Friday Poetry

This weeks poem is in honour of St George as it was St George’s day this week.

I chose an old favourite poem from my childhood, which appeaeled to me no end because I loved the idea of having a pet dragon when I was a child and to be honest I still do.

St George and the Dragon

St George looked at the dragon

And much to his surprise,

He noticed that the dragon

Had large appealing eyes.

‘Pardon me,’ said brave St George,

‘I hear you’re cruel and sly.’

‘Oh no, not me,’ the dragon said,

‘I wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘I’ve come to slay you,’ said St George,

‘And save the maiden fair

That you have captured, and no doubt

Imprisoned in your lair.’

‘I used to be both cruel and sly,

Of that there is no doubt,’

Replied the dragon, ‘but not now,

My fire has all burnt out.

The maiden you have come to save

Has made a pet of me.

She takes me walkies on a lead

And feeds me cups of tea.

So if you want to do brave deeds

The like of which I’ve read,

Please take the maiden home with you,

And so save me instead.’

Finola Akister

Lady Book Dragon

Happy Easter

Happy Easter Everyone!

To celebrate Easter Day I have chosen another Easter poem, this one by Oscar Wilde.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day today.

Easter Day

The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:
The people knelt upon the ground with awe:
And borne upon the necks of men I saw,
Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.

Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,
And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,
Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:
In splendour and in light the Pope passed home.

My heart stole back across wide wastes of years
To One who wandered by a lonely sea,
And sought in vain for any place of rest:
‘Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest,
I, only I, must wander wearily,
And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.’

Oscar Wilde

Lady Book Dragon.

Friday Poetry

Well it is Good Friday, so I wanted a suitable poem to reflect this. I always think Christina Rossetti has excellent poems for the church festivals and yet again I have found a poem by her which is in my opinion perfect.

I hope you all have an excellent Easter weekend, but please remember it is not just about fluffy bunnies, cute chicks and chocolate eggs.

Good Friday

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.

Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

Christina Rossetti

Lady Book Dragon.

Friday Poetry

The steam trains have been busy tooting this week and it is always a joy to hear them from our house, so I thought a suitable poem was in order.

The Railway Children

When we climbed the slopes of the cutting

We were eye-level with the white cups

Of the telegraph poles and the sizzling wires.

Like lovely freehand they curved for miles

East and miles west beyond us, sagging

Under their burden of swallows.

We were small and thought we knew nothing

Worth knowing. We thought words travelled the wires

In the shiny pouches of raindrops.

Each one seeded full with the light

Of the sky, the gleam of the lines, and ourselves

So infinesimally scaled

We could stream through the eye of a needle.

Seamus Heaney

Lady Book Dragon.

Friday Poetry

So I’ve been looking at poems of a more recent era recently and this one really caught my attention so I thought I would share it with you all.

Last Words

In the beginning was the Word,

Not just the word of God but sounds

Where Truth was clarified or blurred.

Then Rhyme and Rhythm did the rounds

And justified their jumps and joins

By glueing up our lips and loins.

Once words had freshness on their breath.

The Poet who saw first that Death

Has only one true rhyme was made

The Leader of the Boys’ Brigade.

Dead languages can scan and rhyme

Like birthday cards and Lilac Time.

And you can carve words on a slab

Or tow them through the air by plane,

Tattoo them with a painful jab

Or hang them in a window pane.

Unlike our bodies which decay,

Words, first and last, have come to stay.

Peter Porter

Lady Book Dragon.

Friday Poetry

Happy Friday Everyone!

There is beautiful blossom everywhere so I thought a suitable poem was needed. I hope you are all enjoying the sunshine.

Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

A. E. Housman

Lady Book Dragon.

Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot (Review)

Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, illustrated by Edward Gorey

About the author

Edward Stearns Eliot born 1888 in St Louis, Missouri, USA. He settled in England in 1915 and published his book of poems in 1917. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats began life as a collection of poems dedicated to his godchildren, it was published in 1939. Eliot received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948 and sadly died in 1965.

About the Illustrator

Edward Gorey (1925-2000) was an American writer and artist well known for his macabre and humorous illustrations. His first book, The Unstrung Harp; or, My Earbrass Writes a Novel (1953) was followed by many more. He illustrated work by T. S. Eliot, Edward Lear and Saki, among others.

Blurb

Cats! Some are sane and some are mad. And some are good and some are bad.

Review

I read this book as soon as I brought it home, but I read it in a very special way. I put on the musical movie starring Elaine Paige and John Mills and read the poems along with the musical, I might have also sang along as well. In short I had way too much fun and my poor husband had to endure a great deal.

I absolutely loved this book, I love the poems and I love the illustrations. It is all wonderful and I’m not sure I can choose a favourite poem because how can anyone choose a favourite cat?

