Michael
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« on: 00:02:31, 19-04-2007 » |
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As suggested by Time_Is_Now. 
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« Last Edit: 08:36:50, 21-04-2007 by Michael »
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Michael
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« Reply #1 on: 00:07:59, 19-04-2007 » |
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Sorry to sully this thread so soon, I thought I'd start it off by posting my favorite poem.....
Rudyard Kipling If
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
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« Last Edit: 00:10:00, 19-04-2007 by Michael »
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #2 on: 03:59:05, 19-04-2007 » |
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It all started with a computer game... never did solve the problem of the tower...
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree : Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round : And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover ! A savage place ! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover ! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced : Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail : And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean : And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war ! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves ; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw : It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware ! Beware ! His flashing eyes, his floating hair ! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish.
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Lord Byron
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« Reply #3 on: 07:41:16, 19-04-2007 » |
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As Sweet It's all because we're so alike - Twin souls, we two. We smile at the expression, yes, And know it's true. I told the shrink. He gave our love A different name. But he can call it what he likes - It's still the same. I long to see you, hear your voice, My narcissitic, object-choice. Wendy Cope
wendy cope is cooooooooool
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #4 on: 08:56:15, 19-04-2007 » |
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I have so many favourite poems I don't know where to start. Housman, Auden, Shakespeare - all glorious, and mostly quite long. Here's a short Housman poem to start with:
Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what towns are those?
That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went And cannot come again.
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #5 on: 09:36:07, 19-04-2007 » |
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At this moment, because I have a plumber in the house wreaking havoc, this is my favourite poem, best understood by those with a knowledge of a) 13th century English song, and b) plumbers:
Plumber is icumen in, Bludie big tu-du. Bloweth lampe, and sheweth dampe, And dripeth the wud thru. Bludie hel, boo-hoo!
Thawth drain, and runneth bath, Saw sawth and scruth scru; Bull-kuk squirteth, leake spurteth, Wurry springeth up anew. Boo-hoo, boo-hoo.
Sorry to lower the tone....
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« Last Edit: 09:54:18, 19-04-2007 by Mary Chambers »
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #6 on: 09:40:55, 19-04-2007 » |
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So you've taken the plunge(r) Mary? Good for you: if you leave these things any longer, they just get worse...
When he's gone, get out your copy of the Spring Symphony, and sing along to the last movement!
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #7 on: 09:48:59, 19-04-2007 » |
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I certainly will, Ron. I have the score, and 3 cds to choose from: Britten's own, Hickox's, and the one in Russian!
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #8 on: 10:01:03, 19-04-2007 » |
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What, Mary? Not the van Beinum one with Jo Vincent, Ferrier amd Pears, Amsterdam 9 vii 49?
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #10 on: 11:00:23, 19-04-2007 » |
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I believe the fa-bourdon to Mary's song traditionally has the words
Thissul cost ya, Hoo dun that for yu?
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House" - Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #11 on: 11:15:11, 19-04-2007 » |
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What, Mary? Not the van Beinum one with Jo Vincent, Ferrier amd Pears, Amsterdam 9 vii 49?
Oh yes, I've got that one, too, come to think of it. I wouldn't like anyone to think I had actually written the poem about plumbers. It's by A. Y. Campbell, a Cambridge classicist who died in 1958. Plumbers have obviously not changed.
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pim_derks
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« Reply #12 on: 12:21:47, 19-04-2007 » |
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Poetry and music is an interesting subject.
I was listening to some songs of Gerald Finzi this morning. This reminded my of the fact that I knew a lot of English poetry (by Thomas Hardy, for instance) long before I discovered that it was set to music by various composers.
With French poetry, it is the other way around. I would never have the known the lovely poetry of Maurice Carême if I hadn't discovered the songs of Francis Poulenc.
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #13 on: 13:40:56, 19-04-2007 » |
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Do you think that might be the underlying reason why French Chanson seems an unappreciated genre to many, Pim?
We have tried introducing programmes of Melodies into concert-series of song, but attendances were so poor for it (despite the performers being identical to programmes featuring other song programmes) that we finally had to drop the idea.
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House" - Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #14 on: 13:46:03, 19-04-2007 » |
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Sorry to lower the tone....
To lower it a bit further, here is Ezra Pound's parody: Winter is icumen in, Lhude sing Goddamm, Raineth drop and staineth slop, And how the wind doth ramm! Sing: Goddamm. Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us, An ague hath my ham. Freezeth river, turneth liver, Damm you; Sing: Goddamm. Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm, So 'gainst the winter's balm. Sing goddamm, damm, sing goddamm, Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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