User:JackofOz/Poems for remembrance

Hilaire Belloc

 * Lord Lundy (Who was too Freely Moved to Tears, and thereby ruined his Political Career)
 * Lord Lundy from his earliest years
 * Was far too freely moved to Tears.
 * For instance if his Mother said,
 * "Lundy! It's time to go to Bed!"
 * He bellowed like a Little Turk.
 * Or if his father Lord Dunquerque
 * Said "Hi!" in a Commanding Tone,
 * "Hi, Lundy! Leave the Cat alone!"
 * Lord Lundy, letting go its tail,
 * Would raise so terrible a wail
 * As moved His Grandpapa the Duke
 * To utter the severe rebuke:
 * "When I, Sir! was a little Boy,
 * An Animal was not a Toy!"


 * His father's Elder Sister, who
 * Was married to a Parvenoo,
 * Confided to Her Husband, Drat!
 * The Miserable, Peevish Brat!
 * Why don't they drown the Little Beast?"
 * Suggestions which, to say the least,
 * Are not what we expect to hear
 * From Daughters of an English Peer.
 * His Grandmamma, His Mother's Mother,
 * Who had some dignity or other,
 * The Garter, or no matter what,
 * I can't remember all the Lot!
 * Said "Oh! That I were Brisk and Spry
 * To give him that for which to cry!"
 * (An empty wish, alas! For she
 * Was Blind and nearly ninety-three).


 * The Dear Old Butler thought-but there!
 * I really neither know nor care
 * For what the Dear Old Butler thought!
 * In my opinion, Butlers ought
 * To know their place, and not to play
 * The Old Retainer night and day.
 * I'm getting tired and so are you,
 * Let's cut the poem into two!

Second Canto


 * It happened to Lord Lundy then,
 * As happens to so many men:
 * Towards the age of twenty-six,
 * They shoved him into politics;
 * In which profession he commanded
 * The Income that his rank demanded
 * In turn as Secretary for
 * India, the Colonies, and War.
 * But very soon his friends began
 * To doubt if he were quite the man:
 * Thus if a member rose to say
 * (As members do from day to day),
 * "Arising out of that reply . . .!"
 * Lord Lundy would begin to cry.
 * A Hint at harmless little jobs
 * Would shake him with convulsive sobs.
 * While as for Revelations, these
 * Would simply bring him to his knees,
 * And leave him whimpering like a child.
 * It drove his colleagues raving wild!
 * They let him sink from Post to Post,
 * From fifteen hundred at the most
 * To eight, and barely six--and then
 * To be Curator of Big Ben!. ..
 * And finally there came a Threat
 * To oust him from the Cabinet!


 * The Duke -- his aged grand-sire -- bore
 * The shame till he could bear no more.
 * He rallied his declining powers,
 * Summoned the youth to Brackley Towers,
 * And bitterly addressed him thus--
 * "Sir! you have disappointed us!
 * We had intended you to be
 * The next Prime Minister but three:
 * The stocks were sold; the Press was squared:
 * The Middle Class was quite prepared.
 * But as it is! . . . My language fails!
 * Go out and govern New South Wales!"


 * The Aged Patriot groaned and died:
 * And gracious! how Lord Lundy cried!

Raymond Chandler

 * Song At Parting
 * He left her lying in the nude
 * That sultry night in May
 * The neighbors thought it rather rude
 * He liked her best that way


 * He left a rose beside her head
 * A meat ax in her brain
 * A note upon the bureau read
 * 'I won't be back again.'

Arthur Hugh Clough

 * Say not the struggle naught availeth
 * Say not the struggle naught availeth,
 * The labour and the wounds are vain,
 * The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
 * And as things have been they remain.


 * If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
 * It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
 * Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
 * And, but for you, possess the field.


 * For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
 * Seem here no painful inch to gain,
 * Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
 * Comes silent, flooding in, the main.


 * And not by eastern windows only,
 * When daylight comes, comes in the light;
 * In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
 * But westward, look, the land is bright!

John Philpot Curran

 * The Deserter's Meditation
 * If sadly thinking, with spirits sinking,
 * Could more than drinking my cares compose,
 * A cure for sorrow my sighs would borrow
 * And hope tomorrow would end my woes.
 * But as in wailing there's naught availing
 * And Death unfailing will strike the blow
 * And for that reason, and for a season,
 * Let us be merry before we go.
 * To joy a stranger, a wayworn ranger,
 * In every danger my course I've run
 * Now hope all ending, and death befriending,
 * His last aid lending, my cares are done.
 * No more a rover, or hapless lover,
 * My griefs are over – my glass runs low;
 * Then for that reason, and for a season,
 * Let us be merry before we go.

W. H. Davies

 * Leisure

T. S. Eliot

 * from Four Quartets
 * Footfalls echo in the memory.
 * Down the passage which we did not take.
 * Towards the door we never opened.
 * Into the rose garden.

Alan Gould

 * Dactyls for a Pounding Head
 * 


 * Described by Peter Pierce as "the best hangover poem in our literature" ("Addressing the ultimate questions", Canberra Times, 13 Mar 1999, Panorama, p. 21)

Joyce Grenfell

 * If I should go
 * If I should go before the rest of you
 * Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone
 * Nor when I'm gone speak in a Sunday voice
 * But be the usual selves that I have known
 * Weep if you must
 * Parting is hell
 * But life goes on
 * So sing as well.

