The Map and the Clock
Page 1
THE MAP AND THE CLOCK
A Laureate’s Choice of the Poetry of Britain and Ireland
edited by
Carol Ann Duffy
and
Gillian Clarke
CONTENTS
Title Page
Preface by CAROL ANN DUFFY
I
I sing my own true story, tell my travels …
(600–1300)
CAEDMON Caedmon’s Hymn
ANON Song to a Child
ANON Jesus and the Sparrows
ANON from Beowulf
ANEIRIN from The Gododdin
BEDE Bede’s Death Song
TALIESIN Death Song for Owain ab Urien
ANON ‘Birdsong from a willow tree’
ANON The Battle of Brunanburh
ANON The King of Connacht
ANON Wulf
ANON ‘Wind fierce to-night’
ANON The Wife’s Lament
ANON Exile
ANON from The Seafarer
ANON ‘There’s a lady in these parts’
ANON The Wish of Manchán of Liath
ANON The Praises of God
ANON The End of Clonmacnois
ANON Winter Cold
ANON Durham
ANON Advice to Lovers
ANON from Sweeney Astray
ANON Writing Out of Doors
ANON from The Mabinogi: Rhiannon
ANON ‘Derry I cherish ever’
ANON I am Taliesin
ANON The Heart of the Wood
ANON This ae Night
II
Bring us in good ale …
(1300–1500)
GEOFFREY CHAUCER from The Parliament of Fowls
from The General Prologue
from The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
DAFYDD AP GWILYM The Seagull
The Thrush
WILLIAM LANGLAND from Piers Plowman
EARL GERALD FITZGERALD In Defence of Women
ANON from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
from Pearl
ROBERT HENRYSON The Prologue
The Toad and the Mouse
DAFYDD AP EDMWND A Girl’s Hair
WILLIAM DUNBAR To a Ladye
ANON ‘I sing of a maiden’
ANON Shirt of a Lad
ANON ‘The silver swan, who living had no note’
ANON The Blackbird of Derrycairn
ANON ‘Dear, if you change, I’ll never choose again’
ANON May Poem
ANON The Wife Who Would a Wanton Be
ANON Bring Us in Good Ale
III
Fair rocks, goodly rivers, sweet woods …
(1500–1600)
ANON ‘Western wind, when wilt thou blow?’
ANON The Breach in the Wall
ANON This is the House That Jack Built
THOMAS WYATT ‘They flee from me that sometime did me seek’
ANNE ASKEW The Ballad which Anne Askew Made and Sang when She was in Newgate
SIR THOMAS MAITLAND Satyr upon Sir Niel Laing
ANNE BACON A— B— on t he learned Bartholo Sylva
QUEEN ELIZABETH I The Doubt of Future Foes
When I Was Fair and Young
JANE SEAGER to Queen Elizabeth
ISABELLA WHITNEY A Communication Which the Author Had to London, Before She Made Her Will
MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS Verses in Italian and French, written by the Queen of Scots to the Queen of England
JAMES, JOHN AND ROBERT WEDDERBURN God send euerie Preist ane wyfe
EDMUND SPENSER from The Faerie Queene
PHILIP SIDNEY Echo
‘Sweet kiss, thy sweets I fain would sweetly indite’
ROBERT GREENE The Description of Sir Geoffrey Chaucer
MICHAEL DRAYTON from Poly-Olbion
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE The Passionate Shepherd to his Love
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE from The Tempest
from King John
‘How like a winter hath my absence been’
from Antony and Cleopatra
