What rhymes with "snow," Bara? (or is it "snae"?

[adcooper]

WInter? You want winter poems? How about a winter dirge...there, Big Tee, this one's for you. (And you, Bara, name that poet.)

Winter: A Dirge
1781

The wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;
Or the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw:
While, tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.

"The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,"
The joyless winter day
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!

Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here firm I rest; they must be best,
Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want-O do Thou grant
This one request of mine!-
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign.

[Bara]

YAY! Ann's playing!

Hmmm, without looking it up, here are Bara Holmes' conclusions.

1. Scottish poet. Definitely. The 'blaw' and 'snaw'; the banks and braes.
2. 18th Century - the 'flow'ry' language. (Oops! You said that already!)
3. Rabbie Burns ....

NOW going to look it up!

[Bara]

One for you, Ann - WITHOUT looking it up! This is one I have known forever, too.

But who? And what?

MORNING and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:

[adcooper]

Goblins? Not the kind that'll getcha ef ya don't watch out....
Come buy? Not for tuppence a bag, I suppose....
Enchantment?
I don't know!!!

[adcooper]

Oh, of COURSE!(Haven't we warned our daughters a million times!?)

We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"

[Bara]

Well done, you. Yes 'The Goblin Market', Christina Rossetti.

How about this one, my very favourite :

"The wind was a torrent of darkness
amongst the gusty trees.
The moon was a ghostly galleon,
tossed upon cloudy seas.
The road was a ribbon of moonlight
over the purple moor.
When the highwayman came riding -
Riding, riding -
The highwayman came riding
up to the old inn door."

[adcooper]

Mind reader! I love Wally de la Mare!

Plaiting a dark red love knot, into her long black hair.
(It's so YOU, Bara. I bet outlaws are always galloping up to your window.)


Problem is, now....I seem to be rattling toward the 20th Century, but still in a cold mood:

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

[Bara]

Gosh, you’ve stumped me, Ann. Hmm.. will search my books (no Googling). Late 19thC?
Hmmm.

Yes, you are so right, as a young teenager, I thought I was ‘Bess’ – just short of the musket, of course…

[adcooper]

Hint: 20th Century American. I did my MA exam and paper on this fellow. (WHY!?) He was an insurance executive, then took up poetry later in life. Gets less and less romantic, doesn't he. And yet here's the fellow who wrote,

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

[Bara]

Oh that's beautiful .. having to go and Google.

[adcooper]

How bratty of me. This is why I have no friends. Everyone plays a hilarious game of limericks, and I miss the point and recall a Bible verse.
Okay, that was Wallace Stevens, whom you would not know because....snore.....

But, as an apology, I offer a current American poet, who has more humor in his little finger than Wally Steve had in his whole life.

I give you:
Snow Day
by Billy Collins


Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows


the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.


In a while, I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch
sending a cold shower down on us both.


But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news


that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed.
the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with—some will be delighted to hear—


the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and—clap your hands—the Peanuts Play School.


So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.


And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.

[Bara]

Oh damn and blast! Thought we'd have Big Tee here, as we're talking weather...

Going to look for a brain-teaser for you, Ann!

But you know what? It has just occurred to Forry, that Robert Burns writes the same sort of horserell that he does...

"O wee, tim'rous, coo'ring beastie -
O! What a panic's in thy breastie ... " (Breestie?)

So sorry, Ann, but now that Woo is back on box-rest, he's planning more poetry..

I can hear mutt'rings about carnivals, LYNNE (and IN and SPIN and FLYNN) and Shakespeare. Oh dear. I think he may be planning the Euology for you to read at the WTF.

How are you with bad rhymes and dodgy metre? I have told him ABSOLUTELY no limericks .. Ann won't read them out...

FORRY! NO!

"There once was a blonde from KY ..."

"There once was a blonde with a farm...."

"A young science teacher I know...."

"My donkey friend, Touchas once said..."

"My Great Auntie Lynne said to me .."

FORRY! NO!

[adcooper]

There once was a blonde from Kentucky
for whom "vehicle" rhymed with "unlucky."
While out shopping for beer
she ran over a deer.
Her mechanic thinks she is just ducky.

[Bara]

Too good! But beware, Forry is planning his revenge - I thought I saw him looking up Chaucer...

[Shannon]

Off on a tangent - but not entirely...

The Night Journey
by Terri Windling

Go by coombe, by candle light,

by moonlight, starlight, stepping stone,

and step o'er bracken, branches, briars,

and go tonight, and go alone,

go by water, go by willow,

go by ivy, oak and ash,

and rowan berries red as blood,

and breadcrumbs, stones, to mark the path;

find the way by water's whisper,

water rising from a womb

of granite, peat, of summer heat,

to slake your thirst and fill the coombe

and tumble over moss and stone

and feed the roots of ancient trees

and call to you: go, now, tonight,

by water, earth, phyllomancy,

by candle flame, by spirit-name,

by spells, by portents, myth and song,

by drum beat, heart beat, earth pulsing

beneath your feet, calling you home,

calling you back, calling you through

the water, wood, the waste, the wild,

the hills where Dartmoor ponies pass,

and black-faced sheep, a spectral child,

a fox with pale unnatural eyes,

an owl, a badger, ghostly deer

with horns of star light, candle light

to guide the way, to lead you here,

to lead you to the one who waits,

who sits and waits upon the tor,

he waits and watches, wondering

if you're the one he's waiting for;

he waits by dawn, by dusk, by dark,

by sun, by rain, by day, by night,

his hair as black as ravens' wings,

his eyes of amber, skin milk white,

his skin tattooed with spiral lines

beneath a mask of wood and leaves

and polished stone and sun-bleached bone,

beneath a shirt of spiders' weave,

his wrists weighted with silver bands

and copper braids tarnished to green,

he waits for you, unknown and yet

familiar from forgotten dreams;

you dream and stir upon your bed

and toss and turn among the sheets,

the wind taps at the window glass

and water tumbles through the leat

and through the garden, through the wood,

and over moss and over stone

and tells you: go, by candle light,

and go tonight, and go alone;

he's sent you dreams, he's left you signs,

he's left you feathers, beads and runes,

so go, tonight, by candle light,

by ash and oak, by wood, by coombe.