National Poetry Day Studies
Since National Poetry Day falls this year on a still, perfect autumnal day, the English Department thought that a little reflection on the season might not be amiss. The Upper Sixth have been studying the work of John Keats recently so here is his ode “To Autumn” in all its “mellow” glory:
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Since we are in such strange times, it seems appropriate that Form 3 have been studying utopias, or ideal worlds. Here is Yeats’s wish for an ideal world together with an homage to that famous work by Archie (and some helpers):
The Lake Isle of Innisfree. BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
The Lake Isle of Disney World
I will arise and go now, and go to Disney world,
and a large castle build there, aglow with new year’s lights
Nine hundred rows of people, and actors spun and twirled
Creating millions of magical nights
And I will have some fun there, like fireworks fizzing down
Fizzing from the firmament to mortals far below
There midnight’s full of dancing, and mornings have no frown
And evenings full of a lilting flow
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I see post-Covid worlds beckon me, a beauty from afar
While I stand, masked and miserable on the pavements grey
I see happiness like a forlorn star.
Posted on: October 2, 2020