User:JackofOz/Poems for remembrance

Hilaire Belloc

• Lord Lundy (Who was too Freely Moved to Tears, and thereby ruined his Political Career)

Lord Lundy from his earliest years

Was far too freely moved to Tears.

For instance if his Mother said,

"Lundy! It's time to go to Bed!"

He bellowed like a Little Turk.

Or if his father Lord Dunquerque

Said "Hi!" in a Commanding Tone,

"Hi, Lundy! Leave the Cat alone!"

Lord Lundy, letting go its tail,

Would raise so terrible a wail

As moved His Grandpapa the Duke

To utter the severe rebuke:

"When I, Sir! was a little Boy,

An Animal was not a Toy!"

His father's Elder Sister, who

Was married to a Parvenoo,

Confided to Her Husband, Drat!

The Miserable, Peevish Brat!

Why don't they drown the Little Beast?"

Suggestions which, to say the least,

Are not what we expect to hear

From Daughters of an English Peer.

His Grandmamma, His Mother's Mother,

Who had some dignity or other,

The Garter, or no matter what,

I can't remember all the Lot!

Said "Oh! That I were Brisk and Spry

To give him that for which to cry!"

(An empty wish, alas! For she

Was Blind and nearly ninety-three).

The Dear Old Butler thought-but there!

I really neither know nor care

For what the Dear Old Butler thought!

In my opinion, Butlers ought

To know their place, and not to play

The Old Retainer night and day.

I'm getting tired and so are you,

Let's cut the poem into two!

Second Canto

It happened to Lord Lundy then,

As happens to so many men:

Towards the age of twenty-six,

They shoved him into politics;

In which profession he commanded

The Income that his rank demanded

In turn as Secretary for

India, the Colonies, and War.

But very soon his friends began

To doubt if he were quite the man:

Thus if a member rose to say

(As members do from day to day),

"Arising out of that reply . . .!"

Lord Lundy would begin to cry.

A Hint at harmless little jobs

Would shake him with convulsive sobs.

While as for Revelations, these

Would simply bring him to his knees,

And leave him whimpering like a child.

It drove his colleagues raving wild!

They let him sink from Post to Post,

From fifteen hundred at the most

To eight, and barely six--and then

To be Curator of Big Ben!. . .

And finally there came a Threat

To oust him from the Cabinet!

The Duke -- his aged grand-sire -- bore

The shame till he could bear no more.

He rallied his declining powers,

Summoned the youth to Brackley Towers,

And bitterly addressed him thus--

"Sir! you have disappointed us!

We had intended you to be

The next Prime Minister but three:

The stocks were sold; the Press was squared:

The Middle Class was quite prepared.

But as it is! . . . My language fails!

Go out and govern New South Wales!"

The Aged Patriot groaned and died:

And gracious! how Lord Lundy cried!

Raymond Chandler

• Song At Parting

He left her lying in the nude

That sultry night in May

The neighbors thought it rather rude

He liked her best that way

He left a rose beside her head

A meat ax in her brain

A note upon the bureau read

'I won't be back again.'

Arthur Hugh Clough

• Say not the struggle naught availeth

Say not the struggle naught availeth,

The labour and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;

It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light;

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!

But westward, look, the land is bright!

John Philpot Curran

• The Deserter's Meditation

If sadly thinking, with spirits sinking,

Could more than drinking my cares compose,

A cure for sorrow my sighs would borrow

And hope tomorrow would end my woes.

But as in wailing there's naught availing

And Death unfailing will strike the blow

And for that reason, and for a season,

Let us be merry before we go.

To joy a stranger, a wayworn ranger,

In every danger my course I've run

Now hope all ending, and death befriending,

His last aid lending, my cares are done.

No more a rover, or hapless lover,

My griefs are over – my glass runs low;

Then for that reason, and for a season,

Let us be merry before we go.

W. H. Davies

• Leisure

T. S. Eliot

• from Four Quartets

Footfalls echo in the memory.

Down the passage which we did not take.

Towards the door we never opened.

Into the rose garden.

Alan Gould

• Dactyls for a Pounding Head

[1]

• Described by Peter Pierce as "the best hangover poem in our literature" ("Addressing the ultimate questions", Canberra Times, 13 Mar 1999, Panorama, p. 21)

Joyce Grenfell

• If I should go

If I should go before the rest of you

Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone

Nor when I'm gone speak in a Sunday voice

But be the usual selves that I have known

Weep if you must

Parting is hell

But life goes on

So sing as well.

