The Eagle’ … Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Head of a Bald Eagle … Pen & Ink – WHB : May 2017

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

BY  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

A poem, by Alfred Lord Tennyson, with great dynamism.  Short but so effectively expressed.   The adjectives are just right.  The words, metre, alliteration and rhymes work together to convey the essence of the eagle’s power and majesty.

1. Three ‘Victorian Celebrity’ CLERIHEWS

A Clerihew is a comic verse consisting of two couplets and a specific rhyming scheme, aabb, invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956) at the age of 16. Normally the first line names a person, and the second line ends with something that rhymes with the name of the person. (From: ‘Shadow Poetry’)


Alfred Lord Tennyson
By gift and by benison,
Through His ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’
The glory of defeat portrayed.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling
Could not be described as middling;
His output as a poet
Was immense, and don’t we know it!

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Might well have invented spaghetti;
As lover, Poet, painter
He was ever, the innovator.

Pastiche Poems #2

Prisma-Somerset Bruton1

A pastiche, created in PRISMA, of a painting of my own of Bruton, Somerset, England

PASTICHE POETRY

Following on from my opening outline of Pastiche Poetry (see my blog of two days ago titled ‘Pastiche Poetry’ ), and my blog of yesterday (  Pastiche Poetry #1 ),  here are more of my own efforts (you may call them concoctions or confections if you’d rather) which I have based on the well-known opening lines of six different poets  . . .

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Leisure, W.H.Davies …

What is this life
If full of care
We must still put up
With Tony Blair.


A Red Red Rose, Robert Burns …

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That blossoms in the summer;
I think of her without her clothes,
Prickly, but a stunner.



The Lady of Shalott, Alfred Lord Tennyson …

On either side the river lie 
Long fields of barley and of rye;
Oh tell me why, Yes tell me why,
This bloody river’s running dry.



Song to Celia II, Ben Jonson …

Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
I’ve had enough of diet coke
I want a glass of blood red wine.



To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time, Robert Herrick …

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
It’s time to settle down and wed,
You’ll find it satisfying.



Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray …

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
It’s time to tell you Mister Thomas Gray
To quit this grandiose hyperbole.

 

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‘The Eagle’ … Alfred, Lord Tennyson

(Poem No.34 of my favourite short poems)

Bald Eagle1c

Head of a Bald Eagle … Pen & Ink – WHB : May 2017

 

The Eagle

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
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By  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

A poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 -1892), who succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in 1850.   This short poem is expressed with great effect and dynamism.   The adjectives are just right.  The words, metre, alliteration and rhymes work together to convey the essence of the eagle’s power and majesty.
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