Category Archives: Poems

Parody of Tennyson: Algernon Charles Swinburne, ‘The Higher Pantheism in a Nutshell’

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One, who is not, we see; but one, whom we see not, is:
Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.

What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under:
If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt:
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover:
Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.

Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight:
Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.

Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels:
God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which:
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.

More is the whole than a part: but half is more than the whole:
Clearly, the soul is the body: but is not the body the soul?

One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two:
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.

Once the mastodon was; pterodactyls were common as cocks:
Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox.

Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew:
You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.

Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock:
Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.

God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see:
Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.

*****

Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1867 poem ‘The Higher Pantheism’ begins:

The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains,-
Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?

Is not the Vision He, tho’ He be not that which He seems?
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

Algernon Charles Swinburne called it a “gabble and babble of half-hatched thoughts in half-baked words,” and produced a parody with more memorable lines than the original.

Parody of Eliot: Henry Reed, ‘Chard Whitlow – Mr Eliot’s Sunday Evening Postscript’

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As we get older we do not get any younger.
Seasons return, and today I am fifty-five,
And this time last year I was fifty-four,
And this time next year I shall be sixty-two.
And I cannot say I should like (to speak for myself)
To see my time over again–if you can call it time:
Fidgeting uneasily under a draughty stair,
Or counting sleepless nights in the crowded tube.

There are certain precautions–though none of them very reliable–
Against the blast from bombs and the flying splinter,
But not against the blast from heaven, vento dei venti,
The wind within a wind unable to speak for wind;
And the frigid burnings of purgatory will not be touched
By any emollient.
I think you will find this put,
Better than I could ever hope to express it,
In the words of Kharma: ‘It is, we believe,
Idle to hope that the simple stirrup-pump
Will extinguish hell.’
Oh, listeners,
And you especially who have turned off the wireless,
And sit in Stoke or Basingstoke listening appreciately to the silence,
(Which is also the silence of hell) pray, not for your skins, but your souls.

And pray for me also under the draughty stair.
As we get older we do not get any younger.
And pray for Kharma under the holy mountain.

*****

T.S. Eliot commented “‘Most parodies of one’s own work strike one as very poor. In fact, one is apt to think one could parody oneself much better. (As a matter of fact, some critics have said that I have done so.) But there is one which deserves the success it has had, Henry Reed’s ‘Chard Whitlow’.”

Henry Reed is best known for his poem ‘Naming of Parts’, on mid-20th century British Army training… but ‘Chard Whitlow’, reflecting Eliot’s wartime experiences in London in Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets’ voice, has an ongoing life among classic parodies.

Photo: SHELTER PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN IN LONDON BY BILL BRANDT, NOVEMBER 1940
Elephant and Castle London Underground Station Shelter: People sleeping on the crowded platform of Elephant and Castle tube station while taking shelter from German air raids during the London Blitz.
Ministry of Information official photographer
Public domain

Rondeau: John McCrae, ‘In Flanders Fields’

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In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

*****

The trouble for me with this Canadian war poem is that it (correctly) has no suggestion of its First World War conflict being in any way just or having a moral underpinning. That war was merely cousins who ruled empires jockeying for power. And the poem has no more uplifting exhortation than “Take up our quarrel with the foe”. Whoop-di-doo. My foolish Australian grandfather was killed in it in September 1914.

Wikipedia says: “Despite its fame, “In Flanders Fields” is often ignored by academics teaching and discussing Canadian literature. The poem is sometimes viewed as an anachronism; it spoke of glory and honour in a war that has since become synonymous with the futility of trench warfare and the slaughter produced by 20th-century weaponry.”

Happy Remembrance Day? Enjoy the good weather and love life – you only live once, possibly!

Semi-formal verse: F.R. Scott, ‘Old Song’

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far voices
and fretting leaves
this music the
hillside gives

but in the deep
Laurentian river
an elemental song
for ever

a quiet calling
of no mind
out of long aeons
when dust was blind
and ice hid sound

only a moving
with no note
granite lips
a stone throat

*****

F.R. Scott (1899 – 1985) was a Canadian poet, lawyer, intellectual, and constitutional scholar. He helped found the first Canadian social democratic party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), and its successor, the New Democratic Party (NDP). Born in Quebec City, he was Dean of the Faculty of Law at McGill; UN representative in Burma (now Thailand); and a member of the Royal Commission on Biculturalism and Bilingualism. A lover of the Laurentian wilderness, he was a member of the ‘Preview’ group of Montreal poets… and… with A.J.M. Smith he co-edited The Blasted Pine: An Anthology of Satire, Invective, and Disrespectful Verse.