W. E. Henley

 * Invictus

The Magnetic Fields

 * I Don't Believe in the Sun
 * They say there's a sun in the sky
 * They say there's a sun in the sky
 * but me, I can't imagine why
 * There might have been one
 * before you were gone
 * but now all I see is the night, so


 * I don't believe in the sun


 * How could it shine down on everyone
 * and never shine on me


 * How could there be
 * such cruelty.


 * The only sun I ever knew
 * was the beautiful one that was you
 * Since you went away
 * it's nighttime all day
 * and it's usually raining too


 * The only stars there really are
 * Were shining in your eyes
 * There is no sun except the one
 * That never shone on other guys
 * The moon to whom the poets croon
 * Has given up and died
 * Astronomy will have to be revised.

Joaquin Miller

 * In men whom men condemn as ill
 * I find so much of goodness still.
 * In men whom men pronounce divine
 * I find so much of sin and blot
 * I do not dare to draw a line (in some versions, I hesitate to draw a line)
 * Between the two, where God has not.

John Boyle O'Reilly

 * Constancy
 * You gave me the key of your heart, my love,
 * Then why did you make me knock?
 * Oh that was yesterday, saints above!
 * And last night - I changed the lock!

Christina Rossetti

 * Up-Hill

Cecil J. Sibbert

 * The Outspan
 * A morbid and decadent youth
 * Says - 'Beauty is greater than Truth'
 * And by beauty I mean
 * The obscure, the obscene -
 * The diseased, the decayed, the uncouth

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 * Crossing the Bar

Edward Thomas

 * I have come to the borders of sleep,
 * The unfathomable deep
 * Forest where all must lose
 * Their way, however straight,
 * Or winding, soon or late;
 * They cannot choose

Unknown

 * As others see us
 * There were the Scots
 * Who kept the Sabbath
 * And everything else
 * They could lay their hands on


 * Then there were the Welsh
 * Who prayed on their knees
 * And their neighbours


 * Thirdly there were the Irish
 * Who never knew what they wanted
 * But were willing to fight for it anyway


 * Lastly there were the English
 * Who considered themselves a self-made nation
 * Thus relieving the Almighty of a dreadful responsibility

Unknown

 * Variant on "Mary had a little lamb"
 * Mary had a little lamb
 * Her father shot it dead
 * Now Mary takes her lamb to school
 * Between two chunks of bread

Is it possible to "win" anything anymore?

 * Is it possible to "win" anything anymore?
 * To actually have a victory? I'm not so sure.
 * To seek an advantage over one's fellow souls?
 * The concept, I suspect, is extremely full of holes.


 * To trounce one's fellow creatures and be somehow supreme
 * It sounds rather like a troubled, angry dream
 * To take the gold having kicked some loser's arse
 * And to leave them with the waste paper and plastic and broken glass.


 * A victory? What in heaven's name is that!
 * What do you do with it? Wear it like an ostentatious hat?
 * And if this so-called "victory" is such a fine achievement,
 * How come it's often followed by a lifetime of bereavement?


 * Surely there's another, better way of doing well
 * Without the hope of heaven or the threat of hell.

As I rode out one windy morn

 * As I rode out one windy morn
 * To play upon my alpen horn
 * A plastic bucket passed me by
 * And caused my little goat to shy


 * I then dismounted upside down
 * And balancing upon my crown
 * I heard the fading eerie sound
 * Of bucket bouncing on the ground


 * "Bunka bonka bunka ...... bonk
 * Dunka ...... donka dunka ...... donk
 * Bonka .... bunka .... bonka ...... bunk
 * Donka dunka donka ...... dunk!"


 * An empty plastic bucket tossed
 * Upon the wind alone and lost
 * And bouncing to eternity
 * Is that a metaphor for Me?


 * 1 May 1999

Life's a room without a floor

 * Life's a room without a floor;
 * The entrance and the exit door
 * Connected by a tightrope
 * So balancing a bright hope
 * Against an overwhelming gloom
 * We make our way across the room
 * Until ... half way ... perhaps
 * The rope just maybe snaps.
 * And yet, regardless of the cause
 * We make it to the great outdoors.


 * 19 March 2011

If I were a refugee

 * If I were a refugee
 * What a nice one I would be,
 * Not in need of gilding,
 * My traumas would be character building.


 * The wars that overturned my life,
 * Atrocities and endless strife
 * And persecution hateful,
 * Would have taught me to be grateful.


 * I'd have no breaking point at all
 * Lock me up against a wall
 * And I would sit and wait
 * And smile and say "no worries mate".


 * 30 April 2011

When love has been neglected

 * When love has been neglected
 * It can only be expected
 * That in the space love used to fill
 * A nasty terror cell then will
 * Take form and soon take hold,
 * A fearful little mould.


 * So if you have the wish
 * Take your Petri dish
 * And cultivate a cell of love
 * And by the moon and stars above,
 * In reverence and in duty,
 * Nourish it with beauty.
 * 21 May 2011