Number 148: John Betjeman "Diary of a Church Mouse"

Diary of a Church Mouse

Here among long-discarded cassocks,
Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,
Here where the vicar never looks
I nibble through old service books.
Lean and alone I spend my days
Behind this Church of England baize.
I share my dark forgotten room
With two oil-lamps and half a broom.
The cleaner never bothers me,
So here I eat my frugal tea.
My bread is sawdust mixed with straw;
My jam is polish for the floor.
Christmas and Easter may be feasts
For congregations and for priests,
And so may Whitsun. All the same,
They do not fill my meagre frame.
For me the only feast at all
Is Autumn's Harvest Festival,
When I can satisfy my want
With ears of corn around the font.
I climb the eagle's brazen head
To burrow through a loaf of bread.
I scramble up the pulpit stair
And gnaw the marrows hanging there.
It is enjoyable to taste
These items ere they go to waste,
But how annoying when one finds
That other mice with pagan minds
Come into church my food to share
Who have no proper business there.
Two field mice who have no desire
To be baptized, invade the choir.
A large and most unfriendly rat
Comes in to see what we are at.
He says he thinks there is no God
And yet he comes ... it's rather odd.
This year he stole a sheaf of wheat
(It screened our special preacher's seat),
And prosperous mice from fields away
Come in to hear our organ play,
And under cover of its notes
Ate through the altar's sheaf of oats.
A Low Church mouse, who thinks that I
Am too papistical, and High,
Yet somehow doesn't think it wrong
To munch through Harvest Evensong,
While I, who starve the whole year through,
Must share my food with rodents who
Except at this time of the year
Not once inside the church appear.
Within the human world I know
Such goings-on could not be so,
For human beings only do
What their religion tells them to.
They read the Bible every day
And always, night and morning, pray,
And just like me, the good church mouse,
Worship each week in God's own house,
But all the same it's strange to me
How very full the church can be
With people I don't see at all
Except at Harvest Festival.

-- John Betjeman

Hap Notes: John Betjeman (1906-1984) is one of the most beloved poets of the last century in Great Britain. His fans included the "common" reader and critics alike. His admirers ranged from W.H. Auden to Philip Larkin. He was also a broadcaster, an architecture writer and critic and a highly lauded travel writer. He won many awards and was Poet Laureate of England from 1972 until his death.

Betjeman went to Magdalen College, Oxford and had C.S. Lewis as a tutor. They apparently were like oil and water. Betjeman being the more casual and fun fellow at school and Lewis, an Irishman with a hint of disdain for what he thought was Betjeman's cavalier attitude towards school. (I am all aflutter right now because Lewis' "lost" translations of the Aeneid have just (May 3) become available and I'm wanting it so fiercely but have to wait for a few weeks for a variety of reasons.) Lewis and Betjeman had a sort of life-long spitting contest from their encounters at school. Lewis thought he lied his way out of tutoring sessions (he did) and Betjeman thought Lewis was cold and demanding (ditto.) Think of Lewis as the guy who you would most like as a tutor and Betjeman as the guy you'd most like to hang with for fun. Tough mix, huh?

Betjeman's easy style and accessibility along with his sharp wit make his poetry fun to read and the words "poetry" and "fun" generally only meet in the vocabularies of nerdy geeks like me, so it's a huge thing for the general reader.

In today's poem, the church mouse makes a very sharp point about Christians without the poet beating us over the head with it. He makes us smile and then gives us a bit of rue at the end. It's a charmer.

Here's a good Betjeman quote: "Too many people in the modern world view poetry as a luxury, not a necessity like petrol. But to me it's the oil of life."

and another: "I don't think I'm any good. If I thought I was any good, I wouldn't be."

You can find more Betjeman here: famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/john_betjeman/poems

And now, because it's Saturday- some cartoons, typical of the morning and afternoon cartoons of my youth- they were old then, too.

Here's Bugs Bunny with a host of Hollywood types, including Bogart, Bacall and Carmen Miranda, just to name a few: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxBZVulaxs8

And here's one where Bugs tells his life story. My brother and I used to sing that "we're the boys of the chorus" song all the time and drive our mom nuts. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sepDQrD2E8&feature=related

Number 147: Rabindranath Tagore "Playthings"

Playthings

Child, how happy you are sitting in the dust, playing with broken twigs all morning!
I smile at your play with that little bit of a broken twig
I am busy with my accounts, adding up figures by the hour.
Perhaps you glance at me and think, “what a stupid game to spoil your morning with!”

