The Tale of Custard the Dragon -- Ogden Nash

Guest poem submitted by Vivian Eden:

(Poem #1672) The Tale of Custard the Dragon Belinda lived in a little white house, With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse, And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon, And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon. Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink, And the little gray mouse, she called her Blink, And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard, But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard. Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth, And spikes on top of him and scales underneath, Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose, And realio, trulio, daggers on his toes. Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears, And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs, Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage, But Custard cried for a nice safe cage. Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful, Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival, They all sat laughing in the little red wagon At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon. Belinda giggled till she shook the house, And Blink said Week!, which is giggling for a mouse, Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age, When Custard cried for a nice safe cage. Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound, And Mustard growled, and they all looked around. Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda, For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda. Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right, And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright, His beard was black, one leg was wood; It was clear that the pirate meant no good. Belinda paled, and she cried, Help! Help! But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp, Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household, And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed. But up jumped Custard, snorting like an engine, Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon, With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm. The pirate gaped at Belinda's dragon, And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon, He fired two bullets but they didn't hit, And Custard gobbled him, every bit. Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him, No one mourned for his pirate victim Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate Around the dragon that ate the pyrate. Belinda still lives in her little white house, With her little black kitten and her little gray mouse, And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon, And her realio, trulio, little pet dragon. Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears, And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs, Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage, But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage. -- Ogden Nash

If the theme is beasts gobbling people, then Custard is essential. I think
chidren love this poem so much because it ends with everything satisfyingly
back to normal after all the excitement and they can fall asleep free of
fears of dragons and pirates, and grownups love it because it is very acute
in its psychology -- Doesn't everyone know people like all the characters in
this poem, including Custard? -- and because it is so much fun to read
aloud. And of course keeping a cowardly pet dragon around is an excellent
way to tame fears and at the same time to get rid of unwanted intruders,
especially if you are a brave little girl like Belinda. As for the poetry,
my favorite lines are: "Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,  /
And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed." The verb for Ink is
brilliant, and the rhyme is priceless, with "mouseholed" a wink at the habit
that American English at least has of taking a noun and making a verb of it
-- "to backpack," "to party."

On the Internet, an Ogden Nash site  with good links is at
        http://www.poetrymagazine.com/archives/2001/May01/nash.htm

Vivian.

A Poison Tree -- William Blake

Guest poem sent in by Vivian Eden

(Poem #1087) A Poison Tree I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I water'd it in fears, Night & morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright; And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine, And into my garden stole When the night had veil'd the pole: In the morning glad I see My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree. -- William Blake

           from "Songs of Experience"

Taking off from the subject of friendship, Blake goes into the nature of
enmity. There is no one like Blake for talking about the darker emotions --
anger, hatred, Schadenfreude. The "apple bright" in the garden brings to
mind the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; Man is crueller
than  the God of Genesis and inflicts death rather than banishment from
Paradise.

Vivian

I will put Chaos into fourteen lines -- Edna St Vincent Millay

Guest poem submitted by Vivian Eden:

(Poem #905) I will put Chaos into fourteen lines I will put Chaos into fourteen lines And keep him there; and let him thence escape If he be lucky; let him twist, and ape Flood, fire, and demon --- his adroit designs Will strain to nothing in the strict confines Of this sweet order, where, in pious rape, I hold his essence and amorphous shape, Till he with Order mingles and combines. Past are the hours, the years of our duress, His arrogance, our awful servitude: I have him. He is nothing more nor less Than something simple not yet understood; I shall not even force him to confess; Or answer. I will only make him good. -- Edna St Vincent Millay

Recently you put out a call for named verse forms. This sonnet has it all -
a poem about poetry, about closed forms, about chaos and order of course,
about Eros, about women and men in general ("I will only make him good"),
about the poet's power and control, about self-knowledge, about art,
mysticism ("something simple not yet understood"), religion and what goes
into the willing acceptance of any restrictions in art and life. It is also
perfectly crafted and self-ironic. In short, a tour de force.

Vivian.

[Minstrels Links]

Edto St. Vincent Millay:
Poem #34, First Fig
Poem #49, The Unexplorer
Poem #108, The Penitent
Poem #317, Inland
Poem #590, Sonnet XLIII
Poem #604, Euclid Alone Has Looked On Beauty Bare
Poem #817, Grown-up
Poem #860, Sonnet: Love Is Not All

Grendel -- Anonymous

Guest poem submitted by Vivian Eden:

Herewith, something from near the roots of the family tree of Auden's Ogre
and Tennyson's Kraken:

