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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
Nell Flaherty’s Drake
MY NAME it is Nell, right candid I tell,
And I live near a dell I ne’er will deny,
I had a large drake, the truth for to spake,
My grandfather left me when going to die;
He was merry and sound, and would weigh twenty pound,
The universe round would I rove for his sake.
Bad luck to the robber, be he drunken or sober,
That murdered Nell Flaherty’s beautiful drake.
His neck it was green, and rare to be seen,
He was fit for a queen of the highest degree.
His body so white, it would you delight,
He was fat, plump, and heavy, and brisk as a bee.
This dear little fellow, his legs they were yellow,
He could fly like a swallow, or swim like a hake,
But some wicked habbage, to grease his white cabbage,
Has murdered Nell Flaherty’s beautiful drake!
May his pig never grunt, may his cat never hunt,
That a ghost may him haunt in the dark of the night.
May his hens never lay, may his horse never neigh,
May his goat fly away like an old paper kite;
May his duck never quack, may his goose be turned black
And pull down his stack with her long yellow beak.
May the scurvy and itch never part from the britch
Of the wretch that murdered Nell Flaherty’s drake!
May his rooster ne’er crow, may his bellows not blow,
Nor potatoes to grow—may he never have none—
May his cradle not rock, may his chest have no lock,
May his wife have no frock for to shade her backbone.
That the bugs and the fleas may this wicked wretch tease,
And a piercing north breeze make him tremble and shake.
May a four-years’-old bug build a nest in the lug (ear)
Of the monster that murdered Nell Flaherty’s drake.
May his pipe never smoke, may his tea-pot be broke,
And to add to the joke may his kettle not boil;
May he be poorly fed till the hour he is dead.
May he always be fed on lobscouse and fish oil.
May he swell with the gout till his grinders fall out,
May he roar, howl, and shout with a horrid toothache,
May his temple wear horns and his toes carry corns,
The wretch that murdered Nell Flaherty’s drake,
May his dog yelp and howl with both hunger and cold,
May his wife always scold till his brains go astray.
May the curse of each hag, that ever carried a bag,
Light down on the wag till his head it turns gray.
May monkeys still bite him, and mad dogs affright him,
And every one slight him, asleep or awake.
May wasps ever gnaw him, and jackdaws ever claw him,
The monster that murdered Nell Flaherty’s drake.
But the only good news I have to diffuse,
Is of Peter Hughes and Paddy McCade,
And crooked Ned Manson, and big-nosed Bob Hanson,
Each one had a grandson of my beautiful drake.
Oh! my bird he has dozens of nephews and cousins,
And one I must have, or my heart it will break.
To keep my mind easy, or else I’ll run crazy;
And so ends the song of my beautiful drake.
By that prolific writer : Anon.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872 |
GREEN CANDLES
"There's someone at the door" said gold candlestick:
"let her in quick!, let her in quick!"
"there's a small hand groping at the handle:
"Why don't you turn it?" asked green candle.
"Don't go, don't go," said the Heppelwhite chair.
"lest you find a strange lady there."
"Yes, stay where you are," whispered the white wall.
"There is nobody there at all."
"I know her little foot," gray carpet said:
"Who but I should know her light tread?"
"She shall come in." answered the open door.
"And not," said the room, go out any more."
-Humbert Wolfe
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
GHOST HOUSE
by Robert Frost
I DWELL in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. 5
O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed. 10
I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart; 15
The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out. 20
It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
Who share the unlit place with me—
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar. 25
They are tireless folk, but slow and sad,
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,—
With none among them that ever sings,
And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had. 30
"...and the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow"
...walking on a gently undulating road in Connecticut
a few summers back, I spotted purple stems. Stopped
to look, and, sure enough, there were the stems
and leaves of the raspberry. I felt Frost was there,
peeking over my shoulder, him thinking, "I made you stop,
didn't I? Me with my use of purple-stemmed and rolling
rhythm..."
That's why I like it--all
of the best of it--it makes us stop
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Can anyone help here? I periodically stumble across this in my handwritten notes notes from my college days (ancient history!). I have no idea who wrote it. Can anyone help? The tanned blonde
in the green print sack
in the center of the subway car
standing
though there are seats
has had it from
1 teen-age hood
1 lesbian
1 envious housewife
4 men over fifty
(& myself), in short
the contents of this half of the car Our notations are:
long legs, long waist, high breasts (no bra), long
neck, the model slump
the handbag drape and how the skirt
cuts in under a very handsome
set of cheeks
‘stirring dull roots with spring rain’ sayeth the preacher Only a stolid young man
with a blue business suit and the New York Times
does not know he is being assaulted So.
She has us and we her
all the way to downtown Brooklyn
Over the tunnel and through the bridge
to DeKalb Avenue we go
all very chummy She stares at the number over the door
and gives no sign
yet the sign is on her.
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094 |
Keiva, isn't this apt: "April is the cruellest month,
breeding Lilacs out of the dead land,
mixing memory and desire,
stirring dull roots with Spring rain."
-- T.S. Eliot I was able to find, by googling "in the green print sack" that it's apparently a poem called The Once Over by one Paul Blackburn. http://english.rutgers.edu/comic.htm
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Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
RUNAWAY HOLLYHOCKS
for Veloise
Two hollyhocks that I saw stood
Knee deep in grass beside a woods.
Hand in hand they seemed to say,
"Just look at us! We've run away!"
I've seen hollyhocks before
Standing by some country door,
Curtsying shadows in the lane,
Peeking in some kitchen pane,
Or doing sentry by the gate,
But these were lost, and it was late.
I can't believe that any fiend
Would turn them out, or be so mean
As when they bloomed to come and say,
"We don't want hollyhocks today."
I think, perhaps, some love instead,
For one was white, and one was red,
Caused them through the night to say,
"When morning comes, we'll run away."
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Jazzo, thank you! That's been gnawing at the back of my mind for years. [My googling efforts had included text from the end of the poem. slapping own worhead in disgust at self -e] And in all these years I'd never noted the T.S. Eliot reference. [slapping again -e]
Let me register that IMHO, April is not the cruelest month:
April, April,
Laugh thy girlish laughter;
Then, the moment after,
Weep thy girlish tears!
-- William Watson
There's a collegiate story, jazzo, behind that poem you found for me. Remind me to tell you by PM; it's too long to write out now.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872 |
SIMPLES
O bella, biolnda
sei come l'onda
Of cool sweet dew and radiance mild
The moon a web of silence weaves
In the still garden where a child
Gathers the simple salad leaves.
A moon-dew stars her hanging hair,
And moonlight touches her young brow;
And, gathering, she sings an air:
"Fair as the wave is, fair art thou."
Be mine, I pray, a waxen ear
To shield me from her childish croon;
And mine a shieled heart for her
Who gathers simples of the moon.
James Joyce
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189 |
obscure
BEWARE
by Cydias (Greek - c. 400 B.C.)
Beware. There are fawns
who, facing the lion,
die of fright just thinking
the lion might be hungry.
translated by Sam Hamill
The Only WO'N!
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 872 |
THE TIRED MAN
I am a quie gentleman,
And I would sit and dream;
But my wife is on the hillside,
Wild as a hill-stream.
I am a quiet gentleman,
And I would sit and think;
But my wife is walking the whirlwind
Through night as black as ink.
Oh, give me a woman of my race
As well controlled as I,
And let us sit by the fire,
Patient till we die.
Anna Wickham
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