I suppose I could have given in to Google, Ollie, but it's a matter of principle with poems I know well not to do so, or at least to try to remember them before checking the text. I'm glad you've reminded me it's 'celebrate', as I'll now hopefully remember that the next time I want to quote those lines.

Someone quoted Browning on another thread; here is the only Browning poem I have off by heart. Ollie may visit Google and furnish me with a list of corrections if he so wishes: I suspect some of my semicolons are commas, and vice versa.


My Last Duchess

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
Frà Pandolf by design, for never read
Strangers like you her pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of her earnest glance,
But looked as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there. So, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say, 'Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much.' Or, 'Paint
Can never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat.' Such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart - how shall I say? - too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed. She liked whate'er
She looked on; and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favour at her breast;
The dropping of the daylight in the west;
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her; the white mule
She rode with round the terrace: all and each
Would draw from her alike th' approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men good, but thanked
Somehow - I know not how - as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? E'en had you skill
In speech (which I have not) to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say: 'Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss
Or there exceed the mark.' And if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopp'd together. There she stands
As if alive. Will't please you rise? We'll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The count your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallow'd;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avow'd
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir; notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me.

Intimations of Immortality - Gerald Finzi

Wordsworth's grandson (or great-grandson, more likely? I suppose I should have googled this ), also called William, was a composer, mainly of symphonies but I expect he set some of the elder William's poetry. Perhaps not ...

You're right, though, Don. Apart from Finzi I can't think of any other famous settings. Not even RVW??

We don't actually know who has and who hasn't do we, Don B?  I propose to assume they may well have unless they insist on denying it in writing.


This is really Mary C's job so I feel a bit of an interloper but Britten set part of the Prelude, 'But that night, When on my bed I lay', as part of his Nocturne. It's the one with the timps.

Ah, but they obviously didn't understand it even if they did read it, George. That's what you're forgetting! (Unless of course they were working-class, in which case they understood it better than any member of this forum ever could.)

Oh yes. So he did. Sorry about that.

You are not alone, Don B. With apologies to those who find Wendy Cope resistible, that prompts another squib of hers:


An Argument With Wordsworth

People are always quoting that and all of them seem to agree
And it's probably most unwise to admit that it's different for me.
I have emotion  -  no one who knows me could fail to detect it  -
But there's a serious shortage of tranquillity in which to recollect it.
So this is my contribution to the theoretical debate:
Sometimes poetry is emotion recollected in a highly emotional state.



[Thank you, Ollie. You are forgiven. I know how these things happen   I shall always hear it that way now. And I'm not even synaesthetic.]

if George is allowed even more Wendy Cope, I'm surely allowed to return once again to Thom Gunn.

This is another one off by heart (I don't think it's on Google, Ollie). I can't remember the title but the poem is only two lines long:


Spontaneous overflows of poetic feeling;
Wet dreams, wet dreams, in libraries congealing.