Child, I have forgotten the art of being absorbed in sticks and mud pies.
I seek out costly play things, and gather lumps of gold and silver.
With whatever you find you create your glad games
I spend both my time and my strength over things I can never obtain.

In my frail canoe I struggle to cross the ocean of desire,
and forget that I too am playing a game.

--Rabindranath Tagore

Hap Notes: If you do not see that almost everything we do in life is akin to playing with sticks and making mud pies, i.e., a sort of game, I'll be very surprised. Everyone at one time in their life has realized that most of life is an intricate illusion that we create for ourselves. There is no "matrix" outside of the one of your own making. You do not have to live in this exposed truth all day, but it's pretty important that you know it exists. When you rise above the machinations of the illusions within which we all live, just for a moment, you'll discover that all beings on the earth have meaning, war is a brutal and sad game and possessions are a joke. You are free to sink back down into the "real" world" if you choose. But know that there is a choice and you have made it.

I don't know that Tagore wants all that baggage packed into this poem but, who knows? He was a deep thinker and a believer in compassion for all creatures. He was not a flaky goof, either, he knew physics and biology and was a great respecter of the sciences. He was not a grim prophet of doom but a hopeful, joyous and respectful believer in the good of life. You can see the "game" and have compassion.

Tagore met and discussed issues and science with no less than Albert Einstein (whose theories have been once again validated recently by Gravity Probe B). A journalist present at one of the recorded events said, “It was interesting to see them together—Tagore, the poet with the head of a thinker, and Einstein, the thinker with the head of a poet. It seemed to an observer as though two planets were engaged in a chat. “

Maybe, rather than rising above our illusions today, we should all just go out, sit in the mud and play with a few sticks and twigs. Perhaps just the act of playing around will give your spirit the room it needs to move.

And by the way, if all of this is a game, why aren't many of us having any fun? It's time to put some silly fun in your life and what better day to do that than Friday, eh? Go out and play with some bubbles, chew some bubble gum, talk to the birds, eat your dessert first and put your socks on over your shoes. Life is short- enjoy it and don't get fenced in by "adding up figures by the hour."

Tagore, in addition to a Nobel prize, has the distinction of writing the lyrics of two national anthems; India's and the one for Bangladesh.

Here are some famous Tagore quotes: "Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man."

and
"A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it."

and
"Do not say, ‘It is morning,’ and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name."

and one more (they're irresistable):

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky."

And a bonus one because I love you: "Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it."

Here's where we've talked about Tagore before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/03/number-85-rabindranath-tagore-closed.html

Number 146: Gwendolyn Brooks "The Crazy Woman"

The Crazy Woman

I shall not sing a May song.
A May song should be gay.
I'll wait until November
And sing a song of gray.

I'll wait until November
That is the time for me.
I'll go out in the frosty dark
And sing most terribly.

And all the little people
Will stare at me and say,
"That is the Crazy Woman
Who would not sing in May."

-- Gwendolyn Brooks

Hap Notes: Everybody knows Gwendolyn Brooks' (1917-200) poem "We Real Cool." I think. It's been printed on ad cards in city buses for at least 30 years, is used as an example of colloquial language use in poetry in grades 2-12 and has been set to a variety of music and been highly lauded. It has had hard use all these years and still stands fresh and crisp. But Brooks wrote a lot of poetry, some, in her early career is more formal; some, in her later career more loosely structured; but all with Brooks' sharp eye towards human behavior. She had an eagle's eye and a kind heart.

She was born in Topeka, Kansas but her family moved to Chicago when she was only six weeks old and her work is Chicago flavored stuff. You know what Chicago tastes like, right? It's that heady mixture of hotdogs, dirty snow, violets, grime, spaghetti sauce, cabbage, burnt toast, cotton candy, coffee with cream, french fries, baseball glove leather, street salt, MD 20/20, popcorn, cigar smoke, Frango Mints, luke-warm beer, gravel, grilled hamburgers, sauerkraut, roses, bacon and eggs, wet tire rubber, cheddar cheese, old wood and prune kolaches, all eaten with a fork that has the metallic tang of well-used silverware. Kinda. (I might be leaving some flavors out but that's the first taste that comes to me when I think of the place. I'm an Illinois girl, too.) Brooks' work is inextricable from Chicago and she lived a great deal of her life there.

