ii.D.Rubadiri: 'An African Thunderstorm'.
iii.Kobcna Eyi Acquah: 'In the novel of the Soul'.
iv.Mazisi Kunene: 'Heritage of Liberation'.
v.Okinba Launko: 'End of the War'.
vi.Traditional: 'Give me the Minstrel's Seat'.
Non-African:
i. Andrew Mabel: 'To His Coy Mistress' .
ii.D.H.Lawrence: 'Bat' .
iii.T. S. Elliot: 'The Journey of the Magi' .
iv. Wendy Cope: 'Sonnet'.
The Journey Of The Magi
'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kiking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kiking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
WENDY COPE’S
SONNET
Indeed ‘tis true, I travel here and there
On British Rail a lot. I’ve often said
That if you haven’t got the first-class fare
You really need a book of verse instead.
Then, should you find that all the seats are taken,
Brandish your Edward Thomss, Yeats or Pound.
Your fellow passengers, severely shaken,
Will almost all be loath to stick around.
Recent research in railway sociology
Shows it’s best to read your stuff aloud.
A few choice bits from Motion’s new anthology
And you’ll be lonelier than any cloud.
This stratagem’s a godsend to recluses
And demonstrates that poetry has its uses.
To His Coy
Mistress
Andrew
Marvell, 1621 - 1678
Had we but world enough,
and time,
This coyness, Lady, were
no crime.
We would sit down and
think which way
To walk and pass our long
love’s day.
Thou by the Indian
Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find: I
by the tide
Of Humber would complain.
I would
Love you ten years before
the Flood,
And you should, if you
please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should
grow
Vaster than empires, and
more slow;
An hundred years should
go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy
forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each
breast;
But thirty thousand to
the rest;
An age at least to every
part,
And the last age should
show your heart;
For, Lady, you deserve
this state,
Nor would I love at lower
rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot
hurrying near;
And yonder all before us
lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more
be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault,
shall sound
My echoing song: then
worms shall try
That long preserved
virginity,
And your quaint honour
turn to dust,
And into ashes all my
lust:
The grave’s a fine and
private place,
But none, I think, do
there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like
morning dew,
And while thy willing
soul transpires
At every pore with
instant fires,
Now let us sport us while
we may,
And now, like amorous
birds of prey,
Rather at once our time
devour
Than languish in his
slow-chapt power.
Let us roll all our
strength and all
Our sweetness up into one
ball,
And tear our pleasures
with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates
of life:
Thus, though we cannot
make our sun
Stand still, yet we will
make him run.
An
Africa Thunderstorm
Clouds come hurrying with the wind
Turning sharply
Here and there
Like a plague of locusts
Whirling,
Tossing up things on its tail
Like a madman chasing nothing.
Pregnant clouds
Ride stately on its back,
Gathering to perch on hills
Like sinister dark wings;
The wind whistles by
And trees bend to let it pass.
In the village
Screams of delighted children,
Toss and turn
In the din of the whirling wind,
Women,
Babies clinging on their backs
Dart about
In and out
Madly;
The wind whistles by
Whilst trees bend to let it pass.
Clothes wave like tattered flags
Flying off
To expose dangling breasts
As jagged blinding flashes
Rumble, tremble and crack
Amidst the smell of fired smoke
And the pelting march of the storm.
Bat
At evening, sitting on this terrace,
When the sun from the west,
beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara
Departs, and the world is taken by
surprise ...
When the tired flower of Florence is in
gloom beneath the glowing
Brown hills surrounding
...
When under the arches of the Ponte
Vecchio
A green light enters against stream,
flush from the west,
Against the current of obscure Arno
...
Look up, and you see things flying
Between the day and the night;
Swallows with spools of dark thread
sewing the shadows together.
A circle swoop, and a quick parabola
under the bridge arches
Where light pushes through;
A sudden turning upon itself of a
thing in the air.
A dip to the water.
And you think:
"The swallows are flying so
late!"
Swallows?
Dark air-life looping
Yet missing the pure loop ...
A twitch, a twitter, an elastic
shudder in flight
And serrated wings against the sky,
Like a glove, a black glove thrown
up at the light,
And falling back.
Never swallows!
Bats!
The swallows are gone.
At a wavering instant the swallows
gave way to bats
By the Ponte Vecchio ...
Changing guard.
Bats, and an uneasy creeping in
one's scalp
As the bats swoop overhead!
Flying madly.
Pipistrello!
Black piper on an infinitesimal
pipe.
Little lumps that fly in air and
have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;
Wings like bits of umbrella.
Bats!
Creatures that hang themselves up
like an old rag, to sleep;
And disgustingly upside down.
Hanging upside down like rows of
disgusting old rags
And grinning in their sleep.
Bats!
In China the bat is symbol for
happiness.
Not for me!
GIVE ME THE MINSTREL'S
SEAT- TRADITIONAL POEM
Give me the minstrel's seat that i may sit and ask you a word, my friends.
Let me ask for what reason or rhyme women refuse to marry?
Woman cannot exist except by man, what is there in that to vex some of them so?
A woman is she who has a husband and she cannot but prosper.
