Lawrence, D.H.: ‘The Optimist’ 77
Lear, Edward:
‘How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear’ 16–17
‘The Owl and the Pussy-Cat’ 1–2
‘The Pobble who has no toes’ 106–8
‘There is a Young Lady whose nose’ 63
‘There was an Old Man in a Boat’ 63
‘There was an Old Person of Dean’ 63
‘There was an Old Person of Ewell’ 63
‘There was an Old Person of Ischia’ 63
Lehrer, Tom: ‘The Elements’ 235–6
‘Leisure’: W.H. Davies 383
‘Let me Die a Youngman’s Death’: Roger McGough 374–5
Levertov, Denise:
‘Settling’ 221–2
‘To the Snake’ 137–8
‘Limerick is furtive and mean, The’: Anon 64
‘Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes’: Strickland Gillilan 60
‘Lion and Albert, The’: Marriott Edgar 332–5
‘Listeners, The’: Walter de la Mare 284–5
‘little tree’: E.E. Cummings 227–8
‘Lord Byron’: W.H Auden 68
‘Lord Chancellor’s Song, The’: W.S. Gilbert 278–81
‘Lord Lundy’: Hilaire Belloc 327–30
‘Love from a Foreign City’: Lavinia Greenlaw 313–14
‘Lover Writes a One-Word Poem, The’: Gavin Ewart 61
‘Lying Doggo’: Simon Williams 72
Macneice, Louis: ‘Bagpipe Music’ 113–14
McCulloch: ‘The Old Lover’ 26
McGough, Roger:
‘A Poem Just For Me’ 209–10
‘Let Me Die a Youngman’s Death’ 374–5
‘New Poem’ 7
‘Survivor’ 70
‘The Midnight Skaters’ 119–21
‘Macavity: the Mystery Cat’: T.S. Eliot 133–5
Magee, John Gillespie: ‘High Flight’ 99
‘Magic Box, The’: Kit Wright 408–9
Mahon, Derek:
‘Everything is Going to be All Right’ 420
‘J.P. Donleavey’s Dublin’ 79
‘Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis’: Wendy Cope 70
‘Matilda’: Hilaire Belloc 330–2
‘Meditation XVII’: John Donne 73
‘Meeting at Night’: Robert Browning 247
‘Merry-Go-Round’: Langston Hughes 178–9
‘Mick Jagger’: Michael Shepherd 69
‘Midnight Skaters’: Roger McGough 119–21
Marlowe, Christopher: ‘The Passionate Shepherd to His Love’ 243–4
Marvell, Andrew: ‘To His Coy Mistress’ 244–6
Masefield, John: ‘Sea-Fever’ 394–5
McNaughton, Colin: ‘Ode to the Invisible Man’ 62
McNish, Hollie: ‘Cocoon’ 143–4
Merchant of Venice, The: William Shakespeare 155
Miles, Alfred Henry: ‘John Bull and His Island’ 261
Milligan, Spike:
‘In the Land of the Bumbley Boo’ 118–19
‘Return to Sorrento (3rd Class)’ 70
‘Things that go bump in the night’ 69
Milne, A.A.:
‘Buckingham Palace’ 210–11
‘Disobedience’ 337–9
‘The King’s Breakfast’ 171–4
‘Sneezles’ 169–71
Milton, John:
‘Book 1’ of Paradise Lost 30–1
‘When I consider how my light is spent’ 88
‘Minstrel Man’: Langston Hughes 287
‘Miranda’: Reginald Arkell 336–7
‘Morning Song’: Sylvia Plath 165–6
‘Music, when soft voices die’: Percy Bysshe Shelley 358–9
‘My First Day at School’: Michaela Morgan 315–16
‘My Love You Have Stumbled Slowly’: Mary Wilson 372
‘My Papa’s Waltz’: Theodore Roethke 179–80
Morgan, Diana: ‘Earl’s Court Road Pub’ 342–3
Morgan, Edwin: ‘Strawberries’ 250–1
Morgan, Michaela: ‘My First Day at School’ 315–16
Morrison, Blake: ‘Against Dieting’ 238
Nash, Ogden:
‘A Flea and a Fly in a Flue’ 258
‘A Word to Husbands’ 239
‘The Tale of Custard the Dragon’ 339–42
‘The Turkey’ 136
Newbolt, Henry: ‘Vitaï Lampada’ 396–7
‘New Poem’: Roger McGough 7
‘Night; and once again’: Masaoka Shiki 66
‘Night Mail’: W.H. Auden 377–9
‘Not Only’: Brian Patten 252–3
‘Not Waving but Drowning’: Stevie Smith 404
‘Now, When the Number of My Years’: Robert Louis Stevenson 363–4
‘Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes’: Thomas Gray 126–7
‘Ode to a Goldfish’: Gyles Brandreth 61