from Love’s Labour’s Lost
from Henry V
from King Richard II
THOMAS CAMPION ‘Now winter nights enlarge’
‘There is a garden in her face’
BEN JONSON Inviting a Friend to Supper
To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr William Shakespeare: And What He Hath Left Us
Song to Celia
IV
Church-bells beyond the stars heard …
(1600–1700)
JOHN DONNE The Flea
The Sun Rising
Elegy: To his Mistress Going to Bed
ANON Lady Greensleeves
LADY MARY WROTH ‘Love like a juggler comes to play his prize’
‘Come, darkest night, becoming sorrow best’
ROBERT HERRICK The Argument of His Book
Corinna’s Going a-Maying
Delight in Disorder
Julia in Silks
To the Virgins to Make Much of Time
GEORGE HERBERT Love
Avarice
Prayer
The Glance
ANON The Battle of Inverlochy
ANON ‘Like as the damask rose you see’
ANON from Life and Death
LAOISEACH MAC AN BHAIRD Brothers
ANON The Twa Corbies
EDMUND WALLER Marriage of the Dwarfs
JOHN MILTON from Paradise Lost
FRANCIS SEMPILL Maggie Lauder
MARY MACLEOD Blue Song
ANDREW MARVELL To His Coy Mistress
The Mower to the Glow-Worms
KATHERINE ASTON To my Daughter Catherine on Ashwednesday 1645, finding her weeping at prayers, because I would not consent to her fasting
HENRY VAUGHAN ‘I saw eternity the other night’
Son-days
The Waterfall
Friends Departed
HUW MORUS In Praise of a Girl
MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE Nature’s Cook
MARY CAMERON A Song of Sorrow
KATHERINE PHILIPS An Answer to another persuading a Lady to Marriage
ANON The Downfall of Charing Cross
ANON ‘If all the world were paper’
SÉAMAS DALL MAC CUARTA The Drowned Blackbird
V
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear …
(1700–1800)
JONATHAN SWIFT Verses Said to be Written on the Union
SARAH FYGE The Liberty
AODHÁGAN Ó RATHAILLE A Grey Eye Weeping
The Glamoured
ELIZABETH SINGER To a very young Gentleman at a Dancing-School
JOHN GAY A New Song of New Similes
ALEXANDER POPE Ode on Solitude
ALEXANDER MACDONALD from Song of Summer
MEHETABEL WRIGHT Wedlock: A Satire
ANON On Inclosures
PEADAR Ó DORNÍN The Mother’s Lament for Her Child
JEAN ADAM There’s Nae Luck about the House
THOMAS GRAY Satire upon the Heads; or, Never a Barrel the Better Herring
CHRISTOPHER SMART from Jubilate Agno
ANON On the New Laureate
WILLIAM COWPER ‘Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds’
The Post-Boy
ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD Washing Day
ANON Cock Robbin
EOGHAN RUA Ó SÚILLEABHÁIN Poet to Blacksmith
CHARLOTTE SMITH Written near a port on a dark evening
ROBERT FERGUSSON Caller Oysters
The Daft-Days
PAT O’KELLY The Litany for Doneraile
GEORGE CRABBE from Peter Grimes
WILLIAM BLAKE The School Boy
Holy Thursday<
br />
A Question Answered
MARY ROBINSON The Camp
CATHERINE MARIA FANSHAWE A Riddle
ROBERT BURNS Mary Morison
A Red, Red Rose
Ae Fond Kiss
Green Grow the Rashes
Lament for Culloden
JOANNA BAILLIE Hay Making
CAROLINE OLIPHANT Will Ye No Come Back Again?
