Dust of Snow
Robert Frost
The way a Crow
Shock down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
Find this poem online at Poetry Foundation
Category Archives: books
This Month’s Poem
Halsway Carol
Iain Frisk
Lo for the tiding of the long night moon
Let the sunrise call about the morning soon
Short is the biding of the fading light
Sing for the coming of the longest night
North wind tell us what we need to know
When the stars are shining on the midnight snow
All of the branches will be turned to white
Sing for the coming of the longest night
A winter day, the summer grass turned hay
Frost in the field ’til the dawn of May
A summer’s light never shone as clear or as bright
So dance in the shadows of a winter’s night
Lo for the tiding of the long night moon
May the harvest last until the springtime bloom
Home is our comfort at the winter’s height
Sing for the coming of the longest night
All of the colours of the sunrise sky
Shine a light upon us, as the day goes by
Sun-setting shadows fading out of sight
Sing for the coming of the longest night
A winter day, the summer grass turned hay
Frost in the field ’til the dawn of May
A summer’s light never shone as clear or as bright
So dance in the shadows of a winter’s night
Find this poem online at Town Common Songs
This Month’s Poem
Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat (opening)
TS Eliot
There’s a whisper down the line at 11.39
When the Night Mail’s ready to depart,
Saying “Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble?
We must find him or the train can’t start.”
All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster’s daughters
They are searching high and low,
Saying “Skimble where is Skimble for unless he’s very nimble
Then the Night Mail just can’t go.”
At 11.42 then the signal’s nearly due
And the passengers are frantic to a man –
Then Skimble will appear and he’ll saunter to the rear:
He’s been busy in the luggage van!
He gives one flash of his glass-green eyes
And the signal goes “All Clear!”
And we’re off at last for the northern part
Of the Northern Hemisphere!
Find this poem online at Famous Poets and Poems
This Month’s Poem
On The Ning Nang Nong
Spike Milligan
On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There’s a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can’t catch ’em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
Find this poem online at All Poetry
September Quiz Answers
Here are the answers to this month’s six quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.
Literature
- Which Tolstoy novel begins “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”? Anna Karenina
- Who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016? Bob Dylan
- Who wrote A Child’s History of England? Dickens, 1853
- Who succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in Nov 1850? Tennyson
- Apart from his novels, what is Anthony Trollope remembered for? Introduction of pillar boxes to UK
- Which two-word term was popularised by a 1948 Robert Heinlein novel of the same name, which inspired a science fiction franchise centring on a character named Tom Corbett? Space Cadet
Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2024.
This Month’s Poem
A Modern Hiawatha
George A Strong
When he killed the Mudjokivis,
Of the skin he made him mittens,
Made them with the fur side inside,
Made them with the skin side outside.
He, to get the warm side inside,
Put the inside skin side outside;
He, to get the cold side outside,
Put the warm side fur side inside.
That’s why he put the fur side inside,
Why he put the skin side outside,
Why he turned them inside outside.
Find this poem online at Poetry Nook
September Quiz Questions
Each month we’re posing six pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. As always, they’re designed to be difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers – so have a bit of fun.
Literature
- Which Tolstoy novel begins “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”?
- Who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016?
- Who wrote A Child’s History of England?
- Who succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in Nov 1850?
- Apart from his novels, what is Anthony Trollope remembered for?
- Which two-word term was popularised by a 1948 Robert Heinlein novel of the same name, which inspired a science fiction franchise centring on a character named Tom Corbett?
Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.
This Month’s Poem
Kubla Khan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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.
Find this poem online at Poetry Foundation
This Month’s Poem
The Rolling English Road
GK Chesterton
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
Find this poem online at Poetry Foundation
This Month’s Poem
Trees
Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Find this poem online at Poetry Foundation