Poems you love and want to share

Love all the contributions here's another children's one. From Hillaire Belloc's Cautionary tales for Children
Matilda
MATILDA told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one's Eyes;
Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,
Attempted to Believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her,
And would have done so, had not She
Discovered this Infirmity.
For once, towards the Close of Day,
Matilda, growing tired of play,
And finding she was left alone,
Went tiptoe to the Telephone
And summoned the Immediate Aid
Of London's Noble Fire-Brigade.
Within an hour the Gallant Band
Were pouring in on every hand,
From Putney, Hackney Downs, and Bow.
With Courage high and Hearts a-glow,
They galloped, roaring through the Town,
'Matilda's House is Burning Down!'
Inspired by British Cheers and Loud
Proceeding from the Frenzied Crowd,
They ran their ladders through a score
Of windows on the Ball Room Floor;
And took Peculiar Pains to Souse
The Pictures up and down the House,
Until Matilda's Aunt succeeded
In showing them they were not needed;
And even then she had to pay
To get the Men to go away!

It happened that a few Weeks later
Her Aunt was off to the Theatre
To see that Interesting Play
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.
She had refused to take her Niece
To hear this Entertaining Piece:
A Deprivation Just and Wise
To Punish her for Telling Lies.
That Night a Fire did break out--
You should have heard Matilda Shout!
You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,
And throw the window up and call
To People passing in the Street--
(The rapidly increasing Heat
Encouraging her to obtain
Their confidence) -- but all in vain!
For every time she shouted 'Fire!'
They only answered 'Little Liar!'
And therefore when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the House, were Burned.

Talking of children's poems, here's one that was my absolute favourite from a book I bought when my DC were tiny, Come Follow Me - Poems for the Young

Betty at The Party (author unknown)

‘When I was at the party,’
Said Betty, aged just four,
‘A little girl fell off her chair
Right down upon the floor;
And all the other little girls
Began to laugh, but me –
I didn’t laugh a single bit’,
Said Betty seriously.

‘Why not?’– her mother asked her,
Full of delight to find
That Betty – bless her little heart! –
Had been so sweetly kind.
‘Why didn’t you laugh, my darling?
Or don’t you like to tell?’
‘I didn’t laugh,’ said Betty,
‘Because it was me that fell.’

Indinana you're welcome! I enjoyed looking for it and I tracked it down to a piece in a newspaper from 1893 reporting that Florence T. Sehellenberg gave a recitation in Middletown, New York. Digging further, it sounds like the author Mrs Mary Rollins Britton was something of a leading light in society, often holding poetry recitals. I found one mention of plans to publish a book of her poetry, but there was nothing to show if that ever happened. Perhaps it did though and that's the book your Mum won all those years ago.

Wilma thanks for finding that poem. I think it must be the one I've been searching for - there are things in it that are familiar: that it was near Christmas, that she was eight years old - but I was so sure that each verse ended with the line "be better in morning, bye". And I still have this picture in my head of a man with a grizzled beard - she liked to climb upon his knee and tangle her fingers in his beard. I think perhaps I may have mixed two (or more?) poems. It was a long, long time ago!

Thanks again, I will definitely be saving that one

People Upstairs

The people upstairs all practise ballet
Their living room is a bowling alley
Their bedroom is full of conducted tours.
Their radio is louder than yours,
They celebrate week-ends all the week.
When they take a shower, your ceilings leak.
They try to get their parties to mix
By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks,
And when their fun at last abates,
They go to the bathroom on roller skates.
I would love the people upstairs wondrous
If instead of above us, they just lived under us.

Ogden Nash

If I Should Go - Joyce Grenfell

If I should go before the rest of you
Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone
Nor when I'm gone speak in a Sunday voice
But be the usual selves that I have known
Weep if you must
Parting is hell
But life goes on
So sing as well.

I don't know much poetry, and I don't know if this has already been posted - a friend gave me a book of Shakespeare's sonnets when I told her I was going to get married ( first time) and marked this one with a bookmark:
SONNET 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sorry to say there were tempests, which I couldn't stand.

