Whiling away the time (Part1)

One of the societies to which I belong is The London Society. Like other groups it's in lock down - no meetings, talks, walks around London or educational weekends on a range of architectural subjects. We've always been on line - and last year relaunched our on line presence - now we're doing it in a big way. Tomorrow we'll be holding a number of Zoom trials ahead of our online lectures and the society is asking members for articles and blogs of interest which can be put on line. I offered to write something on poetry associated with London.

So far I've written three pieces one of which was published a week ago. I thought there might be a wider audience for these so as well as the published article I'm putting the other two here on my blog. This is the second one, as yet to be published.

Poems of London

The last piece ended light-heartedly with a poem by William McGonagall. Now it’s the turn of two giants of English poetry T.S. Eliot and Geoffrey Chaucer. First is an extract from what many see as the most influential poem of the 20^th century: Eliot’s “The Waste Land”. It’s a long poem – 434 lines split into 5 Cantos, and it’s not an easy read. Although many will be familiar with the poem’s opening line “April is the cruellest month…”

In this extract from the first Canto “I. The Burial of the Dead”, the last stanza paints a memorable, if grim, picture of City workers crossing London Bridge heading for the office .

   

Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: "Stetson!
"You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
"That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
"Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
"Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
"Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
"Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!
"You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable—mon frère!"

H P Lovecraft parodies this great poem in his 1923 work titled “Waste Paper: A Poem of Profound Insignificance.”

Eliot’s “April is the cruellest month” harks back more than five centuries to the opening line of the English language’s first great poem “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licóur

Of which vertú engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye,

So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially, from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,

The hooly blisful martir for to seke,

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

Bifil that in that seson on a day,

In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,

Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage

To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,

At nyght were come into that hostelrye

Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye

Of sondry folk, by áventure y-falle

In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,

That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde…

The opening stanzas are full of joy, excitement, and expectation: the rhyme carries you along. Winter’s over and spring is evident, Chaucer along with a mixed bunch of pilgrims is leaving the Tabard Inn in Southwark to trek to Canterbury and the tomb of Thomas A Becket. What a motley crew - the wide sweep of society is in the company – each with an absorbing tale to tell.

Southwark at the time was notorious for its low life and professions helping to fill the churches coffers. It is a great poem digestible in chunks and struggling with the language can be really rewarding.

I rather like the idea of ending these pieces with something less than serious. This time it is a children’s poem by Spike Milligan. The man was a comic genius. I wasn’t old enough to appreciate “The Goons” in the 1950’s but appreciated “ The TellyGoons”. Now BBC FourExtra repeats the 1950’s radio shows and again I am delighted by the man’s wit. He didn’t write a poem specifically about London but this delightful children’s poem refers to many London landmarks.

Jumbo Jet

I saw a little elephant standing in my garden,
I said 'You don't belong in here', he said 'I beg your pardon?',
I said 'This place is England, what are you doing here?',
He said 'Ah, then I must be lost' and then 'Oh dear, oh dear'.

'I should be back in Africa, on Saranghetti's Plain',
'Pray, where is the nearest station where I can catch a train?'.
He caught the bus to Finchley and then to Mincing lane,
And over the Embankment, where he got lost, again.

The police they put him in a cell, but it was far too small,
So they tied him to a lamppost and he slept against the wall.
But as the policemen lay sleeping by the twinkling light of dawn,
The lamppost and the wall were there, but the elephant was gone!

So if you see an elephant, in a Jumbo Jet,
You can be sure that Africa's the place he's trying to get!

I’m surprised there was no mention of the Elephant and Castle!