The main thing I love is how all the different cats have attributes you can see in real life cats. I can certainly see many familiarities with the cats in the book with my own cats. T. S. Eliot clearly owned and had a lot of love for cats in his lifetime.

My favourite poem and cat was The Rum Tum Tugger he is just the epitome of cats. When you offer a cat some yummy food they would rather have something else, when you offer them fresh water they would rather drink from a puddle and so on.

I had amazing fun with this book and to be honest I keep going back to it now and reading my favourites. I also loved how the illustrations perfectly complimented the poems. I can not recommend this book enough to people especially if they are cat lovers, a quick read and would make a perfect gift to the cat lover in your life. I gave this book a massive 5 out of 5 Dragons.

Lady Book Dragon.

Purchase from Waterstones

Friday Poetry

This week it is another cat poem because I have discovered the perfect poem for our fat cat Pan and here it is!

Have a good weekend everyone.

Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town

Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones –

In fact, he’s remarkably fat.

He doesn’t haunt pubs- he has eight or nine clubs,

For he’s the St James’s Street Cat!

He’s the Cat we all greet as he walks down the street

In his coat of fastidious black:

No commonplace mousers have such well-cut trousers

Or such an impeccable back.

In the whole of St James’s the smartest of names is

The name of this Brummell of Cats;

And we’re all of us proud to be nodded or bowed to

By Bustophers Jones in white spats!

His visits are occasional to the Senior Educational

And it is against the rules

For any one Cat to belong both to that

And the Joint Superior Schools.

For a similar reason, when game is in season

He is found, not at Fox’s, but Blimp’s;

But he’s frequently seen at the gay Stage and Screen

Which is famous for winkles and shrimps.

In the season of venison he gives his ben’son

To the Pothunter’s succulent bones;

And just before noon’s not a moment too soon

To drop in for drink at the Drones.

When he’s seen in a hurry there’s probably curry

At the Siamese- or at the Glutton;

If he looks full of gloom then he’s lunched at the Tomb

On cabbage, rice pudding and mutton.

So, much in this way, passes Bustopher’s day-

At one club or another he’s found.

It can cause no surprise that under our eyes

He has grown unmistakably round.

He’s a twenty-five pounder, or I am a bounder,

And he’s putting on weight every day:

But he’s so well preserved because he’s observed

All his life a routine, so he’ll say.

And (to put it in rhyme) ‘I shall last out my time’

Is the word for this stoutest of Cats.

It must and it shall be Spring in Pall Mall

While Bustopher Jones wears white spats!

T. S. Eliot

My very own Bustopher Jones!

Lady Book Dragon

Friday Poetry

Happy Friday Everyone!

The weekend is on its way and I hope you all have some good reading lined up.

This is my chosen poem of the week, hope you enjoy.

Children’s Song

We live in our own world,

A world that is too small

For you to stoop and enter

Even on hands and knees,

The adult subterfuge.

And though you probe and pry

With analytic eye,

And eavesdrop all our talk

With an amused look,

You cannot find the centre

Where we dance, where we play,

Where life is still asleep

Under the closed flower,

Under the smooth shell

Of eggs in the cupped nest

That mock the faded blue

Of your remoter heaven.

R. S. Thomas

Lady Book Dragon.

Friday Poetry

I have a little confession, I am absolutely obsessed with Cats the musical and love the poems by T. S. Eliot, so I thought it was high time I put a cat poem on my blog. I have put my favourite cat up first, because who doesn’t love a mystery cat?

Macavity: The Mystery Cat

Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw-

For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.

He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair:

For when they reach the scene of crime – Macavity’s not there!

Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,

He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.

His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,

And when you reach the scene of crime – Macavity’s not there!

You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air-

But I tell you once and once again, Macavity’s not there!

Macavity’s a ginger cat, he’s very tall and thin;

You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.

His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly domed;

His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.

He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;

And when you think he’s half asleep, he’s always wide awake.

Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,

For he’s a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.

You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square-

But when a crime’s discovered, then Macavity’s not there!

He’s outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)

And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard’s.

And when the larder’s looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,

Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke’s been stifled,

Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair –

Ay, there’s the wonder of the thing! Macavity’s not there!

And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty’s gone astray,

Or the Admirality lose some plans and drawings by the way,

There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair –

But it’s useless to investigate – Macavity’s not there!

And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:

“It must have been Macavity!” – but he’s a mile away.

You’ll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,

Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.

Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity,

There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.

He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare:

At whatever time the deed took place-

MACAVITY WASN’T THERE!

And when they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known

(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)

Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time

Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!

T. S. Eliot

Happy Friday Everyone!

The cat in the picture is my cat Pan, even though he is not ginger and rather large, he is never there and very difficult to find, just like Macavity. Also if something happens in our house it generally is Pan, but you can never catch him in the act. He is also very difficult to photograph, this is probably the best picture I have of him.

Lady Book Dragon.