I find it obtuse and difficult to follow. I feel like I get the general feeling, but most of the lines seemeth to say not what they mean.

I like 'Not to say the struggle naught availeth'...

I think I understand the sentiments. When you feel as though you are struggling on and wondering whether it's worth the effort, I mean, whether it's helping anyone. Well, he's saying, don't say it availeth naught.

Don't look always at the noble beginnings, because sometimes we can't see the light until the very end of the job.

I am thinking this is very apt for me at the moment because we've been away for the weekend to Kent. We went to Dover Castle (I'll put some photos on my blog later). Anyway, we had a tour of the secret wartime tunnels, where the Dunkirk evacuation was planned. There's a hospital and billets for many soldiers under the white cliffs of Dover. It was amazing down there, but they must have wondered whether they were achieving anything at times, working in rather dank and scarey conditions.

Penelope,

Do post those pictures. Dunkirk is one of the world events that led to my birth in a curious chain of: Dunkirk demonstrates the need for a large landing craft to Winston Churchill...Winston Churchill asks Roosevelt and the US Navy for help...the US Navy designs the LST and figures out that such a vessel could be made in inland ship yards...my mother welds LSTs in 1944 and 1945...my father sails on one from Saipan to Okinawa in 1945...they meet on a streetcar in 1946 and find a commonality of the LST...marry...and...me. My only regret in the entire chain is that I would have loved to be one of those odd premature babies...you know normal birth weight at 5 months after the wedding. Alas I came along 2 years after the wedding...how mundane.

Veneer wrote:. . . My only regret in the entire chain is that I would have loved to be one of those odd premature babies...you know normal birth weight at 5 months after the wedding. Alas I came along 2 years after the wedding...how mundane.

While elsewhere battles rage, over books about about a figure called God, for example, here in the land of the 500 all is serene. It's an oasis, no? As proof, I doubt we'll have a single vituperative word over this next poem.

206. "The Owl and the Pussycat," by Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussy-cat 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!'


II

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.


III

'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.

You should be right about the lack of vituperation. I have always loved this poem. My Aunt read it to my cousins so often she knew it by heart, and gave it to all of our children. The only poem more beloved in our family is Disobedience by A A Milne.

Of course I love Edward Lear - all of him. He painted some excellent water colours of Egypt too. It's not fair, all that talent in one person!!

I love childrens' poetry. Perhaps we could start a separate thread?

Most of all I love Hilaire Beloc's:

Tarantella

Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark veranda)?
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
Who hadn't got a penny,
And who weren't paying any,
And the hammer at the doors and the din?
And the hip! hop! hap!
Of the clap
Of the hands to the swirl and the twirl
Of the girl gone chancing,
Glancing,
Dancing,
Backing and advancing,
Snapping of the clapper to the spin
Out and in--
And the ting, tong, tang of the guitar!
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?

Never more;
Miranda,
Never more.
Only the high peaks hoar;
And Aragon a torrent at the door.
No sound
In the walls of the halls where falls
The tread
Of the feet of the dead to the ground,
No sound:
But the boom
Of the far waterfall like doom.

Hilaire Belloc

The above poem has been just about my favourite since childhood, maybe because, although I used to sing - I could never dance. Not a rhythmic bone in my body.

Oh and what about:

Billy, in one of his nice new sashes, Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes; Now, although the room grows chilly, I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy.

-Graham, Harry
Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes,'Tender- Heartedness'.

Penelope wrote:Of course I love Edward Lear - all of him. He painted some excellent water colours of Egypt too. It's not fair, all that talent in one person!!

Definitely! Go for it, Penelope.

Oooooh, I've missed a lot. Just got back and turned my computer back on. I'll catch up!

oblivion wrote:Oooooh, I've missed a lot. Just got back and turned my computer back on. I'll catch up!

Welcome back! I hope you feel nice and refreshed. We have "To a Mouse" coming up soon, which has always been a sentimental favorite of mine.

205. "The Snowstorm," by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I can't recall any other descriptive poems by Emerson. This one has enough nice lines for me to register one solid ding.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.