I think many people who attended college (especially in the Midwest) during the 70s and 80s saw Brooks read. She was a tireless reader of her work. I saw her twice. The first time I was in the back of a large auditorium, the second time was in a smaller college venue and I met her but, as with all people I meet whom I admire, I was tongue-tied. (At least I had the presence of mind not to tell her that her corsage was on sideways and proceed to fix it. When I met Eugene McCarthy I blurted out that he needed to stand up straighter. I don't seem to be very gracious when faced with cultural icons. I'm a yokel that way.) I got to shake her hand, after juggling my load of books (I was always carrying a load of books which were not classroom textbooks in any way, shape or form) and she turned to the Dean of Liberal Arts standing next to her and said, as I passed, "Now, that girl is a READER." Not a particularly interesting brush with fame but there you have it.

Brooks was the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize, she received numerous awards and grants and was given more than 75 honorary degrees from various colleges and universities. She was the Library of Congress Poetry Consultant (you know, Laureate) in 1985 and Poet Laureate of Illinois, too. She had to move medals and awards to get to the bathroom (as we used to say.)

I love today's poem- it's not as stirring as her story poems or as street savvy as her later ones but I've always identified with the crazy woman. This poem is Brooks in a sweet and salty playful mood. There are things that need to be said in a metaphoric November about people and life.

Her work took on a grittier tone and a looser structure as she aged. She's a joy to read and all her poetry, while accessible, will yield hidden depths. Have I mentioned yet how her work sometimes fizzes with anger, crackles with smarts and pops you a good one, right in the mouth? It often does.

Brooks' work, while a shining example of "Black" poetry, has the unenviable position of having to "stand" for everything that African-Americans are as poets or writers. I don't exactly know why we all do this to her but, Brooks is a poet, not a color and while it's understandable that she is either praised for her strong black identity or disdained for it not being strong enough, she is not a piece of cardboard or marble. She's a flesh and blood human who wrote fine poetry. I tire of those who want to shred her up for socio-political fodder. As John Berryman said it's "the stuff itself" that matters.

Here's a good Brooks quote- and, I think, one of the best descriptions of poetry: "Poetry is life distilled."

and another: "Look at what's happening in this world. Every day there's something exciting or disturbing to write about. With all that's going on, how could I stop?"

and another: "I felt that I had to write. Even if I had never been published, I knew that I would go on writing, enjoying it and experiencing the challenge."

You can find more Brooks here: www.poetryfoundation.org/article/178704

Number 145: Alice Friman "Getting Serious"

Getting Serious

Today I started looking for my soul.
Yesterday it was my keys. Last week,
my brain which I couldn't find, it being out
looking for me, now that I'm getting so old.

First I thought my soul would have gone
back to Greece where she grew so tall and straight,
she thought she was a column. Or back to camp,
being forever twelve and underdeveloped.
Perhaps, being careless, I left her during the 70s
in bed with God knows whom. Or could be
I buried her with my mother—my head not being right—
but that was my heart.

So I went to where I know
I saw her last. Radio City Music Hall.
I'm six, my feet barely brushing the floor,
and the Rockettes start shuffling out, long-
legged and perfect as paper-dolls kicking up
down in a wave. One body with seventy-two knees
chugging like pistons going back in a forever mirror,
same as in Coney Island’s Fun House or on Mama's can
of Dutch Cleanser. And my heart flexed in me, a sail,
and I swear I saw it flying out of my chest
spiriting away my giddy soul, ears plugged and tied
to the mast: I can't hear you I can't hear you.

--Alice Friman

Hap Notes: Award winning poet Alice Friman (born 1933) is another in the trend of poets who started writing poetry later in life. There is nothing odd about this. While poetry has been often been relegated to old guys with beards or young romantic fellas or suicidal collegiate women – these are all wrong images akin to thinking of Napoleon as being incredibly short (he was 5'6" 1/2" - not as short as, say Prince, but probably around the height of Julius Caesar. He was an average height for his day.) I suppose there's a sliver of truth to it but it's certainly not accurate.

In fact, It would be more accurate to say that most of the really good poetry being written in America is being written by women (and some men) over 40. No kidding. I'm relieved by this. Poetry isn't just a vessel for feelings, it's a conduit to the universe. It takes a skilled electrician to hook up the circuits.