Cleave unto your man and his kinsmen will become jealous
His kinsmen have planted cocoyams but d fruit they reap is dum-palm nuts!
We think you plant the borassus palm, the teak, the mnga and the solanum tree,
When man goes on the road he goes with a friend, for he who walks alone has no good fortune.
As man goes through life soon he is pierced by the thorn,
Or the sand-mote enters his eyes and he needs a friend to remove it.
Likewise I give u advice, the rich man and the poor man.
Joim hands accross the shroud.
Better a loin-cloth witout disgrace than d fine-flowered shawl of shame
Give me the minstrel's seat that i may sit and ask you a word, my friends.
Let me ask for what reason or rhyme women refuse to marry?
Woman cannot exist except by man, what is there in that to vex some of them so?
A woman is she who has a husband and she cannot but prosper.
Cleave unto your man and his kinsmen will become jealous
His kinsmen have planted cocoyams but d fruit they reap is dum-palm nuts!
We think you plant the borassus palm, the teak, the mnga and the solanum tree,
When man goes on the road he goes with a friend, for he who walks alone has no good fortune.
As man goes through life soon he is pierced by the thorn,
Or the sand-mote enters his eyes and he needs a friend to remove it.
Likewise I give u advice, the rich man and the poor man.
Joim hands accross the shroud.
Better a loin-cloth witout disgrace than d fine-flowered shawl of shame
End of WAR- OKINBA LAUNKO
They say,
a war only ends, when
another war begins:
the silence of the battlefield
heralds the widow's anguish
for, to set questions
is not as hard as finding answers......
Our war has ended
because war is now with us
the deserted houses, the fallen rafters
breed the city's slums
and the praise singers are not dead
they have only gone to the barracks......
the butchers fill the parliaments......
and the victims no longer die by bullets
but survive to pay the levies.....
Listen-----they will tell you---
to beat drums is mere children's play
the adult's is to start echoes......
They say,
a war only ends, when
another war begins:
the silence of the battlefield
heralds the widow's anguish
for, to set questions
is not as hard as finding answers......
Our war has ended
because war is now with us
the deserted houses, the fallen rafters
breed the city's slums
and the praise singers are not dead
they have only gone to the barracks......
the butchers fill the parliaments......
and the victims no longer die by bullets
but survive to pay the levies.....
Listen-----they will tell you---
to beat drums is mere children's play
the adult's is to start echoes......
Heritage of Liberation
since it was you who in all these thin seasons
Gave to our minds the visions of life
Take these weapons for our children's children.
They were ours.
They broke the enemies' encirclements.
So let our children live with our voices
With all the plentifulness of our nightmares.
Let them bury us in the mountain
To remind them of our wanderings.
The sunset steals our youth.
We must depart.
We must follow the trail of the killerbird
Or else sleep the sleep of terror
TO generations hereafter
May they inherit our dream of the festival
We who smelt the acrid smell of death
Who saw the vultures leave our comrade's flesh
We Bequeath to you the rays of the morning....
since it was you who in all these thin seasons
Gave to our minds the visions of life
Take these weapons for our children's children.
They were ours.
They broke the enemies' encirclements.
So let our children live with our voices
With all the plentifulness of our nightmares.
Let them bury us in the mountain
To remind them of our wanderings.
The sunset steals our youth.
We must depart.
We must follow the trail of the killerbird
Or else sleep the sleep of terror
TO generations hereafter
May they inherit our dream of the festival
We who smelt the acrid smell of death
Who saw the vultures leave our comrade's flesh
We Bequeath to you the rays of the morning....
NAKED
SOLES
A carnival of Unclad soles
dancing through blooming thorns
hopping with muffled shrill
on souls of thorns with glass chips
with ageing faces in puzzling smiles
drained of terror
A carnival of Unclad soles
dancing through blooming thorns
hopping with muffled shrill
on souls of thorns with glass chips
with ageing faces in puzzling smiles
drained of terror
a
passerby points attention
to the horror locked in
lisping lips and clanging teeth
all dancing figures in a pool of spikes
and in procession they turn
into the forest of cactus
a painful passage along a pin ful path
hopping between pricks and tears
amidst chants and retorts
charming thunders of stripped soles
roared through our new acropolis
where pins and nails
and shattered shells of snails
pile from rooftop to floor
at the close of the carnival
we are left with regal strutting
on bare soles
and milk of bleakness
we are left with royal bearing
on thorn filled cushions
and wild faces behind ageing masks
from thrones of thorns
to the horror locked in
lisping lips and clanging teeth
all dancing figures in a pool of spikes
and in procession they turn
into the forest of cactus
a painful passage along a pin ful path
hopping between pricks and tears
amidst chants and retorts
charming thunders of stripped soles
roared through our new acropolis
where pins and nails
and shattered shells of snails
pile from rooftop to floor
at the close of the carnival
we are left with regal strutting
on bare soles
and milk of bleakness
we are left with royal bearing
on thorn filled cushions
and wild faces behind ageing masks
from thrones of thorns
Please do forgive me that i have omitted one of the poems, but very soon i would find it, thank you.
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