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#69953 05/15/02 02:49 AM
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In honor of JazzOctopus, on his completion of his first year at college, a new thread for poetry for summer: Summer Verse (and some are better).

Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cucu.
Groweth sed and bloweth med
and springth the wode nu.
Sing cucu.

Awe bleateth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu;
Bullock sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cucu.

Sing cucu, sing cucu.
Wel singes thu cucu.
Ne swik thu naver nu.



#69954 05/15/02 10:26 AM
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Sumer is icumen in

That's a Spring song !


#69955 05/15/02 10:32 AM
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Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come,
For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom,
And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest,
And love is burning diamonds in my true lover's breast;
She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair,
And I will to my true lover with a fond request repair;
I will look upon her face, I will in her beauty rest,
And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely breast.

The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom of May,
The merry bee is trampling the pinky threads all day,
And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey mossy nest
In the whitethorn bush where I will lean upon my lover's breast;
I'll lean upon her breast and I'll whisper in her ear
That I cannot get a wink o'sleep for thinking of my dear;
I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away
Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat of the day

John Clare


#69956 05/15/02 10:54 AM
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I should have said that the title of the above is "Summer". These two poems are describing symbols of late spring, but perhaps it is better to start there and work through progressively to the full heat of summer.

I really do apologise for including the following quaint variation on "Sumer is icumen in" from Ezra Pound, but I couldn't resist it:


Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!

Sing: Goddamm.

Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,

Damn you, sing: Goddamm.

Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
So ‘gainst the winter’s balm.

Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm,
Sing Goddamm, sing Goddamm, DAMM.

Ezra Pound.

Please blame Ezra for the blasphemy, not me!!!



#69957 05/15/02 11:34 AM
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Hello, dxb--nice to see you! [blowing kiss e]
What is a clock-a-clay, please?


#69958 05/15/02 03:03 PM
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THE TUFT OF FLOWERS

by Robert Frost


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 leveled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
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.’

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

Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
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;

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,
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.

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;
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.

‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’


© 1915 by Robert Frost







#69959 05/15/02 04:09 PM
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Jackie,

A clock-a-clay is a country name for the lady-bird. Don't know why - may try to find out, anyone care to help?

dxb.


#69960 05/15/02 04:51 PM
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I haven't found any explanation for "clock-a-clay," but I was interested to discover that another word for Kookaburra is clockbird, from its habit of calling regularly at dawn and dusk. Please, please, let there be somewhere on this planet a photo of a clockbird and a tickbird amongst some thyme.


#69961 05/15/02 05:24 PM
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A birdie with a yaller bill
Stomp along yo' windy sill.
He squint and shine his eye and said,
Ain't you shamed you sleepyhead?


#69962 05/16/02 01:23 AM
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Thanks, dxb. John Clare wrote a poem about one, I see:

In the cowslip pips I lie,
Hidden from a buzzing fly,
While green grass beneath melies,
Pearled with dew like fishes eyes
Here I lie a clock-a-clay,
Waiting for the time of day.

While grassy forest quakes surprise,
And the wild wind sobs and sighs,
My home rocks as like to fall,
On its pillar green and tall,
While the patt'ring rain drives by,
Clock-a-clay keeps warm and dry.

Day by day and night by night,
All the week I hide from sight,
In the cowslip pips I lie,
In rain and dew still warm and dry,
Day and night and night and day,
Red, black spotted clock-a-clay.

My home shakes in wind and showers,
Pale green pillar topped with flowers
Bending at the wild wind's breath,
Till I touch the grass beneath,
Here I live, lone clock-a-clay,
Watching for the time of day.


Golly, it sounds like it ought to be clock of clay, which makes no sense. Does rhyming slang go back that far?
Something-something fly away?



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