When Friman says she's searching for her soul, she's looking at all the parts of her life, seeing who she was – what made up her life, her existence. We are often so busy going through our lives working, cooking, driving, trying to get "somewhere" that we don't always remember what made our souls fly, rise up, so that we could feel them in our bodies. As we look back on our lives we remember the people we were – ambitious, clumsy, undeveloped, sexy- or looking for a connection with sex – on vacations, in relationships, in the middle of a career. There is always a place or two that we remember as wonderful, inspiring, when our souls sort of "came to life," stirred by some enchanted wind.

Friman remembers the thrill of watching the dancers at Radio City Music Hall (she grew up in New York, although she spent a lot of her time in Indiana- teaching at Purdue, Indiana State and Ball State) and that's the first time she remembers her soul taking "flight."

Now Friman knows a good bit about mythology. She once said " I write for the muse. Does that sound old fashioned? As I tell my classes, there are no muses for basketball, but, by heaven, there are four, count them, four muses for poetry—Euterpe, Polyhymnia, Calliope, and Erato. Five if you count Thalia, who doubled in comedy and pastoral poetry. And whichever one is called up when I first touch pen to paper, I tell you, she is one tough cookie." So when she says she is tied to the mast she's saying a lot. Not only did Ulysses/Odysseus tie himself to the mast so that he could hear the sirens, he put wax in the ears of the crew so they would not be harmed by the siren's call. So what is she saying here? I'll let you dig it out. Just remember that the sirens could be a bit more formidable than just seductive women and are often depicted as birds with women's heads with sharp vulture claws. They are a warning of mythic, dangerous powers. She mentions Greece earlier in the poem, too.

As far as the Dutch Cleanser goes, well, I have three theories. One is the reflective foil package which can act as a mirror. Two is the ads seen for Dutch cleanser as "jumping" to work and having many little maids. Three is the way that one sprinkles out the cleanser sort of looks like a cascade of powder in a wave. The Coney Island funhouse mirror, you get, yes?

Tell me you know what paper dolls are, please. Do they still even make them?

Here's a good Friman quote: " I have never been in a class. When I started, there was no such thing. If there was such a thing, I didn’t know it. I had three kids and the kitchen floor, and I started writing. I’ve taught myself every mistake I know, and so I think perhaps I came at it a bit differently, because I don’t seem to bother with what’s the style now, since I never knew what the style was. I guess I wanted to write like the poets I had always loved, or to have that effect. I wanted to write things that mattered."

Here's Friman's website, where you can find more of her poems: www.alicefriman.com/

Number 144: Robert Frost "Maple"

Maple

Her teacher's certainty it must be Mabel
Made Maple first take notice of her name.
She asked her father and he told her, "Maple—
Maple is right."
"But teacher told the school
There's no such name."
"Teachers don't know as much
As fathers about children, you tell teacher.
You tell her that it's M-A-P-L-E.
You ask her if she knows a maple tree.
Well, you were named after a maple tree.
Your mother named you. You and she just saw
Each other in passing in the room upstairs,
One coming this way into life, and one
Going the other out of life—you know?
So you can't have much recollection of her.
She had been having a long look at you.
She put her finger in your cheek so hard
It must have made your dimple there, and said,
'Maple.' I said it too: 'Yes, for her name.'
She nodded. So we're sure there's no mistake.
I don't know what she wanted it to mean,
But it seems like some word she left to bid you
Be a good girl—be like a maple tree.
How like a maple tree's for us to guess.
Or for a little girl to guess sometime.
Not now—at least I shouldn't try too hard now.
By and by I will tell you all I know
About the different trees, and something, too,
About your mother that perhaps may help."
Dangerous self-arousing words to sow.
Luckily all she wanted of her name then
Was to rebuke her teacher with it next day,
And give the teacher a scare as from her father.
Anything further had been wasted on her,
Or so he tried to think to avoid blame.
She would forget it. She all but forgot it.
What he sowed with her slept so long a sleep,
And came so near death in the dark of years,
That when it woke and came to life again
The flower was different from the parent seed.
It came back vaguely at the glass one day,
As she stood saying her name over aloud,
Striking it gently across her lowered eyes
To make it go well with the way she looked.
What was it about her name? Its strangeness lay
In having too much meaning. Other names,
As Lesley, Carol, Irma, Marjorie,
Signified nothing. Rose could have a meaning,
But hadn't as it went. (She knew a Rose.)
This difference from other names it was
Made people notice it—and notice her.
(They either noticed it, or got it wrong.)
Her problem was to find out what it asked
In dress or manner of the girl who bore it.
If she could form some notion of her mother—
What she had thought was lovely, and what good.
This was her mother's childhood home;
The house one story high in front, three stories
On the end it presented to the road.
(The arrangement made a pleasant sunny cellar.)
Her mother's bedroom was her father's still,
Where she could watch her mother's picture fading.
Once she found for a bookmark in the Bible
A maple leaf she thought must have been laid
In wait for her there. She read every word
Of the two pages it was pressed between,
As if it was her mother speaking to her.
But forgot to put the leaf back in closing
And lost the place never to read again.
She was sure, though, there had been nothing in it.

