The Map and the Clock Read online

  THE MAP AND THE CLOCK

  A Laureate’s Choice of the Poetry of Britain and Ireland

  edited by

  Carol Ann Duffy

  and

  Gillian Clarke

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Preface by CAROL ANN DUFFY

  I

  I sing my own true story, tell my travels …

  (600–1300)

  CAEDMON Caedmon’s Hymn

  ANON Song to a Child

  ANON Jesus and the Sparrows

  ANON from Beowulf

  ANEIRIN from The Gododdin

  BEDE Bede’s Death Song

  TALIESIN Death Song for Owain ab Urien

  ANON ‘Birdsong from a willow tree’

  ANON The Battle of Brunanburh

  ANON The King of Connacht

  ANON Wulf

  ANON ‘Wind fierce to-night’

  ANON The Wife’s Lament

  ANON Exile

  ANON from The Seafarer

  ANON ‘There’s a lady in these parts’

  ANON The Wish of Manchán of Liath

  ANON The Praises of God

  ANON The End of Clonmacnois

  ANON Winter Cold

  ANON Durham

  ANON Advice to Lovers

  ANON from Sweeney Astray

  ANON Writing Out of Doors

  ANON from The Mabinogi: Rhiannon

  ANON ‘Derry I cherish ever’

  ANON I am Taliesin

  ANON The Heart of the Wood

  ANON This ae Night

  II

  Bring us in good ale …

  (1300–1500)

  GEOFFREY CHAUCER from The Parliament of Fowls

  from The General Prologue

  from The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

  DAFYDD AP GWILYM The Seagull

  The Thrush

  WILLIAM LANGLAND from Piers Plowman

  EARL GERALD FITZGERALD In Defence of Women

  ANON from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

  from Pearl

  ROBERT HENRYSON The Prologue

  The Toad and the Mouse

  DAFYDD AP EDMWND A Girl’s Hair

  WILLIAM DUNBAR To a Ladye

  ANON ‘I sing of a maiden’

  ANON Shirt of a Lad

  ANON ‘The silver swan, who living had no note’

  ANON The Blackbird of Derrycairn

  ANON ‘Dear, if you change, I’ll never choose again’

  ANON May Poem

  ANON The Wife Who Would a Wanton Be

  ANON Bring Us in Good Ale

  III

  Fair rocks, goodly rivers, sweet woods …

  (1500–1600)

  ANON ‘Western wind, when wilt thou blow?’

  ANON The Breach in the Wall

  ANON This is the House That Jack Built

  THOMAS WYATT ‘They flee from me that sometime did me seek’

  ANNE ASKEW The Ballad which Anne Askew Made and Sang when She was in Newgate

  SIR THOMAS MAITLAND Satyr upon Sir Niel Laing

  ANNE BACON A— B— on t he learned Bartholo Sylva

  QUEEN ELIZABETH I The Doubt of Future Foes

  When I Was Fair and Young

  JANE SEAGER to Queen Elizabeth

  ISABELLA WHITNEY A Communication Which the Author Had to London, Before She Made Her Will

  MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS Verses in Italian and French, written by the Queen of Scots to the Queen of England

  JAMES, JOHN AND ROBERT WEDDERBURN God send euerie Preist ane wyfe

  EDMUND SPENSER from The Faerie Queene

  PHILIP SIDNEY Echo

  ‘Sweet kiss, thy sweets I fain would sweetly indite’

  ROBERT GREENE The Description of Sir Geoffrey Chaucer

  MICHAEL DRAYTON from Poly-Olbion

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE The Passionate Shepherd to his Love

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE from The Tempest

  from King John

  ‘How like a winter hath my absence been’

  from Antony and Cleopatra

  from Love’s Labour’s Lost

  from Henry V

  from King Richard II

  THOMAS CAMPION ‘Now winter nights enlarge’

  ‘There is a garden in her face’

  BEN JONSON Inviting a Friend to Supper

  To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr William Shakespeare: And What He Hath Left Us

  Song to Celia

  IV

  Church-bells beyond the stars heard …

  (1600–1700)

  JOHN DONNE The Flea

  The Sun Rising

  Elegy: To his Mistress Going to Bed

  ANON Lady Greensleeves

  LADY MARY WROTH ‘Love like a juggler comes to play his prize’

  ‘Come, darkest night, becoming sorrow best’

