A Vow, a poem by Wendy Cope.

Post 605 - With the royal wedding coming up later this week, a poem on the subject of marriage seemed most appropriate. So I thought immediately of Wendy Cope.

Cope was born in Kent in 1945 and studied History at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She trained as a teacher at Westminster College of Education, Oxford, and taught in primary schools in London from 1967 - 1986. She became Arts and Reviews editor for Contact, the Inner London Education Authority magazine, and continued to teach part-time, before becoming a freelance writer in 1986. She was television critic for The Spectator magazine until 1990. She received a Cholmondeley Award in 1987 and was awarded the Michael Braude Award for Light Verse (American Academy of Arts and Letters) in 1995.She was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award in 2001.

Cope is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and currently lives in Winchester, England. In 1998 she was the listeners' choice in a BBC Radio 4 poll to succeed Ted Hughes as Poet Laureate. Her poetry is perhaps best known for its humor and wit. For example, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis takes up just four lines and captures the irreverent mood of her writing:
It was a dream I had last week
And some sort of record seemed vital.
I knew it wouldn’t be much of a poem,
But I love the title.

I think this would be a great poem for William and Kate to read to one another during the ceremony on Friday next.

A Vow by Wendy Cope.

I cannot promise never to be angry;
I cannot promise always to be kind.
You know what you are taking on, my darling –
It's only at the start that love is blind.
And yet I'm still the one you want to be with
And you're the one for me – of that I'm sure.
You are my closest friend, my favorite person,
The lover and the home I've waited for.
I cannot promise that I will deserve you
From this day on. I hope to pass that test.
I love you and I want to make you happy.
I promise I will do my very best.

Easter, 1916, a poem by William Butler Yeats.

Post 604 - William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939) was an Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years Yeats served as an Irish Senator for two terms. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, and along with Lady Gregory, Edward Martyn, and others, founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." He was the first Irishman so honored.

Easter is always a special time for me, not just as a symbol for resurrection and renewal, but because it's the anniversary of the time where the Irish people asserted their coming of age and finally broke free from English rule. Given the current focus on freedom and rebellion in the Middle East and elsewhere, it seemed to be an appropriate choice this year.

In this poem, Yeats memorializes the leaders who sacrificed their lives in the Easter rebellion of 1916 and pays tribute to their ability to transform themselves and the history of Ireland through the "terrible beauty" of insurrection. I love the beautiful use of language and metaphor in this poem.

Easter 1916, by William Butler Yeats.

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road.
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse -
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

The Owl and the Pussycat, a poem by Edward Lear.

Post 603 - Edward Lear (1812 - 1888) was a British poet and painter known for his absurd wit. His father, a stockbroker, was sent to debtor's prison when he was thirteen and the young Lear was forced to earn a living. He quickly gained recognition for his work and in 1832 was hired by the London Zoological Society to execute illustrations of birds. His first book of poems, A Book of Nonsense, (1846) was composed for the grandchildren of his patron, the Earl of Denby. Around 1836 Lear decided to devote himself exclusively to landscape painting (although he continued to compose light verse). Between 1837 and 1847 Lear traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia. After his return to England, his travel journals were published in several volumes as The Illustrated Travels of a Landscape Painter. Lear's travel books were popular and respected in their day, but are largely forgotten today. Instead, he's remembered as the creator of the modern limerick, and for his many humorous poems. This is one of my own favorites:


The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear.

The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are, you are, you are,
What a beautiful Pussy you are."
Pussy said to the Owl "You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing.
O let us be married, too long we have tarried;
But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows,
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose, his nose, his nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling your ring?"
Said the Piggy, "I will"
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon.
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand.
They danced by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

By the way, a runcible spoon is a small fork with three prongs, one having a sharp edge, that is curved like a spoon. This spoon is used to eat pickles, etc., and presumably sliced quince as well.

How pleasant to know Mr Lear!
Who has written such volumes of stuff!
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few think him pleasant enough.

Broken Promises, a poem by David Kirby.

Post 602 - David Kirby was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1944. He received his B.A. from Louisiana State University, and earned his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University. He's taught all over America and at international programs in Italy, England, France, and Spain. He's now the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University and writes distinctive long-lined narrative poems that braid together high and popular culture, personal memory, philosophy, and humor.
He believes that, "no poem speaks to us as directly as a stop sign or a Star of David. But nobody listens to a Jay-Z song and says, 'Hmm, I wonder what he meant by that,' and a well-made poem works the same way."


Broken Promises by David Kirby.

I have met them in dark alleys, limping and one-armed;
I have seen them playing cards under a single light-bulb
and tried to join in, but they refused me rudely,
knowing I would only let them win.
I have seen them in the foyers of theaters,
coming back late from the interval

long after the others have taken their seats,
and in deserted shopping malls late at night,
peering at things they can never buy,
and I have found them wandering
in a wood where I too have wandered.

This morning I caught one;
small and stupid, too slow to get away,
it was only a promise I had made to myself once
and then forgot, but it screamed and kicked at me
and ran to join the others, who looked at me with reproach
in their long, sad faces.
When I drew near them, they scurried away,
even though they will sleep in my yard tonight.
I hate them for their ingratitude,
I who have kept countless promises,
as dead now as Shakespeare’s children.
“You bastards,” I scream,
“you have to love me — I gave you life!”

Those Who Do Not Dance, a poem by Gabriela Mistral.

Post 601 - Gabriela Mistral was born in Vicuña, Chile, in 1889, but was raised in the small Andean village of Montegrande, where she attended the Primary school taught by her older sister, Emelina Molina. In December 22, 1914, Mistral was awarded first prize in a national literary contest Juegos Florales in Santiago, with the work Sonetos de la Muerte (Sonnets of Death). She had been using the pen name Gabriela Mistral since June 1908 for much of her writing. After winning the Juegos Florales she infrequently used her given name of Lucila Godoy for her publications. She formed her pseudonym from the two of her favorite poets, Gabriele D'Annunzio and Frédéric Mistral or, as another story has it, from a composite of the Archangel Gabriel and the Mistral wind of Provence. She taught elementary and secondary school for many years until her poetry made her famous. She played an important role in the educational systems of Mexico and Chile, was active in cultural committees of the League of Nations, and was Chilean consul in Naples, Madrid, and Lisbon. She held honorary degrees from the Universities of Florence and Guatemala and was an honorary member of various cultural societies in Chile as well as in the United States, Spain, and Cuba. She taught Spanish literature in the United States at Columbia University, Middlebury College, Vassar College, and at the University of Puerto Rico.
In her later years, poor health slowed her traveling and during the last years of her life she made her home in Roslyn, New York; in early January of 1957 she transferred to Hempstead, New York, where she died from pancreatic cancer on January 10, 1957, aged 67. Her remains were returned to Chile nine days later. The Chilean government declared three days of national mourning, and hundreds of thousands of Chileans came to pay her their respects.


Those Who Do Not Dance by Gabriela Mistral.


A crippled child
Said, “How shall I dance?”
Let your heart dance
We said.

Then the invalid said:
“How shall I sing?”
Let your heart sing
We said

Then spoke the poor dead thistle,
But I, how shall I dance?”
Let your heart fly to the wind
We said.

Then God spoke from above
“How shall I descend from the blue?”
Come dance for us here in the light
We said.

All the valley is dancing
Together under the sun,
And the heart of him who joins us not
Is turned to dust, to dust.