his capsule. Gagarin said of his experience that he ‘could have gone flying through space forever’. This poem about space travel by Adrian Mitchell imagines a conversation between the first man in space and the blue earth which he looks down upon.