Photo: Simple Living – Flickr – Malcolm Carlaw.jpg, Wikimedia Commons

Dialect verse: Louise Bennett, ‘Back to Africa’

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Back to Africa, Miss Mattie?
You no know wha you dah seh?
You haf fe come from somewhe fus
Before you go back deh!

Me know say dat you great great great
Granma was African,
But Mattie, doan you great great great
Granpa was Englishman?

Den you great granmader fader
By you fader side was Jew?
An you granpa by you mader side
Was Frenchie parlez-vous?

But de balance a you family,
You whole generation,
Oonoo all barn dung a Bun Grung–
Oonoo all is Jamaican!

Den is weh you gwine, Miss Mattie?
Oh, you view de countenance,
An between you an de Africans
Is great resemblance!

Ascorden to dat, all dem blue-yeye
White American
Who-fa great granpa was Englishman
Mus go back a Englan!

What a debil of a bump-an-bore,
Rig-jig an palam-pam
Ef de whole worl start fe go back
Whe dem great granpa come from!

Ef a hard time you dah run from
Tek you chance! But Mattie, do
Sure a whe you come from so you got
Somewhe fe come back to!

Go a foreign, seek you fortune,
But no tell nobody say
You dah go fe seek you homelan,
For a right deh so you deh!

*****

The trick with dialect verse is to read it aloud, and let it make sense. Then a word like “doan” will clarify itself as “don’t”. Perhaps the most difficult line in this poem is “Oonoo all barn dung a Bun Grung–” which is “You all born down in Burnt Ground”, a rural community in Jamaica.

Louise Bennett (1919 – 2006), more formally Louise Simone Bennett-Coverley OM OJ MBE, more commonly known by her pen name Miss Lou, was a Jamaican poet, folklorist, actress, writer and educator. She wrote and performed her poems in Jamaican Patois. Raised in Jamaica, educated at RADA on a British Council scholarship, she built her career in Jamaica but moved to Canada in her later years.

Semi-formal verse: Ann Drysdale, ‘Dialogue’

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He might be coming tonight, said Heart to Head.
No he won’t, Head replied, firmly. You heard what he said.
I know, said Heart, but still he didn’t exactly
turn me down flat.
Well, he wouldn’t, would he? said Head,
you know him better than that;
what he said was ‘barring a miracle’–
I thought you understood.
Granted, he did, said Heart, but he also said
he would if he could.
If he’d meant to come, said Head, he’d have mentioned trains;
he’d have confirmed the time.
So he forgot, so what? said Heart.
Since when has that been a crime?
Go on, said Head, firmly but gently. Pick up the phone,
ring and un-book the hotel.
Not yet, said Heart. But I will.
Why do you carry on playing, said Head
when there’s so little chance of winning?
Poor Head–am I ‘doing you in’? said Heart, grinning.
Death, even by a thousand cuts, said Head,
is still, ultimately, Death.
‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast’,
said Heart, under its breath.
That was unworthy of you, said Head,
it’s a cliché, and it’s ugly.
‘L’espoir luit comme un brin de paille dans l’étable‘,
said Heart, smugly.
Straw doesn’t shine in stables, said Head,
it just lies there, soaking up shit.
That’s right, said Heart. That’s it.
Face it, said Head, not unkindly; he isn’t coming tonight.
I know, said Heart. But he might.

*****

Ann Drysdale (née Corrigan), 1942 – 2024, was a celebrated poet and editor, known for her wit and humour. Her work won the Dylan Thomas Prize for poetry in performance and numerous awards in competitions including Manchester, Cardiff, Peterloo, Bridport, and the Housman Society. Born near Manchester and raised in London, Ann later lived in Birmingham, the North York Moors, and South Wales. ‘Dialogue’ comes from her 2009 collection, ‘Quaintness and Other Offences’.