So she looked for herself, as everyone
Looks for himself, more or less outwardly.
And her self-seeking, fitful though it was,
May still have been what led her on to read,
And think a little, and get some city schooling.
She learned shorthand, whatever shorthand may
Have had to do with it--she sometimes wondered.
So, till she found herself in a strange place
For the name Maple to have brought her to,
Taking dictation on a paper pad
And, in the pauses when she raised her eyes,
Watching out of a nineteenth story window
An airship laboring with unshiplike motion
And a vague all-disturbing roar above the river
Beyond the highest city built with hands.
Someone was saying in such natural tones
She almost wrote the words down on her knee,
"Do you know you remind me of a tree--
A maple tree?"

"Because my name is Maple?"
"Isn't it Mabel? I thought it was Mabel."

"No doubt you've heard the office call me Mabel.
I have to let them call me what they like."

They were both stirred that he should have divined
Without the name her personal mystery.
It made it seem as if there must be something
She must have missed herself. So they were married,
And took the fancy home with them to live by.

They went on pilgrimage once to her father's
(The house one story high in front, three stories
On the side it presented to the road)
To see if there was not some special tree
She might have overlooked. They could find none,
Not so much as a single tree for shade,
Let alone grove of trees for sugar orchard.
She told him of the bookmark maple leaf
In the big Bible, and all she remembered
of the place marked with it—"Wave offering,
Something about wave offering, it said."

"You've never asked your father outright, have you?"

"I have, and been put off sometime, I think."
(This was her faded memory of the way
Once long ago her father had put himself off.)
"Because no telling but it may have been
Something between your father and your mother
Not meant for us at all."
"Not meant for me?
Where would the fairness be in giving me
A name to carry for life and never know
The secret of?"
"And then it may have been
Something a father couldn't tell a daughter
As well as could a mother. And again
It may have been their one lapse into fancy
'Twould be too bad to make him sorry for
By bringing it up to him when be was too old.
Your father feels us round him with our questing,
And holds us off unnecessarily,
As if he didn't know what little thing
Might lead us on to a discovery.
It was as personal as he could be
About the way he saw it was with you
To say your mother, had she lived, would be
As far again as from being born to bearing."

"Just one look more with what you say in mind,
And I give up"; which last look came to nothing.
But though they now gave up the search forever,
They clung to what one had seen in the other
By inspiration. It proved there was something.
They kept their thoughts away from when the maples
Stood uniform in buckets, and the steam
Of sap and snow rolled off the sugarhouse.
When they made her related to the maples,
It was the tree the autumn fire ran through
And swept of leathern leaves, but left the bark
Unscorched, unblackened, even, by any smoke.
They always took their holidays in autumn.
Once they came on a maple in a glade,
Standing alone with smooth arms lifted up,
And every leaf of foliage she'd worn
Laid scarlet and pale pink about her feet.
But its age kept them from considering this one.
Twenty-five years ago at Maple's naming
It hardly could have been a two-leaved seedling
The next cow might have licked up out at pasture.
Could it have been another maple like it?
They hovered for a moment near discovery,
Figurative enough to see the symbol,
But lacking faith in anything to mean
The same at different times to different people.
Perhaps a filial diffidence partly kept them
From thinking it could be a thing so bridal.
And anyway it came too late for Maple.
She used her hands to cover up her eyes.

"We would not see the secret if we could now:
We are not looking for it any more."