‘Ode to the Invisible Man’: Colin McNaughton
‘Of pygmies, palms and pirates’: Mervyn Peake 117
O’Hara, Frank: ‘Poem’ 349
‘Old Lover, The’: Jane McCulloch 26
‘One, Two, Buckle My Shoe’: Anon 35–6
‘On the Death of Harold Wilson’: Mary Wilson 372
‘Optimist, The’: D.H. Lawrence 77
Osbey, Jack: ‘Gran Can You Rap?’ 312–13
‘Oscar Wilde’: W.H Auden 68
Oswald, Alice: ‘Wedding’ 102
Othello: William Shakespeare 161–2
Owen, Wilfred:
‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ 201
‘Dulce et Decorum est’ 397–8
‘Owl and the Pussy-cat, The’: Edward Lear 1–2
‘Ozymandias’: Percy Bysshe Shelley 91
Palin, Michael: ‘A Handsome young fellow called Frears’ 64
Paradise Lost, Book 1: John Milton 30–1
Parker, Dorothy:
‘Social Note’ 185
‘Unfortunate Coincidence’ 185
‘Parta Quies’: A.E. Housman 366
‘Passionate Shepherd to His Love, The’: Christopher Marlowe 243–4
Paterson, Don: ‘Waking with Russell’ 101
Patten, Brian:
‘Inessential Things’ 142
‘Not Only’ 252–3
‘Reading the Classics’ 212
Peake, Mervyn: ‘Of pygmies, palms and pirates’ 117
‘Phantom Lollipop Lady, The’: Adrian Henri 350–1
‘Phenomenal Woman’: Maya Angelou 300–2
Phillips, Louis: ‘Robert de Niro’ 69
‘Pied Beauty’: Gerard Manley Hopkins 281
Pinter, Harold: ‘I saw Len Hutton in his prime’ 71
‘Pippa’s Song’: Robert Browning 74
Plath, Sylvia: ‘Morning Song’ 165–6
‘Please Mrs Butler’: Allan Ahlberg 175–6
‘Pobble who has no toes, The’: Edward Lear 106–8
Poe, Edgar Allan: ‘Annabel Lee’ 399–400
‘Poem’: Frank O’Hara 349
‘Poetry Grand National, The’: Roger Stevens 302–3
‘poetry reading’: Charles Bukowski 296–8
Porter, Cole: ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ 249
Pound, Ezra: ‘And the days are not full enough’ 77
Prelutsky, Jack: ‘Today Is Very Boring’ 176–7
‘Promise’: Jackie Kay 218
Python, Monty: ‘Horace’ 122–3
Quiller-Couch, Arthur: ‘In youth I dreamed’ 401–2
‘Reading the Classics’: Brian Patten 212
‘Remember’: Christina Rossetti 94
‘Requiescat’: Oscar Wilde 365–6
‘Retreat, The’: Henry Vaughan 407–8
‘Return to Sorrento (3rd Class): Spike Milligan 70
Rice, Tim: ‘You Have To Learn To Live Alone’ 255–6
Richard II: William Shakespeare 153–4
Richard III: William Shakespeare 150–2
‘Richard Cory’: Edwin Arl
ington Robinson 326–7
‘Road Not Taken, The’: Robert Frost 386
‘Robert de Niro’: Louis Phillips 69
Robinson, Edwin Arlington: ‘Richard Cory’ 326–7
Roethke, Theodore:
‘My Papa’s Waltz’ 179–80
‘The Sloth’ 136–7
Romeo and Juliet: William Shakespeare 152–3
‘Rondeau’: Leigh Hunt 73–4
‘Rolling English Road, The’: G.K. Chesterton 381–2
Rosen, Michael: ‘The rhythm of life’ 37–8
Rossetti, Christina:
‘How many seconds in a minute?’ 403
‘Remember’ 94
‘Song’ 361
‘The Lambs of Grasmere’ 129–30
‘Rouen’: May Wedderburn Cannan 198–201
‘Ruthless Rhymes’: Harry Graham 64–5
Sassoon, Siegfried:
‘Everyone Sang’ 197
‘Idyll’ 367
Scannell, Vernon: ‘Growing Pain’ 188
‘Sea-Fever’: John Masefield 394–5
‘Settling’: Denise Levertov 221–2
‘Shakespeare at School’: Wendy Cope 87
Shakespeare, William:
from As You Like It 157–8
from Hamlet 159–60
from Henry V 156–7
from King Lear 162–3
from Othello 161–2
from Richard II 153–4
from Richard III 150–2
from Romeo and Juliet 152–3
from The Merchant of Venice 155
from The Tempest 163–4
‘Sonnet 18’ 86
‘Sonnet 116’ 84
Shelley, Percy Bysshe:
‘Music, when soft voices die’ 358–9
‘Ozymandias’ 91
Shepherd, Michael: ‘Mick Jagger’ 69
‘She Walks in Beauty’: George Gordon, Lord Byron 380
Shiki, Masaoka:
‘After killing a spider’ 66
‘Night’ 66
‘A lightning flash’ 66
‘Shopping Trolleys’: Jenny Boult 306–7
‘Siege of Belgrade, The’: Alaric Alexander Watts 267–7
‘Silver Swan, The’: Anon 410
‘Sir Christopher Wren’: Edmund Clerihew Bentley 67
‘Sir Henry Rider Haggard’: W.H Auden 68
‘Sir Humphrey Davy’: Edmund Clerihew Bentley 67
‘Sloth, The’: Theodore Roethke 136–7
‘Soldier, The’: Rupert Brooke 202
‘Song’: Christina Rossetti 361
‘Song of Myself’: Walt Whitman 360
‘Song of the Smoke, The’: W.E.B. Du Bois 282–3
‘Sonia Snell’: Cyril Fletcher 344–5
‘Sonnet 18’: William Shakespeare 86
‘Sonnet 116’: William Shakespeare 84
‘Sonnet XLII’ from Sonnets from the Portuguese: Elizabeth Barrett Browning 93
‘Sonny’s Lettah (Anti-Sus Poem’: Linton Kwesi Johnson 309–312
Smith, Stevie: ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ 404
‘Sneezles’: A.A. Milne 169–71
‘Social Note’: Dorothy Parker 185
‘Still-Life’: Elizabeth Daryush 415
St Vincent Millay, Edna:
‘First Fig’ 79
‘What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why’ 97
Stevens, Roger: ‘The Poetry Grand National’ 302–3
Stevenson, Robert Louis:
‘Now When the Number of My Years’ 363–4
‘The Land of Counterpane’ 167
Stoppard, Tom: ‘14 March 1879’ 19
‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’: Robert Frost 226–7
‘Strawberries’: Edwin Morgan 250–1
‘Sun Rising’: John Donne 182–3
‘Survivor’: Roger McGough 70
Tagore, Rabindranath: 7
‘Take a Poem’: James Carter 58–9
‘Tale of Custard the Dragon, The’: Ogden Nash 339–42
‘Talking Turkeys’: Benjamin Zephaniah 229–31
‘Tarantella’: Hilaire Belloc 41–2
‘Teabag’: Peter Dixon 121–22
‘Television’: Roald Dahl 291–4
Tempest, Kate:
‘Ballad of a Hero’ 193
from Brand New Ancients 316–17
Tempest, The: William Shakespeare 163–4
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord:
‘Crossing the Bar’ 359
‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ 194–6
The Poet, George: ‘The Beauty of Union’ 253–4
‘There is a Young Lady whose nose’: Edward Lear 63
‘There was an Old Man in a Boat’: Edward Lear 63
‘There was an Old Person of Dean’: Edward Lear 63
‘There was an Old Person of Esher’: Edward Lear 63
‘There was an Old Person of Ischia’: Edward Lear 63
Thích, Nhât Hanh: ‘The Good News’ 417–18
‘This Be The Verse’: Philip Larkin 391–2
‘This Is Just to Say’: William Carlos Williams 76
Thomas, Dylan: ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ 371
Thomas, Edward: ‘Adlestrop’ 405
‘Those Winter Sundays’: Robert Hayden 205–6
‘Thoughts after Ruskin’: Elma Mitchell–6
‘Timothy Winters’: Charles Causley 347–8
‘To Autumn’: John Keats 223–4
‘TO CON-VEY ONE’S MOOD’: John Cooper Clarke 67
‘To His Coy Mistress’: Andrew Marvell 244–6
‘To the Snake’: Denise Levertov 137–8
‘Today Is Very Boring’: Jack Prelutsky 176–7
‘Toussaint L’Ouverture Acknowledges Wordsworth’s Sonnet “To Toussaint L’Ouverture”’: John Agard 90
‘Trees’: Alfred Joyce Kilmer 78
‘Turkey, The’: Ogden Nash 136
‘Two Dead Boys’: Anon 105–6
‘Tyger, The’: William Blake 128–9
‘Unfortunate Coincidence’: Dorothy Parker 185
Updike, John: ‘January’ 406
Vaughan, Henry: ‘The Retreat’ 407–8
‘Vincent Malloy’: Tim Burton 351–4
‘Vitaï Lampada’: Henry Newbolt 396–7
‘Waking with Russell’: Don Paterson 101
‘Walking Away’: Cecil Day-Lewis 181
‘Walrus and the Carpenter, The’: Lewis Carroll 270–4
‘Warning’: Jenny Joseph 390–1
Watts, Alaric Alexander: ‘The Siege of Belgrade’ 267–8