Sometimes Ogden Nash or E.E. Cummings are shown as the author, but they just made popular versions of the poem and apparently the real author is unknown.

Talking of Spring, I really like this one.

The Spring is sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where the birdies is?
Little birds upon the wing -
Ain't that absurd?
The wing is on the bird!

No idea of the author, I'm afraid. Anyone know?

Something I always remember in spring- Philip Larkin

The Trees
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

What wonderful mix of happy and sad on this thread. Thank you all for sharing.

Indinana I found this poem and wondered if it is the one you were looking for -

Real Christmas Joy
By Mrs Mary Rollins Britton

You must get well, my darling girl,
For Christmas is on the way.
Santa must find you big and strong,
You are eight years old today.

Think what Santa will bring you,
Think how we all love you too.
And try hard to get well, dear,
You will, little girl, won't you?

"Yes, Mumie, but I'm so sleepy,
So tired,” she said with a sigh,
"But I'll be better tomorrow,
Be better in morning, bye".

In her dreams she played with angels,
In Heaven she heard them sing.
But way off mother was calling,
And the vesper bells did ring.

And the music of their message,
Came over so bright and clear.
She was still on earth with mother,
And Christmas was very near.

“I'll be right back in a minute’’,
Ann murmured so soft and low,
But mother heard and held her tight,
She could never let her go.

And when the dream was over,
New life seemed to surge and play.
She would be well and strong again,
On the coming Christmas Day.

But that glimpse she had of Heaven,
Will linger sweet through each day.
And make her pathway bright and clear,
Someday, she’ll go back to stay.

I adore this poem by Elizabeth Jennings - I read it at my father's funeral - he was indeed a Gentle Friend xxxx

For a Gentle Friend

I have come to where the deep words are
Spoken with care. There is no more to hide.
I toss away the cold stance of my fear

And move O far, far out to be beside
One who owns all language in extremes
Of death. We watch the coming-in now tide.

We have lived through the nightmares death presumes
To wound us with. We faced the darkest place.
Death the familiar enters all our rooms.

We wear its colour. Its mask's on our face.
But not for long. It's good to let tears run.
This is the quick, the nerve, also the grace

Of death. It brings our life into the sun
And we are grateful. Grief is gracious when
It takes the character of this kind one,

This gentle person. We re-live his life
And marvel at the quiet good he's done.

Does anyone know of a monologue by I think it was Stanley Holloway which goes something like I said no, I said etc etc. Sorry to be so vague but I bought a CD of his and it wasn't on it and I'd love to hear it again!

For the cry from the well by Irina Ratushinskaya

For the cry from the well of 'mama!'
For the crucifix torn from the wall,
For the lie of your 'telegrams'
When there's an order for an arrest -
I will dream of you, Russia.
In the accursedness of your victories,
In the anguish of your impotence,
In the nausea of your hangover -
Why will fear break through?
All has been mourned, all have been sung to rest -
Who will you flinch from all of a sudden?
Though you'll deny it, take refuge in illusion,
Put all the blame on those who have been killed -
I will still come and stand before you
And look into your eyes.

Thanks for the Stanley Holloway monologues. My dad loved to recite them when I was little and he told them to my sons when they were young. They loved them.

Here's another by Wendy Cope: A. Haiku called' On looking out of my back bedroom window without my glasses'

What's that amazing new
Lemon yellow flower?
Oh yes! A football.

It is one most people know but I do like The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.

When I was very little my mother used to read to me from a poetry book that she'd won as a child. I think the book was called "My Own Recital". There was a poem in there called "Better in morning, bye" (though my memory may have got that slightly wrong). It was about a small child who was obviously dying, and each verse ended with those words "better in morning, bye". I have a vague recollection of a father figure with a beard that the child liked to play with as she lay in her bed - and he, of course, crying.

I loved that poem with a passion (children do so love sad stories!) and I've tried over the years to find it online, but with no success. Does anyone know anything about this poem?

'Twelve Things I Don't Want to Hear' by Connie Bensley

Assemble this in eight straightforward steps.
Start with a fish stock, made the day before.
The driver has arrived, but sadly, drunk.
We'll need some disinfectant for the floor.

