Food poems
/ page 89 of 95 /
The Old Man's Calendar
© Jean de La Fontaine
THIS calendar o'erspread with rubrick days;
She soon forgot and learn'd the pirate's ways;
The matrimonial zone aside was thrown,
And only mentioned where the fact was known:
The Eel Pie
© Jean de La Fontaine
HOWEVER exquisite we BEAUTY find,
It satiates sense, and palls upon the mind:
Brown bread as well as white must be for me;
My motto ever is--VARIETY.
The Dog
© Jean de La Fontaine
'TWOULD endless prove, and nothing would avail,
Each lover's pain minutely to detail:
Their arts and wiles; enough 'twill be no doubt,
To say the lady's heart was found so stout,
She let them sigh their precious hours away,
And scarcely seemed emotion to betray.
Neighbour Peter's Mare
© Jean de La Fontaine
MOST clearly Peter was a heavy lout,
Yet truly I could never have a doubt,
That rashly he would ne'er himself commit,
Though folly 'twere from him to look for wit,
Or aught expect by questioning to find
'Yond this to reason, he was not designed.
Friar Philip's Geese
© Jean de La Fontaine
THE FAIR my pages safely may pursue,
And this apology they'll not refuse.
What recompense can I presume to make?
A tale I'll give, where female charms partake,
And prove resistless whatsoe'er assail:
Blessed BEAUTY, NATURE ever should prevail.
Feronde
© Jean de La Fontaine
THE Mount's old man, by means like these, could say;
He'd men devoted to support his sway;
Upon the globe no empire more was feared,
Or king or potentate like him revered.
These circumstances I've minutely told,
To show, our tale was known in days of old.
Back From Australia
© John Betjeman
At home in Cornwall hurrying autumn skies
Leave Bray Hill barren, Stepper jutting bare,
And hold the moon above the sea-wet sand.
The very last of late September dies
In frosty silence and the hills declare
How vast the sky is, looked at from the land.
Diary of a Church Mouse
© John Betjeman
Here among long-discarded cassocks,
Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,
Here where the vicar never looks
I nibble through old service books.
The During Months
© Sophie Hannah
Like summer in some countries and like rain
in mine, for nuns like God, for drunks like beer,
like food for chefs, for invalids like pain,
You've occupied a large part of the year.
Manteau Three
© Jorie Graham
must it tangles up into a weave,
tied up with votive offerings laws, electricity
what the speakers let loose from their tiny eternity,
what the empty streets held up as offering
when only a bit of wind
litigated in the sycamores,
Holy Sonnet XII: Why Are We By All Creatures Waited On?
© John Donne
Why are we by all creatures waited on?
Why do the prodigal elements supply
Life and food to me, being more pure than I,
Simple, and further from corruption?
Elegy IV: The Perfume
© John Donne
Once, and but once found in thy company,
All thy supposed escapes are laid on me;
And as a thief at bar is questioned there
By all the men that have been robed that year,
Metonymy as an Approach to a Real World
© William Bronk
Whether what we sense of this world
is the what of this world only, or the what
of which of several possible worlds
--which what?--something of what we sense
The Discontent.
© Anne Killigrew
I.
HEre take no Care, take here no Care, my Muse,
Nor ought of Art or Labour use:
But let thy Lines rude and unpolisht go,
The Sale of Saint Thomas
© Lascelles Abercrombie
Captain Well, I hope so.
There's threatening in the weather. Have you a mind
To hug your belly to the slanted deck,
Like a louse on a whip-top, when the boat
Spins on an axlie in the hissing gales?
Past And Future
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
MY future will not copy fair my past
On any leaf but Heaven's. Be fully done
Supernal Will ! I would not fain be one
Who, satisfying thirst and breaking fast,
The Task: Book V, The Winter Morning Walk (excerpts)
© William Cowper
'Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires th' horizon: while the clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Grace and Providence
© William Cowper
Almighty King! whose wondrous hand
Supports the weight of sea and land;
Whose grace is such a boundless store,
No heart shall break that sighs for more.
Vanity of the World
© William Cowper
God gives his mercies to be spent;
Your hoard will do your soul no good.
Gold is a blessing only lent,
Repaid by giving others food.
Sonnet LXXIII
© Edmund Spenser
BEing my selfe captyued here in care,
My hart, whom none with seruile bands can tye:
but the fayre tresses of your golden hayre,
breaking his prison forth to you doth fly.