The Land o’ the Leal
JAMES HOGG Love is like a dizziness
The Village of Balmaquhapple
VI
Silent icicles, quietly shining to the quiet moon …
(1800–1850)
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
from The Prelude
Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH Floating Island
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Frost at Midnight
A Soliloquy of the full Moon, She being in a Mad Passion –
JAMES ORR Written in Winter
LORD BYRON ‘She walks in beauty, like the night’
‘So, we’ll go no more a roving’
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY England in 1819
Ode to the West Wind
JOHN CLARE Pleasant Sounds
The Moors
Summer Evening
JANET HAMILTON Oor Location
Auld Mither Scotlan’
JOHN KEATS ‘This living hand, now warm and capable’
A Song about Myself
On the Grasshopper and the Cricket
‘Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art’
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING Grief
When Our Two Souls
‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways’
Lord Walter’s Wife
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON ‘Come into the garden, Maud’
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Crossing the Bar
EMILY AND CHARLOTTE BRONTË The Visionary
ROBERT BROWNING Home-Thoughts, from Abroad
Meeting at Night
Porphyria’s Lover
VII
Our days were a joy, and our paths through flowers …
(1850–1900)
MATTHEW ARNOLD Dover Beach
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI A Christmas Carol
The Queen of Hearts
WILLIAM MCGONAGALL The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay
DORA GREENWELL A Scherzo (a Shy Person’s Wishes)
JEAN INGELOW Seven Times One: Exultation
EDWARD LEAR The Owl and the Pussy-Cat
The Akond of Swat
LEWIS CARROLL The Walrus and the Carpenter
THOMAS HARDY Proud Songsters
After a Journey
Neutral Tones
The Convergence of the Twain
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS Felix Randal
God’s Grandeur
Hurrahing in Harvest
The Sea and the Skylark
‘I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day’
ROBERT BRIDGES London Snow
On a Dead Child
MARION BERNSTEIN Manly Sports
ALICE MEYNELL The Lady Poverty
ANON ‘She was poor, but she was honest’
ANON The Woman of Llyn y Fan’s Call to Her Cattle
ANON Sonnet Found in a Deserted Mad-House
OSCAR WILDE Symphony in Yellow
A. D. GODLEY The Motor Bus
DOLLIE RADFORD Soliloquy of a Maiden Aunt
A. E. HOUSMAN ‘When first my way to fair I took’
‘Here dead lie we because we did not choose’
VIOLET JACOB Tam i’ the Kirk
RUDYARD KIPLING The Way Through the Woods
VIII
All the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire …
(1900–1918)
W. B. YEATS The Wild Swans at Coole
The Song of Wandering Aengus
No Second Troy
Easter, 1916
An Irish Airman Foresees his Death
CHARLOTTE MEW The Farmer’s Bride
On the Road to the Sea
The Trees are Down
Rooms
HILAIRE BELLOC Ballade of Genuine Concern
Hannaker Mill
W. H. DAVIES The Villain
WALTER DE LA MARE No
The Birthnight
G. K. CHESTERTON The Rolling English Road
E. C. BENTLEY Ballade of Liquid Refreshment
EDWARD THOMAS Adlestrop
Words
What shall I give?
Tall Nettles
HAROLD MONRO The Nightingale Near the House
Overheard on a Saltmarsh
MARRIOTT EDGAR The Lion and Albert
MARTIN ARMSTRONG Mrs Reece Laughs
ANNA WICKHAM The Fired Pot
Meditation at Kew
SIEGFRIED SASSOON Survivors
The General
Everyone Sang
Falling Asleep
ISAAC ROSENBERG August 1914
Break of Day in the Trenches
ROSE MACAULAY Lunch Hour
IVOR GURNEY The Silent One
First Time In
The Soaking
WILFRED OWEN Anthem for Doomed Youth
Disabled
Dulce et Decorum Est
Insensibility
IX
I think we are in rats’ alley where the dead men lost their bones …
(1918–1945)
T. S. ELIOT The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
