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

YAY! I got an extra point! Thanks paul!

Don't forget my earthly heaven/earthly nightmare poem - post 259 over the page...The cybernetic meadow and so on.

Jabs, your poem is "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace" (1967) by Richard Brautigan.

The funny thing is, though, that the world is closer to that vision now than when the poem was written. I fully expect someone to inven t robotic bees to replace the real ones, which seem to be on their way to extinction.

I'll be back with another poem.

paul seems to have, temporarily, deserted us. I shall step in and take his place, if that's OK with the rest of you (the meek shall inherit the earth or something). This poet is a strong favourite of mine, (and she rhymes, Lew), also loved by Heaney, who is not a personal favourite of mine, and Larkin, a personal favourite, but I discovered this poet before I discovered him (for myself of course). She is highly respected by many. This is the whole poem:

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

I am sorry. I forgot all about this thread.

Have a go at 265 - it's quite easy AND there are clues. Then you can have your turn back paul, (if you read this of course )

Jabs

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894),
"When I Am Dead"

Next poem:

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal.
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream


[It should be obvious what the title is. You only really need to come up with the poet...]

The Emperor of Ice-Cream, by Wallace Stevens.

This one is by a writer who was not primarily a poet. There's a reason for this, which will become abundantly clear to anyone who attempts the whole poem, if it's not clear already, (he did win the Nobel Prize though):


Faulhaber, Beeckmann and Peter the Red,
come now in the cloudy avalanche or Gassendi's sun-red crystally cloud
and I'll pebble you all your hen-and-a-half ones
or I'll pebble a lens under the quilt in the midst of day
To think he was my own brother, Peter the Bruiser,
and not a syllogism out of him
no more than if Pa were still in it.

Hey! Pass over those coppers
sweet milled sweat of my burning liver!
Them were the days I sat in the hot-cupboard throwing Jesus out of the skylight.

Well, it's Whoroscope, by Samuel Beckett. The reason he wasn't primarily a poet is that his poetry wasn't very good.

Try this folks:

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it-

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?-

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.




I found it ridiculously difficult to find on the net, even though it's such a well-know poem. I think the Hughes Trust must have got after people, the way they got after biographers. If in difficulty, enjoy this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esBLxyTFDxE

I knew that was Sylvia Plath's work because I saw it when I was looking for "Ariel," Jabs. The title of this one was "Lady Lazarus," which makes sense considering the inplications of the text.

The next poem is a favorite of composers who write music about war, such as Karl Jenkins' recent "The Armed Man":

The trumpet's loud clangor excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger and mortal alarms.
The double double double beat of the thund'ring drum
Cris hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, tis too late for retreat.

Ode for St. Cecilia's Day by John Dryden. A bit noisy for the patron sain to music!

An easy one:

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.

I'll probably make a fool of myself by not checking this, but I think that's "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell.

BTW, sorry to go awol for so long, but I've been away on holiday - fortunately not by air.

Here's a poem and poet that I chanced on very recently. Paul is likely more familiar with him, I'd only heard of his son.

Time is a thief who leaves his tools behind him;
He comes by night, he vanishes at dawn;
We track his footsteps, but we never find him
Strong locks are broken, massive bolts are drawn,

And all around are left the bars and borers,
The splitting wedges and the prying keys,
Such aids as serve the soft-shod vault-explorers
To crack, wrench open, rifle as they please.

Ah, these are tools which Heaven in mercy lends us
When gathering rust has clenched our shackles fast,
Time is the angel-thief that Nature sends us
To break the cramping fetters of our past.

Mourn as we may for treasures he has taken,
Poor as we feel of hoarded wealth bereft,
More precious are those implements forsaken,
Found in the wreck his ruthless hands have left.

Some lever that a casket's hinge has broken
Pries off a bolt, and lo! our souls are free;
Each year some Open Sesame is spoken,
And every decade drops its master-key.

So as from year to year we count our treasure,
Our loss seems less, and larger look our gains;
Time's wrongs repaid in more than even measure,--
We lose our jewels, but we break our chains.

Welcome back WFAT,

By some twist
You're not on my list
I've remedied that oversight
- Do let me know if I didn't do right.

Your poem is The Angel-Thief by Oliver Wendell Holmes. I wonder if he thought it through? I'd quite like time to leave me alone at dawn - that would make me 19 by now

I've never heard of his father either, unless it's Sherlock.

Sorry - my poem is, (first 5 verses) : with a very slight nod to Dante's - terzia rima:


He trilled a carol fresh and free,
He laughed aloud for very glee:
There came a breeze from off the sea:

It passed athwart the glooming flat -
It fanned his forehead as he sat -
It lightly bore away his hat,

All to the feet of one who stood
Like maid enchanted in a wood,
Frowning as darkly as she could.

With huge umbrella, lank and brown,
Unerringly she pinned it down,
Right through the centre of the crown.

Then, with an aspect cold and grim,
Regardless of its battered rim,
She took it up and gave it him.


[It's very well worth reading the whole thing]

Jabs

I'm surprised you haven't heard of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jabs. He was a famous American bigwig who served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court for many years. However, it was his father, of the same name, who wrote the poem.

I believe your extract is from The Three Voices by Lewis Carroll. It's a new one on me and I haven't read through it all, but it seems like one of his best.

I'd heard of the jurist, WFT, not the poet - but the question got me kerfuddled

Do read the rest of the poem - it betrays the feelings he usually manages to hide - of utter loneliness. Pity there are no illustrations that I can find on the Net, as in his separate book of 'Humorous Verse' - US MacMillan (sadly, Out of print)- they're brilliant.


You answered mine correctly. so it's your turn again.

Jabs

I will read it all, Jabs, when I have time to do it justice.

Okay, try this -

We live on the Nile. The Nile we love.
By night we sleep on the cliffs above;
By day we fish, and at eve we stand
On long bare islands of yellow sand.
And when the sun sinks slowly down
And the great rock walls grow dark and brown,
Where the purple river rolls fast and dim
And the Ivory Ibis starlike skim,
Wing to wing we dance around,--
Stamping our feet with a flumpy sound...