Poetry Pleases

Poetry has always been important in my life and there are many poems that appear upon a list of favourites - far too many to appear on this site. One of the pleasures that having a website has given me is the excuse to think through the things that give one pleasure and to select the most meaningful.

The selection of poems here is not meant to be 'good' or 'worthy' poetry, but that which has given me pleasure on and off over the years. This first choice is actually the first that I can remember from childhood - a silly piece but I like it. It is, in fact, just a verse from a bigger work - 'A Song About Myself', by John Keats, more famous for such work as 'Ode to a Nightingale'. This is the fourth verse of the poem:

There was a naughty boy,
And a naughty boy was he,
He ran away to Scotland
The people for to see--
There he found
That the ground
Was as hard,
That a yard
Was as long,
That a song
Was as merry,
That a cherry
Was as red--
That lead
Was as weighty
That fourscore
Was as eighty
That a door
Was as wooden
As in England---
So he stood in his shoes
And he wondered,
He wondered,
He stood in his shoes
And he wondered.

If I was asked to explain why I like that, I couldn't - it just amuses me and gives me pleasure. That is surely one of the most important things about poetry, the pleasure that it gives. The next selection is a definite favourite and there was no question of its place here. John Betjeman is so evocative of a time and place that possibly never existed - the simpler, friendlier place that was England.

A Subaltern's Love Song
by Sir John Betjeman

Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

Her father's euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o'clock news and a lime-juice and gin.

The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

The Hillman is waiting, the light's in the hall,
The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
And there on the landing's the light on your hair.

By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
Oh! Surry twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.

And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning is not a favourite poet - but the following is a favourite from her pen - the romantic in me coming out I suppose.

How Do I Love Thee?
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

I actually didn't come across this one until I was training to be a teacher - I cannot remember the name of the tutor who took us for these particular lessons, but his race and manner remains clear in my memory - his aim was to teach us how to use our voices efficiently in the classroom. We had to memorise it for a session on choral speech, and it has remained in my mind ever since.

The Tiger
by William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And What shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?