Myfanwy at Oxford -- John Betjeman

Guest poem sent in by Steve Forsythe

(Poem #1908) Myfanwy at Oxford Pink may, double may, dead laburnum Shedding an Anglo-Jackson shade, Shall we ever, my staunch Myfanwy, Bicycle down to North Parade? Kant on the handle-bars, Marx in the saddlebag, Light my touch on your shoulder-blade. Sancta Hilda, Myfanwyatia Evansensis --- I hold your heart, Willowy banks of a willowy Cherwell a Willowy figure with lips apart, Strong and willowy, strong to pillow me, Gold Myfanwy, kisses and art. Tubular bells of tall St. Barnabas, Single clatter above St. Paul, Chasuble, acolyte, incense-offering, Spectacled faces held in thrall. There in the nimbus and Comper tracery Gold Myfanwy blesses us all. Gleam of gas upon Oxford station, Gleam of gas on her straight gold hair, Hair flung back with an ostentation, Waiting alone for a girl friend there. Second in Mods and a Third in Theology Come to breathe again Oxford air. Her Myfanwy as in Cadena days, Her Myfanwy, a schoolgirl voice, Tentative brush of a cheek in a cocoa crush, Coffee and Ulysses, Tennyson, Joyce, Alpha-minded and other dimensional, Freud or Calvary? Take your choice. Her Myfanwy? My Myfanwy. Bicycle bells in a Boar's Hill Pine, Stedman Triple from All Saints' steeple, Tom and his hundred and one at nine, Bells of Butterfield, caught in Keble, Sally and backstroke answer "Mine!" -- John Betjeman

Here's a poem by Sir John Betjeman that's about both young love and the
experience of a middle class Brit in an upper class college environment.
Light-years away from my own college experience, but it still paints a
vivid picture of that time and place. His "Myfanwy" is Myfanwy Evans, later
Piper.

Steve

[Martin adds]

There are very few poets whose individual style shines so clearly through
their works as does Betjeman's. Here, after just one line it is nigh
unmistakable. (The flip side is that a lot of his poems end up sounding very
similar, but that is just a surface thing and doesn't detract from either
their merit or their appeal.)

martin

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The Vulture and the Husbandman -- Arthur Clement Hilton

Guest poem sent in by Tamsin Bacchus

(Poem #1907) The Vulture and the Husbandman By Louisa Caroline N.B. -- A Vulture is a rapacious and obscene bird, which destroys its prey by plucking it limb from limb with its powerful beak and talons. A Husbandman is a man in a low position of life, who supports himself by the use of the plough. -- (Johnson's Dictionary). The rain was raining cheerfully, As if it had been May; The Senate-House appeared inside Unusually gay; And this was strange, because it was A Viva-voce day. The men were sitting sulkily, Their paper work was done; They wanted much to go away To ride or row or run; "It's very rude," they said, "to keep Us here, and spoil our fun." The papers they had finished lay In piles of blue and white. They answered every thing they could, And wrote with all their might, But, though they wrote it all by rote, They did not write it right. The Vulture and the Husbandman Beside these piles did stand, They wept like anything to see The work they had in hand. "If this were only finished up," Said they, "it would be grand!" "If seven D's or seven C's We give to all the crowd, Do you suppose," the Vulture said, "That we could get them ploughed?" "I think so," said the Husbandman, "But pray don't talk so loud." "O undergraduates, come up," The Vulture did beseech, "And let us see if you can learn As well as we can teach; We cannot do with more than two To have a word with each." Two Undergraduates came up, And slowly took a seat, They knit their brows, and bit their thumbs, As if they found them sweet, And this was odd, because you know Thumbs are not good to eat. "The time has come," the Vulture said, "To talk of many things, Of Accidence and Adjectives, And names of Jewish kings, How many notes a sackbut has, And whether shawms have strings." "Please, Sir," the Undergraduates said, Turning a little blue, "We did not know that was the sort Of thing we had to do." "We thank you much," the Vulture said, "Send up another two." Two more came up, and then two more, And more, and more and more; And some looked upwards at the roof, Some down upon the floor, But none were any wiser than The pair that went before. "I weep for you," the Vulture said, "I deeply sympathise!" With sobs and tears he gave them all D's of the largest size, While at the Husbandman he winked One of his streaming eyes. "I think," observed the Husbandman, "We're getting on too quick. Are we not putting down the D's A little bit too thick?" The Vulture said with much disgust "Their answers make me sick." "Now, Undergraduates," he cried, Our fun is nearly done, "Will anybody else come up?" But answer came there none; And this was scarcely odd, because They'd ploughed them every one! -- Arthur Clement Hilton

Note:
  ploughed: university slang for "get failed, give a less-than-passing
  grade to a candidate in an examination."