Thus had a name with meaning, given in death,
Made a girl's marriage, and ruled in her life.
No matter that the meaning was not clear.
A name with meaning could bring up a child,
Taking the child out of the parents' hands.
Better a meaningless name, I should say,
As leaving more to nature and happy chance.
Name children some names and see what you do.

-- Robert Frost

Hap Notes: Well, it's a long poem, sort of, but it's always been a favorite of mine. The magic and mystery of relationships is explored here. Frost, as usual, gives us his sidelong smile and offers us a wry observance and gives it back to us to discern.

Since it's so long, I won't add much commentary. I'm sure you get that the story is about a girl named Maple whose name forms the basis for much of her thinking about the world. Don't forget that she meets her husband in an office building (he's her boss, she's taking dictation) far from where maples would be planted in "the highest city built with hands."

It's Frost's way of telling the story that keeps the mystery for us. He's good at that. Here's the first place we talked about Frost: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/number-7-robert-frost-design_14.html

He's also the featured poet for numbers 51,69,90,95 and 128. I like Frost (obviously.)

Number 143: William Blake "And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time?"

"And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time?"

And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon England's mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England's pleasant pastures seen!

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England's green and pleasant Land.

-- William Blake

Hap Notes: Well, I just wasn't thinking or I'd have posted this for the royal wedding. This poem by Blake is set to music by Sir Hubert Parry ( in 1916) and is regularly sung in the Church of England and is called "Jerusalem." It was played at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. The Brits do not have an "official" national anthem and it has often been mentioned as a choice for it. In popularity polls in England "Jerusalem" always runs a close second to "God Save the Queen" (although many folks outside of the U.K. believe "Rule Britannia" is the national anthem, it is not.)

The poem is asking several questions concerning a theory that Jesus had once traveled, with Joseph of Arimathea to England. The story is often that Jesus "appeared" to him in England.

The "dark Satanic Mills" that Blake is speaking of are the factories of the Industrial Revolution, which spit up dark smoke and had inhuman working conditions. The "chariot of fire" is more than likely an allusion to Elijah who was taken up to heaven (without dying, by the way) in such a vehicle and yes, that's where the movie got its name.

In the legend, when Joseph put his staff on the ground in Glastonbury, England, it rooted to the ground and grew up as a "Glastonbury Thorn", a kind of Hawthorn tree. Traditionally a branch of Glastonbury Thorn is cut and shown every year in Buckingham Palace in May. (The flowers in the masthead are from the tree, with the original Blake manuscript.)

The song has always had a very deeply rooted place in the hearts of English citizens. I hesitate to call it a hymn because the term raises some controversy about the nature of the song. It's easy to see that Blake was worried about England and says that the fight for human rights will go on until England becomes a holy place, a paradise. The term "England's green and pleasant land" is an oft-used phrase to describe various parts of and things about England.

The royal family, by the by, must all be confirmed members of the Church of England. It is part of their responsibilities as reigning monarchs to maintain the church.

"Jerusalem" is often sung at cricket and rugby games.

Speaking of the royal wedding, if you've got an extra ten minutes here's Queen Elizabeth II, William's grandmother, getting married: www.itnsource.com/shotlist//BHC_RTV/1947/11/24/BGU410270105/

You will note that the ceremonies are pretty much the same as the one we saw Friday, 4/29/11.

But this is the 21st century so here's the official website of the wedding: www.officialroyalwedding2011.org/

And here's "Jerusalem": www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKaJ4b0XYmI

The inset photo is Joseph of Arimathea by Pietro Perugino. Joseph was also thought to be the first keeper of the "Holy Grail."

Here's where we've talked about Blake before: happopoemouse.blogspot.com/2011/03/number-89-william-blake-tyger.html

Number 142: Robert Burns "To A Mouse"

To A Mouse

On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough, November, 1781

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,

Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi' bickering brattle!

I would be laith to rin an' chase thee,

Wi' murd'ring pattle!




I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

An' justifies that ill opinion

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion

An' fellow-mortal!




I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen-icker in a thrave

'S a sma' request;

I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,

And never miss't!




Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!

Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!

An' naething, now, to big a new ane,

O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's winds ensuin,

Baith snell an' keen!




Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste

An' weary winter comin fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel coulter past

Out thro' thy cell.




That wee bit heap o' leaves an stibble,

Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!

Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,

But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,

An' cranreuch cauld!




But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft a-gley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!




Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But och! I backward cast my e'e,

On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I cannot see,

I guess an' fear!

-- Robert Burns

Hap Notes: First off- don't let the Scottish brogue throw you. Read out loud with a grand flourish and roll your "r's"- it's fun and you'll enjoy the words more. Barring that, just think of Ewen McGregor or Sean Connery or Robbie Coltran or Billy Connolly reading it aloud (all Scots.)

Robert Burns (1759-1796) was born to tenant farmer parents, the oldest of 7 children, and by the time he was 15 he was a seasoned hand at farm work. He was educated by his father in the three "R's" and was a voracious reader. He had a bit of schooling where he was taught a bit of Latin and French but he always retained a working man's view of life and the dignity that goes with one who works hard and thinks deeply. He wrote his first poetry to a girl (naturally) in 1774.

He got into a bit of trouble with women; he was a handsome devil and bit wild. He also got into trouble by supporting the principles of the French Revolution. His output of poetry, and his fame are remarkable considering that he died when he was only 37 (from dental surgery- although he had, ironically, a "weak" heart.) He was prone to periods of feverish work and deep depression (you know what's coming, right?) and is thought to have been a manic-depressive (which gets played down a bit in Scotland.)

Sir Walter Scott said, upon meeting him, that he'd never seen a man with eyes more vivid, glowing and passionate when speaking. He also said, "His person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not clownish, a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity which received part of its effect perhaps from knowledge of his extraordinary talents."

You might think you don't know Burns even though you hear a song he wrote the lyric to every New Year's Eve, "Auld Lang Syne," you know..."May old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind...." The phrase "Of Mice and Men" in today's poem, was taken by Steinbeck for his book of the same title.

I have to admit I love Burns' poetry and it's a satisfying, romantic and gorgeously textured read. I'm not the only one, either, he's a national hero to this very day in Scotland. I'll wager there's not a person who can read in Scotland that doesn't have a Burns poem committed to memory.

Let's get to the poem. The poet has turned up a mouse with a plow, a mouse who the poet surmises had planned to live in a warm little nest throughout the winter and whose plans are now upended by the interfering plow. I don't like this much but it may help to have the "Standard English" translation. It kicks the stuffing out of the beauty of the rhythms and the gorgeous words but here it is:

Small, crafty, cowering, timorous little beast,
O, what a panic is in your little breast!
You need not start away so hasty
With argumentative chatter!
I would be loath to run and chase you,
With murdering plough-staff.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
And justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
And fellow mortal!

I doubt not, sometimes, but you may steal;
What then? Poor little beast, you must live!
An odd ear in twenty-four sheaves
Is a small request;
I will get a blessing with what is left,
And never miss it.

Your small house, too, in ruin!
Its feeble walls the winds are scattering!
And nothing now, to build a new one,
Of coarse grass green!
And bleak December's winds coming,
Both bitter and keen!

You saw the fields laid bare and wasted,
And weary winter coming fast,
And cozy here, beneath the blast,
You thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel plough passed
Out through your cell.

That small bit heap of leaves and stubble,
Has cost you many a weary nibble!
Now you are turned out, for all your trouble,
Without house or holding,
To endure the winter's sleety dribble,
And hoar-frost cold.

But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

Still you are blest, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!

Here's a good Burns quote: "My way is: I consider the poetic sentiment, correspondent to my idea of the musical expression, then chose my theme, begin one stanza, when that is composed - which is generally the most difficult part of the business - I walk out, sit down now and then, look out for objects in nature around me that are in unison or harmony with the cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom, humming every now and then the air with the verses I have framed. when I feel my Muse beginning to jade, I retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper, swinging, at intervals, on the hind-legs of my elbow chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures, as my, pen goes."

and another:
“Let us do or die.” (Just adding it to show that Burns is in the vernacular i.e. "man's inhumanity to man" and perhaps you know the song "Flow Gently Sweet Afton" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=tr_K_Rr6y9k)or the song "Comin' Through the Rye" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeGvxz_dxKI) I don't know who the guy is who's singing "Comin' Through the Rye" but he was the ONLY one I found of the dozens I heard (my brain is pickled from them) who had the spirit of the song.

You can find more Burns here: www.poemhunter.com/robert-burns/