W. E. Henley

• Invictus

The Magnetic Fields

• I Don't Believe in the Sun

They say there's a sun in the sky

They say there's a sun in the sky

but me, I can't imagine why

There might have been one

before you were gone

but now all I see is the night, so

I don't believe in the sun

How could it shine down on everyone

and never shine on me

How could there be

such cruelty.

The only sun I ever knew

was the beautiful one that was you

Since you went away

it's nighttime all day

and it's usually raining too

The only stars there really are

Were shining in your eyes

There is no sun except the one

That never shone on other guys

The moon to whom the poets croon

Has given up and died

Astronomy will have to be revised.

Joaquin Miller

In men whom men condemn as ill

I find so much of goodness still.

In men whom men pronounce divine

I find so much of sin and blot

I do not dare to draw a line (in some versions, I hesitate to draw a line)

Between the two, where God has not.

John Boyle O'Reilly

• Constancy

You gave me the key of your heart, my love,

Then why did you make me knock?

Oh that was yesterday, saints above!

And last night - I changed the lock!

Christina Rossetti

• Up-Hill [2]

Cecil J. Sibbert

• The Outspan

A morbid and decadent youth

Says - 'Beauty is greater than Truth'

And by beauty I mean

The obscure, the obscene -

The diseased, the decayed, the uncouth

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

• Crossing the Bar [3]

Edward Thomas

I have come to the borders of sleep,

The unfathomable deep

Forest where all must lose

Their way, however straight,

Or winding, soon or late;

They cannot choose

Unknown

• As others see us

There were the Scots

Who kept the Sabbath

And everything else

They could lay their hands on

Then there were the Welsh

Who prayed on their knees

And their neighbours

Thirdly there were the Irish

Who never knew what they wanted

But were willing to fight for it anyway

Lastly there were the English

Who considered themselves a self-made nation

Thus relieving the Almighty of a dreadful responsibility

Unknown

• Variant on "Mary had a little lamb"

Mary had a little lamb

Her father shot it dead

Now Mary takes her lamb to school

Between two chunks of bread

Michael Leunig

Is it possible to "win" anything anymore?

Is it possible to "win" anything anymore?

To actually have a victory? I'm not so sure.

To seek an advantage over one's fellow souls?

The concept, I suspect, is extremely full of holes.

To trounce one's fellow creatures and be somehow supreme

It sounds rather like a troubled, angry dream

To take the gold having kicked some loser's arse

And to leave them with the waste paper and plastic and broken glass.

A victory? What in heaven's name is that!

What do you do with it? Wear it like an ostentatious hat?

And if this so-called "victory" is such a fine achievement,

How come it's often followed by a lifetime of bereavement?

Surely there's another, better way of doing well

Without the hope of heaven or the threat of hell.

As I rode out one windy morn

As I rode out one windy morn

To play upon my alpen horn

A plastic bucket passed me by

And caused my little goat to shy

I then dismounted upside down

And balancing upon my crown

I heard the fading eerie sound

Of bucket bouncing on the ground

"Bunka bonka bunka ...... bonk

Dunka ...... donka dunka ...... donk

Bonka .... bunka .... bonka ...... bunk

Donka dunka donka ...... dunk!"

An empty plastic bucket tossed

Upon the wind alone and lost

And bouncing to eternity

Is that a metaphor for Me?

1 May 1999

Life's a room without a floor

Life's a room without a floor;

The entrance and the exit door

Connected by a tightrope

So balancing a bright hope

Against an overwhelming gloom

We make our way across the room

Until ... half way ... perhaps

The rope just maybe snaps.

And yet, regardless of the cause

We make it to the great outdoors.

19 March 2011

If I were a refugee

If I were a refugee

What a nice one I would be,

Not in need of gilding,

My traumas would be character building.

The wars that overturned my life,

Atrocities and endless strife

And persecution hateful,

Would have taught me to be grateful.

I'd have no breaking point at all

Lock me up against a wall

And I would sit and wait

And smile and say "no worries mate".

30 April 2011

When love has been neglected

When love has been neglected

It can only be expected

That in the space love used to fill

A nasty terror cell then will

Take form and soon take hold,

A fearful little mould.

So if you have the wish

Take your Petri dish

And cultivate a cell of love

And by the moon and stars above,

In reverence and in duty,

Nourish it with beauty.

21 May 2011