From another era - before the Second World War if not the First - when as
well as the written exams the candidates were examined in pairs viva voce.
Three verses of this poem were reproduced in "Poets at Play", a wonderful
but rather irritating (it has no index of first lines or titles) anthology,
put together by the then Dean of Durham, Cyril Allington.  He comments on
the title saying it "deals, as will be guesssed, with the kindred arts of
plucking and ploughing".

Allington has a weakness for puns.  The Dedication of his book concludes

"TO ALL THE CANONS OF GOOD TASTE
  (By which, of course, I mean my Chapter)."

While looking at it, the Dedication has a verse on what could be called
college days - from the other side of the podium...

  "Schoolmasters sometimes write TO THOSE
    WHO STILL REMEMBER WHAT WE TAUGHT THEM
  But ah! experience often shows
    They're even fewer than we thought them;"

Tamsin

[Martin adds]

When I ran Hilton's "Octopus", I noted that his parodies may be enjoyed as
humorous verse in their own right, but are much funnier if you first read
the original. Ironically, the parodist I chose to compare him to in this
respect was none other than Carroll. Today's poem is definitely better if
you've read The Walrus and the Carpenter - there are places where Hilton has
sacrificed pure humour for parodic fidelity (a common pitfall when writing
parody), and some of his choices only make full sense if you know what he's
twisting.

[Links]

An annotated version of the poem:
  http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1022.html

The Walrus and the Carpenter:
  http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/347.html

Biography:
  [broken link] http://www.poemhunter.com/arthur-clement-hilton/biography/poet-35387/

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Bright College Days -- Tom Lehrer

And then there's the *other* set of college stereotypes...

(Poem #1906) Bright College Days Bright college days, oh, carefree days that fly, To thee we sing with our glasses raised on high. [holds up eyeglasses] Let's drink a toast as each of us recalls Ivy-covered professors in ivy-covered halls. Turn on the spigot, Pour the beer and swig it, And gaudeamus igit-itur. Here's to parties we tossed, To the games that we lost (We shall claim that we won them someday). To the girls, young and sweet, To the spacious back seat Of our roommate's beat up Chevrolet. To the beer and Benzedrine, To the way that the dean Tried so hard to be pals with us all. To excuses we fibbed, To the papers we cribbed From the genius who lived down the hall. To the tables down at Mory's (Wherever that may be), Let us drink a toast to all we love the best. We will sleep through all the lectures, And cheat on the exams, And we'll pass, and be forgotten with the rest. Oh, soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife. Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life. (Oooh!) (laughter) ... Ready? ... But as we go our sordid separate ways, We shall ne'er forget thee, thou golden college days. Hearts full of youth, Hearts full of truth, Six parts gin to one part vermouth. -- Tom Lehrer

Note: The song makes parodic reference to several other songs; see the links
  for an annotated version

A typically fun song from Tom Lehrer, sailing high-spiritedly through the
standard list of "party school" cliches, and cocking a snook at several
other songs on the way. The short, bouncy lines with their skilfully varied
rhymes (not to mention a very catchy tune - listen to it if you get a
chance!) at one send up the perky enthusiasm of more traditional college
songs, and make this one of those songs that sticks in your head.

Other random thoughts - "we'll pass and be forgotten with the rest" is an
enviably good pun; I dearly wish I'd thought of it myself. And the dean who
"tried so hard to be pals with us all" reminds me, appropriately enough, of
another passage from Kipling's "Stalky and Co.":

  Again, a man who has sincerely devoted himself to gaining the esteem of
  his charges does not like to hear himself described, even at a distance,
  as "Popularity Prout" by a dark and scowling Celt with a fluent tongue.

