The Map and the Clock

by Carol Ann Duffy

  First he loved her, then he left her,

  And she lost her honest name.

  Then she ran away to London,

  For to hide her grief and shame;

  There she met another squire,

  And she lost her name again.

  See her riding in her carriage,

  In the Park and all so gay:

  All the nibs and nobby persons

  Come to pass the time of day.

  See the little old-world village

  Where her aged parents live,

  Drinking the champagne she sends them;

  But they never can forgive.

  In the rich man’s arms she flutters,

  Like a bird with broken wing:

  First he loved her, then he left her,

  And she hasn’t got a ring.

  See him in the splendid mansion,

  Entertaining with the best,

  While the girl that he has ruined,

  Entertains a sordid guest.

  See him in the House of Commons,

  Making laws to put down crime,

  While the victim of his passions

  Trails her way through mud and slime.

  Standing on the bridge at midnight,

  She says; ‘Farewell, blighted Love.’

  There’s a scream, a splash – Good Heavens!

  What is she a-doing of?

  Then they drag her from the river,

  Water from her clothes they wrang,

  For they thought that she was drownded;

  But the corpse got up and sang:

  ‘It’s the same the whole world over;

  It’s the poor that gets the blame,

  It’s the rich that gets the pleasure.

  Isn’t it a blooming shame?’

  ANON

  The Woman of Llyn y Fan’s Call to Her Cattle

  Spotted cow that’s light and freckled,

  Dotted cow with white bespeckled,

  Mottled cow so brightly deckled

  Plod homewards now.

  Kerry sheep long held in fold,

  Merry sheep dong-belled with gold,

  Fairy sheep song-spelled of old,

  Drift homewards now.

  Goat on high that’s dry of coat,

  Goat with eye so sly to note,

  Goat whose cry is wry in throat,

  Skip homewards now.

  Horses tall and gay and bobtailed,

  Horses small and bay and lobtailed,

  Horses all, though grey and hobnailed,

  Clop homewards now.

  ANON

  translated by Gwyn Jones

  Sonnet Found in a Deserted Mad-House

  Oh that my soul a marrow-bone might seize!

  For the old egg of my desire is broken,

  Spilled is the pearly white and spilled the yolk, and

  As the mild melancholy contents grease

  My path the shorn lamb baas like bumblebees.

  Time’s trashy purse is as a taken token

  Or like a thrilling recitation, spoken

  By mournful mouths filled full of mirth and cheese.

  And yet, why should I clasp the earthful urn?

  Or find the frittered fig that felt the fast?

  Or choose to chase the cheese around the churn?

  Or swallow any pill from out the past?

  Ah, no Love, not while your hot kisses burn

  Like a potato riding on the blast.

  ANON

  Symphony in Yellow

  An omnibus across the bridge

  Crawls like a yellow butterfly,

  And, here and there, a passer-by

  Shows like a little restless midge.

  Big barges full of yellow hay

  Are moored against the shadowy wharf,

  And, like a yellow silken scarf,

  The thick fog hangs along the quay.

  The yellow leaves begin to fade

  And flutter from the Temple elms,

  And at my feet the pale green Thames

  Lies like a rod of rippled jade.

  OSCAR WILDE

  The Motor Bus

  What is this that roareth thus?

  Can it be a Motor Bus?

  Yes, the swell and hideous hum

  Indicat Motorem Bum!

  Implet in the Corn and High

  Terror me Motoris Bi:

  Bo Motori clamitabo

  Ne Motore caeder a Bo –

  Dative be or Ablative

  So thou only let us live:

  Whither shall thy victims flee?

  Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!

  Thus I sang; and still anigh

  Came in hordes Motores Bi,

  Et complebat omne forum

  Copia Motorum Borum.

  How shall wretches live like us

  Cincti Bis Motoribus?

  Domine, defende nos

  Contra nos Motores Bos!

  A. D. GODLEY

  Soliloquy of a Maiden Aunt

  The ladies bow, and partners set,

  And turn around and pirouette

  And trip the Lancers.

  But no one seeks my ample chair,

  Or asks me with persuasive air

  To join the dancers.

  They greet me, as I sit alone

  Upon my solitary throne,

  And pass politely.

