Miscellaneous
Verses
A few favourites . . . . .
I could happily include the entire output of John Betjemen here, but it is still in copyright, I think!
Self Pity
I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself
A small bird will drop dead from a bough, frozen,
without ever having felt sorry for itself.
D. H. Lawrence.
Parents and Children
As tall as your knee, they are pretty to see;
As tall as your head, they wish you were dead.
Traditional.
Willy Wet-Leg
I can’t stand Willy Wet-Leg,
Can’t stand him at any price.
He’s resigned, and when you hit him
he lets you hit him twice.
D. H. Lawrence.
Mortality
Grass of levity
Span in brevity
Flower's felicity
Fire of misery,
Wind's stability,
Is mortality.
Anonymous
Brother
It's odd enough to be alive with others,
But odder still to have sisters and brothers:
To make one of a characteristic litter -
The sisters puzzled and vexed, the brothers vexed and bitter
That this one wears, though flattened by abuse,
The family nose for individual use.
Robert Graves.
An all-time favourite:
WHISPERS OF IMMORTALITY
Webster was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backwards with a lipless grin.
Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.
Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense,
To seize and clutch and penetrate;
Expert beyond experience;
He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.
.............................
Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye
Is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.
The couched Brazilian jaguar
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonette.
The sleek Brazilian jaguar
Does not in its aboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing room.
And even the Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.
T.S. Elliot. 1920
If you would like to
contact us at any time send e-mail to:
Lesley at Lesley@lesleydavies.co.uk or
Brian at response@bdavies.co.uk
Return . . . 
back to the 'Quotables' main page