April is National Poetry Month, and I’m told that today, somewhere, it’s Look Up At the Sky Day. So today, I’d like to give you one of my favorite poems. I first read this in The Oxford Book of Light Verse back in college while looking for a bit of sunshine in the midst of deary study. Here’s an old sea shanty, meant for singin’.

Old Joe is dead and gone to hell,

Oh, we say so, and we hope so;

Old Joe is dead and gone to hell.

Oh, poor old Joe!

He’s as dead as a nail in the lamp-room door,

Oh, we say so, and we hope so;

He’s as dead as a nail in the lamp-room door.

Oh, poor old Joe!

He won’t come hazing us no more,

Oh, we say so, and we hope so;

He won’t come hazing us no more,

Oh, poor old Joe!

(Speaking of dragons, I looked up a old poem telling the story of St. George and the Dragon. I’m a little nervous about the authenticity of my source, but it appears legit. The story is preserved in The Golden Legend, and I assume it was first recorded there in print. I don’t think this is what was written in that book, but a derivative from it or from oral history.)

Of Hector’s deeds did Homer sing,

And of the sack of stately Troy,

What griefs fair Helena did bring,

Which was Sir Paris’ only joy:

And by my pen I will recite

St. George’s deeds, and English knight.

Against the Sarazens so rude

Fought he full long and many a day,

Where many gyants he subdu’d,

In honour of the Christian way;

And after many adventures past,

To Egypt land he came at last.

Now, as the story plain doth tell,

Within that countrey there did rest

A dreadful dragon fierce and fell,

Whereby they were full sore opprest:

Who by his poisonous breath each day

Did many of the city slay.

The grief whereof did grow so great

Throughout the limits of the land,

That they their wise-men did intreat

To shew their cunning out of hand;

What way they might this fiend destroy,

That did the countrey thus annoy.

Continue reading A Dreadful Dragon Fierce and Fell! →

This year’s National Poetry Month promotional art quotes from this poem.

“Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour”

by Wallace Stevens

Light the first light of evening

In which we rest and, for small reason, think

The world imagined is the ultimate good.

This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.

It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,

Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:

Within a single thing, a single shawl

Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,

A light, a power, the miraculous influence.

Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.

We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,

A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.

Within its vital boundary, in the mind.

We say God and the imagination are one.

How high that highest candle lights the dark.

Out of this same light, out of the central mind,

We make a dwelling in the evening air,

In which being there together is enough.

April is National Poetry Month, and I’m told today is No Housework Day. The day may be a Web Rumor from those crazy guys who writing everything on the Interweb. Regardless, this is poetry month, so here’s a bit of Keats.

“On leaving some Friends at an Early Hour”

Give me a golden pen, and let me lean

On heap’d up flowers, in regions clear, and far;

Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,

Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen

The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:

And let there glide by many a pearly car,

Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,

And half discovered wings, and glances keen.

The while let music wander round my ears,

And as it reaches each delicious ending,

Let me write down a line of glorious tone,

And full of many wonders of the spheres:

For what a height my spirit is contending!

’Tis not content so soon to be alone.