  Yet mine could keep the measured beat,

  As surely as the youngest feet,

  And tread as lightly.

  No other maiden had my skill,

  In our old homestead on the hill –

  That merry May-time

  When Allan closed the flagging ball,

  And danced with me before them all,

  Until the day-time.

  Again I laugh, and step alone,

  And curtsey low as on my own

  His strong hand closes.

  But Allan now seeks staid delight,

  His son there, brought my niece to-night

  These early roses.

  Time orders well, we have our Spring,

  Our songs, and may-flower gathering,

  Our love and laughter.

  And children chatter all the while,

  And leap the brook and climb the stile

  And follow after.

  And yet – the step of Allan’s son,

  Is not as light as was the one

  That went before it.

  And that old lace, I think, falls down

  Less softly on Priscilla’s gown

  Than when I wore it.

  DOLLIE RADFORD

  ‘When first my way to fair I took’

  When first my way to fair I took

  Few pence in purse had I,

  And long I used to stand and look

  At things I could not buy.

  Now times are altered: if I care

  To buy a thing, I can;

  The pence are here and here’s the fair,

  But where’s the lost young man?

  – To think that two and two are four

  And neither five nor three

  The heart of man has long been sore

  And long ’tis like to be.

  A. E. HOUSMAN

  ‘Here dead lie we because we did not choose’

  Here dead lie we because we did not choose

  To live and shame the land from which we sprung.

  Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;

  But young men think it is, and we were young.

  A. E. HOUSMAN

  Tam i’ the Kirk

  O Jean, my Jean, when the bell ca’s the congregation

  Owre valley an’ hill wi’ the ding frae its iron mou’,

  When a’body’s thochts is set on his ain salvation,

  Mine’s set on you.

  There’s a reid rose lies on the Buik o’ the Word ’afore ye

  That was growin’ braw on its bush at the keek o’ day,

  But the lad that pu’d yon flower i’ the mornin�
�s glory,

  He canna pray.

  He canna pray; but there’s nane i’ the kirk will heed him

  Whaur he sits sae still his lane at the side o’ the wa’,

  For nane but the reid rose kens what my lassie gied him –

  It an’ us twa!

  He canna sing for the sang that his ain he’rt raises,

  He canna see for the mist that’s afore his e’en,

  And a voice drouns the hale o’ the psalms an’ the paraphrases,

  Cryin’ ‘Jean! Jean! Jean!’

  VIOLET JACOB

  The Way Through the Woods

  They shut the road through the woods

  Seventy years ago.

  Weather and rain have undone it again,

  And now you would never know

  There was once a road through the woods

  Before they planted the trees.

  It is underneath the coppice and heath,

  And the thin anemones.

  Only the keeper sees

  That, where the ring-dove broods,

  And the badgers roll at ease,

  There was once a road through the woods.

  Yet, if you enter the woods

  Of a summer evening late,

  When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools

  Where the otter whistles his mate

  (They fear not men in the woods,

  Because they see so few)

  You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet

  And the swish of a skirt in the dew,

  Steadily cantering through

  The misty solitudes,

  As though they perfectly knew

  The old lost road through the woods….

  But there is no road through the woods.

  RUDYARD KIPLING

  The Wild Swans at Coole

  The trees are in their autumn beauty,

  The woodland paths are dry,

  Under the October twilight the water

  Mirrors a still sky;

  Upon the brimming water among the stones

  Are nine-and-fifty swans.

  The nineteenth autumn has come upon me

  Since I first made my count;

  I saw, before I had well finished,

  All suddenly mount

  And scatter wheeling in great broken rings

  Upon their clamorous wings.

  I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,

  And now my heart is sore.

  All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,

  The first time on this shore,

  The bell-beat of their wings above my head,

  Trod with a lighter tread.

  Unwearied still, lover by lover,

  They paddle in the cold

  Companionable streams or climb the air;

  Their hearts have not grown old;

  Passion or conquest, wander where they will,

  Attend upon them still.

  But now they drift on the still water,

  Mysterious, beautiful;

  Among what rushes will they build,

  By what lake’s edge or pool

  Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day

  To find they have flown away?