‘Wedding’: Alice Oswald 102
‘Welsh Incident’: Robert Graves 285–7
‘What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why’: Edna St Vincent Millay 97
‘What the Chairman Told Tom’: Basil Bunting 204–5
‘What the Teacher Said When Asked: What Er We Avin for Geography, Miss?’: John Agard 305–6
‘When I consider how my light is spent’: John Milton 88
‘When I Have Fears’: Noël Coward 368–9
‘When We Two Parted’: George Gordon, Lord Byron 183–4
‘When You are Old’: W.B. Yeats 208
Whitman, Walt:
‘Beat! Beat! Drums!’ 268–8
from ‘Song of Myself’ in Leaves of Grass 360
‘Who’s Who’: Benjamin Zephaniah 80
‘Wild Nights’: Emily Dickinson 248
Wilde, Oscar:
‘Desespoir’ 96
‘Requiescat’ 365–6
Williams, Simon: ‘Lying Doggo’ 72
Williams, William Carlos: ‘This Is Just To Say’ 76–7
Wilson, Mary: ‘On the Death of Harold Wilson’ 372
‘Windhover, The’: Gerard Manley Hopkins 95
Wordsworth, William:
‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802’ 89
‘I wandered lonely as a Cloud’ 51–2
Wright, Kit: ‘The Magic Box’ 408�
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Wright, Richard: ‘From across the lake’ 66
‘Wynken, Blynken, and Nod’: Eugene Field 111–12
‘Yarn of the “Nancy Bell,” The’: W.S. Gilbert 274–8
Yeats, W.B.:
‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’ 410–11
‘When You Are Old’ 208
‘Yet Do I Marvel’: Countee Cullen 98
‘You Have To Learn To Live Alone’: Tim Rice 255, 6
‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’: Oscar Hammerstein II 367–8
Zephaniah, Benjamin:
‘Talking Turkeys!!’ 229–31
‘The British’ 411–12
‘Who’s Who’ 80
Index of First Lines
The page references in this index correspond to the print edition from which this ebook was created, and clicking on them will take you to the the location in the ebook where the equivalent print page would begin. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.
A bold hippopotamus was standing one day 138
A cold coming we had of it 384
A flea and a fly in a flue 258
A handsome young fellow called Frears 64
A lightning flash 66
A little nonsense now and then 103
A nasty surprise in a sandwich 303
A shaded lamp and a waving blind 221
A thousand, thousand camp fires every night 389
A woman who my mother knows 118
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) 322
Actors have a dread 72
Adam 60
After killing 66
All the world’s a stage 157
Although at the limericks of Lear 64
An Austrian army, awfully arrayed 267
An honest man here lies at rest 358
An old silent pond 65
And the days are not full enough 77
Any part of piggy 135
Baby in the cauldron fell 65
Be nice to yu turkeys dis Christmas 229
Beat! beat! drums! – Blow! bugles! blow! 268
Because my mouth 287
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode 381
Belinda lived in a little white house 339
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks 397
Billy, in one of his nice new sashes 65
Bitten by fleas and lice 66
Bloody Christmas, here again 229
Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow 163
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art 92
Bring me Sunshine, in your smile 22
Busy old fool, unruly sun 182
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? 152
But that was nothing to what things came out 285
By the time you swear you’re his 185
Cats sleep, anywhere 132
Children born of fairy stock 387
Dancing by the Light of the Moon Page 29
