The Manor Farm Edward Thomas Love of England, common to so many English poets, leads us finally this month to “The Manor Farm” by Edward Thomas: The rock-like mud unfroze a little and rills Ran and sparkled down each side of the road Under the catkins wagging on the hedge. But earth would have her […]
February
February 7 Rupert Brooke
In contrast Rupert Brooke’s 1914 Sonnets were written earlier in the war when patriotic idealism had not yet been drowned in Flanders’ mud and the inhuman horrors of trench warfare. Brooke’s original analogy of physical and spiritual reintegration after death is memorable: If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner […]
February 6 Sassoon
Does it Matter? Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Sassoon, an infantry officer of the first World War reacted to the soldier’s predicament with robust and angry satire aimed at ‘scarlet majors at the base’, or civilians safe at home. This poem is still within the copyright period. Link to ‘Does It Matter ?’ Next: 1914 Sonnets Rupert […]
February 5 Walt Whitman
A Sight in Camp The emotion of compassion for the victims of war is also tellingly expressed when Walt Whitman describes a sight in camp during the American Civil War, and here also pity is reinforced by religious feeling: A sight in camp in the daybreak gray and dim, As from my tent I emerge […]
February 4 Edith Sitwell
“ Still falls the rain.” such is the title of a notable poem by Edith Sitwell, which has for sub-title: ” The Raids 1940 Night and Dawn”: so we are back in the dark days of the second World War, in bomb-scarred London. To this poet the rain is symbolic of the martyrdom of Man, […]
February 3 Edmund Spenser
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 […]
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 […]