  ROBERT HERRICK The Argument of His Book

  Corinna’s Going a-Maying

  Delight in Disorder

  Julia in Silks

  To the Virgins to Make Much of Time

  GEORGE HERBERT Love

  Avarice

  Prayer

  The Glance

  ANON The Battle of Inverlochy

  ANON ‘Like as the damask rose you see’

  ANON from Life and Death

  LAOISEACH MAC AN BHAIRD Brothers

  ANON The Twa Corbies

  EDMUND WALLER Marriage of the Dwarfs

  JOHN MILTON from Paradise Lost

  FRANCIS SEMPILL Maggie Lauder

  MARY MACLEOD Blue Song

  ANDREW MARVELL To His Coy Mistress

  The Mower to the Glow-Worms

  KATHERINE ASTON To my Daughter Catherine on Ashwednesday 1645, finding her weeping at prayers, because I would not consent to her fasting

  HENRY VAUGHAN ‘I saw eternity the other night’

  Son-days

  The Waterfall

  Friends Departed

  HUW MORUS In Praise of a Girl

  MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE Nature’s Cook

  MARY CAMERON A Song of Sorrow

  KATHERINE PHILIPS An Answer to another persuading a Lady to Marriage

  ANON The Downfall of Charing Cross

  ANON ‘If all the world were paper’

  SÉAMAS DALL MAC CUARTA The Drowned Blackbird

  V

  Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear …

  (1700–1800)

  JONATHAN SWIFT Verses Said to be Written on the Union

  SARAH FYGE The Liberty

  AODHÁGAN Ó RATHAILLE A Grey Eye Weeping

  The Glamoured

  ELIZABETH SINGER To a very young Gentleman at a Dancing-School

  JOHN GAY A New Song of New Similes

  ALEXANDER POPE Ode on Solitude

  ALEXANDER MACDONALD from Song of Summer

  MEHETABEL WRIGHT Wedlock: A Satire

  ANON On Inclosures

  PEADAR Ó DORNÍN The Mother’s Lament for Her Child

  JEAN ADAM There’s Nae Luck about the House

  THOMAS GRAY Satire upon the Heads; or, Never a Barrel the Better Herring

  CHRISTOPHER SMART from Jubilate Agno

  ANON On the New Laureate

  WILLIAM COWPER ‘Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds’

  The Post-Boy

  ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD Washing Day

  ANON Cock Robbin

  EOGHAN RUA Ó SÚILLEABHÁIN Poet to Blacksmith

  CHARLOTTE SMITH Written near a port on a dark evening

  ROBERT FERGUSSON Caller Oysters

  The Daft-Days

  PAT O’KELLY The Litany for Doneraile

  GEORGE CRABBE from Peter Grimes

  WILLIAM BLAKE The School Boy

  Holy Thursday<
br />
  A Question Answered

  MARY ROBINSON The Camp

  CATHERINE MARIA FANSHAWE A Riddle

  ROBERT BURNS Mary Morison

  A Red, Red Rose

  Ae Fond Kiss

  Green Grow the Rashes

  Lament for Culloden

  JOANNA BAILLIE Hay Making

  CAROLINE OLIPHANT Will Ye No Come Back Again?

  The Land o’ the Leal

  JAMES HOGG Love is like a dizziness

  The Village of Balmaquhapple

  VI

  Silent icicles, quietly shining to the quiet moon …

  (1800–1850)

  WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

  from The Prelude

  Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

  DOROTHY WORDSWORTH Floating Island

  SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Frost at Midnight

  A Soliloquy of the full Moon, She being in a Mad Passion –

  JAMES ORR Written in Winter

  LORD BYRON ‘She walks in beauty, like the night’

  ‘So, we’ll go no more a roving’

  PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY England in 1819

  Ode to the West Wind

  JOHN CLARE Pleasant Sounds

  The Moors

  Summer Evening

  JANET HAMILTON Oor Location

  Auld Mither Scotlan’

  JOHN KEATS ‘This living hand, now warm and capable’

  A Song about Myself

  On the Grasshopper and the Cricket

  ‘Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art’

  ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING Grief

  When Our Two Souls

  ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways’

  Lord Walter’s Wife

  ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON ‘Come into the garden, Maud’

