The Giant Book of Poetry (2006)

by William H. Roetzheim

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,

  “to talk of many things:

  of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—

  of cabbages—and kings—

  and why the sea is boiling hot—

  and whether pigs have wings.”

  “But wait a bit,” the Oysters cried,

  “before we have our chat;

  for some of us are out of breath,

  and all of us are fat!”

  “No hurry!” said the Carpenter.

  they thanked him much for that.

  “A loaf of bread,” the Walrus said,

  “is what we chiefly need:

  pepper and vinegar besides

  are very good indeed—

  now if you’re ready, Oysters dear,

  we can begin to feed.”

  “But not on us!” the Oysters cried,

  turning a little blue.

  “After such kindness, that would be

  a dismal thing to do!”

  “The night is fine,” the Walrus said.

  “do you admire the view?

  It was so kind of you to come!

  and you are very nice!”

  The Carpenter said nothing but

  “Cut us another slice:

  I wish you were not quite so deaf—

  I’ve had to ask you twice!”

  “It seems a shame,” the Walrus said,

  “to play them such a trick,

  after we’ve brought them out so far,

  and made them trot so quick!”

  The Carpenter said nothing but

  “The butter’s spread too thick!”

  “I weep for you,” the Walrus said:

  “I deeply sympathize.”

  With sobs and tears he sorted out

  those of the largest size,

  holding his pocket-handkerchief

  before his streaming eyes.

  “O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,

  “You’ve had a pleasant run!

  Shall we be trotting home again?’

  But answer came there none—

  and this was scarcely odd, because

  they’d eaten every one.

  Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928)

  Channel firing1

  That night your great guns, unawares,

  shook all our coffins as we lay,

  and broke the chancel window-squares,

  we thought it was the Judgement-day

  and sat upright. While drearisome

  arose the howl of wakened hounds:

  the mouse let fall the altar-crumb,

  the worm drew back into the mounds,

  the glebe cow drooled. Till God cried, “No;

  it’s gunnery practice out at sea

  just as before you went below;

  the world is as it used to be:

  all nations striving strong to make

  red war yet redder. Mad as hatters

  they do no more for Christés sake

  than you who are helpless in such matters.

  That this is not the judgment-hour

  for some of them’s a blessed thing,

  for if it were they’d have to scour

  hell’s floor for so much threatening … .

  Ha, ha. It will be warmer when

  I blow the trumpet (if indeed

  I ever do; for you are men,

  and rest eternal sorely need).”

  So down we lay again. “I wonder,

  will the world ever saner be,”

  said one, “than when He sent us under

  in our indifferent century!”

  And many a skeleton shook his head.

  “Instead of preaching forty year,”

  my neighbor Parson Thirdly said,

  “I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

  Again the guns disturbed the hour,

  roaring their readiness to avenge,

  as far inland as Stourton Tower,

  and Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.

  I look into my glass1

  I look into my glass,

  and view my wasting skin,

  and say, “Would God it came to pass

  my heart had shrunk as thin!”

  For then, I, undistrest

  by hearts grown cold to me,

  could lonely wait my endless rest

  with equanimity.

  But Time, to make me grieve,

  part steals, lets part abide;

  and shakes this fragile frame at eve

  with throbbings of noontide.

  The oxen2

  Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

  “Now they are all on their knees,”

  an elder said as we sat in a flock

  by the embers in hearthside ease.

  We pictured the meek mild creatures where

  they dwelt in their strawy pen,

  nor did it occur to one of us there

  to doubt they were kneeling then.

  So fair a fancy few would weave

  in these years! Yet, I feel,

  if someone said on Christmas Eve,

  “Come; see the oxen kneel,

  In the lonely barton by yonder coomb

  our childhood used to know,”

  I should go with him in the gloom,

  hoping it might be so.

  The Ruined Maid1

  “O’Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!

  Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?

  And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?”

  “O didn’t you know I’d been ruined?” said she.

  “You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,

  tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;

  and now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers three!”

  “Yes: that’s how we dress when we’re ruined,” said she.

  “At home in the barton you said ’thee’ and ’thou,’

  and ’thik oon,’ and ’theäs oon,” and ’t’other’; but now

  your talking quite fits ’ee for high compa-ny!”—

  “Some polish is gained with one’s ruin,” said she.

  “Your hands were like paws then,

  your face blue and bleak

  but now I’m bewitched by your delicate cheek,

  and your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!”

  “We never do work when we’re ruined,” said she.

  “You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,

  and you’d sigh, and you’d sock; but at present you seem

  to know not of megrims or melancho-ly!”

  “True. One’s pretty lively when ruined,” said she.

