Masefield, sensing the dramatic power of a group of waiting women used the same idea at the end of his yarn of the Loch Achray, the first of his salt water ballads, couched in the everyday language of an old seaman THE YARN OF THE LOCH ACHRAY Link to The Yarn of Loch Achray (Line […]
Author: Peter Wood
April 5 An Old Ballad
Masefield knew too, our old anonymous ballads, and caught their spirit in his own songs of the sea, the disastrous sea crossing from Norway in 1290 AD of Princess Margaret on her way to Scotland in the ship of Sir Patrick Spens was recorded in an old ballad ending thus: O laith, laith were our […]
April 4 Masefield
Masefield too heard the call to adventure by land and by sea, and in his TEWKESBURY ROAD Link to poem Tewkesbury Road or even more characteristically, in his well known poem, SEA FEVER Link to poem Sea Fever Masefield was very much in the mainstream of English poetry; his Reynard the Fox and in his […]
April 3 Chaucer
These also feature in the prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, April being chosen for the imaginary pilgrimage, as a month of stirring activity alive with a general spirit of enterprise and adventure. GEOFFREY CHAUCER Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in […]
April 2 Watson
In contrast to the lusty young man of Spenser’s personification, in William Watson’s lines April appears as a young girl, referring to the frequent periods of sunshine and showers characteristic of this month. APRIL William Watson April, April, Laugh thy girlish laughter; Then, the moment after, Weep thy girlish tears!
April 1 Spenser
From THE CALENDAR OF NATURE by Edmund Spenser The legend of Jupiter, disguised as a bull, carrying off Europa by swimming across the seas of Crete, is consonant with the freshness and activity of the season. APRILNext came fresh April, full of lustyhed, And wanton as a kid whose horne new buds Upon a bull […]
March 7 W R Rodgers
STORMY DAY The contrast between Nature’s joy and ‘what man has made of man’finds a more modern context in ‘Stormy Day’ by W.R.Rodgers. Here the exhilaration of a windy day is checked by a reminder of the Second World War. Sparse rhyme supplements the basic device of alliteration, a deliberate choice of words with the […]
March 6 William Wordsworth
THE TABLES TURNED Wordsworth sought to redress the balance between academic study and a first-hand experience of Nature as sources of wisdom in “The Tables Turned”:- Up! up! my friend, and quit your books; Or surely you’ll grow double: Up! up! my friend, and clear your looks; Why all this toil and trouble? The sun […]
March 5 William Wordsworth
LINES WRITTEN IN EARLY SPRING His sister Dorothy, an emotional collaborator in his experience of Nature, as her ‘Journal’ reveals, and Edward, a nephew, as far as I remember, were his companions. Nature, he thought, seemed full of life and joy; why was not mankind similarly happy? I heard a thousand blended notes, While in […]
March 4 William Wordsworth
Pre-eminently the poet of Nature ( with a capital ‘N’ ), Wordsworth particularly delights in Springtime, and besides voicing this joy he expounds his philosophy of natural wisdom in the simplest words he can find – another deliberate aim of this poet: TO MY SISTER It is the first mild day of March: Each minute […]