* Yesterday I bought for a mere Squid The Penguin Book of Bird Poetry. It was going "cheep" at Grumbling Stumps I bought it for rather scurrilous reasons .. I was pretty sure there would be lots of totally crap and shite bird poems in it. With any luck they would ALL be crap and shite ! And then I could put the worst of the worst offenders on here. Oddly, there were no poems about Penguins in it. Here's one of the gormlessest "poems" in it ... Written by Thomas Hardy... very badly ! ... it's called " The Darkling Thrush*" I leant upon a coppice gate * When frost was spectre-grey, And winter's dregs* made desolate The weakening of the day. The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres*, And all mankind that haunted nigh* Had sought their household fires. The land's sharp features seemed to be The century's corpse outleant,* His crypt* the cloudy canopy, The wind his death-lament. The ancient pulse of germ and birth Was shrunken hard and dry, And every spirit upon earth Seemed fervourless as I.* At once a voice arose among The bleak twigs overheard In a full-hearted evensong Of joy illimited; An agëd* thrush, frail, gaunt, and small*, In blast-beruffled* plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things* Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembled through His happy good-night air Some blessëd hope, whereof he knew* And I was unaware. * Hang on ... which species of thrush ? *Do coppices have their own "special" gates ? Plus ... he'll ruin the hinges. He obviously hasn't read "The Country Cod " * What, exactly is/are "winter's dregs?" * I suppose he'd often come across lots of strings of broken lyres round his way then ? And it is ambiguous .. does he means, lots of lyres all strung out, or does he mean that the strings of the lyres have been removed and strung out ? We need to know. * Haunted nigh ? What does that mean ? * " Outleant" ... I think he was desperate for a rhyme there. * Whose crypt exactly are we talking about here ? * How could he possibly know that ? He's winging it now. * Oh, he's "aged" it has he ! I don't think so. No Svensson back then mate ! Plus, " Darkling Thrush" isn't in my copy. * That's " ruffled" then. * Aha ! He's worked out the size of it too ... it seems rather unlikely. * Terrestrial things ? He's completely lost the plot by this point. * The whole poem is a shambolic torrent of rampant anthropomorphism. Mind you, I still think footnotes should go at the top . They're often far more interesting than the actual thing they're about. Well, mine are anyway. The challenge I throw out to my dear readers is ... can you find a duffer one ? Coming soon... The Penguin Book of Bird Pottery !? Mipsrint of the Cetnury !! But now ... a lovely "winter" song .... "L'hiver" L'hiver se passe A la lueur des bougies
Nous restons la Allonges sur le lit On oubliera Mes envies de repis Ou ce que tu voudras Devons nous faire comme Si c'est ailleurs que l'on voit Qui nous sommes C'est le meilleur de la vie Qu'on se donne Que l'on se vole C'est l'ame en peine Qui trouve son écho Dans un livre ouvert Soumettons nous histoire De n'plus en faire Le silence est plus beau Sans la lumière Devons nous faire comme Si c'est ailleurs que l'on voit Qui nous sommes C'est le meilleur de la vie Qu'on se donne Que l'on se vole ( repeat the italicised bit x3) ( or else !) ( sinon !!)
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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