  “I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,

  and a delicate face, and could strut about Town!”

  “My dear - a raw country girl, such as you be,

  cannot quite expect that. You ain’t ruined,” said she.

  Sidney Lanier (1842 – 1881)

  The Revenge of Hamish1

  It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck

  in the bracken lay;

  and all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,

  awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran

  down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken

  and passed that way.

  Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril;

  she was the daintiest doe;

  in the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern

  she reared, and rounded her ears in turn.

  Then the buck leapt up, and his head

  as a king’s to a crown did go

  full high in the breeze,

  and he stood as if Death had the form of a deer;

  and the two slim does long lazily stretching arose,

  for their day-dream slowlier came to a close,

  till they woke and were still,

  breath-bound with waiting and wonder and fear.

  Then Alan the huntsman

&nb
sp; sprang over the hillock, the hounds shot by,

  the does and the ten-tined buck

  made a marvelous bound,

  the hounds swept after with never a sound,

  but Alan loud winded his horn in sign

  that the quarry was nigh.

  For at dawn of that day proud Maclean of Lochbuy

  to the hunt had waxed wild,

  and he cursed at old Alan

  till Alan fared off with the hounds

  for to drive him the deer to the lower glen-grounds:

  “I will kill a red deer,” quoth Maclean,

  “in the sight of the wife and the child.”

  So gaily he paced with the wife and the child

  to his chosen stand;

  but he hurried tall Hamish the henchman ahead:

  “Go turn,”—Cried Maclean—

  “if the deer seek to cross to the burn,

  do thou turn them to me:

  nor fail, lest thy back be red as thy hand.”

  Now hard-fortuned Hamish,

  half blown of his breath with the height of the hill,

  was white in the face

  when the ten-tined buck and the does

  drew leaping to burn-ward; huskily rose

  his shouts, and his nether lip twitched,

  and his legs were o’er-weak for his will.

  So the deer darted lightly by Hamish

  and bounded away to the burn.

  But Maclean never bating

  his watch tarried waiting below

  still Hamish hung heavy with fear for to go

  all the space of an hour; then he went,

  and his face was greenish and stern,

  and his eye sat back in the socket,

  and shrunken the eyeballs shone,

  as withdrawn from a vision

  of deeds it were shame to see.

  “Now, now, grim henchman, what is’t with thee?”

  Brake Maclean, and his wrath rose red as a beacon

  the wind hath upblown.

  “Three does and a ten-tined buck made out,”

  spoke Hamish, full mild,

  “and I ran for to turn,

  but my breath it was blown, and they passed;

  I was weak, for ye called ere I broke me my fast.”

  Cried Maclean: “Now a ten-tined buck

  in the sight of the wife and the child

  I had killed if the gluttonous kern

  had not wrought me a snail’s own wrong!”

  Then he sounded,

  and down came kinsmen and clansmen all:

  “Ten blows, for ten tine, on his back let fall,

  and reckon no stroke if the blood follow not

  at the bite of thong!”

  So Hamish made bare, and took him his strokes;

  at the last he smiled.

  “Now I’ll to the burn,” quoth Maclean, “for it still may be,

  if a slimmer-paunched henchman will hurry with me,

  I shall kill me the ten-tined buck

  for a gift to the wife and the child!”

  Then the clansmen departed, by this path and that;

  and over the hill

  sped Maclean with an outward wrath

  for an inward shame;

  and that place of the lashing full Quiet became;

  and the wife and the child stood sad;

  and bloody-backed Hamish sat still.

  But look! red Hamish has risen;

  quick about and about turns he.

  “There is none betwixt me and the crag-top!”

  he screams under breath.

  Then, livid as Lazarus lately from death,

  he snatches the child from the mother,

  and clambers the crag toward the sea.

  Now the mother drops breath; she is dumb,

  and her heart goes dead for a space,

  till the motherhood, mistress of death,

  shrieks, shrieks through the glen,

  and that place of the lashing is live with men,

  and Maclean, and the gillie that told him,

  dash up in a desperate race.

  Not a breath’s time for asking; an eye-glance reveals

  all the tale untold.

  They follow mad Hamish

  afar up the crag toward the sea,

  and the lady cries: “Clansmen, run for a fee!—

  yon castle and lands to the two first hands

  that shall hook him and hold

  fast Hamish back from the brink!”—

  and ever she flies up the steep,

  and the clansmen pant, and they sweat,

  and they jostle and strain.

  But, mother, ’tis vain; but, father, ’tis vain;

  stern Hamish stands bold on the brink,

  and dangles the child o’er the deep.

  Now a faintness falls on the men that run,

  and they all stand still.