  The Charge of the Light Brigade

  Crossing the Bar

  EMILY AND CHARLOTTE BRONTË The Visionary

  ROBERT BROWNING Home-Thoughts, from Abroad

  Meeting at Night

  Porphyria’s Lover

  VII

  Our days were a joy, and our paths through flowers …

  (1850–1900)

  MATTHEW ARNOLD Dover Beach

  CHRISTINA ROSSETTI A Christmas Carol

  The Queen of Hearts

  WILLIAM MCGONAGALL The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay

  DORA GREENWELL A Scherzo (a Shy Person’s Wishes)

  JEAN INGELOW Seven Times One: Exultation

  EDWARD LEAR The Owl and the Pussy-Cat

  The Akond of Swat

  LEWIS CARROLL The Walrus and the Carpenter

  THOMAS HARDY Proud Songsters

  After a Journey

  Neutral Tones

  The Convergence of the Twain

  GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS Felix Randal

  God’s Grandeur

  Hurrahing in Harvest

  The Sea and the Skylark

  ‘I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day’

  ROBERT BRIDGES London Snow

  On a Dead Child

  MARION BERNSTEIN Manly Sports

  ALICE MEYNELL The Lady Poverty

  ANON ‘She was poor, but she was honest’

  ANON The Woman of Llyn y Fan’s Call to Her Cattle

  ANON Sonnet Found in a Deserted Mad-House

  OSCAR WILDE Symphony in Yellow

  A. D. GODLEY The Motor Bus

  DOLLIE RADFORD Soliloquy of a Maiden Aunt

  A. E. HOUSMAN ‘When first my way to fair I took’

  ‘Here dead lie we because we did not choose’

  VIOLET JACOB Tam i’ the Kirk

  RUDYARD KIPLING The Way Through the Woods

  VIII

  All the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire …

  (1900–1918)

  W. B. YEATS The Wild Swans at Coole

  The Song of Wandering Aengus

  No Second Troy

  Easter, 1916

  An Irish Airman Foresees his Death

  CHARLOTTE MEW The Farmer’s Bride

  On the Road to the Sea

  The Trees are Down

  Rooms

  HILAIRE BELLOC Ballade of Genuine Concern

  Hannaker Mill

  W. H. DAVIES The Villain

  WALTER DE LA MARE No

  The Birthnight

  G. K. CHESTERTON The Rolling English Road

  E. C. BENTLEY Ballade of Liquid Refreshment

  EDWARD THOMAS Adlestrop

  Words

  What shall I give?

  Tall Nettles

  HAROLD MONRO The Nightingale Near the House

  Overheard on a Saltmarsh

  MARRIOTT EDGAR The Lion and Albert

  MARTIN ARMSTRONG Mrs Reece Laughs

  ANNA WICKHAM The Fired Pot

  Meditation at Kew

  SIEGFRIED SASSOON Survivors

  The General

  Everyone Sang

  Falling Asleep

  ISAAC ROSENBERG August 1914

  Break of Day in the Trenches

  ROSE MACAULAY Lunch Hour

  IVOR GURNEY The Silent One

  First Time In

  The Soaking

  WILFRED OWEN Anthem for Doomed Youth

  Disabled

  Dulce et Decorum Est

  Insensibility

  IX

  I think we are in rats’ alley where the dead men lost their bones …

  (1918–1945)

  T. S. ELIOT The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

  from The Waste Land

  VITA SACKVILLE-WEST Full Moon

  JAMES JOYCE The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly

  F. W. HARVEY Ducks

  JEAN EARLE A Saturday in the ’20s

  HUGH MACDIARMID The Bonnie Broukit Bairn

  Back Bedroom

  MARION ANGUS Mary’s Song

  The Blue Jacket

  Alas! Poor Queen

  IDRIS DAVIES The Bells of Rhymney

  The Angry Summer

  SAMUEL BECKETT Cascando

  D. H. LAWRENCE Piano

  Innocent England

  Week-night Service

  ROBERT WILLIAMS PARRY The Fox

  FRANCES CORNFORD Childhood

  To a Fat Lady Seen from a Train

  HELEN B. CRUICKSHANK The Ponnage Pool

  EDWIN MUIR The Interrogation

  The Late Wasp

  DAVID JONES from In Parenthesis

  EDITH SITWELL Aubade

  Still Falls the Rain

  FRANCIS LEDWIDGE Desire in Spring

  HERBERT READ To a Conscript of 1940

  W. H. AUDEN Refugee Blues

  Night Mail

  In Memory of W. B. Yeats

  LOUIS MACNEICE Carrickfergus

  Soap Suds

  Snow

  MALCOLM LOWRY Ghosts in New Houses

  What the Gardener Said to Mrs Traill

  He Liked the Dead

  HENRY REED Lessons of the War

  ALUN LEWIS In Hospital: Poona (I)

