Dedication: To John and Tabitha, with all my love Editor’s Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Tina Persaud at Batsford and, as always, my agent Teresa Chris. Much of my research was done at the Saison Poetry Library at the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Scottish Poetry Library, just off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. Each has a wonderful collection of books, brilliantly helpful staff and is a joy to work in. Many people helped me with suggestions of pieces I could include. Louy Piachaud, Jeremy Bourne, and Louise Simson suggested poems, Gail Pirkis and Hazel Wood at Slightly Foxed introduced me to, or reminded me of, many delightful memoirs and Simon Darragh kindly allowed me to include ‘Situation Wanted’ from his anthology Foreign Correspondence. Jan and Stephen Smith kindly solved the mystery of Lady Katherine Dyer. Most of all, though, David Gibb tirelessly hunted out poems and readings and watched over me with a firm eye when it came to choosing.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by Batsford 10 Southcombe Street London W14 0RA An imprint of Anova Books Ltd Volume copyright © Batsford 2014 The moral rights of the authors has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior witten permission of the copyright owner. ISBN: 9781849941426 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Repro by Mission Productions, Hong Kong Printed by 1010 Printing International Ltd, China This book can be ordered direct from the publisher at the website: www.anovabooks.com, or try your local bookshop.
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Readings & Poems Edited by Jane McMorland Hunter
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Contents Introduction 6 Time Now Makes a New Beginning 8 The Voices of Children 26 Thou Hast My Heart 46 If Ever Two Were One 74
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All Passion Spent 112 A Quiet Door 124 Love and Go On 146 The Natural Order 162 Index of poets 182 Index of poems 184
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Introduction ‘Prose is for ideas, verse is for visions’ Henrik Ibsen Throughout our lives there are times when we want ideas and other times when we need visions. Birth, childhood, falling in love, growing older and dying affect us all and often need marking in some way. The poems and readings in this anthology have been chosen so that they can be used at formal events such as weddings, christenings and funerals, but also so they can be read quietly to offer joy, hope, amusement or consolation. According to our circumstances, events can make us wildly happy or leave us distraught and I have tried to include pieces that cover a whole range of emotions. Within the sections there are different balances between poetry and prose. Poetry can often tread the delicate path between feelings, while prose can offer a more down-to-earth or direct perspective. The anthology takes the reader from cradle to grave and a little beyond on either side. Each section is distinct but many overlap; Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ could have gone almost anywhere and the extract from Henry Kingsley’s Ravenhoe started off in the chapter ‘If Two Were One’ and later moved to ‘The Voices of Children’. The dividing lines between new life and childhood, love and union, and death and solitude are wavy in life and I have made them equally wavy in this anthology. The chapter ‘Time Now Makes a New Beginning’ celebrates the arrival of a baby – the hopes and fears of parents and their duties and rewards. It is followed by ‘The Voices of Childhood’, which illustrates the magic of childhood, including the mystery of our shadows, the joy of new words and the delight in dancing. As we grow, so we suffer the ups and downs of love. The description of first love by John Clare and Wendy Cope, though nearly two hundred years apart, are surprisingly similar. Trumpet players and birdcatchers alike are not immune. In an ideal world we find the perfect partner, although, as a letter of proposal included shows, our feelings are not always reciprocated, however well we express ourselves. However, for Jane Eyre, a certain Pussycat and T. S. Eliot, the story ends happily. Even if we don’t find the perfect partner Laurence Alma-Tadema has an excellent solution, to be carried out at the ‘really old age’ of twenty-eight or nine. a6b
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As we grow older, all passion may not be spent, but life does begin to slow down, allowing time for reflection. Death is one of the certainties of life, as is the fact that at some stage each of us will almost certainly have to deal with the loss of someone close. The pieces here deal first with death itself and then with solitude, but the dividing line is deliberately hazy; somehow we have to find a balance between shedding tears and moving on, remembering and being sad or forgetting and smiling. Finally, we reach ‘The Natural Order’. Many of the pieces here consider the passing of time and how it affects us, showing clearly that we should live within time, rather than trying to fight it; as W. H. Davies stresses we should all take time to stand and stare. There is a time for everything, even though it may not always seem so in the bustle of life. An anthology such as this is bound to be incomplete. Collecting the pieces for it, I could easily have compiled one three times the size. In the end each piece had to not only stand on its own merits, but also fit with the others. Many cover the same subjects but from different viewpoints; William Wordsworth and A. A. Milne both describe life as a six-year old, but while the former’s child is still smothered by his parents, the latter’s is firmly independent. Some poems had to be cut; all of Alfred Tennyson’s In Memoriam A. H. H. is wonderful, but would have taken up most of the book. In these cases I have chosen extracts I particularly like and hope that they will inspire the reader to search out the entire poem. Similarly, nearly all the readings are taken from larger works; I hope that they are clear enough to stand on their own, but that they will also act as a doorway into the entire piece. Most poems are as close as possible to that which the poet originally wrote. An easy read is not necessarily a better one and while some of the pieces may seem dated, all have an original beauty which is worth preserving.
