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

Well spotted, Paul. I wonder if you also spotted this recent news item - http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-01/26/content_11917293.htm
Maybe there's hope for us yet.

Yes, maybe there is.

Still, I was worried that the link might be about the Chinese-lanuage version of H2G2. I have sung music in Chinese, but I am *not* going to learn Chinese at this point in my life!

[Parenthetically, I heard my nephew's wife talking about a wonderful school that she and my nephew might send their 5-year-old daughter to. It offers instruction in French, German, Spanish, and Chinese. She seriously hopes little Barbara will learn Chinese. I'm sure little Barbara is bright enough to do that, but us older folks have a lot more trouble learning new languages....]

Sorry, Paul, I missed #580. Sounds like you're suffering from Global Warming. My daughters would be very jealous.

The quatrain you quoted was from "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" as 'transmogrified' by Edward Fitzgerald - #14 in the first edition, 16 or 17 in subsequent ones. I used to know it almost off by heart.

Your nephew and his wife have the right idea. One of my major gripes about the British education system is that they don't teach foreign languages until it's too late - 5 is about the right age, I'd say. Not sure how easy Chinese is to pick up, but I guess it might be useful. Presumably it would be Mandarin?

BTW, that story about the 99 year old poet appeared on many websites - I just linked to the one that seemed to have the fewest adverts.

Right, who sent this message and to whom?

You have the grit and the guts, I know;
You are ready to answer blow for blow
You are virile, combative, stubborn, hard,
But your honor ends with your own back-yard;
Each man intent on his private goal,
You have no feeling for the whole;
What singly none would tolerate
You let unpunished hit the state,
Unmindful that each man must share
The stain he lets his country wear,
And (what no traveller ignores)
That her good name is often yours.

You are proud in the pride that feels its might;
From your imaginary height
Men of another race or hue
Are men of a lesser breed to you:
The neighbor at your southern gate
You treat with the scorn that has bred his hate.

That's from 'A Message To America' by Alan Seeger. Now, an extract from a well-known but not well-loved poem from a Nobel Laureate:

What's that?
An egg?
By the brother Boot it stinks fresh.
Give it to Gillot

That's Samuel Beckett's first published poem, "Whoroscope" - a poem with notes.

And now for something completely different.

For days and days among the trees
I sleep and dream and doze,
Just gently swaying in the breeze
Suspended by my toes;
While eager beavers overhead
Rush through the undergrowth,
I watch the clouds beneath my feet...
How sweet to be a Sloth!

Those are probably song lyrics, waiting4atickle. Michael Flanders wrote the words, and Donald Swann would have written the music. "How sweet to be a sloth" is the title. Other Flanders/Swann songs include "The Hippopotamus Song" [which I sang in college] and "The Gnu."

Teacher: Robert Burns wrote 'To a field mouse.'"

Pupil: Did he get a reply?


Okay, okay, some poems about animals are serious, and others are intended as humorous. Here's an example of the latter. The title is unimportant. The poet's name, please:

Tell me, O Octopus, I begs
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus;
If I were thou, I'd call me Us.

Ogden Nash. A poem, appropriately, in 8 lines.

There are some terrible translations of this next poet, but this one's pretty good, although I can't tell its accuracy:


Glittering-Minded deathless Aphrodite,
I beg you, Zeus’s daughter, weaver of snares,
Don’t shatter my heart with fierce
Pain, goddess,

That's a bit of Sappho, I'll be bound. I don't know the translator or the title. Some have it as 'Hymn to Aphrodite' and others call it after the first line. It's all Greek to me.

That puts me in mind of this, which you will easily identify:-

......................
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse:
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires' 'Islands of the Blest.

The mountains look on Marathon—
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream'd that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

Speaking of Sappho, WFAT - I don't suppose you even had to look it up,but can I urge you and anyone else to read more of the poem and of her. She's astoundingly good when well translated, and the Greeks seem to have found her outstanding in her own tongue - as you know, she was called 'The Tenth Muse'. This is the best site, I think, and it corresponds to my copy at home - see http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Sappho.htm

Yours is from that Greek hero, Byron, and his poem Don Juan.

Now the first verse of a short poem - tho' not a good translation (see line4):

In the sea caves
there's a thirst there's a love
there's an ecstasy
all hard like shells
you can hold them in your palm.

Poet's name - in either form - please. The title given is the first line.

Extra task for 590. Since I've told you the title, see if you can find a better translator and let us know. That one was really bad, and worse each time I look at it.

[steps over ers]

Jabs

The poet's name is Giorgos Seferis.

And?



(Your turn Paul)

Sorry, Jabs. I don't know if this next one is technically a poem, but I've grown rather fond of it...]

Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour,
Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all weather's moods,
by which You cherish all that You have made.

Oh, isn't it marvellous!

It's the Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, one of the prayers of St. Francis. It makes a wonderful poem, but it's probably even better as a prayer. Thanks for sharing it, Paul

This may come close in description, but it may not, according to taste. I think it's beautiful. I dedicate it to Paul, whether he answers it or not. It's by a very underrated poet:

Was it a dream? We sail'd, I thought we sail'd,
Martin and I, down the green Alpine stream,
Border'd, each bank, with pines; the morning sun,
On the wet umbrage of their glossy tops,
On the red pinings of their forest-floor,
Drew a warm scent abroad; behind the pines
The mountain-skirts, with all their sylvan change
Of bright-leaf'd chestnuts and moss'd walnut-trees
And the frail scarlet-berried ash, began.

Poet and title, please.

That's beautiful!

Matthew Arnold wrote it, and he called it, simply, "A Dream"

I would love to have a dream like that.

Here's a poem by someone I knew of as a translator, but this poem is an original one from his pen:

'Tis a dull sight
To see the year dying,
When winter winds
Set the yellow wood sighing:
Sighing, oh! sighing.

When such a time cometh,
I do retire
Into and old room
Beside a bright fire:
Oh, pile a bright fire!

And there I sit
Reading old things,
Of knights and lorn damsels,
While the wind sings—
Oh, drearily sings!

That's 'Old Song' by the millionaire poet Edward Fitzgerald - he married a woman worth a million pounds(in the 19th c!), then inherited even more, acc. to Wikipedia.

Better known for his many versions of a selection from of Omar Khayam's Persian Poetry, (the Rubaiyat), which he turned into a reservoir of pop philosophy.

Now one of two verses of a poem of regret (one might even call the poet himself the Laureate of Regret):


We sat at the window looking out,
And the rain came down like silken strings
That Swithin's day. Each gutter and spout
Babbled unchecked in the busy way
Of witless things:
Nothing to read, nothing to see
Seemed in that room for her and me
On Swithin's day.

Poet and title, as usual, please.