The Hot 100

[DWill]

97. "Home Thoughts from Abroad," by Robert Browning. A little Robert Frost-ish and gets 2 dings. Very sorry Penelope!

O, TO be in England
Now that April 's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

96. "The Eagle," Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I'll take it. 3 dings.

FRAGMENT

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

[Saffron]

97. "Hone Thoughts from Abroad," by Robert Browning.


And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!


That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!

2 dings. For some reason I really like the rhym in the first set of lines above and the wording of the second set of lines.

96. "The Eagle," Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I'll take it. 3 dings.

3 dings

[oblivion]

What can I add? I'm with the both of you on the two poems. Tennyson seems more pulled together and tight than Browning.

[Penelope]

97. "Hone Thoughts from Abroad," by Robert Browning. A little Robert Frost-ish and gets 2 dings. Very sorry Penelope!

Hone Thoughts - that's what this thread is doing for my poetry criticism.

I do like it - although April is often soggy 'oop North' in fact it is a cruel month.

The boys at my school paraphrased this poem - so when I hear it a remember them;

Oh to be at Ewood, Now that Shearing's here,
Oh to be at Ewood a giving of a Cheer.....etc....etc..

Ewood was the local Blackburn Rovers football ground, and it might not have been Shearing....just insert a new players name.....

As for 'The Eagle' that was another one we learned by heart at Junior School and I have very fond memories because the teacher asked the class if they knew the name for an Eagles' claw, and I said, Talon, and he gave me a penny.

I always was a bit 'wordy' - not a good speller, but I knew a lot of words.

Walter de la Mare's poem:-

Silver

Slowly, silently now the moon
walks the night in her silver shoon
This way and that, she peers and sees
Silver Fruit among silver trees.

From their silvery coot the white breasts peep
of doves in a silver feathered sleep......

I got hit for giggling at white breasts peeping! So I don't like this one.

[Saffron]

97. "Hone Thoughts from Abroad," by Robert Browning. A little Robert Frost-ish and gets 2 dings. Very sorry Penelope!

Hone Thoughts - that's what this thread is doing for my poetry criticism.

I do like it - although April is often soggy 'oop North' in fact it is a cruel month.

The cruellest month! 7 of my most favorite lines of poetry!

The Waste Land -- T.S. Eliot

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering 5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

[Penelope]

Saffron:

The Waste Land -- T.S. Eliot

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering 5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Oh, it's fabulous isn't it.

Although I also like:

The muttering retreats of
Restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
and Sawdust restaurants with oyster shells.

[lady of shallot]

Just so I'm on board for notifications.

I love the Listeners. One of the poems we have read a lot. Great to read to kids!
I'll be back to read the others.

BTW, I find I can not give anything "dings" My background has a lot of dealing with antiques and a ding in that world is a negative thing. I know not meant that way here but still . . .

[Penelope]

I was just thinking that you might not know what I mean about it being 'Grim up North' - so I thought I'd post a beautiful picture of the grim sort of place where I grew up:-



It's OK really, just short of a host of golden daffodils and they'll be here before long.

[lady of shallot]

Oh, I love, the D.H. Lawrence which I have never read before. It is wonderful. I can see it all. I would not have killed the snake, nor (I hope) thrown a log at him.

The T.S. Eliot reminds me too of the lyrics to the "Rose" if any of you know of that. And of course the Browning is familiar to all of us.

[DWill]

Please yell at me when you see typos. "Hone thoughts from Abroad!". I forget what my last title-typo was, but it was a howler. I fixed the Browning title.