  [...]

    Oh, Prout he is a nobleman, a nobleman, a nobleman!
    Our Heffy is a nobleman¿
    He does an awful lot,
    Because his popularity
    Oh, pop-u-pop-u-larity¿
    His giddy popularity
    Would suffer did he not!

  The study door stood ajar; and the song, borne by twenty clear voices,
  came faint from a form-room. The fags rather liked the tune; the words
  were Beetle's.

martin

[Theme]

I'll wind up the theme tomorrow (unless someone wants to send in a
last-minute contribution, of course) with a somewhat more serious song -
feel free to guess which one.

[Links]

The annotated version of the song, including Lehrer's introductory patter:
  http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/college.htm

See also
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whiffenpoofs
  http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/Gentlemen_Ranke.htm

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A School Song -- Rudyard Kipling

Guest poem sent in by Priscilla Jebaraj

(Poem #1905) A School Song "Let us now praise famous men"-- Men of little showing-- For their work continueth, And their work continueth, Greater than their knowing. Western wind and open surge Tore us from our mothers; Flung us on a naked shore (Twelve bleak houses by the shore! Seven summers by the shore!) 'Mid two hundred brothers. There we met with famous men Set in office o'er us. And they beat on us with rods-- Faithfully with many rods-- Daily beat us on with rods-- For the love they bore us! Out of Egypt unto Troy-- Over Himalaya-- Far and sure our bands have gone-- Hy-Brasil or Babylon, Islands of the Southern Run, And cities of Cathaia! And we all praise famous men-- Ancients of the College; For they taught us common sense--- Tried to teach us common sense-- Truth and God's Own Common Sense Which is more than knowledge! Each degree of Latitude Strung about Creation Seeth one (or more) of us, (Of one muster all of us-- Of one master all of us--) Keen in his vocation. This we learned from famous men Knowing not its uses When they showed in daily work Man must finish off his work-- Right or wrong, his daily work- And without excuses. Servants of the staff and chain, Mine and fuse and grapnel-- Some before the face of Kings, Stand before the face of Kings; Bearing gifts to divers Kings-- Gifts of Case and Shrapnel. This we learned from famous men Teaching in our borders. Who declare'd it was best, Safest, easiest and best-- Expeditious, wise and best-- To obey your orders. Some beneath the further stars Bear the greater burden. Set to serve the lands they rule, (Save he serve no man may rule) Serve and love the lands they rule; Seeking praise nor guerdon. This we learned from famous men Knowing not we learned it. Only, as the years went by-- Lonely, as the years went by-- Far from help as years went by Plainer we discerned it. Wherefore praise we famous men Prom whose bays we borrow-- They that put aside Today-- All the joys of their Today-- And with toil of their Today Bought for us Tomorrow! Bless and praise we famous men Men of little showing! For their work continueth And their work continueth Broad and deep continueth Great beyond their knowing! -- Rudyard Kipling

I'm not sure this qualifies for the theme --  it's the introductory poem to
Kipling's school story "Stalky and Co", but the school IS called the
College :)  (If you don't want to use it for this theme, why not save it up
for Teacher's Day on September 5?) [Works for me - it fits the theme in
spirit, at least - martin]

I must admit I'm submitting the poem largely because I loved the book.  I
remember discovering it during my own college days...fed up of exams and
literary criticism essays, I was rummaging through WCC's dusty and
unorganised fiction library looking for something light and entertaining
when I found "Stalky and Co". I laughed my way through the antics of Stalky,
Beetle and M'Turk, sparing hardly a thought for their poor teachers.

Interesting, then, that the opening lines of the book are a paean to those
same teachers. To me, they seem idealistic in a way the book is not. But
I've realised the truth of some of it now...while I feel none of the sheer
affection for my college professors that I did for elementary school
teachers for example, it's certainly true that I did learn so many things
from them without even realising it:

  This we learned from famous men
  Knowing not we learned it.

And certainly my favourite teachers were those who...

 ...taught us common sense---
 Tried to teach us common sense--
 Truth and God's Own Common Sense
 Which is more than knowledge!

I like the rhythm of the poem without being able to explain why (obviously,
I remember little of the lectures which attempted to teach me such basics of
poetry appreciation!)

