We concluded April with Browning’s “Home thoughts from Abroad”. Rupert Brooke’s “The Old Vicarage Grantchester” was written in the same vein, but from a cafe in Berlin in May, 1912. Here are some lines from the poem: Just now the lilac is in bloom, All before my little room; And in my flower-beds, I think, […]
May
May 7 John Betjeman
The emotions that produce poetry include, we see, exhilaration. The Poet Laureate, Sir John Betjeman, a past-master at poeticising the commonplace, bases upon this feeling his poem entitled; “Seaside Golf”: This poem is still within the copyright period. How straight it flew, how long it flew, Read the poem here Previous poem Great Things by […]
May 6 Thomas Hardy
It is fitting at this jolly season of the year to redress gloomy stereotypes such as that of Milton: April’s poems showed us Thomas Hardy in his familiar image as the pessimist, seeing mankind in the power of an Immanent Will unconcerned with his sufferings; but there is also Hardy the Dorset countrymen, who, although […]
May 5 Beaumont and Fletcher
From “The Knight of the Burning Pestle” by Beaumont and Fletcher This month of early morning forays into the countryside to bring home branches of the May, to decorate the may-pole and to dance around it, forms part of our vision of Merry England. It is well portrayed in Beaumont and Fletcher’s play, “The Knight […]
May 4 Geoffrey Chaucer
Chaucer too celebrates this month, together with his favourite flower, the daisy. In a Prologue to his “The Legend of Good Women”, after explaining his devotion to reading and study, he anticipates by four hundred years Wordsworth’s abandonment of books for Nature, as related in our March programme. Chaucer writes: And as for me, though […]
May 3 Edmund Spenser
From the Fairie Queene Edmund Spenser Milton looked back with respect to “our sage and serious poet, Spenser”, as he called him; and Spenser’s Queen of the months shares with Milton’s May the characteristics of the classical goddess, Flora: Then came fair May, the fairest maid on ground, Decked all with dainties of her season’s […]
May 2 John Milton
L’Allegro John Milton In his pictorial poem “L’ Allegro” or the lively man, he hails the goddess of Mirth and considers her possible parentage, perhaps the offspring of love and wine or, more wisely, of the West Wind and Dawn: But come thou goddess fair and free, In heaven yclept Euphrosyne, And by men, heart-easing […]
May 1 John Milton
Song on a May Morning John Milton Now the bright morning star, Day’s harbinger, Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her The flowery May that from her green lap throws The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose. Hail bounteous May that dost inspire Mirth and youth and warm desire; Woods […]