From The Faerie Queene Edmund Spenser We may remember too that in ancient times February was reckoned to be the last month of the year, as witness Spenser’s pageant figure: And lastly came cold February, sitting In an old wagon, for he could not ride, Drawn of two fishes, for the season fitting, Which through […]
Author: Peter Wood
February 2 John Donne
It seems probable that proposals for the marriage of King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia are glanced at, and the Elizabethan poet, John Donne, uses the same theme in his Epithalamium (or Marriage Song) upon the occasion of the wedding of the Princess Elizabeth to Frederick Count Palatine of the Rhine – a marriage […]
February 1 Geoffrey Chaucer
Parlement of Foules Geoffrey Chaucer Now welcome, somer, with thy sonne softe, That hast this wintres wedres over-shake, And driven away the longe nyghtes blake! Saynt Valentyn, that art ful hy on-lofte, Thus syngen smale foules for thy sake: Now welcome, somer, with thy sonne softe, That hast this wintres wedres over-shake. Wel han they […]
Month Index
January 8 A E Housman
A SHROPSHIRE LAD Finally this month let us get away from the snow, or almost, into the delights of blossom-time, for poetic imagination can take us both forward into pleasant weather, and back to youthful days. One of A.E.Housman’s Shropshire lads is speaking: Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the […]
January 7 Walter De La Mare
Poetry may be a veritable miracle of compression, as when Walter De La Mare, in just twenty-six words, explains how the dominating egotism of Napoleon created a whole pattern of existence for his army of men in retreat from Moscow: This poem is still within the copyright period. NAPOLEON Link to poem: Napoleon Next: […]
January 6 Thomas Hardy
SNOW IN THE SUBURBS Thomas Hardy’s “Snow in the Suburbs”, a similar, but much shorter poem, adds the emotion of pity, so characteristic of this author, which he here renders with a rueful humour, at the plight of birds and animals in the wintry season. Every branch big with it, Bent every twig with it; […]
January 5 Robert Bridges
But let us now turn from the necessary obscurities of profound experience, as from the lesser obscurities of archaic language, to the happy plainness of a word-picture by one of our poets laureate, Robert Bridges , who painted this Winter scene in the early years of our century. LONDON SNOW When men were all asleep […]
January 4 Louis MacNeice
Let us now share a more modern sensibility, and hear what Louis MacNeice, as a poet of the 1930s, felt about snow. This poem is still within the copyright period. SNOW Link to Snow by Louis MacNeice This poem, largely unrhymed, with lines of irregular length and in modern style surprises us with the […]
January 2 Edmund Spenser
The meaning is made clear Edmund Spenser, older contemporary of Shakespeare, whose pageant of the months, from the final fragment of his “Faerie Queene”, can conveniently figure in ‘Poetry Monthly’ : JANUARY Then came old January, wrappèd well In many weeds to keep the cold away; Yet did he quake and quiver, like to quell, […]