Stalky and Co is rather different from the typical school story, both the
schoolboy tales of its own time or the more modern schoolgirl exploits I
devoured in middle school. Here's an essay that explores both the negative
and positive aspects of those differences and provides quite a good
background to the book: http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_stalky_intro.htm#top

I'm just quoting an excerpt from it here:

  Stalky & Co. is the only school story which shows school as a direct
  preparation for life. Most others actually make the world outside
  school seem irrelevant, an anticlimax, an unimaginable void. Kipling,
  for all his intense feeling for the school atmosphere and the moods of
  adolescence, shows school as the first stage of a much larger game, a
  pattern-maker for the experiences of life. This is mainly what makes
  it unlike the others, with their narrow, school-centred preoccupations
  and their belief, often implied and sometimes even stated, in the
  overwhelming importance of this preliminary stage of life, which was
  actually presumed to outdo the rest in importance. In Kipling, not
  only is a later life envisaged very clearly at school, but the
  divisions between school and the world outside are less clearly
  defined than they are in most other school stories; not just in the
  sense that the boys make free with the surrounding countryside and
  hobnob happily with the locals, bilingual in standard English and
  broad Devon, but in a metaphorical sense: school teaches lessons
  (obviously), but, less obviously, the lessons are much more than those
  of the classroom. It teaches the boys how to live..."

And while this link between school/college and life is made clear in the
last chapter (a kind of epilogue that traces the later imperialistic careers
of its main characters), it's foreshadowed in this introductory poem as
well.

Priscilla

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Before an Examination (Campus Sonnets: 1) -- Stephen Vincent Benet

Carrying on with the theme...

(Poem #1904) Before an Examination (Campus Sonnets: 1) The little letters dance across the page, Flaunt and retire, and trick the tired eyes; Sick of the strain, the glaring light, I rise Yawning and stretching, full of empty rage At the dull maunderings of a long dead sage, Fling up the windows, fling aside his lies; Choosing to breathe, not stifle and be wise, And let the air pour in upon my cage. The breeze blows cool and there are stars and stars Beyond the dark, soft masses of the elms That whisper things in windy tones and light. They seem to wheel for dim, celestial wars; And I -- I hear the clash of silver helms Ring icy-clear from the far deeps of night. -- Stephen Vincent Benet

Another evocative trip down memory lane. "Before an Examination" has much
the same theme and tone as Whitman's "When I Heard the Learned Astronomer",
however, perhaps because I have indeed known the tedium of staying up all
night doggedly studying for an exam, I am far more inclined to sympathise
with Benet than I was with Whitman.

Benet's campus sonnets [see links for all four] form an oddly mismatched
set - the tone, the subject matter and the quality of the verse are all
surprisingly variable. They do have a certain indefinable something,
though - an occasional glimpse of the Benet who penned such masterpieces as
"Winged Man" and "The General Public" - that makes them worth a read.
Today's is arguably the best and definitely the smoothest of the lot; at
any rate it was the one I found the most enjoyable, though I felt "Talk"
had the potential to be a far better poem. I'd recommend going and reading
all four as a sequence - they are, as I noted, not really coherent, but they
complement each other nevertheless.

martin

[Links]

All four Campus Sonnets:
  http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/benet02.html#misc1.7

Biography:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Vincent_Ben%C3%A9t

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Baccalaureate -- Archibald MacLeish

This week's theme: Bright college days

(Poem #1903) Baccalaureate A year or two, and grey Euripides, And Horace and a Lydia or so, And Euclid and the brush of Angelo, Darwin on man, Vergilius on bees, The nose and Dialogues of Socrates, Don Quixote, Hudibras and Trinculo, How worlds are spawned and where the dead gods go,-- All shall be shard of broken memories. And there shall linger other, magic things,-- The fog that creeps in wanly from the sea, The rotten harbor smell, the mystery Of moonlit elms, the flash of pigeon wings, The sunny Green, the old-world peace that clings About the college yard, where endlessly The dead go up and down. These things shall be Enchantment of our heart's rememberings. And these are more than memories of youth Which earth's four winds of pain shall blow away; These are earth's symbols of eternal truth, Symbols of dream and imagery and flame, Symbols of those same verities that play Bright through the crumbling gold of a great name. -- Archibald MacLeish

One of the universals of the "college experience" - and pretty much everyone
I know who has attended college agrees with me - is that the actual
classroom education is the least part of it. Of course, that's not precisely
true; it's just that lectures are seldom the stuff of which memories are
made, and therefore loom progressively less significant in nostalgic
reveries. Nonetheless, college remains one of life's defining experiences,
and it is interesting to see what poets have made of the memories that *do*
linger and tint the time thereafter.