(Poem #897) Grendel Then a powerful demon, a prowler through the dark, nursed a hard grievance. It harrowed him to hear the din of the loud banquet every day in the hall, the harp being struck and the clear songs of a skilled poet telling the mastery of man's beginnings, How the Almighty had made the earth a gleaming plain girdled with waters; in his splendour He set the sun and the moon to be earth's lamplight, lanterns for men, and filled the broad lap of the world with branches and leaves; and quickened life in every other thing that moved. So times were pleasant for the people there until finally one, a fiend out of hell, began to work his evil in the world. Grendel was the name of the grim demon haunting the marches, marauding around the heath and the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time among the banished monsters, Cain's clan, whom the Creator had outlawed and condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel the Eternal Lord had exacted a price: Cain got no good for committing that murder because the Almighty made him anathema and out of the curse of his exile there sprang ogres and elves and evil phantoms and the giants too who strove with God time and again until He gave then their reward. So, after nightfall, Grendel set out for the lofty house, to see how the Ring-Danes were settling into it after their drink, and there he came upon them, a company of the best asleep from their feasting, insensible to pain and human sorrow. Suddenly then the God-cursed brute was creating havoc: greedy and grim. -- Anonymous

 From Seamus Heaney's translation of "Beowulf," Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
New York, 2000.

 The entirety of Heaney's "Beowulf: A New Verse Translation" is compelling
both narratively and poetically, but of course too long for this forum.  The
poet-translator's introduction to the volume is a masterpiece in its own
right. This extract (lines 86-120) come after the description of a towering
"hall of halls" built by Hrothgar, leader of the Ring-Danes, a center of
power, wealth and culture. Composed something over a thousand years ago,
these lines from the Old English saga  are fascinating for their synergy of
the monotheistic history of the world and more ancient embodiments of evil,
with the sensuous hints of a "Mother Earth" in the "gleaming plain girdled
with waters" and "the broad lap of the world [filled] with branches and
leaves." Grendel himself, incidentally, has a truly horrible mother, whose
lair is much like the Kraken's. As we used to say at the end of our book
reports in fourth grade, if you want to find out what happens - read the
book.

Vivian.

[Minstrels Links]

Old English poems:
Poem #145, Ice  -- Anon. (Old English, 10th century)
Poem #326, The Seafarer  -- Anon. (Old English, pre-10th century

Poems by Seamus Heaney:
Poem #883, Personal Helicon -- Seamus Heaney
Poem #61, Song -- Seamus Heaney

Minstrels subscriber Matt Chanoff commented on "The Road Goes Ever On"
(Poem #4 on the Minstrels) that Tolkien alchemized many elements of the
Beowulf saga in the tale of Bilbo Baggins. Other Tolkien poems on the
Minstrels include:
Poem #46, Lament for Boromir  -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Poem #93, Eärendil was a mariner  -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Poem #142, He chanted a song of wizardry  -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Poem #220, Lament for Eorl the Young  -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Poem #257, Three Rings for the Elven Kings  -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Poem #318, Tall ships and tall kings  -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Poem #370, Troll sat alone on his seat of stone  -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Poem #440, Bregalad's Lament  -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Poem #643, The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon -- J. R. R. Tolkien
Poem #736, The world was young, the mountains green -- J. R. R. Tolkien

Matt also submitted his own (different) set of excerpts from "Beowulf" for
inclusion on the list; we'll run them some day soon.

[Erratum]

Yes, we goofed. Badly. There was a misplaced apostrophe in Friday's poem - a
very noticeable one, too:
   "Among it's desperate and slain,
   The Ogre stalks with hands on hips"
Ugh. As one of our readers said, Mr Auden would not have been amused.

Thanks to all the Alert Readers who wrote in to point out the error. We'll
proofread our posts more carefully in the future.

In the Microscope -- Miroslav Holub

Guest poem submitted by Vivian Eden, as part of the
_poems by scientists about science_ theme:

(Poem #800) In the Microscope Here too are the dreaming landscapes, lunar, derelict. Here too are the masses, tillers of the soil. And cells, fighters who lay down their lives for a song. Here too are cemeteries, fame and snow. And I hear the murmuring, the revolt of immense estates. -- Miroslav Holub

Translated into English from Czech by Ian Milner, in Miroslav Holub, "Poems
before & After," Bloodaxe Books, 1990. In line five, I do not know whether
the Czech word translated here as "cells" also has a political meaning; in
any case, it works in English. For more about Miroslav Holub see
www.complete-review.com/authors/holubm.htm

This poem, I think, perfectly expresses the poetry of science. Czech poet
Miroslav Holub (1923-1998) was an immunologist by profession and a poet by
calling. "In the Microscope" demonstrates how the poet's eye is like the
scientist's eye and how the entire cosmos can be found in a smudge of
something-or-other on a microscope slide. Throughout, but particularly in
the last two lines, the poem "yokes" scientific man, political man and
poetic man to this smudge, which is a thing of beauty and terror. I imagine
anyone who has ever looked through a microscope must have felt this, but I
know of no one who has expressed it so well.

Vivian.