Who is the Nations Favourite Poet?

[Jim Roper]

I love that one too Jim.

I thought you might!

 

It's a job not be biased by the subject of a particular poem, rather than the poet. If I should die....... Rupert Brook for example.

 

I voted for Kipling!

The Smugglers Song.

Five and twenty ponies trotting through the dark,

Brandy for the parson and bacchy for the clerk,

Laces for the ladies and letters for the spie,

Now watch the wall my darling while the gentlemen go by.

 

 

 

If you wake at midnight to the sound of horses' feet,

Don't go drawin' back the blinds nor lookin' in the street.

Them that asks no questions, isn't told a lie.

Now watch the wall my darling while the gentlemen go by.

 

 

 

Runnin' through the woodlands you might chance to find

Little barrels roped and tied all full of brandywine,

Well don't you shout to come and look nor use 'em for your play,

Just push the brushwood back again and they'll be gone next day.

 

 

 

If you see a stable door settin' open wide,

And if you see a tired horse a lying down inside ,

And if your mother mends a coat that's cut about and torn,

And if the linin's wet and warm well don't you ask no more.

 

 

 

Five and twenty ponies trotting through the dark,

Brandy for the parson and bacchy for the clerk,

Laces for the ladies and letters for the spy,

Now watch the wall my darling while the gentlemen go by.

 

 

 

Knocks and footsteps 'round the house, whistles after dark,

You've no call for runnin' out until the house dogs bark,

For Trusty's here and Finch is here and see how dumb they lie,

They don't fret to follow when the gentlemen go by.

 

 

 

If you see the king's men dressed in blue and red,

Well you be careful what you say and mindful what is said,

And if they call you pretty maid and chuck you 'neath your chin,

Well don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been.

 

 

 

Five and twenty ponies trotting through the dark,

Brandy for the parson and bacchy for the clerk,

Laces for the ladies and letters for the spie,

Now watch the wall my darling while the gentlemen go by.

 

 

 

If you do as you've been told, likely there's a chance

That you'll be give a dainty doll that's all the way from France,

With a cap of Alyintsin's and a velvet hood,

A present from the gentlemen along with being good.

 

 

 

Five and twenty ponies trotting through the dark,

Brandy for the parson and bacchy for the clerk,

Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie,

And watch the wall my darling while the gentlemen go by.

Edited May 31, 2009 by Jim Roper

[corydoras]

I'm a Kipling fan too. I especially like the Barrack-Room Ballads.

Edited May 31, 2009 by corydoras

[Emma two]

I'm a Kipling fan too. I especially like the Barrack-Room Ballads.

 

Reciting Kipling used to be my after (formal) dinner in the mess party piece, as you might imagine the army ones were favourite, and I had learned, Tommy, Gunga Din, The Young British Soldier, Hanging Danny Deever and the Last of the Light Brigade by heart as a child.

 

I was brought up in sight of the birthplace and childhood home of Wordsworth but his work didn't hold the same appeal.

[Alan Stubbs]

With people quoting their favourite poems, I haven't seen a mention of onwe of the most accessible of English poets, John Metjeman.

This is my favourite...but I'd still vote for Shakespeare!

 

Slough

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!

It isn't fit for humans now,

There isn't grass to graze a cow.

Swarm over, Death!

 

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens

Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,

Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,

Tinned minds, tinned breath.

 

Mess up the mess they call a town-

A house for ninety-seven down

And once a week a half a crown

For twenty years.

 

And get that man with double chin

Who'll always cheat and always win,

Who washes his repulsive skin

In women's tears:

 

And smash his desk of polished oak

And smash his hands so used to stroke

And stop his boring dirty joke

And make him yell.

 

But spare the bald young clerks who add

The profits of the stinking cad;

It's not their fault that they are mad,

They've tasted Hell.

 

It's not their fault they do not know

The birdsong from the radio,

It's not their fault they often go

To Maidenhead

 

And talk of sport and makes of cars

In various bogus-Tudor bars

And daren't look up and see the stars

But belch instead.

 

In labour-saving homes, with care

Their wives frizz out peroxide hair

And dry it in synthetic air

And paint their nails.

 

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough

To get it ready for the plough.

The cabbages are coming now;

The earth exhales.

[corydoras]

being a Scot I really need to put a wee word in for rabbie Burns. I love all of his works, but my favourites are Tam O' Shanter and Holy Willie's Prayer

 

"Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,

To think how mony counsels sweet,

How mony lengthen'd, sage advices,

The husband frae the wife despises!"

 

and

 

"But pleasures are like poppies spread,

You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;

Or like the snow falls in the river,

A moment white-then melts for ever;

Or like the Borealis race,

That flit ere you can point their place;

Or like the Rainbow's lovely form

Evanishing amid the storm. -

Nae man can tether Time nor Tide,

The hour approaches Tam maun ride;

That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane,

That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;

And sic a night he taks the road in,

As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in."

 

Tam O' Shanter

[Emma two]

being a Scot I really need to put a wee word in for rabbie Burns. I love all of his works, but my favourites are Tam O' Shanter and Holy Willie's Prayer

 

"Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,

To think how mony counsels sweet,

How mony lengthen'd, sage advices,

The husband frae the wife despises!"

 

and

 

"But pleasures are like poppies spread,

You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;

Or like the snow falls in the river,

A moment white-then melts for ever;

Or like the Borealis race,

That flit ere you can point their place;

Or like the Rainbow's lovely form

Evanishing amid the storm. -

Nae man can tether Time nor Tide,

The hour approaches Tam maun ride;

That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane,

That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;

And sic a night he taks the road in,

As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in."

 

Tam O' Shanter

 

Whisky sodden syphilitic ramblings!

[Jim Roper]

The last site agent I worked with, came from Windsor.

"Why did you move down here?" I asked him.

"Too close to Slough" He replied.

[Janet]

Walt Whitman for me, but I guess he's not British...does he still count?

 

If not, then I'll go with Dylan Thomas.

 

Janet

[Alan Stubbs]

Walt Whitman for me, but I guess he's not British...does he still count?

 

If not, then I'll go with Dylan Thomas.

 

Janet

 

 

'Do not go gentle into that good night...'

 

 

Well that rules him out of being anangler then!

 

On the other hand, he confirmed a blank when he kept on about LLareggub

[corydoras]

Whisky sodden syphilitic ramblings!

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!

What dangers thou canst make us scorn!

Wi' tippeny, we fear nae evil;

Wi' usquabae, we'll face the devil!--

The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle,

Fair play, he car'd na deils a boddle.

But Maggie stood, right sair astonish'd,

Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd,

She ventured forward on the light;

And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight