What Is Your Favorite "Manly" Poem?
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Ahhhh......I think you are right. You guys realize we are showing our age. ?
Actually, Monty Python. SNL did some references in some skits.
The rest of the lyrics:
The rest of the lyrics:
Off to Manly
To Manly beach I am going,
With my little bucket and spade,
If Tommy won’t walk any faster
We’ll miss the boat I’m afraid,
What have I got in my basket?
Wouldn’t you love to hear!
Pies and cakes and some apples,
And a bottle of good hop beer.
I hope that the wave will rock us,
And make the steamer to roll,
But Tommy, he doesn’t like it,
He’s frightened, the poor little soul.
When we get down to Manly,
Daddy and Tommy and me,
We’ll take off our shoes and stockings,
And paddle right into the sea.
I’m going to fish for lobsters,
Perhaps, for a crab as well,
But Tommy, whose only a baby,
Will be pleased if he find a shell.
We’ll make such a jolly castle.
Then down on the sand we’ll lie,
Looking out over the ocean,
To see the big ships go by.
Then if we get very sleepy,
We’ll close up our eyes quite tight,
And listen to near the breakers
Come up shining and white,
Our Daddy will see that no one
Runs off with our socks and shoes;
One eye, he can keep on the basket,
While the other can read the news.
L. E. Homfray. 1925
To Manly beach I am going,
With my little bucket and spade,
If Tommy won’t walk any faster
We’ll miss the boat I’m afraid,
What have I got in my basket?
Wouldn’t you love to hear!
Pies and cakes and some apples,
And a bottle of good hop beer.
I hope that the wave will rock us,
And make the steamer to roll,
But Tommy, he doesn’t like it,
He’s frightened, the poor little soul.
When we get down to Manly,
Daddy and Tommy and me,
We’ll take off our shoes and stockings,
And paddle right into the sea.
I’m going to fish for lobsters,
Perhaps, for a crab as well,
But Tommy, whose only a baby,
Will be pleased if he find a shell.
We’ll make such a jolly castle.
Then down on the sand we’ll lie,
Looking out over the ocean,
To see the big ships go by.
Then if we get very sleepy,
We’ll close up our eyes quite tight,
And listen to near the breakers
Come up shining and white,
Our Daddy will see that no one
Runs off with our socks and shoes;
One eye, he can keep on the basket,
While the other can read the news.
L. E. Homfray. 1925
There's always someone injecting toxic masculinity around here.
Reminds me of John Belushi on the stairs in "Animal House
The Gods of the Copybook HeadIngs
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
~ Rudyard Kipling
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
~ Rudyard Kipling
No Enemies
By Charles Mackay
(English Chartist poet, 1814–1889)
You have no enemies, you say?
Alas! my friend, the boast is poor;
He who has mingled in the fray
Of duty, that the brave endure,
Must have made foes! If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done.
You’ve hit no traitor on the hip,
You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You’ve never turned the wrong to right,
You’ve been a coward in the fight.
By Charles Mackay
(English Chartist poet, 1814–1889)
You have no enemies, you say?
Alas! my friend, the boast is poor;
He who has mingled in the fray
Of duty, that the brave endure,
Must have made foes! If you have none,
Small is the work that you have done.
You’ve hit no traitor on the hip,
You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip,
You’ve never turned the wrong to right,
You’ve been a coward in the fight.
Someone mentioned Wilfred Owen in this thread a while back. To that I'll add one by my favorite of the WW1 poets, Siegfried Sassoon. This one illustrates his anger at the people on the "home front".
Blighters
The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin
And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks
Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din;
“We’re sure the Kaiser loves the dear old Tanks!”
I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls,
Lurching to rag-time tunes, or “Home, sweet Home,”
And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls
To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.
Blighters
The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin
And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks
Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din;
“We’re sure the Kaiser loves the dear old Tanks!”
I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls,
Lurching to rag-time tunes, or “Home, sweet Home,”
And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls
To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.
And I'll throw in a few of the surviving fragments from my favorite of the Greek lyric poets, Archilochus.
a) I will make nothing better by crying, I will make nothing worse by giving myself what entertainment I can
b) The fox knows many tricks, the hedgehog only one. One good one.
c) By spear is kneaded the bread I eat, by spear my Ismaric
wine is won, which I drink, leaning upon my spear.
d) Some barbarian is waving my shield, since I was obliged to
leave that perfectly good piece of equipment behind
under a bush. But I got away, so what does it matter?
Let the shield go, I can buy another one equally good.
d) One main thing I understand, to come back with deadly evil at the man who does me wrong.
a) I will make nothing better by crying, I will make nothing worse by giving myself what entertainment I can
b) The fox knows many tricks, the hedgehog only one. One good one.
c) By spear is kneaded the bread I eat, by spear my Ismaric
wine is won, which I drink, leaning upon my spear.
d) Some barbarian is waving my shield, since I was obliged to
leave that perfectly good piece of equipment behind
under a bush. But I got away, so what does it matter?
Let the shield go, I can buy another one equally good.
d) One main thing I understand, to come back with deadly evil at the man who does me wrong.
How about something from Gerard Manley Hopkins?
Pied Beauty - about the beauty of dappled/spotted/pied things in nature..
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Source: Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics, 1985)
Pied Beauty - about the beauty of dappled/spotted/pied things in nature..
Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
Source: Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics, 1985)
Always been partial to this one by the noted Sage of the Pecos*:
Come and listen you fellows, young and so fine,
And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines.
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul,
'Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal.
And it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
And it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines.
It's a-many a man I have known in my day,
Who lived just to labor his whole life away.
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine,
A man will have lust for the lure of the mines.
And it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
And its dark as a dungeon way down in the mines
*Wille Nelson
Come and listen you fellows, young and so fine,
And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines.
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul,
'Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal.
And it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
And it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mines.
It's a-many a man I have known in my day,
Who lived just to labor his whole life away.
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine,
A man will have lust for the lure of the mines.
And it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
And its dark as a dungeon way down in the mines
*Wille Nelson
Thought of this because of what the day is...
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
I've never read this one before. It brought a tear to my eye (given the season) that so few heed the poets call these days.