Honey Still for Tea
A couple of weeks ago we were driving through Grantchester, en route to Cambridge, and I was banging on about Rupert Brooke's famous poem The Old Vicarage, Grantchester. I had some idea that old Rupert had written it from the trenches of the First World War, but in fact he wrote it before then, in 1912, whilst brushing up his language skills in Germany.
Anyway, it's a poem of longing for home, and as someone who, with the wrong company in the wrong place, can get homesick on a day trip, I quite understand what he was feeling.
I was going to put the whole poem on this blog but, reading it again, I thought hey, it's got some lovely, evocative lines but he does go on a bit, doesn't he? And I think breaking into a bit of Greek in the middle is just wrong (but I would say that, because I don't understand Greek).
Perhaps I've caught modern-television-syndrome - if it lasts more than three minutes, I've lost interest. And yet I didn't used to be like that with poetry - I once read just about everything that Tennyson wrote, as part of my course, and he went on and on and ON, believe me.
I'm quite tempted to put together a shortened version, with all the best lines, and miss out the dreary bits in the middle.
Or how about just the last lines on their own, and call them a haiku?
And yet
Stands the church clock at ten to three
And is there honey still for tea?
A haiku, just in case you didn't know, is a Japanese poem, generally of seventeen syllables (yes, I know the lines above are eighteen really).
Here's one I like:
To write a poem
In seventeen syllables
Is very diffi
But in general haikus (is that the plural?) are short, evocative little poems that "take you there" in a couple of lines, and I rather like them. Here are just a few that I found on t'interclacker:
unable to sleep
the clank and rumble of trains
long into the night
or how about
wintry sun
over the deserted funfair
a gull, soaring
or how about
under a bare tree
a few mauve crocuses
quiver in the wind
Hey, if you don't like them, well, at least they're short.
I'll end this post now, shall I?
Anyway, it's a poem of longing for home, and as someone who, with the wrong company in the wrong place, can get homesick on a day trip, I quite understand what he was feeling.
I was going to put the whole poem on this blog but, reading it again, I thought hey, it's got some lovely, evocative lines but he does go on a bit, doesn't he? And I think breaking into a bit of Greek in the middle is just wrong (but I would say that, because I don't understand Greek).
Perhaps I've caught modern-television-syndrome - if it lasts more than three minutes, I've lost interest. And yet I didn't used to be like that with poetry - I once read just about everything that Tennyson wrote, as part of my course, and he went on and on and ON, believe me.
I'm quite tempted to put together a shortened version, with all the best lines, and miss out the dreary bits in the middle.
Or how about just the last lines on their own, and call them a haiku?
And yet
Stands the church clock at ten to three
And is there honey still for tea?
A haiku, just in case you didn't know, is a Japanese poem, generally of seventeen syllables (yes, I know the lines above are eighteen really).
Here's one I like:
To write a poem
In seventeen syllables
Is very diffi
But in general haikus (is that the plural?) are short, evocative little poems that "take you there" in a couple of lines, and I rather like them. Here are just a few that I found on t'interclacker:
unable to sleep
the clank and rumble of trains
long into the night
or how about
wintry sun
over the deserted funfair
a gull, soaring
or how about
under a bare tree
a few mauve crocuses
quiver in the wind
Hey, if you don't like them, well, at least they're short.
I'll end this post now, shall I?
posted by Daphne at 8:02 pm
6 Comments:
I am a tiny bit disappointed that the last two lines of your post were eighteen syllables rather than seventeen, otherwise they could have been a haiku of their own. Or are you just being ironic?
Thank God I had those cds, that's all I can say.
Hey, Ruth, I was pleased to see I wasn't the first to count the syllables in the last two lines!
For me, the 'honey still for tea' bit will only ever bring up a cockney voice saying "Honey's off, luv!"
It always makes me think of crosswords.
some poems are short
and some are a bit longer;
I don't care one whit.
(with apologies to Tennyson)
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