Do good men count sheep
As they enter dreamless sleep.
And bad men count heels
(And, losing count of deals
Done for fun
Fall into a troubled sleep)?
Do good men cherish each part
Of a lover’s heart.
Whilst wicked men
Take up their pen
When a girl departs,
And immortalise them in art?
Yesterday evening, I ran a quiz for friends on Zoom. One of the questions I posed was who wrote these lines:
“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease”.
The answer is, of course John Keats, the poem in question being “Ode to a Nightingale”.
Along with “Autumn”, “Ode to a Nightingale” is one of my favourite poems, written by a poet who died at a tragically young age.
You can find a wonderful reading of “Ode to a Nightingale”, read by Stephen Fry here,
.
Caught up in thought
Amidst these spring flowers.
How many hours
Have I spent
Denying that our time is lent.
Then, birdsong
Breaks through my useless thought.
And I recognise
That human eyes
Do not see for long.
And that I ought
To fill my mind
With birdsong.
Yet, I find
That my brain
Oft runs like an express train
And will not be still.
But, sometimes, its just the sky
And I
And the poignancy of birdsong,
That will not last long.
There was a young lady truly divine
Who spent much of her time online.
When on the internet
Her name was Yvette.
But she was Ted when not online …
There was a young lady named Lou
Who said, “I never will politics do.
My nextdoor neighbour
Always votes Labour.
But I’m a Conservative through and through!”.
Girls in short clothes
Still go by.
But, the pubs are all closed
And I
Feel the unreal, steal
Over England.
One should not
Shake a hand.
But the weather is hot
And girls in short clothes
Go by.
But the pubs are closed
And I
Voice the unspoken,
“How many little communities will reopen?
And how many die?”.
The pub is part
(And sometimes the heart)
Of local society.
How much variety
Will we lose?
Its not merely booze
But birds of diverse feather
Coming together,
Through diversity in unity.
I have the park.
But thoughts dark
Come to me.
Girls in short clothes
Still go by
But the pubs are closed
And variety
Can, so easily die.
There was a young lady named Maude
Who, feeling extremely bored
Said, to miss Bess,
Let us both undress”.
And the general unsheathed his great sword.
When a young lady by the name of miss Heart
Said, “I really don’t like your poetry, which you call art!”.
It is so very old hat,
And young women don’t like that!”.
I said, “the world’s going to hell in a handcart!”.
There was a young lady of Berlin
Who was extremely tall and thin.
Whilst running for a train
She fell down a drain,
And dropped her bottle of gin!
—
There was a young lady of Berlin
Who was extremely tall and thin.
Whilst running for an express train
She got stuck in a drain,
Which made a wicked man grin!
—
When a young boy from the Netherlands
Said, “why do young women in the windows stand?”.
And why does that winking red light
Never cease to shine, both day and night?”,
His father said, “this is Holland, young Bland”.
There was a young lady of Berlin
Who commited a most wicked sin.
It concerned a young man of Vienna
And the theft of a tenner.
And it caused the Devil to grin.
—
There was a young man called Mark
Who met a lady in the dark.
I could say she was pretty
And that her conversation was witty.
But I wasn’t there with Mark!
K Morris - Poet 