Macavity: The Mystery Cat -- T S Eliot

This one's a classic.

(Poem #258) Macavity: The Mystery Cat Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw - For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law. He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair: For when they reach the scene of crime - Macavity's not there! Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity, He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity. His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare, And when you reach the scene of crime - Macavity's not there! You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air - But I tell you once and once again, Macavity's not there! Mcavity's a ginger cat, he's very tall and thin; You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in. His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly domed; His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed. He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake; And when you think he's half asleep, he's always wide awake. Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity, For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity. You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square - But when a crime's discovered, then Macavity's not there! He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.) And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard's. And when the larder's looted, or the jewel-case is rifled, Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke's been stifled, Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair - Ay, there's the wonder of the thing! Macavity's not there! And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty's gone astray, Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way, There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair - But it's useless to investigate - Mcavity's not there! And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say: `It must have been Macavity!' - but he's a mile away. You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs, Or engaged in doing complicated long-division sums. Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity, There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity. He always has an alibi, and one or two to spaer: At whatever time the deed took place - MACAVITY WASN'T THERE! And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known (I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone) Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime! -- T S Eliot

Sometimes, while reading the Old Possum poems, I find myself wondering why Eliot
ever bothered writing Serious Poetry...

thomas.

[Links]

The complete Old Possum's Book Of Practical Cats can be found at
[broken link] http://coral.lili.uni-bielefeld.de/Classes/Summer97/SemGS/WebLex/OldPossum/oldpossumlex/oldpossumlex.html

The Canon (i.e., all the Holmes stories and novels) can be found at
[broken link] http://www.tirkzilla.com/holmes/

[Holmes references in the poem]

"You have probably never heard of Professor Moriarty?" said he.
"Never."
"Ay, there's the genius and the wonder of the thing!" he cried.

"... he is extremely tall and thin, his forehead domes out in a white curve, and
his two eyes are deeply sunken in his head ... "

"...the organizer of every deviltry, the controlling brain of the underworld,
the Napoleon of Crime!"

    -- all three quotations from The Final Problem.

Other hints in the poem include

'And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty's gone astray, '
    -- a reference to The Naval Treaty.

'Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way, '
    -- a reference to The Bruce-Partington Plans.

'Engaged in doing complicated long-division sums.'
    -- a reference to Moriarty's well-known mathematical talent.

I'm sure I've missed a few, though.

Three Rings for the Elven Kings -- J R R Tolkien

This week, I'll be running a series of poems by fantasy authors

(Poem #257) Three Rings for the Elven Kings Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. -- J R R Tolkien

This is undoubtedly the most famous piece of Tolkien's verse, known (or at
least familiar) to many who have never read the books, and memorized by
practically everyone who has. If I had to describe the poem in one word, it
would be 'compelling' - the perfectly measured syllables, the ominous,
brooding atmosphere, the sonorous, chantlike effect, almost lure the reader
into ascribing an intrinsic power to the words themselves.

The quote below illustrates the point beautifully

  " Ash nazg durbatulúk, ash nazg gimbatul,
  ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul."

  The change in the wizard's voice was astounding. Suddenly it became
  menacing, powerful, harsh as stone. A shadow seemed to pass over the high
  sun, and the porch for a moment grew dark. All trembled, and the Elves
  stopped their ears. "Never before has any voice dared to utter the words
  of that tongue in Imladris, Gandalf the Grey," said Elrond, as the shadow
  passed and the company breathed once more. "And let us hope that none will
  ever speak it here again," answered Gandalf.

        - JRRT

Notes:

Like much of the poetry in the Lord of the Rings, 'Three Rings...' refers
not to the book itself, but to the deeper body of history and mythology
underlying it. It outlines the creation of the Rings of Power, in whose
history tLotR is but the final chapter, and more about which can be found in
the Silmarillion.

