English poets do have a thing about dead trees, don't they?

William Cowper and his poplars

(The poplars are fell'd! farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade;
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives. )

Gerard Manley Hopkins and his poplars at Binsey
 (My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one  
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank. )

I heard the story of some poetry loving visitors to Oxford wanting to go and see the original poplars.  Some people don't only not read poems, they don't even bother to read the title.  (Binsey Poplars, felled 1879)

Thanks SH. I need to mull that over, but you may be right. I guess I'm aware of Hardy's irony, but that line in the second stanza seemed so patently contrived for the scansion that it seemed po-faced as it came. Which in itself makes his lyricism of the sentimental type, I'm aware. (I only recently discovered that Schiller's sentimental is subdivided into satire and elegy.)

And of course I'm a sucker for any pun with time in it, but they're plentiful enough for me to be choosy when the mood takes me.

I've often struggled with Prynne and I'll contemplate your latest over lunch (sausages and bacon, but I'm throwing in half a red pepper for the vitamin-rich experience). I haven't read that Jacket article yet either, but I haven't forgotten about it.

Here's the opinion-dividing Dylan (no not that one!) - it was the first thing that came to mind (I'm just 11 hours into my own thirtieth year after all ... or is he just starting his thirty-first here??).


                   POEM IN OCTOBER

        It was my thirtieth year to heaven
     Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
        And the mussel pooled and the heron
                Priested shore
           The morning beckon
     With water praying and call of seagull and rook
     And the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall
           Myself to set foot
                That second
        In the still sleeping town and set forth.

        My birthday began with the water-
     Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
        Above the farms and the white horses
                And I rose
            In a rainy autumn
     And walked abroad in shower of all my days
     High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
            Over the border
                And the gates
        Of the town closed as the town awoke.

        A springful of larks in a rolling
     Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
        Blackbirds and the sun of October
                Summery
            On the hill's shoulder,
     Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
     Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
            To the rain wringing
                Wind blow cold
        In the wood faraway under me.

        Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
     And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
        With its horns through mist and the castle
                Brown as owls
             But all the gardens
     Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
     Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
             There could I marvel
                My birthday
        Away but the weather turned around.

        It turned away from the blithe country
     And down the other air and the blue altered sky
        Streamed again a wonder of summer
                With apples
             Pears and red currants
     And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
     Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
             Through the parables
                Of sunlight
        And the legends of the green chapels

        And the twice told fields of infancy
     That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
        These were the woods the river and the sea
                Where a boy
             In the listening
     Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
     To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
             And the mystery
                Sang alive
        Still in the water and singing birds.

        And there could I marvel my birthday
     Away but the weather turned around. And the true
        Joy of the long dead child sang burning
                In the sun.
             It was my thirtieth
        Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
        Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
             O may my heart's truth
                Still be sung
        On this high hill in a year's turning.

                                                     -- Dylan Thomas

There was once a correspondence in a newspaper - possibly The Guardian - about the most beautiful lines in English poetry, and someone suggested the start of the third stanza of Poem in October, "a springful of larks in a rolling cloud". I don't think so, though I like the poem. The most beautiful line to me is Shakespeare, from Sonnet 73, "Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang". Not an academic exercise, I know, and not intended to be.

(Happy birthday, tinners Do you feel old yet?)

And do they have rum and lavabread in Italy?  Enquired Second Voice Drowned.

Now someone has encouraged me, here's the bit of The Rape of the Lock I've been meaning to put on ever since I spoke to a board member in the summer who is the only person I know to describe herself as a feminist who enjoyed wearing an C18 corset to play Vivaldi.

Toilet does not have its non-U meaning here.

And now, unveil'd, the Toilet stands display'd,
Each Silver Vase in mystic Order laid.
First, rob'd in White, the Nymph intent adores
With Head uncover'd, the Cosmetic Pow'rs.
A heav'nly Image in the Glass appears,
To that she bends, to that her Eyes she rears;
Th' inferior Priestess, at her Altar's side,
Trembling, begins the sacred Rites of Pride.
Unnumber'd Treasures ope at once, and here
The various Off'rings of the World appear;
From each she nicely culls with curious Toil,
And decks the Goddess with the glitt'ring Spoil.
This casket India's glowing Gems unlocks,
And all Arabia breathes from yonder Box.
The Tortoise here and Elephant unite,
Transform'd to Combs, the speckled and the white.
Here Files of Pins extend their shining Rows,
Puffs, Powders, Patches, Bibles, Billet-doux.

The line And all Arabia breathes from yonder Box is another of my candidates for the most beautiful line in English poetry.

I love The Rape of the Lock, so funny, have just got my copy of Pope out now.  It is a rather lovely tooled leather and gilded 1866 edition  of his Poetical Works illustrated by John Gilbert, edited by the Rev. H.F. Cary, how it may differ from other earlier/later versions I do not know.