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The Voices of Children
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Boys and Girls What are little boys made of? Frogs and snails And puppy-dogs’ tails, That’s what little boys are made of. What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice And all things nice, That’s what little girls are made of.
Anon
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Ode from: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of early Childhood VII Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years’ Darling of a pigmy size! See, where ’mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses, With light upon him from his father’s eyes! See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learned art; A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral; And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song: Then will he fit his tongue To dialogues of business, love, or strife; But it will not be long Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride The little Actor cons another part; Filling from time to time his ‘humorous stage’ With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, That Life brings with her in her equipage; As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation.
William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
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The End When I was One, I had just begun. When I was Two, I was nearly new. When I was Three, I was hardly Me. When I was Four, I was not much more. When I was Five, I was just alive. But now I am Six, I’m as clever as clever. So I think I’ll be six now for ever and ever.
A.A. Milne (1882–1956)
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The Passionate Shepherd to his Love Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That hills and valleys, dales and fields, And all the craggy mountains yields.
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There we will sit upon the rocks, And see the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses With a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle, Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold; A belt of straw and ivy-buds, With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love. The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love.
Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
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Hopeful Proposal to a Young Lady of the Village November 29th 1866 My Dear Miss I now take up my pen to write to you hoping these few lines will find you well as it leaves me at present Thank God for it. You will perhaps be surprised that I should make so bold as to write to you who is such a lady and I hope you will not be vex at me for it. I hardly dare say what I want, I am so timid about ladies, and my heart trimmels like a hespin. But I once seed in a book that faint heart never won fair lady, so here goes. I am a farmer in a small way and my age is rather more than forty years and my mother lives with me and keeps my house, and she has been very poorly lately and cannot stir about much and I think I should be more comfortabler with a wife. I have had my eye on you a long time and I think you are a very nice young woman and one that would make me happy if only you think so. We keep a servant girl to milk three kye and do the work in the house, and she goes out a bit in the summer to gadder wickens and she snags a few of turnips in the back kend. I do a piece of work on the farm myself and attends Pately Market, and I sometimes show a few sheep and I feeds between 3 & 4 pigs agen Christmas, and the same is very useful in the house to make pies and cakes and so forth, and I sells the hams to help pay for the barley meal. I have about 73 pund in Naisbro Bank and we have a nice little parlour downstairs with a blue carpet, and an oven on the side of the fireplace and the old woman on the other side smoking. The Golden Rules claimed up on the walls above the long settle, and you could sit all day in the easy chair and knit and mend my kytles and leggums, and you could a 78 b
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make the tea ready agin I come in, and you could make butter for Pately Market, and I would drive you to church every Sunday in the spring cart, and I would do all that bees in my power to make you happy. So I hope to hear from you. I am in desprit and Yurnest, and I will marry you at May Day, or if my mother dies afore I shall want you afore. If only you will accept me, my dear, we could be very happy together. I hope you will let me know your mind by return of post, and if you are favourable I will come up to scratch. So no more at present from your well-wisher and true love – Simon Fallowfield P. S. I hope you will say nothing about this. If you will not accept of me I have another very nice woman in my eye, and I think I shall marry her if you do not accept of me, but I thought you would suit me mother better, she being very crusty at times. So I tell you now before you come, she will be Maister. A proposal received (and refused) by Mary Foster, the local beauty of Middlemoor, Pately Bridge, in Yorkshire
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Marriage Morning Light, so low upon earth, You send a flash to the sun. Here is the golden close of love, All my wooing is done. Oh, all the woods and the meadows, Woods, where we hid from the wet, Stiles where we stayed to be kind, Meadows in which we met! Light, so low in the vale You flash and lighten afar, For this is the golden morning of love, And you are his morning star. Flash, I am coming, I come, By meadow and stile and wood, Oh, lighten into my eyes and my heart, Into my heart and my blood! Heart, are you great enough For a love that never tires? O heart, are you great enough for love? I have heard of thorns and briers. Over the thorns and briers, Over the meadows and stiles, Over the world to the end of it Flash of a million miles.
Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)
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