Today's poem tackles the theme head-on, with MacLeish's characteristically
beautiful phrases flowing like a wash of colour over the contrasting aspects
of college life. The sequence of images is exquisite; I'm tempted to say
that this is a poem that is more about atmosphere than message, but the
atmosphere is definitely part of the message here, and the list format works
very well indeed. And not just the imagery either - there is a slight
weightiness to the language that helps enhance the academic feel, perhaps
most evident in the phrase "symboks of those same verities", but present
throughout.

The other noteworthy thing is the painstaking attention MacLeish pays to the
sound of his poetry. With some poets, this is easy to see - the music of the
words takes over, and leaps out at the reader. MacLeish's verse is usually
more quietly euphonious, but none the less beautiful, and none the less
perfect for not being showy.

martin

p.s. Yes, the theme is named after the Tom Lehrer song. Yes, it will make an
appearance.

[Links]

Wikipedia:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_MacLeish

Academy of American Poets:
  http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/47

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The King -- Rudyard Kipling

Guest poem sent in by Tamsin Bacchus

Today's poem [Dobson's "On The Hurry Of This Time"] made me think of this by
Kipling:

(Poem #1902) The King "Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said; "With bone well carved He went away, Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead, And jasper tips the spear to-day. Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance, And He with these. Farewell, Romance!" "Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed; "We lift the weight of flatling years; The caverns of the mountain-side Hold him who scorns our hutted piers. Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell, Guard ye His rest. Romance, farewell!" "Farewell, Romance!" the Soldier spoke; "By sleight of sword we may not win, But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smoke Of arquebus and culverin. Honour is lost, and none may tell Who paid good blows. Romance, farewell!" "Farewell, Romance!" the Traders cried; "Our keels have lain with every sea; The dull-returning wind and tide Heave up the wharf where we would be; The known and noted breezes swell Our trudging sails. Romance, farewell!" "Good-bye, Romance!" the Skipper said; "He vanished with the coal we burn. Our dial marks full-steam ahead, Our speed is timed to half a turn. Sure as the ferried barge we ply 'Twixt port and port. Romance, good-bye!" "Romance!" the season-tickets mourn, "He never ran to catch His train, But passed with coach and guard and horn -- And left the local -- late again!" Confound Romance!"... And all unseen Romance brought up the nine-fifteen. His hand was on the lever laid, His oil-can soothed the worrying cranks, His whistle waked the snowbound grade, His fog-horn cut the reeking Banks; By dock and deep and mine and mill The Boy-god reckless laboured still! Robed, crowned and throned, He wove His spell, Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curled, With unconsidered miracle, Hedged in a backward-gazing world: Then taught His chosen bard to say: "Our King was with us -- yesterday!" -- Rudyard Kipling

Written in 1894 this is so perceptive - the "olden days" were always better
and now indeed we regard steam trains as romantic. All over Great Britain
there are preserved lines that spend the summer running steam specials for
visitors and day trippers who come out just for that whiff of coal dust and
romance.  (Alas fewer and fewer steam specials on the main lines, health and
safety regulations and the generation of engine drivers who qualified to
drive steam engines on the public network by the 1960s and so hold the
relevant certificates are dying out.)

Interesting in this poem is the use of "season ticket" as a term for someone
regularly travelling to work by train - there's a specific word for this
figure of speech which I've forgotten for the moment. ["metonymy" - ed.]
This one did not last, though, and was overtaken by "commuter".

(Similarly, in Kipling's novel "The Light that Failed" I came across the use
of "to Kodak" as a verb meaning to photograph - another English usage that
had a very brief life.)

Tamsin Bacchus

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