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

Paul? Is it now your turn?


Jabs

Yes, come on, Paul, you possess the field.

The field? In that case, I want some butterflies in it. :

I WENT to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees; 5
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,

"As all must be," I said within my heart,
"Whether they work together or apart." 10

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim over night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round, 15
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry; 20

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name, 25
Finding them butterfly-weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him,
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim. 30

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own; 35
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach. 40

"Men work together," I told him from the heart,
"Whether they work together or apart

That's A Tuft of Flowers, 1915, A Boy's Will, by Robert Frost, And very moving and imaginative it is too. This thread is teaching me to appreciate the apparent simplicity of Robert Frost more and more.

Now:

Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!
That's out of proportion.

That's the opening from "Toads" by Philip Larkin, Jabs.

Since Paul gave us something by Robert Frost - 'tis the gift to be simple, Jabs - here's something from a famous poet, unknown to me until today, who has a unique association with him.

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out to us today, you may stand on me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
It says come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the rock were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River sang and sings on.

Simple? In what sway, prescisely, is your poem more simple than two verses from 'Toads', WFAT? Is the rest of 'Toads' significantly more complex?

Quite simply, why direct remarks at me?

Typo - precisely

Maya Angelou's inuguration address for Clinton: On the Pulse of Morning.

Simple?

Next:


Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

That's "Praise song for the day," by Elizabeth Alexander.

Next poem:

My love, I need a bit of rest
they sent me off to find the West,
the folks back home said, if you can
go West young man, go West young man.
For forty weeks I walked the walk
with only birds (the ones who talk) ,
for songs and pretty company
until I came to Galilee.
Thick hair has grown upon my chest,
so may I kiss your naked breast

Jabs, my comment in #425 referred to yours in #424 that "This thread is teaching me to appreciate the apparent simplicity of Robert Frost more and more." I was just trying to keep the conversation going.

Paul, that poem was "Go West" by Herbert Nehrlich, one of Poemhunter's most prolific writers. I got some very interesting results when I googled the last two lines without quotation marks.

According to his PH biography, Nehrlich's "Favourite poetic mode of expression is the limerick."

Ten bonus points if you can tell me to whom this is attributed and where he supposedly wrote it.

If I had a wife who would scrub
My cottage at Malmesbury Bubb
I would breakfast at ten
And then sit with some men
Drinking beer all day long in the pub.

I doubt you'll get the previous limerick - it's attribution is highly dubious anyway - so here's one you should be able to find. I don't suppose it has a title, so you might like to say from which collection it is taken.


There was a sweet girl of Decatur
Who went to sea on a freighter.
She was screwed by the master
-An utter disaster-
But the crew all made up for it later.

WFAT - you caught me on a bad day. Apologies are due, which are herefore made.



Jabs

That's ok, Jabs, apology accepted - we all have our bad days.

The first of those two limericks, by the way, is attributed to Rupert Brooke. I don't think you'll find it on the net. I read of it once (many years ago) in a newspaper article, in which a pub landlord claimed that Rupert had written it on the wall of the 'gents' at his hostelry. It seems highly unlikely, but you never know. There's no such place as Malmesbury Bubb, as far as I'm aware, although there is a Melbury Bubb - and a Malmesbury. One might somehow confuse the two after a few pints, I suppose.

The second limerick was written (and published) by a writer more famous for his science fiction. You should be able to find that one without too much trouble.

That's from "Lecherous limericks" by Isaac Asimov.

This next poem consists of the first two lines of an unfinished limerick. You can probably guess who the author is, but can you guess which of the author's books it came from? Here it is:

Some kids who played games about Narnia
Got gradually balmier and balmier....

[I'm looking forward to the movie version of the book ]

Paul, that's from "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", one of C S Lewis' Narnia novels.

New poem:-

FIRST

Be it a girl, or one of the boys,
It is scarlet all over its avoirdupois,
It is red, it is boiled; could the obstetrician
Have possibly been a lobstertrician?
His degrees and credentials were hunky-dory,
But how's for an infantile inventory?
Here's the prodigy, here's the miracle!
Whether its head is oval or spherical,
You rejoice to find it has only one,
Having dreaded a two-headed daughter or son;
Here's the phenomenon all complete,
It's got two hands, it's got two feet,
Only natural, but pleasing, because
For months you have dreamed of flippers or claws.
Furthermore, it is fully equipped:
Fingers and toes with nails are tipped;
It's even got eyes, and a mouth clear cut;
When the mouth comes open the eyes go shut,
When the eyes go shut, the breath is loosed
And the presence of lungs can be deduced.
Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder,
This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder.
A staggering child, a child astounding,
Dazzling, diaperless, dumbfounding,
Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed,
A child to stagger and flabbergast,
Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn,
And the only perfect one ever born.


SECOND

Arrived this evening at half-past nine.
Everybody is doing fine.
Is it a boy, or quite the reverse?
You can call in the morning and ask the nurse.