from The Waste Land
VITA SACKVILLE-WEST Full Moon
JAMES JOYCE The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly
F. W. HARVEY Ducks
JEAN EARLE A Saturday in the ’20s
HUGH MACDIARMID The Bonnie Broukit Bairn
Back Bedroom
MARION ANGUS Mary’s Song
The Blue Jacket
Alas! Poor Queen
IDRIS DAVIES The Bells of Rhymney
The Angry Summer
SAMUEL BECKETT Cascando
D. H. LAWRENCE Piano
Innocent England
Week-night Service
ROBERT WILLIAMS PARRY The Fox
FRANCES CORNFORD Childhood
To a Fat Lady Seen from a Train
HELEN B. CRUICKSHANK The Ponnage Pool
EDWIN MUIR The Interrogation
The Late Wasp
DAVID JONES from In Parenthesis
EDITH SITWELL Aubade
Still Falls the Rain
FRANCIS LEDWIDGE Desire in Spring
HERBERT READ To a Conscript of 1940
W. H. AUDEN Refugee Blues
Night Mail
In Memory of W. B. Yeats
LOUIS MACNEICE Carrickfergus
Soap Suds
Snow
MALCOLM LOWRY Ghosts in New Houses
What the Gardener Said to Mrs Traill
He Liked the Dead
HENRY REED Lessons of the War
ALUN LEWIS In Hospital: Poona (I)
All Day it has Rained …
The Mountain over Aberdare
DAVID GASCOYNE A Wartime Dawn
KEITH DOUGLAS Canoe
X
Hi yih, yippity-yap, merrily I flow …
(1945–1970)
DYLAN THOMAS Fern Hill
Poem on His Birthday
In my Craft or Sullen Art
SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER Anne Donne
ROBERT GRAVES Tilth
The Christmas Robin
RUTH PITTER An Old Woman Speaks of the Moon
Wild Honey
D. GWENALLT JONES Sin
FRANCES BELLERBY Lovers are Separate
Ends Meet
J. KITCHENER DAVIES from The Sound of the Wind that is Blowing
STEVIE SMITH The River God of the River Mimram in Hertfordshire
Correspondence between Mr Harrison in Newcastle and Mr Sholto Peach Harrison in Hull
Infelice
&n
bsp; PATRICK KAVANAGH The Long Garden
Epic
WALDO WILLIAMS What Is a Man?
E. J. SCOVELL Listening to Collared Doves
KATHLEEN RAINE Northumbrian Sequence: IV
MARGIAD EVANS To my sister Sian
ROBERT GARIOCH Brither Worm
I’m Neutral
Ghaisties
LYNETTE ROBERTS Poem From Llanybri
Poem
ANNE RIDLER For a Child Expected
JAMES COPELAND Black Friday
BRENDA CHAMBERLAIN Dead ponies
SYLVIA PLATH The Bee Meeting
Blackberrying
ROSEMARY TONKS Addiction to an Old Mattress
The Sofas, Fogs and Cinemas
CHRISTOPHER LOGUE I Shall Vote Labour
ADRIAN HENRI Tonight at Noon
ADRIAN MITCHELL Celia, Celia
BASIL BUNTING from Briggflatts
XI
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes, the guildhalls, the carved choirs …
(1970–2000)
W. S. GRAHAM To My Wife at Midnight
Greenock at Night I Find You
Loch Thom
NORMAN MACCAIG Feeding Ducks
Toad
Deceptions?
R. S. THOMAS The Bright Field
The Moon in Lleyn
Zero
NORMAN NICHOLSON The Elm Decline
CHARLES CAUSLEY Eden Rock
JOHN HEATH-STUBBS The Green Man’s Last Will and Testament
ELMA MITCHELL Thoughts after Ruskin
EDWIN MORGAN Midge
Sir James Murray
Canedolia
LESLIE NORRIS Barn Owl
Water
GEORGE MACKAY BROWN Butter
Hamnavoe Market
Haddock Fishermen
PHILIP LARKIN Money
Water
Going, Going
KAREN GERSHON I Was Not There
DANNIE ABSE The Boasts of Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd
Epithalamion
PATRICIA BEER The Lost Woman
ALASTAIR REID Scotland
ELIZABETH JENNINGS The Child’s Story
My Grandmother
A Bird in the House
IAN CRICHTON SMITH When I am Reading
Owl and Mouse
You Are at the Bottom of My Mind
FREDA DOWNIE Some Poetry
THOM GUNN Hampstead: the Horse Chestnut Trees
U. A. FANTHORPE Father in the Railway Buffet
TED HUGHES Football at Slack
Wind
Epiphany
ANTHONY CONRAN Elegy for the Welsh Dead, in the Falkland Islands, 1982
GEOFFREY HILL from Mercian Hymns
SEAMUS HEANEY Punishment
The Harvest Bow
The Guttural Muse
A Keen for the Coins
The Blackbird of Glanmore
XII
if a toktaboot thi trooth lik wanna yoo scruff yi widny thingk it wuz troo …