h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deny'st me is;
It sucked me first, and now it sucks thee.


[The Flea, John Donne.]

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days

[John Masefield: Cargoes]

She sat on a willow-trunk
watching
part of the Battle of Crecy,
the shouts,
the gasps,
the groans

[Miroslav Holub: The Fly]

"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.


Alfred, Lord Tenyson

...the night embraces
Dying warriors, the wild lament
Of their broken mouths.

[Georg Trakl: Grodek]

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.

Wilfred Owen 'Anthem for Doomed Youth'

Even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life.



[Musee des Beaux Arts, W. H. Auden.]

The first was known simply
As 'the dog'. Later writers gave him a name,
Three heads, a collar of seprents,
And a weakness for cake.

U.A. Fanthorpe 'Four Dogs - Cerberus'

Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous,
there shall be no more cakes and ale?


[Shakespeare: Twelfth Night.]

I cannot honour them that settes their part
With Venus and Baccus all theire lyff long

[Thomas Whyatt]

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth

[Keats: Ode to a Nightingale]

Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
To wear away this long age of three hours
Between our after-supper and bed-time?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play,
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?

' Midsummer Night's Dream'

"'I am that merry wanderer of the night.'? I am that giggling - dangerous - totally - bloody - psychotic - menace - to - life-and- limb, more like it."

Neil Gaiman's Sandman - 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

[Appy polly loggies for the diversion to the humourless]

June's edge. The sun
Turns kind. Birds wallow in the sob of pure air

[Louise Gluck: Solstice]

I slept all day,
The birds do thus
That sing a while
At eve for us.

To have you soon
I gave away -
Well satisfied
To give - d day.

Life's not so short
I care to keep
The unhappy days;
I choose to sleep.

(The Birds Do Thus, by Robert Frost)

I would there were no age between ten and
three and twenty, or that youth would sleep
out the rest.

[Shakespeare, A winter's Tale.]

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

I analysed this Sonnet when I was doing my degree - my tutor said she'd never known anyone get so much 'sex' out of so few lines

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me,
And I shall spend my pension
on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals,
and say we've no money for butter.


[Jenny Joseph: When I am Old]

Old age has weathered me: I feel the shift
Of glacial landscapes creaking through my bones.

[Orig.; Free Man of Tryfan.]

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;

[Andrew Marvell: To His Coy Mistress]