  And the wife prays Hamish as if he were God,

  on her knees,

  crying: “Hamish! O Hamish! but please, but please

  for to spare him!” and Hamish

  still dangles the child, with a wavering will.

  On a sudden he turns; with a sea-hawk scream,

  and a gibe, and a song,

  cries: “So; I will spare ye the child if, in sight of ye all,

  ten blows on Maclean’s bare back shall fall,

  and ye reckon no stroke if the blood follow not

  at the bite of the thong!”

  Then Maclean he set hardly his tooth to his lip

  that his tooth was red,

  breathed short for a space,

  said: “Nay, but it never shall be!

  Let me hurl off the damnable hound in the sea!”

  But the wife: “Can Hamish go fish

  us the child from the sea, if dead?

  Say yea!—Let them lash ME, Hamish?”—“Nay!”—

  “Husband, the lashing will heal;

  but, oh, who will heal me

  the bonny sweet bairn in his grave?

  Could ye cure me my heart with the death of a knave?

  Quick! Love! I will bare thee—so—kneel!”

  Then Maclean ’gan slowly to kneel

  with never a word, till presently downward

  he jerked to the earth.

  Then the henchman—he that smote Hamish—

  would tremble and lag;

  “Strike, hard!” quoth Hamish, full stern, from the crag;

  then he struck him, and “One!” sang Hamish,

  and danced with the child in his mirth.

  And no man spake beside Hamish;

  he counted each stroke with a song.

  When the last stroke fell, then he moved him a pace

  down the height,

  and he held forth the child in the heartaching sight

  of the mother, and looked all pitiful grave,

  as repenting a wrong.

  And there as the motherly arms stretched out

  with the thanksgiving prayer—

  and there as the mother crept up

  with a fearful swift pace,

  till her finger nigh felt of the bairnie’s face—

  in a flash fierce Hamish turned round

  and lifted the child in the air,

  and sprang with the child in his arms

  from the horrible height in the sea,

  shrill screeching, “Revenge!” in the wind-rush;

  and pallid Maclean,

  age-feeble with anger and impotent pain,

  crawled up on the crag, and lay flat,

  and locked hold of dead roots of a tree—

  and gazed hungrily o’er, and the blood from his back

  drip-dripped in the brine,

  and a sea-hawk flung down a skeleton fish as he flew,

  and the mother stared white on the waste of blue,

  and the wind drove a cloud to seaward,

  and the sun began to shine.

  The W
aving of the Corn1

  Ploughman, whose gnarly hand yet kindly wheeled

  thy plough to ring this solitary tree

  with clover, whose round plat, reserved a-field,

  in cool green radius twice my length may be—

  scanting the corn thy furrows else might yield,

  to pleasure August, bees, fair thoughts, and me,

  that here come oft together—daily I,

  stretched prone in summer’s mortal ecstasy,

  do stir with thanks to thee, as stirs this morn

  with waving of the corn.

  Unseen, the farmer’s boy from round the hill

  whistles a snatch that seeks his soul unsought,

  and fills some time with tune, howbeit shrill;

  the cricket tells straight on his simple thought—

  nay, ’tis the cricket’s way of being still;

  the peddler bee drones in, and gossips naught;

  far down the wood, a one-desiring dove

  times me the beating of the heart of love:

  and these be all the sounds that mix, each morn,

  with waving of the corn.

  From here to where the louder passions dwell,

  green leagues of hilly separation roll:

  trade ends where yon far clover ridges swell.

  Ye terrible Towns, ne’er claim the trembling soul

  that, craftless all to buy or hoard or sell,

  from out your deadly complex quarrel stole

  to company with large amiable trees,

  suck honey summer with unjealous bees,

  and take Time’s strokes as softly as this morn

  takes waving of the corn.

  To Nannette Falk-Auerbach1

  Oft as I hear thee, wrapt in heavenly art,

  the massive message of Beethoven tell

  with thy ten fingers to the people’s heart

  as if ten tongues told news of heaven and hell,—

  gazing on thee, I mark that not alone,

  ah, not alone, thou sittest: there, by thee,

  beethoven’s self, dear living lord of tone,

  doth stand and smile upon thy mastery.

  Full fain and fatherly his great eyes glow:

  he says, “From Heaven, my child, I heard thee call

  (for, where an artist plays, the sky is low):

  yea, since my lonesome life did lack love’s all,

  in death, God gives me thee: thus, quit of pain,

  daughter, Nannette! in thee I live again.”

  Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 – 1889)

  Binsey Poplars2

  felled 1879

  My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,

  quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,

  all felled, felled, are all felled;