  All Day it has Rained …

  The Mountain over Aberdare

  DAVID GASCOYNE A Wartime Dawn

  KEITH DOUGLAS Canoe

  X

  Hi yih, yippity-yap, merrily I flow …

  (1945–1970)

  DYLAN THOMAS Fern Hill

  Poem on His Birthday

  In my Craft or Sullen Art

  SYLVIA TOWNSEND WARNER Anne Donne

  ROBERT GRAVES Tilth

  The Christmas Robin

  RUTH PITTER An Old Woman Speaks of the Moon

  Wild Honey

  D. GWENALLT JONES Sin

  FRANCES BELLERBY Lovers are Separate

  Ends Meet

  J. KITCHENER DAVIES from The Sound of the Wind that is Blowing

  STEVIE SMITH The River God of the River Mimram in Hertfordshire

  Correspondence between Mr Harrison in Newcastle and Mr Sholto Peach Harrison in Hull

  Infelice

&n
bsp; PATRICK KAVANAGH The Long Garden

  Epic

  WALDO WILLIAMS What Is a Man?

  E. J. SCOVELL Listening to Collared Doves

  KATHLEEN RAINE Northumbrian Sequence: IV

  MARGIAD EVANS To my sister Sian

  ROBERT GARIOCH Brither Worm

  I’m Neutral

  Ghaisties

  LYNETTE ROBERTS Poem From Llanybri

  Poem

  ANNE RIDLER For a Child Expected

  JAMES COPELAND Black Friday

  BRENDA CHAMBERLAIN Dead ponies

  SYLVIA PLATH The Bee Meeting

  Blackberrying

  ROSEMARY TONKS Addiction to an Old Mattress

  The Sofas, Fogs and Cinemas

  CHRISTOPHER LOGUE I Shall Vote Labour

  ADRIAN HENRI Tonight at Noon

  ADRIAN MITCHELL Celia, Celia

  BASIL BUNTING from Briggflatts

  XI

  The shadows, the meadows, the lanes, the guildhalls, the carved choirs …

  (1970–2000)

  W. S. GRAHAM To My Wife at Midnight

  Greenock at Night I Find You

  Loch Thom

  NORMAN MACCAIG Feeding Ducks

  Toad

  Deceptions?

  R. S. THOMAS The Bright Field

  The Moon in Lleyn

  Zero

  NORMAN NICHOLSON The Elm Decline

  CHARLES CAUSLEY Eden Rock

  JOHN HEATH-STUBBS The Green Man’s Last Will and Testament

  ELMA MITCHELL Thoughts after Ruskin

  EDWIN MORGAN Midge

  Sir James Murray

  Canedolia

  LESLIE NORRIS Barn Owl

  Water

  GEORGE MACKAY BROWN Butter

  Hamnavoe Market

  Haddock Fishermen

  PHILIP LARKIN Money

  Water

  Going, Going

  KAREN GERSHON I Was Not There

  DANNIE ABSE The Boasts of Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd

  Epithalamion

  PATRICIA BEER The Lost Woman

  ALASTAIR REID Scotland

  ELIZABETH JENNINGS The Child’s Story

  My Grandmother

  A Bird in the House

  IAN CRICHTON SMITH When I am Reading

  Owl and Mouse

  You Are at the Bottom of My Mind

  FREDA DOWNIE Some Poetry

  THOM GUNN Hampstead: the Horse Chestnut Trees

  U. A. FANTHORPE Father in the Railway Buffet

  TED HUGHES Football at Slack

  Wind

  Epiphany

  ANTHONY CONRAN Elegy for the Welsh Dead, in the Falkland Islands, 1982

  GEOFFREY HILL from Mercian Hymns

  SEAMUS HEANEY Punishment

  The Harvest Bow

  The Guttural Muse

  A Keen for the Coins

  The Blackbird of Glanmore

  XII

  if a toktaboot thi trooth lik wanna yoo scruff yi widny thingk it wuz troo …