Here is the bio that she chose to represent herself with: “Ann Drysdale still lives in South Wales. She has been a hill farmer, water-gypsy, newspaper columnist and single parent – not necessarily in that order. She has written all her life; stories, essays, memoir, and a newspaper column that spanned twenty years of an eventful life. Her eighth volume of poetry – Feeling Unusual – came together during the strange times of Coronavirus and celebrates, among other things, the companionship of a wise cat and an imaginary horse.”

She was a much-loved member of the world of (especially formalist) poetry, and there is a tribute (and an enormous selection of her verse) in The HyperTexts. She was a truly good person.

“head over heart” by i_gallagher is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Hilaire Belloc, ‘On a General Election’

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The accursed power which stands on Privilege
(And goes with Women, and Champagne, and Bridge)
Broke—and Democracy resumed her reign:
(Which goes with Bridge, and Women and Champagne).

**

It is nice to see American democracy, flawed as it is, starting to restore itself. Welcome back, America! We don’t entirely trust you and your archaic mindset, but you have a lot of strengths.

Hilaire Belloc (1870 – 1953) was a prolific Anglo-French author, best known today for his ‘Cautionary Tales for Children‘ (“Matilda: Who told Lies, and was Burned to Death”, etc). His 1923 ‘On a General Election’ has a universal and timeless quality to it – though the introduction of women as players instead of game pieces over the past 100 years has arguably raised the level of honesty and morality… somewhat. You may disagree with the politics of both Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz, but there is still a difference of political character between them.

Image: “Corruption box” by watchsmart is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Odd Poem: Rudyard Kipling, ‘Rejection’, with commentary in verse by Julie Steiner

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‘We will lay this thing here’
    Thus spake the voice of the sea,
    Murmuring wearily—
In the rock’s ear—

Then the green laver rose,
    Shook out her folds & cried,
    Before the rising tide
‘Let me repose—

Stir not my rest O sea,
    With dead things in these silent deeps,
    Surely wave tossed he sleeps
As heavily’—

The weedhung chambers then
    Made answer—’O thou sea,
    The beasts that feed in me
What need they men’—

Rock limpets cowering,
    Murmured gloom shaded—’There is meat
    Enough for all to eat
Bear hence this thing—

In thy strong arms O sea,
    Out, even to the quicksands’ brink,
    It shall be that he sink—
There, utterly.’

‘We will lay this thing here’
    Thus spake the voice of the sea,
    Ever persistently
In the rock’s ear.

*****

Julie Steiner writes: “Even Kipling seems to have had doubts about this metrically fluid, grisly poem about a wave-battered corpse, since he never included it in any of his collections. When I encountered it on the website of the Kipling Society, I immediately started writing a glosa about how strange the poem seemed to me. (A glosa is a Spanish form that meditates on another poem, by turning each line of a four-line excerpt into the refrain of a ten-line stanza.)

“To my surprise, my glosa turned into an ars poetica statement about why I’ve kept returning to certain grim topics (including child sexual abuse) in my own work, despite repeated rejection from those who turn a “rock’s ear” to them. As is their right, of course.”

*****

Glosa on Kipling’s ‘Rejection’

‘We will lay this thing here’

  Thus spake the voice of the sea,

  Murmuring wearily—

In the rock’s ear—

Off-kilter, this odd composition.
    Kipling’s, you say?
    It counters cognition
to think such a tub-thump musician
had noodled with meter that way.
Anapestic? Syllabic, at times?
    The scansion’s unclear.
    Both margins career.
Irregular pulses. Wrenched rhymes.
‘We will lay this thing here’:

So tidal vicissitudes shrug
    with listless resistance,
    refusing to lug
what a shove against gravity’s tug
can abandon. And yet there’s persistence
within this passivity, too.
    It wills itself free,
    determined to be
unburdened of what it can spew.
Thus spake the voice of the sea.