Ensure all surfaces are clean and dry.
There's a problem, Madam, I'm afraid.
We'd better have the manhole cover up.
Apologies, the doctor's been delayed.

I'd love to bring a friend, he's so depressed.
They've put you on the camp bed in the hall.
There's just one table left, perhaps you'd share.
I know it's midnight, but I had to call....

When I was in my 20s my friends and I took great delight in reciting 'When I am old I shall wear purple''.It was our anthem. I was determined then to stick two fingers up to old age and now it is upon me I still am.
I like to think I wear the metaphorical purple now.

Daddima: my aunt introduced me to 'When I am old I shall wear purple ...' when in her mid 80s. We often read poems together, she would join in the ones she remembered from her schooldays with great enjoyment. My cousins made sure she always had a purple jumper!
They asked me to read the poem at her funeral when she died at 104.

Did Stanley Holloway also write Brown Boots? I have always loved The lion and Albert.

Not strictly a poem, but the lyrics to a song, written by Stephen Foster in about 1864.

Beautiful Dreamer Serenade By Stephen C. Foster

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd a way!

Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,
List while I woo thee with soft melody;
Gone are the cares of life's busy throng,—
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer awake unto me!

Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea
Mermaids are chaunting the wild lorelie;
Over the streamlet vapors are borne,
Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.

Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,
E'en as the morn on the streamlet and sea;
Then will all clouds of sorrow depart,—
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

One of my favourites is by Evangeline Paterson.
A Wish for My Children

On this doorstep I stand
year after year
to watch you going

and think: May you not
skin your knees. May you
not catch your fingers
in car doors. May
your hearts not break.

May tide and weather
wait for your coming

and may you grow strong
to break
all webs of my weaving.

Oh dear, I'm now remembering lots of favourites!

Here's another;

Sam Small
By Stanley Holloway

It occurred on the evening before Waterloo,
And t'troops were lined up on parade,
The Sergeant inspecting 'em he were a terror,
Of whom every man was afraid

All excepting one man who was in the front rank,
A man by the name of Sam Small,
And 'im and the Sergeant were both 'daggers drawn',
They thought nowt of each other at all

As Sergeant walked past he were swinging his arms,
And he happened to brush against Sam,
And knocking his musket clean out of his hand,
It fell to the ground with a slam

'Pick it up' said t'Sergeant, abrupt like but cool,
But Sam with a shake of his head,
'Seeing as tha' knocked it out of me hand,
P'raps tha'll pick the thing up instead.

'Sam, Sam, pick up thy musket,'
The Sergeant exclaimed with a roar,
Sam said 'Tha knocked it down, reet! then tha'll pick it up,
Or it'll stay where it is on't floor

The sound of high words very soon reached the ears,
Of an Officer, Lieutenant Bird,
Who says to the Sergeant, 'Now what's all this ere?'
And the Sergeant told what had occurred.

'Sam, Sam, pick up thy musket'
Lieutenant exclaimed with some heat,
Sam said, 'He knocked it down reet! Then he'll pick it up,
Or it stays where it is, at me feet

It caused quite a stir when the Captain arrived,
To find out the cause of the trouble,
And every man there, all except Sam,
Was full of excitement and bubble

'Sam, Sam, pick up thy musket',
Said Captain for strictness renowned,
Sam said 'He knocked it doon, Reet! so he'll pick it up,
Or it stays where it is on't ground

The same thing occurred when the Major and Colonel,
Both tried to get Sam to see sense,
But when Old Duke o' Wellington came into view,
Well the excitement was really quite tense

Up rode the Duke on a loverly white 'orse,
To find out the cause of the bother,
He looked at the musket and then at Old Sam,
And he talked to Old Sam like a brother

'Sam, Sam, pick up thy musket'
The Duke said as quiet as could be,
'Sam, Sam pick up thi musket,
Coom on lad, just to please me

'Alright Duke,' said Old Sam, 'just for thee I'll oblige,
And to show thee I meant no offence',
So Sam picked it up, 'Gradely, lad' said the Duke,
'Right-o boys... let battle commence.'