For a picture of the One Ring, and the inscribed couplet, see
  <http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/images/ring_image.jpg>

For a nice page on the Rings of Power, see
  <http://www.daimi.au.dk/~bouvin/tolkien/ringsofpower.html>

The following is an excerpt from a Tolkien Linguistics site:

  Our sole example of pure Black Speech, then, is the inscription on the
  Ring: Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh
  burzum-ishi krimpatul. "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
  One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them." (LotR1/II ch.
  2) Nazg is "ring", also seen in Nazgûl "Ring-wraith(s)". Ash is the number
  "one", agh is the conjuction "and", disturbingly similar to Scandinavian
  og, och. Burzum is "darkness", evidently incorporating the same element
  búrz, burz- "dark" as in Lugbúrz "Tower-dark", the Black Speech name that
  Sindarin Barad-dûr translates. Hence, the -um of burzum must be an
  abstract suffix like the "-ness" of the corresponding English word
  "darkness". Burzum has a suffix ishi "in". In the transcription it is
  separated from burzum by a hyphen, but there is nothing corresponding in
  the Tengwar inscription on the Ring, so this may be considered either a
  postposition or a locative ending. (It is remarkably similar to Quenya
  -ssë and may support the theory advanced by Robert Foster in his Complete
  Guide to Middle-earth, that the Black Speech was to some extent based on
  Quenya and a perversion of it. The element burz- "dark" is also vaguely
  similar to the Elvish stem for "black", MOR.) Though burzum-ishi is
  translated "in the darkness", there does not seem to be anything
  corresponding to the article "the", unless it is somehow incorporated in
  ishi. But the evidence is that the Black Speech does not mark the
  distinction between definite and indefinite nouns; see below.

                -- <http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/orkish.htm>

For more on Tolkien, see the previous poems in the archive at
  <http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels>

And finally, a very tangential aside - if, like me, you enjoy Tolkien for
the sheer poetry of his language, you might enjoy Patricia McKillip too.
Her plots lack gripping power, IMO, but her language is truly beautiful.

m.

Funeral Blues -- W H Auden

Strange, when you consider the width of his poetic range, that my two favourite
Auden poems are both elegies...

(Poem #256) Funeral Blues Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead. Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods; For nothing now can ever come to any good. -- W H Auden

First published as "Song IX" from 'Twelve Songs' (1936); reprinted under the
present title in 'Tell me the Truth about Love' (1976). Most famous appearance?
In the movie 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' (which fact does not, surprisingly
enough, detract from the quality of the poem one bit).

thomas.

[Minstrels Links]

We've run two Auden poems before (Only two? Yup, difficult as it may be to
believe... the fact is, most of Auden's work leaves me a bit cold --  feel
welcome to rectify the situation by means of guest submissions).

First, that beautiful elegy in praise of one of my favourite poets - In Memory
of W. B. Yeats, at poem #50

And second, the almost equally good Musee des Beaux Arts, at poem #68

Both sites contain a fair bit of critical analysis, biographical info and the
like.

Forever -- Charles S Calverley

(Poem #255) Forever "Forever": 'tis a single word! Our rude forefathers deemed it two: Can you imagine so absurd A view? "Forever"! What abysms of woe The word reveals, what frenzy, what Despair! "For ever" (printed so) Did not. It looks, ah me! how trite and tame! It fails to sadden or appal Or solace--it is not the same At all. O thou to whom it first occurred To solder the disjoined, and dower The native language with a word Of power: We bless thee! Whether far or near Thy dwelling, whether dark or fair Thy kingly brow, is neither here Nor there. But in men's hearts shall be thy throne, While the great pulse of England beats. Thou coiner of a word unknown To Keats! And nevermore must printer do As men did long ago; but run "For" into "ever," bidding two Be one. "Forever"! passion-fraught, it throws O'er the dim page a gloom, a glamour: It's sweet, it's strange; and I suppose It's grammar. "Forever"! 'Tis a single word! And yet our fathers deemed it two: Nor am I confident they erred; Are you? -- Charles S Calverley

Calverley has written a number of marvellously irreverent poems, just
old-fashioned enough to be charming, and full of little asides to the reader
and comments on the poem. He does overdo it at times, but when it works, as
in today's poem, the effect is truly delightful.

The penultimate verse, incidentally, is a lovely example of bathos (the
descent from the sublime to the ridiculous), another technique Calverley
uses very effectively.

Biography

  (1831 - 1884) English poet, humorist, parodist, and translator; his
  promising career as a lawyer was cut short by a severe head injury which,
  however, did not impair his mental faculties.

     -- Poets' Corner

  Charles Stuart Calverley, born on December 22, 1831, at Martley,
  Worcestershire, was educated at Marlborough College, Harrow, Oxford, and
  Cambridge, and was elected a fellow of Christ's College and appointed a
  lecturer in Classics in 1857. His Verses and Translations (1862), and
  later translations of Theocritus and Virgil, stem from his academic
  research. In 1863 he married his cousin Ellen and began to study law at
  the Inner Temple. Shortly after being called to the Bar in 1865, Calverley
  had a skating accident that was to put an end to his career. He continued
  to write light verse, publishing poems in journals, and then collecting
  them in Fly Leaves in 1872. He lived on, sickly, until his death from
  Bright's disease in 1884, and was survived by his wife and two children.
  His Literary Remains came out posthumously in 1865.

     -- Representative Poetry Online
     <http://www.utlink.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/authors/CALVER.HTML>

The North Ship -- Philip Larkin

Another of those magical mystery poems...

(Poem #254) The North Ship I saw three ships go sailing by, Over the sea, the lifting sea, And the wind rose in the morning sky, And one was rigged for a long journey. The first ship turned towards the west, Over the sea, the running sea, And by the wind was all possessed And carried to a rich country. The second ship turned towards the east, Over the sea, the quaking sea, And the wind hunted it like a beast To anchor in captivity. The third ship drove towards the north, Over the sea, the darkening sea, But no breath of wind came forth, And the decks shone frostily. The northern sky rose high and black Over the proud unfruitful sea, East and west the ships came back Happily or unhappily: But the third went wide and far Into an unforgiving sea Under a fire-spilling star, And it was rigged for a long journey. -- Philip Larkin

One of those poems with which I'd be quite irritated, if it weren't done very
well indeed. Fortunately, it is, so I'm not :-).

thomas.

[Biography]

Philip Arthur Larkin (1922-1985): English poet, novelist, and critic, a leading
figure of The Movement, a term coined to describe a group of British poets that
coalesced during the 1950s, about the same time as the rise of the 'Angry Young
Men'. The Movement poets addressed everyday British life in a plain,
straightforward language and often in traditional forms.  They first attracted
attention with the publication of the anthology New Lines, edited by Robert
Conquest; among the contributors were Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis, Donald Davie
and Thom Gunn.

Larkin was born in Coventry. He attended St. John's College, Oxford, during
World War II, where he met Kingsley Amis. After graduating he became a
librarian, first in the library of an urban district council in Shropshire,
later in university libraries in Leicester and Belfast. From 1955 until his
death he was the librarian of the Brynmor Jones library at the University of
Hull, which he built up from a staff of 11 to one of over 100.

As poet Larkin made his debut with the collection The North Ship in 1945,
written with short lines and carefully worked-out rhyme schemes. The sad songs
showed the influence of Yeats. It was followed by two novels, Jill (1946) and A
Girl In Winter (1947). Among Larkin's major works are The Less Deceived (1955)
and The Whitsun Weddings (1964), whose title-poem describing the poet's journey
by train from Hull to London is his best-known work. Larkin uses the tones and
rhythms of ordinary speech, and focuses on the urban landscape of the industrial
north. High Windows (1974) includes two substantial poems about ageing, illness
and death, 'The Old Fools' and 'The Building'. In these works Larkin explores
the mood of post-war England and its reduced expectations. However, his common
sense, scepticism and cool approach of drab suburbia and welfare state sponsored
lives provoked accusations of emotional cowardice. The urge to self-limitation
appears to have carried Larkin to the point of not writing much poetry and
keeping his deeper feelings out of the poems he did write.

Although he had a number of affairs, Larkin feared marriage and family, and
never married, but he managed to maintain three long relationships. In 1974 he
bought a house in Hull, which he shared with his companion Monica Jones. Shortly
after refusing the Laureateship when his friend John Betjeman died, Larkin
underwent surgery for cancer of the oesophagus, and died within a year on
December 2, 1985. In spite of his wish that his papers be destroyed, some of his
manuscripts were saved, but his voluminous diaries were burnt. In 1993 Andrew
Morton published a controversial biography of the poet, and revealed the Nazi
sympathies and misogynism of Larkin's father and the poet's casual racism and
other political incorrect attitudes.

There's another Larkin biography accompanying I Remember, I Remember, at poem #73

[Links]

Previous Larkins to have featured on the Minstrels include
I Remember, I Remember: poem #73
Days: poem #100
Water: poem #178

Both Martin and I like reading about voyages, quests and the eternal sea. So
it's no surprise that the Minstrels archive includes lots of poems on these
themes; some of the nicer ones include
Sea Fever: poem #27
Earendil was a mariner: poem #93
The Viking Terror: poem #109
and the Harp Song of the Dane Women: poem #143

[Quotable Quote]

'Deprivation is to me what daffodils are to Wordsworth.'  -- Philip Larkin.