Its shape-shifting cadences show
    the moon-manic force
    as lines ebb and flow.
The sea’s letting everything go:
this thing that it wants to divorce;
    poetic convention;
attention to naysayers. (Three
    say no with esprit,
but the matter’s not up for contention.)
Murmuring wearily

becomes, by the end of the song,
Ever persistently. Yes,
    as obsessions prolong,
    revulsions grow strong.
Push on, then, Subconscious. Express
    what silent deeps hide.
We will lay this thing here.
Set it down on these pages, to clear
    the rot-ridden tide
In the rock’s ear.

*****

Julie Steiner is a pseudonym in San Diego, California. Most of her published poems—many of them in repeating forms—are available on Substack at Off-Piste on Mount Parnassus (offpisteonmountp.substack.com).

Painting: Axel Johan Gustaf Acke, ‘Leander’s Body Washed Ashore’. Public domain

Sonnet: Susan McLean, ‘Day of the Dead’

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As if the day took on her warmth and calm,
above the blazing maple trees extends
a sky serenely blue. While kin and friends
assemble, breezes gentle as a balm
flutter the tablecloths and vibrant vases
of cannas and zinnias. Do we still remember,
given our lively chat and smiling faces,
we’re picnicking in volatile November?

Above the tableful of photos flies
a vee of geese, still low, in close formation,
honking in concord as they carry on
their sociable long-distance conversation.
We pause to watch them as they slowly rise
and fade until, like Mother, they are gone.

*****

Susan McLean writes: “My mother did not want a funeral, so when she died, my siblings and I were trying to find a way to commemorate her in a celebration that her family and friends could attend. Though she died in late October, the weather in Maryland had been freakishly warm for that time of year, so we chose to hold a picnic at her favorite park. I had learned about the Hispanic tradition of celebrating the Day of the Dead from my colleague Lupe Solis, so I thought that holding the picnic on November 1, with photos, flowers, and my mother’s favorite foods, would be appealing. Fort Washington Park is right on the Potomac River, and just as we had finished setting the tables, a vee of geese flew over us, still very close to the ground. The moment felt surprising and symbolic as we all stopped to watch them depart.”

This sonnet was originally published on Ken Gordon’s Substack The Sonneteer.

Susan McLean has three books of poetry: The Best Disguise, The Whetstone Misses the Knife, and her latest, Daylight Losing Time (Able Muse, 2026). She had also published a book of translations of Martial, Selected Epigrams. Her poems have appeared in Light, Lighten Up Online, Crab Orchard Review, Able Muse, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

Photo: Flying geese Jiaqian AirplaneFan Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Susan Jarvis Bryant, ‘The Dead Fox’

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Her zest has been buried for too many moons.
Tonight, she has risen to nocturnal tunes
That thrum in the hoot of a shadowy owl
And hum in the howling of wolves on the prowl.
 
She weaves and she skips beneath flickering stars
Beguiled by the bustle of bistros and bars.
Imbued with the spirit of mischief and pluck
She hoodoos the heart of each hot-blooded buck.
 
She hovers and wuthers and wafts through the crowd.
She’s hauntingly naughty and shawled in a shroud.
Now loose from her tomb with the battiest brain
She kisses the stunned Casanovas insane.
 
With sass in her sockets and snap in her bones,
With scarabs adorning her decomposed zones,
She perks every pumpkin-packed, fiend-friendly scene –
This fustiest, flirtiest trick-or-treat queen.

*****

Susan Jarvis Bryant writes: “I will admit to being a bit of a Halloween curmudgeon… unless it comes to treating and tricking with words. Every Halloween my Muse is inspired to sing of witches and warlocks and the odd dead fox… and I simply have to dance to her spooky tune.”

‘The Dead Fox’ was originally published in Snakeskin.

Susan Jarvis Bryant is originally from the UK and now lives on the coastal plains of Texas. Susan has poetry published on The Society of Classical Poets, Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, Sparks of Calliope, and Expansive Poetry Online, The Road Not Taken, and New English Review. She also has poetry published in The Lyric, Trinacria, and Beth Houston’s Extreme Formal Poems and Extreme Sonnets II anthologies. Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition and was nominated for the 2022 and 2024 Pushcart Prize. She has published two books – Elephants Unleashed and Fern Feathered Edges.

Photo by Kegen Benson, BLM Wildlife Biologist. BLMUtah – Public domain – Kit Fox at Night (51191359677)