  W. B. YEATS

  The Song of Wandering Aengus

  I went out to the hazel wood,

  Because a fire was in my head,

  And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

  And hooked a berry to a thread;

  And when white moths were on the wing,

  And moth-like stars were flickering out,

  I dropped the berry in a stream

  And caught a little silver trout.

  When I had laid it on the floor

  I went to blow the fire aflame,

  But something rustled on the floor,

  And some one called me by my name:

  It had become a glimmering girl

  With apple blossom in her hair

  Who called me by my name and ran

  And faded through the brightening air.

  Though I am old with wandering

  Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

  I will find out where she has gone,

  And kiss her lips and take her hands;

  And walk among long dappled grass,

  And pluck till time and times are done

  The silver apples of the moon,

  The golden apples of the sun.

  W. B. YEATS

  No Second Troy

  Why should I blame her that she filled my days

  With misery, or that she would of late

  Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,

  Or hurled the little streets upon the great,

  Had they but courage equal to desire?

  What could have made her peaceful with a mind

  That nobleness made simple as a fire,

  With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind

  That is not natural in an age like this,

  Being high and solitary and most stern?

  Why, what could she have done, being what she is?

  Was there another Troy for her to burn?

  W. B. YEATS

  Easter, 1916

  I have met them at close of day

  Coming with vivid faces

  From counter or desk among grey

  Eighteenth-century houses.

  I have passed with a nod of the head

  Or polite meaningless words,

  Or have lingered awhile and said

  Polite meaningless words,

  And thought before I had done

  Of a mocking tale or a gibe

  To please a companion

  Around the fire at the club,

  Being certain that they and I

  But lived where motley is worn:

  All changed, changed utterly:

  A terrible beauty is born.

  That woman’s days were spent

  In ignorant good-will,

  Her nights in argument

  Until her voice grew shrill.

  What voice more sweet than hers

  When, young and beautiful,

  She rode to harriers?

  This man had kept a school

  And rode our wingèd horse;

  This other his helper and friend

  Was coming into his force;

  He might have won fame in the end,

  So sensitive his nature seemed,

  So daring and sweet his thought.

  This other man I had dreamed

  A drunken, vainglorious lout.

  He had done most bitter wrong

  To some who are near my heart,

  Yet I number him in the song;

  He, too, has resigned his part

  In the casual comedy;

  He, too, has been changed in his turn,

  Transformed utterly:

  A terrible beauty is born.

  Hearts with one purpose alone

  Through summer and winter seem

  Enchanted to a stone

  To trouble the living stream.

  The horse that comes from the road,

  The rider, the birds that range

  From cloud to tumbling cloud,

  Minute by minute they change;

  A shadow of cloud on the stream

  Changes minute by minute;

  A horse-hoof slides on the brim,

  And a horse plashes within it;

  The long-legged moor-hens dive,

  And hens to moor-cocks call;

  Minute by minute they live:

  The stone’s in the midst of all.

  Too long a sacrifice

  Can make a stone of the heart.

  O when may it suffice?

  That is Heaven’s part, our part

  To murmur name upon name,

  As a mother names her child

  When sleep at last has come

  On limbs that had run wild.

  What is it but nightfall?

  No, no
, not night but death;

  Was it needless death after all?

  For England may keep faith

  For all that is done and said.

  We know their dream; enough

  To know they dreamed and are dead;

  And what if excess of love

  Bewildered them till they died?

  I write it out in a verse –

  MacDonagh and MacBride

  And Connolly and Pearse

  Now and in time to be,

  Wherever green is worn,

  Are changed, changed utterly:

  A terrible beauty is born.

  W. B. YEATS

  An Irish Airman Foresees his Death

  I know that I shall meet my fate

  Somewhere among the clouds above;

  Those that I fight I do not hate,

  Those that I guard I do not love;

  My country is Kiltartan Cross,

  My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,

  No likely end could bring them loss

  Or leave them happier than before.

  Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

  Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,

  A lonely impulse of delight

  Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

  I balanced all, brought all to mind,

  The years to come seemed waste of breath,

  A waste of breath the years behind

  In balance with this life, this death.

  W. B. YEATS

  The Farmer’s Bride